The myth of the nuclear family and lack of the imagination

[map_of_the_world]

I don't talk about my feelings around adoption much off line, when I do its only to very close friends who I trust and who I know understand where I'm coming from. Online? I talk about it loads and the way people react to it is...odd. people get so angry, circling the wagons type angry, protect the status quo at all costs type angry that anger frightens me, even online, It has an edge to it. A "we will do anything to shut you up" edge. It's that anger that people use to tell me I'm crazy, illogical, irrational, stupid, evil, because of the way I think about adoption. This is often people who have nothing to do with adoption and as well as finding it frightening I find it really perplexing.

At first I thought it was just the adoption issue that was making them angry but critiquing adoption also entails on some level a critique of the nuclear family and it seems that people really, really can't cope with that

we have been fed the lie that the way white middle class westerners do family, two parents and one or more children pretty much in isolation is the best, the healthiest, often the only way to do family, that other ways of doing family are wrong, immoral, unenlightened. From where I'm standing this is actually a terrible way to do family, with the best will in the world two adults bringing up one or more children on their own is going to cause unnecessary, unhealthy stress. Family the way we do it or the way we are supposed to do it doesn't work. It creates incredibly dysfunctional people who then go on to create and raise more dysfunctional people

yet people are so invested in this damaging dysfunctional way of running society that it doesn't occur to them ever that their might be other options and they get really angry about how I "want babies to be abandoned or to grow up in abusive environments" etc etc. and if you say "well there are other options" they invariably reply with "no there aren't" or "well what are they then?" as if you are lying. Things people have said to me include

Yeah exactly! WHAT DO THEY DO WITH ALL THE KIDS? force parents who don't want them to take care of them? what if their parent's are dead? HOW IS IT EVEN AN ISSUE?

of all, it's just plain fucking delusional to think that we will ever live in a world where adoption is not needed. JFC, there are just some situations where there are no other options

So please tell me! If you are 100% anti-adoption, where will the abused children go? Or if their parents died, and there are no family members that can take them (financial reasons, emotional reasons, whatever).Tell me, what then?

It just totally startles me that people cant take one step sideways out of the box to think about the other options , see that families are not just made up of parents and children but cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all who could support the parents in bringing up the children and if things are really desperate take the children into their homes while the parents sort their lives out. That people have friends and neighbours who could also support them.

In fact if there was Less emphasis on how this peculiar insular nuclear family ideal was the right way to do things and more acknowledgment that its okay for family and friends to take part in raising a child a lot less children would need to be taken from their parents in the first place because the reduction of stress and the presence of other nurturers would massively reduce incidences of abuse and neglect, and would cushion the effects of poverty

Comments

[syvilan.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a taboo subject with several strong emotions attached to it. It's partially the fear of change. And I think partially... The fear of losing power. Raising a child consumes a lot of money, and resources. A parent has great influence over the future by raising their child personally. If a parent loses the ability to influence the child by raising them, they just consumed all those resources, without being able to influence the future as much as they wanted.

Now of course if for example a parent is abusive well the child probably should be adopted. Of course This doesn't change the fact the parent will likely be bitter about their loss of power they sacrificed resources for. Well that's why I think adoption is so taboo to many parents anyways.

"So please tell me! If you are 100% anti-adoption, where will the abused children go?"

It's better to be with a step parent or even foster parent than it is to be with an abusive one. Forgot to mention since it was on topic that I was sort of adopted well kind of. I grew up partially with my relatives. It wasn't because of abuse or a dead parent though, it was because my parents divorced, and my mother was too disabled to raise me alone.

[(Anonymous)]

the thing is I'm not advocating that children stay with abusive parents, I just don't think adoption is the way to deal with these situations.

Also being "sort of adopted" by relatives is nothing like actually being adopted by strangers

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

sorry, that was me, wasn't signed in

[tea-blossom.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. Does Child Services not see if extended family is willing to take the children in before they are sent into the foster/adoption system?

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

no mostly they don't. Mostly they get kept in the foster care system or fast tracked to people who are wealthy and middle class

[tea-blossom.livejournal.com]

I do not see the logic behind that. Why wouldn't they check to see if their grandparents, aunts and uncles wanted to take care of them? It seems very logical and would waste less of the state's money.

[interfaceleader.livejournal.com]

I bet there's a couple of process flowcharts floating around social services somewhere...

My guess is that they like the have an easy step-by-step guide that they can apply to every situation, with very little customisation. That is 'streamlined' and in that sense, is cheaper.

That human lives and relationships are endlessly complex and variable is at odds with the 'one size fits all' mentality of most public services.

