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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I loved this article. Its simplicity clearly conveyed the pain, awe, and uncertainty of bringing a new life into the world. The simple reality of the world is that not all women who find themselves pregnant are able to raise happy, healthy children while maintaining their own mental and physical health. It is simply not true that all women who decide to keep babies, in retrospect, made a good decision. To those letter writers who do not yet have children and cannot understand that someone might question the decision to have one, caring for a baby or babies adquately is HARD. Its emotionally and physically draining, lonely, and demanding. It has its rewards as the children grow and mature, but those rewards are often difficult to perceive when confronted by a screaming 18 month old or a surly 13 year old who refuses to listen to you.
I now raise two kids (in addition to my three birth kids) along with their mother. The mom, who is a good friend, simply cannot physically or emotionally take care of two kids on her own. My grandmother ended up caring for many of her nieces and nephews as troubled adolescents because her siblings were not able (for whatever reason) to care for them. I care for my nephew for long periods of time because one of my siblings and his spouse simply do not have the emotional stability to care for him all of the time themselves. Would all of these kids have been better off in loving, stable adoptive families? In my view, yes. Unfortunately, the lifelong pain of giving a child away often motivates women, who deep down know that they don't have the emotional health or fortitude to raise a child, to keep children who would be much better off in more stable environments. So, I applaud both of Madison's mothers for confronting and addressing a situation that will cause them both lifelong sadness and difficulty in the interest of providing a stable and healthy environment for Madison.
I don't have anything to add to the discussion other than to say that this was an excellent article about a difficult topic.
I read this article and read many of the letters posted. I do have a question over a point that confuses me.
I am white, as is most of my family. I say most, because I do have a bi-racial niece. She is gorgeous, smart and it's a much better world with her in it.
My niece has always lived with her mother, my sister, and her African-American father has been in and out of her life. (It is a family dynamic that I hope will work itself out.)
Because my niece is bi-racial, should she leave her white mother and all of us who love her and live with her father's family? (Her father does not wish to have a child to care for.) It seems to me many think so. Does my niece's half-black state override her white half in importance? Can't she be who she is and not be labeled and categorized?
This over-emphasis on something so insignificant as skin color is moronic and damaging. Don't call me naive. I know the world we live in, and it will remain so as long as people give in to this stupidity.
A touching, sweet, generous essay. Maidson is a lucky child to have two women who want mroe than anything for her to have a wonderful life, even f they must apy a price for it.
It sounds as though Jessica has almost become part of the family. Extended families are actually the evolutionary norm for human beings, and Madison will benefit from having Jessica in her life as well as the mother she no has.
If I had ever adopted a baby, this is the sort of relationship I would have wanted to ahve with her birth family.
Johnnie Girl, is it really possible you have never met a woman who regretted having had kids?
Because I always strongly sensed my mother was one of them. But it was the fifties, and it simply was wrong not to get married in your early twenties and start a family. Eventually I understood that and forgave her; but meantime my sisters and I spent our childhoods knowing that our mother felt martyred and resentful raising us.
I'd probably have been one of those kids who fantasized she'd been adopted away from magically more wonderful parents, except I looked too much like my mom to kid myself.
No child should be burdened with miserable parents who doesn't need to be. That goes deep into the child's self-image and can never fully be dug out again. Obviously your mother made it clear to you that, difficult as it might have been, she loved being your mom. That was a great gift. Don't take it for granted.
By the way, those people who fret about the child being adopted to white parents: the piece makes it clear that the birth mother herself came from a biracial family. If we didn't have a "one-drop" approach to African ethnicity to this day, with a (seemingly) biracial mom and a white dad, that beautiful baby might be considered more white than black. One of the few things as fraught than our culture's issues about family is its issues about those arbitrary conditions we call race....
Because my niece is bi-racial, should she leave her white mother and all of us who love her and live with her father's family?
No. But because she is biracial, she belongs to two different cultures. One is yours. One is not. And she should be allowed and encouraged to be at home in both of those cultures.
This over-emphasis on something so insignificant as skin color is moronic and damaging.
It's only insignificant to you because you are white. That's like the woman on Park Avenue who says there's no such thing as class. It's not a naive assumption, it's a dangerous one. Please don't do your niece the disservice of pretending she is not biracial, or that her biracial status doesn't matter. While I'm sure it won't make you love her any less, it makes a big difference in how people outside your family view her, and she needs to be prepared for that. If you send her out in the world thinking that colorblindness is a reality, you will do her harm.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
