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Fasten Your Seat Belts

I Read Adoption Books

I borrowed a copy of Rescuing Julia Twice recently. I will do my best to read and review it, but it’s not easy when the author opens the book

…which is written under her real name about her experiences with her child using her child’s real name

…and which she advertises using a blog with her real name and her child’s real name and picture on it

…with a gem like this:

Author’s note: Out of respect for their privacy, I have changed the names of some of the people who appear in these pages.

 

“When You Adopt, You Learn Deep Inside…

“…that everything in life depends on opportunity. So as your Treasurer, I’ll help give people the financial skills to succeed in today’s tough economy. I’ll lead on wage equality from day one. Everyone deserves equal pay for equal work. Teach people how to save money and avoid debt and fraud. A college savings plan for kindergarten kids who need iot most. Because I know in life that opportunity is everything.”

What exactly is it you want to accomplish here, Ms. Goldberg? Pimp your adoptee/s to glorify yourself and adoption, or end adoption as we know it? You realize that actually giving women equal opportunities and equal pay might end adoption as we know it, right?

Right: That’s why you don’t say word one about extending any actual support to young single mothers. They should do a man’s work for a man’s pay while raising a kid alone and stay out of debt while doing it, which they totally can because their leisurely lives allow them plenty of time to attend your proposed financial planning classes. And they have no right to complain about having no baby food now because you have so generously provided their little ones with a college savings plan. (What good is a plan with no money to implement it?)

If they can’t meet your impossible criteria, I reckon vulnerable young single mothers should just hand their baby over to someone who’s been waiting to seize an an “opportunity,” don’t you? Waiting right there in the hospital for the “opportunity” to have newborn plopped into their arms. Waiting for “opportunity” the way a vulture waits for something down there to get weak enough to be torn open and eaten.

PS–I don’t know which of her kids was adopted or whether it was both, but check’em out. They’re in the commercial, all grown up, sitting behind Mommy…and flashing not the least blip of a smile. It’s like their mouths have flatlined.

(Yes, this is old news. Yes, there’s been other old news on my blog today. Yes, I am trying to clean out my drafts folder. Sorry.)

No, Payton Won’t “Understand”

The snurchin has very little to add to this article/editorial about the white couple who got the wrong sperm by mistake and are now suing for the “wrongful birth” of a biracial daughter.

It’s not them, you see. It’s their families and friends who just don’t understand

“[Payton] will understand it wasn’t about, ‘We didn’t want you. We wanted a white baby.’ That wasn’t what it was about.”

Then what is it about?

Shut Up, Susan Boyle.

Guess who wants to adopt? Guess who knows she might both get her way and be thought of as A Great Humanitarian if she phrases her desire to adopt as a desire to help poor children? Guess who’s getting/gonna get praised all over the world for that (whether she ever adopts or not)?

Yeah, it’s another celebrity I hadn’t heard much about for some time until she said the A-word just now. Works every time (see every entry I’ve ever tagged “Celebri-Tease”).

“I have so much love to give,” says Ms. Boyle, “[…] to […] a child who doesn’t have much, who I can really give something to. It’s a way of giving back for me.”

Give! give! give! That is so thoughtful and generous, Ms. Boyle. Maybe you’re going to sponsor a child overseas, or donate money to help build schools, or offer a foster child a much-needed, stable and loving home.

Nope. Why? Because that might involve giving, as in Ms. Boyle’s actually losing something, and that cannot be:

“You have to give [foster children] back, and that’s what I would hate. With adoption, you don’t have that wrench.”

“Give” and “give to” and “give back,” just so long as you don’t really give.

I don’t think there’s any shame in wanting to raise a child. Why can’t she just come out and say she wants what she wants? I mean, it’s obvious that the one who expects some things to be given to her is not the child, but you, Ms. Boyle. You want a child to give you the gift of being a mother. You want a child to give you the gift of raising a child. You want a child to give up his or her family, name, heritage, everything but his or her life, for you, forever….and you call this giving to a child.

It’s not giving. It’s a Devil’s bargain, and the child almost never has the right to give or deny assent to it.