November is National Adoption Month

Adoption is supposed to be a good thing for children in need. So why does the month set aside to commemorate adoption seem to offend some people?
By: Abrazo Adoption Associates
SAN ANTONIO - Nov. 1, 2014 - PRLog -- November is known as National Adoption Month, yet this honorary designation elicits a very mixed response within the adoption community at large.

Every November, the national media predictably runs an assortment of warm, fuzzy adoption pieces. This typically includes a mass adoption story, as some court somewhere publicizes a push to finalize a large number of adoptions of foster care kids, some of whom have undoubtedly had their proceedings delayed to coincide with the timing of National Adoption Month and make for a better photo opp with the judge. It keeps adoption in the public eye, yet does little to improve it.

For adoption agencies, adoption attorneys and other professionals, National Adoption Month is seen as a golden opportunity to seek publicity, as well. It's a socially-approved time of year for industry-wide self-promotion, which all too often glosses over the painful realities of adoption in order to "sell" the concept to a wider audience at a time when adoptions, coincidentally, seem to be costing more than ever before.

For many adoptive families, National Adoption Month is a reason for celebrating the means by which their family came together. Happy adoptive families are often prominently featured in November news stories lauding the generosity of those who are raising children not their own, and exhorting more Americans to consider the option of adoption. Some families who have adopted through Abrazo Adoption Associates (http://www.abrazo.org) have made it their annual tradition to post on social media daily adoption quotes that are sensitive to all members of the adoption triad, a custom that seems far more meaningful than hosting elaborate adoption festivities that focus only on adoption's gains.

For birthmothers, National Adoption Month can be a time to remember the most painful decision of their lives, most often in silence, since they weren't the ones who got to adopt, but rather, had to relinquish. Relinquishment is, after all, rarely something to celebrate, as the occasion marks the official surrender of their child to another home and of their parental rights. Mothers who place children for adoption can find it a very lonely experience, since they rarely find themselves celebrated in American society, despite this country's political obsessions with welfare mothers and women who elect to abort.

Finally, for many adopted persons, National Adoption Month can feel like just as conflicting as their identity does, at times. Adoptees in most of the USA are still denied legal access to their original birth certificates even in adulthood, a horrific civil rights violation yet to be addressed by America's highest courts. For adoptees, November is a month filled with expectations that they give thanks for circumstances not of their choosing. Some adoptees rightfully ponder why a national event such as National Adoption Month celebrates the process by which children must legally lose one entire family in order to gain another? Adoption, as traditionally practiced in this country, lawfully divorces children from their original set of parents in order to give them to another set, but in truth, divorce is not usually considered a cause for national celebration, no matter who gets custody afterwards.

To be sure, there are many things to be celebrated about adoption: the joining of two families in love for a child whose welfare might otherwise suffer, the graduation of children from state foster care when they gain a much-needed adoptive home, the reunion of adoptees and their adoptive parents with long-lost birthfamilies when old archaic practices give way to transparency and light, the selflessness of parents who courageously forfeit their own best interests in order to meet the needs of of a child. However, this celebration must also remember the losses suffered along the way, in order to be truly authentic and genuinely inclusive.

Adoption can be a loving answer to a painful life crisis, but it is not and will never be a "one-size-fits-all" solution to universal family planning dilemmas. Adoption must be about finding good homes for children who need them, not finding good children for homes that want them. In order to honor the child/ren involved, every adoption must be a tender affair of the heart, and not ever a mere business transaction. Adoptees must be recognized as honored descendents of kindred tribes, whose loyalty to both is never to be challenged by either.

This November, as we begin National Adoption Month, let's use this occasion to focus public attention on not just what is good about adoption, but also what needs to be changed. Let's recognize the real "angels in adoption" as being those who have been adopted and overcome its limitations, rather than those who got paid to handle the paperwork. Let's replace endless adoption promotional campaigns with nationwide calls for long-overdue adoption reform. Let's end glorification of the "getting" of children and instead launch a unified demand for original birth certificate access for all Americans who were once adopted.

Let's acknowledge the losses of those who have found adoption hurtful as wholeheartedly as we applaud adoption's success stories. Let's encourage public support of the annual Adoptee Rights Protest (http://www.adopteerightscoalition.com) with as much fervor as our society advocates for adoption as an alternative to abortion. Let's demand an end to all adoptions that involve any form of child trafficking. And let us work to better support all parents-in-crisis, to ensure that adoption becomes an option only considered by those who truly need it most.

After all, dedicating National Adoption Month to actually making adoption better could give everyone greater cause to celebrate it.
End
Source:Abrazo Adoption Associates
Email:***@abrazo.org Email Verified
Tags:Adoption, National Adoption Month, Adoption Agency, Adopting A Child, Adoptees, Birthmother, Adoption Reform, Adoptive Parents
Industry:Family, Health, Non-profit
Location:San Antonio - Texas - United States
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