[visual-syntax.livejournal.com]

Is that UK specific? B/c here they do look for existing relatives to take the children in.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

They do it in the UK yes, but they also do it in developing countries where international adoption is concerned

[ouregaiya.livejournal.com]

I don't know... I can see your point, but maybe you don't know all the facts?
I am a single disabled gay mother right on the poverty line. I don't think I meet the criteria (thankfully) of the "perfect family" I also have 3 adopted sons, of whom I absolutely adore and am 100% committed to their future.
All 3 sons the family, neighbor and friends were extremely exhausted before placing them for adoption. All 3 were extremely abused kiddos and have life long difficulties to attest for that.
I myself want to enlighten the public to the horrors of the foster care system and want to change it.
Yes, I have had foster kids in the past that I actually took the hand of the parents and walked them trhough getting their kids back. Those situations were wrong on Social Services part. Those kids were a rarety however.And weighing the amount of parents that shouldn't have had their kids removed to the number that should have...
Being a product of an abusive home only to be put into an abusive family members home, only to be put into abusive foster homes and eventually an abusive adoptive home, I can't say that any situation is perfect. I just know what I have experienced personally.
Debbie

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

could your first line be any more patronizing? What makes you think I am less aware of the facts than you are?

[ouregaiya.livejournal.com]

I was giving you a way out mostly. The fact is that ALL possible avenues (friends, family, neighbors) are exhausted first. Then I showed that I did not fit the nuclear family profile, and have adopted 3 times (and am looking yet again)
The next part I basically agreed with you, there is no good answer and uprooting kids isn't necessarily to their best interest

[interfaceleader.livejournal.com]

I have never understood the desire for people to adopt several children. Any child requires love and attention, but to put four children who have all experienced abuse under the same roof and expect to be able to provide them with all the support they need?

What makes people think they are capable of that? It seems supremely selfish.

[jamjar-girl.livejournal.com]

The angry people I encounter whenever I mention my views on adoption are all people who've never been adopted. Adopted people pretty much feel how you (and I) feel. They've often never been given a chance to truly express these feelings because of the pressure of being "grateful", etc.
Most of the time I don't have the emotional energy to run the gauntlet of negative emotion (including the incredulity that I can't seem to see how wonderful it is) the subject generates so, like you, I usually only discuss it with those whom I trust.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

you are such a breath of fresh air you know, I know I talk about a lot in this journal that you probably don't agree with but you are so supportive when you can be and non judgemental of me.

I really, really appreciate that

[jamjar-girl.livejournal.com]

You're welcome and thank you. I'm glad I can be supportive.

[myrhiann.livejournal.com]

Surely not all cases of adoption are negative? Many children (I would hope most) go to homes where they are wanted and loved. That doesn't deny the need to find their 'roots' when they are older, and many adoptive parents actively encourage and assist in this, and in many cases here in Australia, it simply enlarges the family base. I have grown up with 3 adopted cousins, who do not seem to be less happy, as they grew up with a large and loving extended family. The only sad case was one who did not have access to her personal records until her adoptive parents were dead, and when she finally located her bio mother, it was to find that she had died 6 months previously. She did however have brothers, and was really thrilled to find them, as she had grown up as an only child.

It just seems you have to consider every case on its merits, or lack of them, and sweeping judgements are just that, sweeping and often inaccurate.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

The thing is its not about weather adoptive parents are bad people or weather adoptive families are loving. While their are far more abusive adoptive families than society wants to acknowledge, I also know lots of adoptees who grew up in loving adoptive families and they still feel damaged by adoption.

We should be improving the situations that cause children to get adopted in the first place, we should stop pretending that adopting a child is just like having a bio child. Also it is very common for adoptees not to tell their adoptive family how they feel about the issue because they don't want to hurt them

[myrhiann.livejournal.com]

I agree with your comments, and it is sad to see so many children being adopted from North Korea at present, frequently without the mother's consent, and also attempts to remove children from Haiti on the premise of getting them to a safer place, before their parents had been located.

I don't know how it is in the UK, but in Australia there are few babies given up for adoption these days, as far as I know, and it is almost unknown for children to be taken into care, as the authorities think they are better off with their parents, however inadequate they may be. It may also be because of abuse in institutions where these children may otherwise have been placed, and subsequent litigation when those children reach maturity. I have a friend who is a social worker, and I heard of a family with 5 children, where the parents were both drug addicts. They live in an unheated house with no hot water, light or cooking facilities, due to the parent's inability to pay any bills, since all money goes on their habit. It worries me to think of how these children are growing up. I know often in these cases one of the children takes responsibility at a young age, but in the meantime these children are probably starving unless the neighbours or their schoolteachers are feeding them.