The Snapper slept like a champ last night–seven hours at the first stretch, four at the second, and as a result got up an hour later than usual. It messed with his feeding schedule just enough to eliminate one of his morning feedings and voila! I have a few minutes to write. The dishes are done, the laundry’s started, and the baby is asleep in the wrap.
I read Shannon’s most recent post with great interest and enthusiasm. A while ago she and I exchanged a few emails about the ‘perfect world’ theory of adoption (adoption would not exist in a perfect world; an adoptive family is at the very least the third best option for a child, and in transracial situations fourth or fifth). While I’m incredibly sensitive to the losses of first parents and adoptees, I am uncomfortable with how this argument privileges biology over the, for lack of a better term, chosen-ness of families. The Snapper is automatically mine by virtue of biology (legally speaking) but the choices I make every day are what ultimately make me a parent. This is not to say, on the other hand, that I would cease to be his mother if I were to place him.
I like Stevens’ alternative universe in which mothers choose who will parent their children. (if you haven’t read Shannon’s post go do that now or this will make no sense) I like that the mother’s right to choose the path for her children is based on the labor of carrying and birthing them, not the sharing of genetic material. The best part of her plan, though, is universal health and childcare. All at once many economic reasons for placement are eliminated and many more mothers can be confident in their ability to raise their children. It leaves room for placement based on other reasons, but always on the mother’s terms.
The capitalist-hater in me is thrilled to see an alternative to a market-based adoption system. I just don’t trust any organization whose bottom line is, well, the bottom line; no matter how ethical the agency is, it is responsible for making money (even non-profits have to pay salaries), and that money comes largely from adoptive families. There is necessarily, structurally, an imbalance of power to the detriment of first families and the potential for coercion is always there, sometimes invisibly.
When I first read Shannon’s post (I haven’t read the article, so I may be in error here) I noticed it was conspicuously devoid of any references to the losses incurred in adoptions and the physical and psychological connections between mothers and their children. But I think that Stevens’ arguments allow for those things even if she doesn’t mention them. First of all, placement would, I’m guessing, be far less common in her world. Second, the greatly reduced potential for coercion would result in truly informed, freely made placement decisions in which the mother’s losses would not be ignored or glossed over.
Frankly, I don’t know how helpful it is to say that adoption would not exist in a perfect world because we don’t have one and never will. If it makes people work to bring us to closer to it, fine. But mostly I think it is meant as a way to honor and respect first families. I think that we can offer that respect without making an argument that is biased toward biology, which is especially important when recognizing the legitimacy of queer families.
I’m still struggling with the racial aspects of the ‘perfect world’ theory. Abebech and Kohana, both white women, have spoken of their families as the fifth-best options for their children of color. Are white families necessarily not as good purely by virtue of their race? I hesitate to make such a claim, particularly because it is not possible to generalize across families. All things being equal…maybe. But is it ever really equal? For sake of argument, say a black family and white family are hoping to adopt the same child. They have similar incomes, have strong parenting skills, good connections to people of color in the community, a stable home, etc. Suppose, though, that the child is spirited and would do best with parents who are either spirited themselves or who are skilled at providing the right structure and encouragement for that child. Or maybe she is artistic and one set of parents, regardless of race, is gifted themselves and can provide the best environment for a budding artist. Obviously no one knows these things in a domestic infant situation and even if they did I’d never suggest that an adoption situation be based on such criteria. A family without an artistic background could be fine parents to a child with those abilities–it would just take a bit more work.
Race is more serious that personality, matching, sure. But the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not the only aspect of the child’s life and it’s impossible to say across the board that a black family is best for a black child. Where I become a hypocrite, though, is when I say that transracially adopted kids of color should live in places where they will see other faces like theirs, especially in positions of power. Am I saying that white neighborhoods are subpar for black children just because they are white?
–gotta nurse–more later–tell me what you think–
“Abebech and Kohana, both white women, have spoken of their families as the fifth-best options for their children of color.”
I have a ton to say on this issue, and can’t say it all right now, and since I’m sick I can’t say it coherently, but I wanted to clarify:
What I *said* was that I am willing to accept (and perhaps what I should have said instead is that I am sympathetic to) the position that transracial/transnational adoption is in THEORY the fifth-best option. But what I’ve also said is that in practice, I am d*mned good at it, so those comparisons fall away. (I’ve always been clear that I’ve considered the “all else equal” as a fantasy). I think my willingess to demonstrate sympathy to that position, or to accept it IN THEORY, creates the context for further learning and openness to my daughter’s needs as she grows from a toddler into a young, black woman in a so far otherwise white family.
