Did you really just compare adopting a child to adopting a pet? Gross!!!

If you notice, what I said was "Why would taking in a child involve less consideration than adopting a dog or cat?" I've volunteered in shelters, and I cannot count the number of times a potential adopter said to me "this is worse than adopting a child!" Now, if true, THAT's gross.

And you said

Most private, infant adoptions in the United States (today) are done this way:

A pregnant woman goes to an adoption agency. SHE chooses the parents from an array of scrapbooks/profiles, etc. Many times (if she chooses) she gets to meet the parents before handing her baby over to them to parent.

The adoptive family has no say in what child they get. If they don't want the baby boy the woman has given birth to, they get back in line and wait again.

The key words in your post? "Private" "infant" "United States" and what you should have said, but didn't "of white children".

The child Madonna adopted was black, not an infant (though fairly young), in an orphanage (presumably state-run, though I don't know that for sure--in any case, not a "private" adoption) and from another country.

From what I understand, even in the United States African-American and mixed-race children--even infants--have a much more difficult time finding adoptive homes than white infants. And there are many, many children in countries like Malawi, orphaned by AIDS and poverty, who desperately need homes. Most don't HAVE any parents to "choose" the people who will parent them. You may like the process in the United States (for private adoptions of white infants) better, but the process for children who aren't infants, or white, or in the United States will be significantly different.

But some thuglican flack or another was saying that if the Democrats don't take back BOTH houses of Congress, they've failed.

And I thought, wow--they really ARE scared...

I went to buy a costume last year--I was going as a zombie cheerleader (with my boyfriend the zombie football player) and needed a cheerleader costume. I went to a large, popular costume shop. You know what? I don't recall that everything was unduly sexy. SOME things were certainly sexy (though my cheerleader costume wasn't particularly so).

Personally, I think the problem is lack of imagination.

My favorite costume when I was a kid was when I dressed up as Athena. I was 10 years old. My Mom made me a long dress out of some cheapo grey polyester material, using a Butterick pattern. My dad made me a cardboard and aluminum foil helmet and a carboard and aluminum foil shield--I drew a picture of Medusa to put in the middle. And I had a bamboo and aluminum foil spear (ooh, too dangerous! No-one would let me do that now!) My best friend dressed up as Groucho Marx and we trick-or-treated together--what a combination!

I later used the same dress and new cardboard-and-aluminum-foil constructions to dress up as the Statue of Liberty for some celebration or another. And then with other modifications that dress made me a Tolkien elf.

Totally agree. I've had an abortion (not that it matters, but I was raped when I was 20) and I've never regretted it. It never depressed me. Now the RAPE--that depressed me. Having to have an abortion (the procedure itself) depressed me. But the actual fact of the abortion never did. I never thought of it as a child; I never look back and wonder what that child would be like now, etc., blah blah blah. Even as it looks increasingly likely that I never will have children, I don't regret the decision to have an abortion AT ALL.

I try very hard to empathize with what Joyce Maynard is feeling, but part of me does say "damn, woman--YOU made the choice--will you just freakin' live with it already? Or at least stop YAKKING about it? Because all you do is give the pro-lifers more ammo! 'See?' they say. 'Women will always regret abortions! They'll have post-abortion stress disorder! Vacuuming will make them cry because it sounds like the suction used for abortions! They will cry on what would have been the child's birthday! They will never lead full lives!'"(I really did hear this stuff on a radio show this past weekend.) When in fact NOBODY WANTS to have an abortion. Nobody gets pregnant just so they can have one--yee-haw! Let's go have a painful, costly procedure that is stigmatized by many in this country! Let's run the gamut of protesters begging us to "save our babies" and handing us flyers about the side effects! Did you know that one side effect is "crying/sighing"? IME, that's a side effect of LIFE--but I digress...

So yes, I struggle with it. Individuals are going to react in different ways, but BECAUSE women like Maynard are so public about her type of reaction, the fact that I really had no reaction at all (aside from relief) would make it really easy to paint me as somehow callous and unwomanly.

I too wonder how it's possible to really give love, time, attention to more than a couple of children? Hell, I have 3 dogs, and feel like the older, trained one is getting short shrift because he has to compete for attention from the cute puppy and the dog I am currently competing with (we do dog sports). I feel guilty and try to give the old guy extra love whenever possible. Replace the dogs with kids, and I fear I'd be a stressed-out guilty-mother wreck. And no, I do not think of my dogs as my children--they are dogs--they are good companions, friends, excellent company, and I can put them in a crate and go out to a bar without being accused of abuse!