Adoption Agencies

Currently, in this business world it is either sink or swim. Certainly, this rule also applies in the adoption business. That said, has our jaded vision towards the act of adoption come to the point that lost are all the humanities it once possessed? International as well as domestic adoption in these United States and abroad has grown into a multi-billon dollar business. It is also widely known that for the most part, benevolence and capitalism generally do not mix, which will prevail?

My instincts tell me that if a facilitator's source of income largely depends on successful placements, it is only natural that this person will eventually lose sight of the original meaning of adoption. Instinctively, self-preservation always comes first. How many of these facilitators would stall the process of pre-adoption services and actually try to convince the pregnant woman, or teen that raising their offspring is the right and moral decision to make? The answer to this question would identify the nature of the adoption facilitator's intent, monetary gain or altruistic? Some agencies still work in this manner, unbelievably.

Speaking of altruistic, there was a film in the seventies called "Serpico," a true story of corruption within New York City's Police Department. Frank Serpico an ex-policeman exposes its infrastructure. When a Grand Jury's panel questioned him as to the percentage of crooked cops throughout the force, Serpico answered, "Sir, about ten percent are corrupt and absolutely on the take, ten percent are not corrupt and absolutely not on the take, and eighty percent wish they were not corrupt and not on the take."

With this in mind, what would be the numbers if we were to consider the average facilitator's basic want to be above board as opposed to their rubber-stamping each potential birth mother file as green-lighted for adoption go-ahead? The answer would be that very few of these people would be without an inkpad in one hand and a stamp in the other hand.

Ultimately, it is also for this reason that some people will not have anything to do with adoption as it is today.

There are satellite groups of detractors that are against adoption no matter circumstance. These people subscribe to the idea that the act of adoption has become nothing more than a horrific crime born of manipulative coercion. These tactics would entail the convincing of young mothers to-be, into giving up to their babies based on psychological persuasions that the child would fare much better in life living in a qualified material setting. __ "Motherhood lost forever." It is for this battle cry that they believe not in parental termination papers. __ It is my opinion that these people make valid points; and their conviction true. However, I still will not to pull the plug on the sanctity of adoption. Tainted as the state of adoption may be, there are still righteous people out there that want to do the right thing. Maybe there is a happy medium in the future. Realistically though, the draw is much too overpowering. Legal or illegal, everyone's hands always seem to have dirt, if not the smudged remnants of green ink.

That leaves another green aspect to consider which, might render us feeling blue.

The Gaia concept, our green "Mother Earth" is really a big blue living planet in the known solar system. In comparison with the universe, this planetary blue marble is a million times less in size than a biological cell contained in a specimen culture taken from a pimple on a gnat's ass.

Cells die; this is an obvious biological fact. We are the microbiological cells that make up the main nucleus factor that keep the big blue marble healthy or distressed with disease. That said there is only one of two relationships that we have with Mother Gaia. It is either a symbiotic or a parasitic bond that holds with our blue planets fate. Considering how we have treated Mother Gaia, this connection with her must be of the parasitic nature. Realistically, we must realize that being the top dog of the food chain that it is within this nature to allow us the sensibility not to cut down the tree to reach the fruit.

How does this apply to child adoption? Adoption is an ailment of our own creation. A woman giving birth to a child and then letting another person raise the child as its own is not a natural act. Naturally, when a mother and father cannot raise their children, issues of health should be the only reasons for the transfer of authority to other people to raise their children. Ideally, these other people would be the closest living relatives. This would ensure the child retains his/her name and familial ties. However, this type of end scenario of a resolved situation is rarely attained. Years ago, neighbors or close family friends would take up the responsibility of the Childs care. If all else failed the child would go to an orphanage of foster care. On the other side of this spectrum is a social conundrum. An "adoption" of a soon due child by people completely foreign to the expectant mother is a beautiful concept in its own right. Yet, we must think about for whose purpose it serves. It is my belief that it should be for the benefit of the child. This means so much more than just the idea that the child would be able to wake up on his/her sixteenth birthday to a Corvette parked in the driveway with a bow tied to its top. For a child to keep his/her name and familial ties would be of utmost benefit, regardless of wealth and social stature.

Yet, what is wrong with the affluent "being selfish" and under certain conditions to never introduce the adopted child to his biological family?

The quandary is not really all that complex, nor much of a paradox as it is a fiercely battled social issue.