I support the “second best option” in that order, kinship care, not because of DNA (which I don’t find particularly important — I love lots of people who don’t share a bit with me, including my partner), but for reasons including the long history (particularly in my daughter’s culture of origin) of kinship and communal care, now made impossible by the AIDS pandemic, and for a simpler reason: if something happens to me, I want my family, already involved in my children’s lives, to parent them. If your kinship system isn’t a genetically determined one, that’s fine! And if all else isn’t equal (it never is) then a mother might freely NOT choose kinship care. That’s fine, too.
“I am uncomfortable with how this argument privileges biology over the, for lack of a better term, chosen-ness of families.”
I, too, am uncomfortable with definitions of family that rely on DNA, or on the ability to carry on through reproduction genetic lines (which excludes gay and lesbian families as families). But when you (or Stevens) write(s) about a woman’s right to choose based on her labor of maternity (carrying the child, birthing the child) this is still both biological and material/economic . . . it’s family on capitalism’s terms.
I have nothing brilliant to say about this next part. I abhor that it effaces fathers and I find it not so much feminist but patently sexist, though it sure would make both placement and divorce much easier: Sorry, Dad, but it was a temporary agreement, and I don’t rechoose you as a parenting partner for these children.
In a world where women are economically enabled to parent, I very much doubt that many placements would occur, so the notion of a woman “choosing” to place in those circumstances is suspect to me, far more so than the “perfect world” thoughtful aparents consider. That a woman would, after her labor, freely choose someone _else_ to parent her child seems so unlikely as to make Steven’s point (as I understand it from Shannon’s writing) moot. (I do know of ONE case where a grad school student placed because she didn’t feel “maternal.” And that’s her right. But would we REALLY generally choose someone else? For any good reason?)
When you discuss personality and skills matching over race, this is also complicated, and it assumes as you indicate that we are dealing with older children. My daughter was (accidentally, if you believe in such accidents) perfectly placed in our family, as her high spiritedness is just right for our son. And I know genetic families whose temperaments are extraordinarily mismatched. But it isn’t as if a family walking down the street can be identified as some artistic and some not, but believe me, that my daughter has white parents, everyone — for good and bad — notices.
Yes, we choose to love. We choose to love every day. I choose every day to be married and raise my children with my partner. I choose every day that they are to be my children and I am to be their Momma. But there is this thing between us, this HISTORY, that I cannot unchoose, and neither can they.
This all seems so much more esoteric, so much more “IN THEORY” than my “fifth-best parenting option” that I feel like giving myself a good pat on the back for keeping my feet on the ground.
Wow — that last paragraph of mine seems angry at you, sster. SO sorry for that. The “this” refers to Stevens-via-Shannon, and if I were doing the work I make my students do, I’d go read Stevens before I even got mad.
Sorry. I was way too harsh.
Hm, I don’t have time to think our an articulate response but a couple things come to mind.
I agree with the fifth-best-option description in theory as well, but I don’t think it has much to do with real life. If you put the screws to me, I know that Small Sun belongs in our family. His mother was closer to being able to parent than many first parents, and even so, I know he belongs with us.
I don’t think that a same race placement always trumps one that crosses racial lines. In fact, I think that in effort to be racially sensitive and intentionally helping our children build their identities, sometimes race is blown out of proportion in relation to their other attributes.
I also think that in the beginning, as with other issues for a new parent, transracial adoptive parents worry to no end, and spend so much time and effort considering these issues. I am guessing ten years down the road, they will look a lot different to me than they do now.
I’ll have to think some more and post my thoughts on Growing Family.
I didn’t comment on Shannon’s post because it just seemed so disconnected from the reality of adoption as my family (including Jessica) is living it. I agree with Abebech that “In a world where women are economically enabled to parent, I very much doubt that many placements would occur” and this is my vision of the perfect world where adoption doesn’t happen. (Although this doesn’t mean that children wouldn’t cared by people who are not biologically related to them but in that mythical perfect world I think this sort of caring would exist within a “tribe” where it isn’t strangers taking the place of family and where becoming a mother doesn’t erase the first mother legally.) But this isn’t a perfect world and so for me it’s about figuring out how to ethically do our adoption in an IMperfect world. I don’t feel any need to compare my mothering to any other mothering in a day to day way — as in saying that Madison belongs here more or less than she belongs anywhere else including with Jessica. She IS here and that’s what I work with (what Kohana was saying — I agree with it all in theory but it doesn’t have much to do in real life although I don’t “know” if she belongs to us I just know that she IS with us).
