http://www.parentdish.com/2009/10/01/wom...e-child%2F
Two things I noticed. She has a husband. Is HE also not "returning the adopted baby"? (I know he didn't go on TV but he's still involved.) There's no mention of the child bonding with him or not. I didn't watch the video.
Second, what good would it do to force them to keep the baby? How is that in any way helpful? To me the problem is that it's hard to give up a baby of your own when you can't handle it. Remember the Nebraska or Iowa thing? It was the only state where you could give up a child, but they closed that loophole.
DH's best friend and his wife adopted a toddler that was adopted by a couple who couldn't bond with her. It happens. Heck, it happens with biological children! I was watching some show (Dr Phil, maybe?) where the parent or parents just outright HATED their kid for some reason, said they didn't feel close, couldn't bond, whatever. In a lot of cases, it was the parents' fault -- they had some kind of secret expectation (usually, that it would be the same experience they had with their older child), and the kid was not responding as expected, so the parent labeled them defiant, unruly, etc.
One case was horrible -- you hear the kid's side of the story in the intro, and the parents' side, and they show enough footage to justify each side's point of view. Then they went on some kind of retreat together, with Dr. Phil, and you could just see the mom was frakin' out of line -- she would hound the daughter, following her from room to room and screaming at her, while the daughter was leaving the room to try to avoid an argument. And it would start with something small -- like the daughter was asked to do a chore, and she didn't hop to it fast enough for Mom's taste, or something like that. It was awful how badly these parents treated the kid they didn't like, without downright abusing them physically.
And yeah, if you have changed your mind about an infant or toddler (who has not yet reached the age of memory), I don't see any reason why you should be forced to keep a child. But once the child can remember your sorry ass, you need to get help and learn to deal with the child you have, and not the one you wish you had.
(10-02-2009 08:40 AM)PrairieGirl Wrote: [ -> ]But once the child can remember your sorry ass, you need to get help and learn to deal with the child you have, and not the one you wish you had.
Right there, I agree with that completely. Once the child is old enough to understand what is going on, then you, as a parent, need to find a way to deal with it without scarring the child. I agree, if it would be better for the child to be in a different home, then so be it, but older children will have a harder time understanding that. And in many cases, it's not the child's fault.
That child abandonment law in Nebraska was very flawed. I was wondering if the older children were dealing with it properly.
I think that maybe the child has bonding issues period. Maybe it has something to do with its biological mother abandoning him at such a young age. Babies need to be held. His head was flat from laying down so much. I think this adoptive mother wanted an infant because she thought it would be better/easier to raise a baby than adopt an older child with too much baggage..Well guess what - abandoned infants have baggage too.
I think the adoptive mother is selfish to be wanting another kid to raise. Obviously she didn't adopt because of her concern with overpopulation. It was a personal desire to raise another baby. If she had adopted to help the world out with overpopulation, I think she would have tried a little harder and would be more accepting of the fact that this little baby will most likely have attachment and boding issues throughout his life. It's like taking in a rescue pet that has issues, but you keep him anyway because it is OK not to have the perfect pet.
The video's open sentence was 130.000 babies are adopted every year? Wow. That's a lof of unwanted pregnancies isn't it?
Yeah, but everyone who wants to adopt seems to want to adopt babies. I'm curious how many older children are adopted each year.
BTW, the figure of 130k babies is misleading on the number of unwanteds. There are nearly 150k children in the foster care/adoption system in my state alone (Georgia). 130k babies, nationwide, is a drop in the bucket. People fail to acknowledge that we have a SERIOUS problem on our hands, with unwanted children.
Here is an interesting article on abortion and unwanted pregnancies:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/ib_0599.html
Summary -- in the USA, half of all pregnancies are unintended. 25 out of every 1000 pregnancies are aborted (this is considered a high figure, compared to other nations with access to birth control). The remainder of the unintended pregnancies are choosing to take a gamble -- either that they will somehow "figure it all out" or "come to love the kid", or they know they won't and they abuse the kid. It's just all so sad and horrible, for everyone.
www.adoptuskids.org is a site dedicated to helping children in the foster care system find homes. The majority of the children they deal with are older children. From their site:
"There are about 129,000 children waiting for adoptive families in the United States foster care system."
I remember reading the majority of foster care children are older because most adoptive parents want white babies. The highest number of foster care children are black males.