Dollars and $ense of Family Building: an Adult Adoptee's Response

photo © 2009 Andrew Magill | more info (via: Wylio)
Lavender Luz, in a project titled "Dollars and $ense of Family Building, asks other bloggers to respond about the involvement of money and finances in building a family.  A panel of bloggers was asked a series of questions on the topic and now the questions and topic are being opened to other bloggers.  "What does it mean that money has to change hands in order to bring a child into your family? What role can finances play in determining which path people take and how far that path goes?"  A theme in this project was how the conceived/adopted individual may feel about the role money played in how they came into their family.  Not all of the interview questions applied to us but who better to address the issue of how adoptees/conceived individuals feel than someone who was adopted or donor conceived?  And thus, the reason for this blog entry.  You can read the full article and the questions that are being asked here.

Background
I was surrendered to adoption in 1985 and adopted in 1986, though private, domestic infant adoption.  My parents pursued adoption after trying for something like a decade to conceive.  At the age of 21, I struggled conceiving my first child, taking 18 months to do so, and have been treated for PCOS.

Different
The questions addressed infertility treatments, adoption, donor conception, and surrogacy as ways of building families.  While each may share the common theme of a couple or individual trying to make a family for themselves, they are all very different.  And I am not just saying that because I paid for Clomid treatments when I was being treated for PCOS.  I want to point out that some of these issues involve a couple addressing their ability to bear a child who will be carried, birthed, and biologically related to them.  However, adoption as an example, involves another family, and involves child who is not necessarily biologically related and who has an identity within and outside of the adoptive family.


Biologically-raised people do not have another family out there and as a result, have to process why they are here and not there.  They do not have to factor in the additional concept of money and social class, and what that means in terms of why they are here and not there on top of it.  Being adopted is not the same as some of the other things mentioned.


Adoption involves the losses of other people.


Adoption builds a family after another family and the adoptee has experienced loss.


Adoption is not a cure for infertility.  It did not fix the pain infertility made my parents feel.


And I was not the cure for infertility.


My Opinion in One Sentence?
Money should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever be involved in adoption.


Why?
Because social class does not make one a better or worse parent.


Because adoption is about helping kids.  And the same amount of money spent on fundraisers, advertising, and enormous adoption fees could support thousands of children right in their own countries and cultures.  It could provide parenting classes to unprepared mothers.  It could provide resources to families in need.


Because I do not understand how the best interests of families and children can always be upheld if there money to be made when an adoption takes place..  Yes, money to be made, as in take a look at the salaries of many adoption executives and don't forget the fact that adoption is a multi-billion dollar per year industry.  When the same entity that counsels the expectant mother is also collecting the fee in the resulting adoption, what motivation is there to prevent adoption loss?


My feelings on this issue do not stem from regret by being raised by my parents or a lack of love for them and thus is the reason I disagree with the way adoption is. 


No.


It's because removing money from adoption is the right thing to do.  Period.


How it Feels
My mother did not like the question "how much did I cost?"  Although, I've always felt it perfectly appropriate to phrase it that way.  I was adopted because one family did not have money and another family did.  A family who could pay the adoption fee in order to be able to adopt me. 


As a woman, feeling like a commodity is not a foreign concept.  Our bodies are commodified everywhere from the media to politics.


As an adoptee, not only do I feel like a commodity but I know there are people view me as one.  When I reunited with my original family, I had someone tell me to consider how my parents must feel about it all because "remember, they couldn't have kids."  As if being adopted obligated me to set aside what was important to me and what belonged to me because I had been adopted for a reason.  Another person fortified this concept by defending the closure of my records which I had unsealed "I could imagine that adoptive parents would want everything about the birth family sealed" (as in sealed from me, the adoptee).  I am seen as being here for them, as being here for what they need.  Sentiments such as these are appropriate when describing possessions, not when talking about people.


Being viewed as a commodity and the whole business of adoption fees makes me feel marginalized, judged, and belittled.


And while other people may very well view me as as a part of something my parents spent a great deal of money for in order to have a family, I'll tell you that my mother would be thoroughly mortified about it should she ever learn that these things had been said to me.


The adopted/donor conceived perspective may or may not be what they are looking for in this project but our perspectives are out there and are important, no less.  I would be interested in hearing what my adopted friend and donor conceived friends and readers here would say about this topic.


Visit Write Mind Open Heart for more perspectives on the Dollars and $ense of Family Building and to add your own link to the blog hop by June 21, should you want to contribute your thoughts.