Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Article: Birthmothers Deserve Respect

We posted a link to this article back in May after it appeared in Newsweek on the BirthMom Buds Facebook group page but I thought it was worth posting here as well. It's a great article about why birthmothers deserve respect. Check it out here.

I love the questions and thoughts posed in the last paragraph the most.
What if we stopped pretending we lived in a world where the traditional nuclear family is the norm and accepted birth mothers into the fold of family life? We’ve certainly managed to do that in the world of reproductive medicine where we welcome offspring as biological even if the child was the product of donated sperm and egg. And we’ve somehow managed to accept a bewildering array of familial choices from multiple stepparents, two moms, or a single grandparent. But, thanks to society’s misgivings and misconceptions about adoption, birth mothers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. By indicating that placing a child for adoption is a selfish or painless choice when it’s not, or talking about birth mothers as if they were all crack-addled prostitutes or at the very least wayward youth, we not only limit a woman’s right to choose but also shut out the possibility that there are other people out there who would love to adopt. Why not try respecting these women as mothers able to make the best decision for themselves and their pregnancies—even if that decision is not to parent?

Photo Credit 

3 comments:

  1. Hi
    found your blog today via another blog...
    My daughter gave up her son last year and is in an open adoption. A brief history of her situation: she she has 2 children 7 and 3 and they all live in my home. She became pregnant and concealed the pregnancy. I found out when she was about 7 months along. I respected her wish to keep her pregnancy a secret and supported her adoption plan. As a mother, I wanted to support my daughter, it was all I knew to do. These situations do not come with instructions, you have to do what you feel. It was very hard for me to watch my grandson be born and then placed, but that is nothing compared to what my daughter has been through. I know that as a mom, I've had to deal with comments about why my daughter got pregnant in the first place etc. It can be very hard to deal with the judgements of others. I'm thankful that this morning I found this blog and all of the great information here. I can't wait to share the link with my daughter. I would love to opportunity to maybe help or share her story with other grandparents facing this situation.
    thanks for doing this blog
    I'm now following you.
    Sherri

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  2. I read the article & was so moved by it, I sent it to my son's mom. She then sent it to her birthmom.She wanted her b-mom to know hoe much she loved & respected her for the choice she made 30+ years ago...
    I patted myself on the back because I did have reservations after I sent the article but SOOO happy I did!!

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