"Should a newborn adopted child grow up in constant exposure of his/her real family, when in fact, if he/she were not, spent were his/her first eighteen years having done exactly just that?"

My concerns are that adoption has become much too accessible. The massive rollover of adoption is the band-aid that we applied to heal the wound which cause is by our chosen parasitic addictive nature. We want it to heal, but it will not until we stop our addiction. The cure for that ailment is a completely different problem, but yes, it is the root of our adoption quandary.

However, if we do not stop, the long-term residual end problems of adoption are sure to surface in greater numbers. This collective will stay with us until they meld into the adult world of society to make their own mark, and it will not be pretty.

Yes, my words are harsh and of changed demeanor.

I am speaking of a singular long-term ugly side effect of adoption. In fact, in a most denigrating manner, my writings will now show the stark brutality of its nature. In metaphor, I call it the, "The short-timer's two-digit ofting." "Offed from the face of the earth," or simply, "Shorty, or Short-timer." Yes, these are metaphors that I have, shall I say, "coined" for these embarrassments of our own creation. "The ten-year curse of life."

The saddest of all adoption problems in our society are the cases that involve nine year olds that await family and adoption. If you have ever met one of these boy or girls, the pain in their eyes instantly apparent to most people at first eye contact. The worst thing is that these children know the score. There is nothing more heart breaking than finding out that at this impressionable young age, having felt whipping lash of the world lived in, that they have not need of explanation that soon embarked will be a journey of foster care for the next ten to twelve years. Children at this age should not have to see their dire future, "written on the wall." It is almost as if an unheard prison sentence subliminally etches further into their brain as they age into their tenth year. It is at this time when the above-mentioned metaphor starts to evolve.

It is a well-known unwritten fact, [In adoption literature] that when a child, especially a boy reaches the age of ten, "two digits," the chance of adoption for them is nil or next to none. It may sound harsh and uncaring but for the purpose of awareness and adoption truth, is the reason for my stark views. When the "Short-timer" has his tenth birthday, it certainly can feel like a day wiped-off the face of the earth. [Hence, the term "ofting"] Even before this day comes, these kids of age have heard the running jokes and hurtful reminders. It is the vicious cycle of a cruel joke the young hold over the old. These reasons are why my first inclination steered me not to print my metaphorically degrading assessment. Yet maybe there is a good reason it was printed? You decide which is more callous. My crude references or those who want to adopt but do not want to adopt.

"We do not want to adopt a young adult, they cannot be molded." "They are mal-adjusted." "They will not appreciate us as adoptive parents." "No way, the innocence of a child is lost by the age of ten; they are best left to a foster home." __ The dark side of adoption can be cruel...

Celebrity Adoption, Identified Adoption, Selective Adoption, Open Adoption, profiteering from adoption, Wrongful Adoption, and motherhood coercion, are all symptomatic snags, successes, and responses to society's way of dealing with or aggravating the adoption "chronicles" that we so outwardly plight. They are also lumped into the conjunctive term I call, "Over-Corrective Feather-Plucking Syndrome." [OCFP] [This being the result of the above mentioned applied forms of adoption.] A slow methodical, steady losing of an applied battle whose initiator intends to win but knows through its own actions, defeats the intended purpose of gain. This is when the industry that is adoption, centers itself on the popular and highly profitable newborn Identified adoption. As for the deteriorated ethics of adoption, they slowly disappeared like the plucked feathers of the self-mutilating Scarlet Macaw at the local pet store. Children of the World is a classic case study of this phenomenon.

We have not the means that we can blame adoptive parents for "buying" only the "in" surplus newborn children. However, here are some points for consideration.

As for long term Identified adoptions and the ease of applying and paying for them by those that can, __ there must be change. Harsh change, if a couple cannot have children due to medical conditions it is not societies fault. If they want to adopt, might they consider adopting a "Short-timer," or a child whose chances of becoming a short-timer, fast approaching? Maybe this couple might place a phone call to a seventeen-year-old soon to-be mother and tell her they have decided to give the pained eyes of a ten-year-old boy a home, and that if she tried, she could do same for her baby. Then, maybe somewhere a seventeen year-old soon to-be mother will bolster her strength and with a little help, raise a child that will know love. A just love, the same as a ten-year-old boy would receive from his first parents that he may return with a smile.