Dear Carol,

This is the first time I've heard of this anti-adoption movement, and I've read several sites including yours and can't find any answers to simple questions of what is supposed to happen to babies and children with no parents...

I agree with not taking children away from parents without very good cause and without looking into ways to help the parents improve so they can keep their children. Of course kidnapping and baby-selling are wrong. I agree with having open records. I think having more parents and more family is almost always better than less, as long as it's loving and supportive. I think creative solutions are always better than either/or solutions. I'm all for reforms of problematic systems. But you seem to be saying more than any of that... You seems to be saying that there are no circumstances where adoption is necessary or good, and that simply doesn't make any sense, and I see no where that you've even attempted to make a detailed argument for that case...

There are plenty of reasons why children may be without parents, and I don't understand what is supposed to happen to them... Some people are not fit or available parents. They may be abusive, incompetent, physically or mentally ill, incarcerated, just plain unwilling....not to mention dead. Don't their children deserve good, loving homes??? Sometimes parents die and there is no blood relative willing or able to take the children. You don't think they should be adopted by a loving family? I'm sorry, but I think your blanket anti-adoption stance is wrong...

While it may sometimes be possible for a very young parent to be a very good parent, I do not think, as a general rule, that a 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 year old girl is a preferable parent over a mature, stable, employed, secure person or persons who is/are making a conscious choice to have a family (and I think this can be any kind of person or combination of persons of any gender(s)). And I don't see how you could possibly think she could be. She is a child herself! A baby deserves better than to be raised by a child-mother!

Furthermore, I don't think it's good for *her* any more than for the baby. She deserves and *needs* to finish her childhood and to have the chance to experience what teen and young adult years are supposed to be about: freedom, exploration, experimentation, self-indulgence, change, growth, movement, self-discovery... I guess have a pretty extreme personal position on age and marriage/parenthood: basically I think getting married or having children before, bare minimum, 25, is a bad idea. With the world as complicated as it is, people need all the time to grow up they can possibly get. And with people living into their 80s, 90s, and 100s, there are plenty of years for marriage and parenthood: people need to experience youth and individual freedom...

I have two nephews who are adopted, both born to young mothers who were smart enough to realize that they were in no position to raise a child. They live in a safe, stable, warm, loving home, with two devoted parents and plenty of toys, education, experiences, opportunities, attention, space, supervision, stimulation, nutritious food... It's not just a matter of money, by any means, but it is a factor... Children are very much aware of being in fiancially unstable circumstances, and it is disturbing to their psychological security. Money buys many things in life, including education, recreation, safety, medical care... Of course in a "right" world, all people would have these things in abundant quantities, but in the meantime why should children be made to suffer?

I think you put far too much emphasis on blood relations. I believe that love makes a family. Some biological parents are terrible parents. Some biological relatives are totally incompatible with one another. Some children are very much like their biological parents, but others are very much different from them. Some biological siblings are very much alike, and some are totally different--in looks, interests, abilities, tendencies... Genetics is a crap shoot. You can be genetically closer to a totally unrelated person than to an immediate family member. And that's just at the DNA level. At the everyday-life level, blood relation is absolutely not a guarantee of compatibility!! I think the idea of a more "natural" bond with a blood/birth mother than with any other loving mother is in your head and not borne out by evidence.

Finally, the practice of adoption is as old as humanity, and was in fact much more common in previous historical times, if less systematized, simply because so many more people *died* before old age or even middle age. Many women died in childbirth (in some places they still do). Someone else stepped in and raised their child(ren). It's the perfectly natural, human thing to do. Plus in non-Western cultures, many people besides fathers and mothers participate actively in rearing children...

Anyway, those are some thoughts I have. I'm interested in your response. I'm also curious as to whether you can point me to a source of a good, detailed explanation of how a complete abolition of adoption would work (in other words, what would happen in a, b, c, d, e, etc. situations/cases instead of adoption).

Thank you,

Madeline Althoff

PS--There has never been any secrecy for my nephews. They've always been made aware of the fact that they're adopted. (They are currently ages 3 and 5.) I know that there are many good books for young children on the subject. It seems to me that being adopted is a sure sign that you are loved and wanted: your parents did not *have* to raise you--they actively sought you out because they wanted to be parents and to raise you!

P.P.S--I've had various people tell me this or that reason why they would not adopt, but I've always been a strong supporter of adoption, and while I hope to have one biological child of my own, I've always planned to adopt others, because so many children *need* adopting, and because I don't want to have more than one of my own, because I believe overpopulation is an extremely serious planetary problem.