Letters to the Editor
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Adopt now!
I encourage all of you that are so harshly blaming this woman for electing not to adopt a child with what appears to be very serious disabilities to not be satisfied with talking the talk, but to "walk the walk."
Go to www.adoptuskids.com. Search for children under 4 years of age. Hurry. The children are waiting. Pick the first one that pops up on the list, or the second. Decide before you surf that you will adopt child number 3 or 5, whatever. Regardless of the child's disabilities, commit now, sight unseen to adopting and spending the REST of your life (children with disabilities may never leave home) to attending to and loving this child. Then make application to adopt that child. Better yet, let me pick a child for you to adopt as your pretend adoption agency social worker.
What? You don't want to play? Are you to be so heartless as to allow these innocents to spend their lives in institutions or moving from foster home to foster home? Where is your heart?
What hypocrites. Match your actions with your words today.
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@Laurel962: older parents too selfish
Hold up, Laurel962. I've met your type before, the kind that think women who wait to have children are selfish and don't make good mothers. I'm 40, have had no children and never married. Why? Because my childhood was horrible, I was damaged, and it has taken me this long to become a whole, nurturing person. It's taken me this long to forgive the people who hurt me, accept myself and really consider the future as a good place.
Several of my friends had children without fathers between 17 and 21. Those kids are just as screwed up as any I might have had at that age, and I feel sorry for them when I see how tormented they are. Both my siblings brought 3 children into stable marriages. The stress of three normal children broke up one marriage and almost broke up the other (thankfully, that marriage is stronger than ever now). Because I didn't have children of my own, I was able to be a good auntie, an actual force in the children's lives. I'm glad to say my efforts actually helped in the marriage that stayed together.
Through all this, I've learned what it means to be a parent, and I've finally learned that I could do it. Yes, I've had good jobs, I've traveled, I've put myself through grad school. That's not because I'm selfish, it's because I am alive and I had to do something with myself for 40 years, for crying out loud! Were I to be blessed with a pregnancy now, the parent I would be is not even the same species of parent as the horribly selfish and damaging one I would've been 20 years ago. A child of mine would actually have the chance of a happy childhood now. That's not selfishness, that's maturity.