Truthfully, I am more interested in theorizing adoption so that it makes us better adoptive parents and so it informs our adoption reforms. In our culture, biological ties ARE privileged (except when we’re talking about first parents and for all the worry about being “real” parents, it pales next to what women without privilege struggle with if they get involved in the adoption indutry) and our children will need to make sense of that. I believe that some adoptee grief is about this (our cultural biases) but this doesn’t make it any less valid. I am much less concerned about convincing people that *I* am a “real” mother than I am with helping Madison make sense of her family — adoptive and birth — and how she will incorporate it all.
I just want to defend theoretical thinking. If we don’t think theoretically, we shut down imagining new possibilities. Steven’s propsals may not be on the horizon tomorrow–or ever–but they challenge us to think in new ways and perhaps come up with viable alternatives and reforms.
Nothing wrong with dreaming up possibilities, as I see it.
Also, I feel the need to defend myself against any suggestion (don’t know if it was intended this way) that I am trying to defend my motherhood–especially vis a vis Nat’s first mother. I don’t really care whether people think I’m a “real” parent or not. I do what I do in my family and it doesn’t even matter to me what it’s called.
I see Steven’s proposals as a wonderful opportunity to shift some of the discussion about this stuff in hopeful new directions.
P.S. I’d also really recommend you all read the article. Calling Stevens sexist is really, really off the mark. I didn’t get into her details about male parents, (she doesn’t call them fathers) but in fact, her purpose is to honor men who do the real work of parenting, regardless of their genetic connections to the child they are parenting. Her interest in the topic grows from her own adoption by her step-father, in fact.
If you read the opening paragraphs of my comment you’ll see that I love Theory, but that I also believe it must be identified as such when re-reported (and sster and I have communicated about this and she agreed). My response at the end, then, was in reference to my own first passage, in which I defend my (however tenuous) theoretical position of the “fifth-best option” against the implied criticism that my position wasn’t practical (I take the practical examples as demonstration of this critique).
My last remark, then, is not a rejection of theory or idealism. I am also an idealist, and revel in thought-experimentation. But some theories, some ideas, and some explanations of some theories and ideas have less face validity for me than do others. I’m sure that’s so for everyone, and I’m quite sure that’s okay.
I *did* warn sster and her readers that I didn’t have anything brilliant to say about the part where first fathers don’t figure on this page at all.
In all sincerity I offer my apologies to Stevens, as I already had in my second comment: I didn’t intend to call Stevens (whom I don’t know and haven’t read) sexist so much as to suggest that this present discussion that emphasizes a woman’s particular form of labor via gestation and delivery over genetic tie leaves no room for the possibility of a man’s investment in that labor and laborer (if we are to continue to use the terms of economic debate) and that that *seems* sexist. I am certain that a discussion could be conducted that emphasizes such labor and investment that is inclusive. It sounds like you’re saying Stevens attempts that, even succeeds at it.
Here’s the reason I even mention the absence of the male: If I’m being completely honest, it takes real work for me to be empathetic to a biological/genetic/first father while it takes no stretch at all for me to imagine a world where decisions for children are made by empowered women, so it takes a *lot* (or entirely too little) for me to say “well, what about Dad/dad/donor?”. To be personal for a second (is anything ever not personal?) my son’s and daughter’s father’s “claims” to them are very different, one by birth and one by adoption, both by the daily labor of parenting, the daily choice, yes, though I hesitate to discount anything before their arrival which, dna aside, I can assure you was as cooperative an enterprise as any.
I quite like the idea of freely chosen kinship relationships. One of the things everyone can learn from queer families and from families created by adoption and from queer families who adopt is that love and affiliation — kinship ties — are and should be elective and should be freely elected. Present legal circumstances and the cultural privileging of genetic tie do not allow for that freedom, and it is to everyone’s detriment. But I do stand by kinship care (if unofficial) as a better option than adoption in the present system.
Shannon, I don’t see at all how anyone could think that you are trying to defend your motherhood of Nat! (I don’t think I reference it at all, and I think Dawn is indicating that for all the cultural “privileging of dna,” we are still conditioned to routinely deny the claims of first mothers, often ignored/rejected/exiled). It seems quite clear to me that you are and have been trying to multiply the terms mother and motherhood, and if I am understanding you correctly, on that point we very much agree!
Not sure if I’ve addressed every criticism, or addressed anything at all clearly. Sster, I’m so sorry for such long comments. I leave you to your blog, and I return to my own work.
Abebech, yes, you got my point right — thank you for stating it more clearly.
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