Adoption

(From 4/30/09)

So, some people have been wondering why for most of my life I couldn’t wait to have babies, and now I suddenly could totally live without the experience. No, it is not because that’s how Simon feels and I just want him to like me. I’m not in high school, and I have a mind of my own now. I shall explain.

When I was dating Chris, things were obviously not ideal, which I realized later. So of course, to fix that, I wanted kids. Like so many people, it stemmed from a desire to be loved, and who would love me more than my own offspring? I do enjoy children, to an extent, and have worked with them a lot. The fact that most of those jobs were somewhat miserable failed to register I guess. My rational mind glossed over the facts while my irrational mind clung to the illusion that I couldn’t WAIT to have kids.

Then that relationship fell apart. I knew I still wanted to be a mother someday, but it wasn’t as important as making myself happy first. I dated around, met Simon, and the rest is history. =) But what finally changed was my attitude about children. When people I know started having them, I used to be insanely jealous. Now I just look at it as another opportunity to play with a cute kid that I can give back after. Yes, I’m good with babies, and they’re adorable, but waking up at 2 am for feedings? The horrible things pregnancy does to your body? Not what I looked forward to. Yes, everyone tells me it’s beautiful and wonderful and everything is fine when it’s actually you having the kid. But it still doesn’t appeal to me. Childbirth scares the bajeezus out of me. I’ve never had surgery, and I’d like to avoid it.

Simon also pointed out, as I’ve seen with many friends, all the horrible things that can go wrong with a newborn. Narrow aortas that require heart surgery on a 3-day-old infant, squished heads that need a baby-sized helmets to fix, and the list goes on and on. Simon had quite a few issues himself, which I don’t blame him for being reluctant to pass on. So I thought about it, and I really like the idea of adoption. I can skip pregnancy, infancy, and potty-training, and still have a kid? Awesome! And in MA, it’s free to adopt a child from the DSS system after a 6-month trial foster period. I really like this idea. No birth defects to worry about, and I get to choose the gender of my child to boot.

It may sound selfish, like I’m trying to take the easy way out. If I want to be a parent, I should be willing to make sacrifices and take chances, yes? But how about this? There are SO many children waiting to be adopted. The population is WAY too high to sustain. I’m doing the country a favor. I see nothing wrong with that. =)

Please, baby-makers, take no offense. Obviously, someone has to actually have children. I see adoption as my stand against people who pop out 8 kids and live on welfare. I just can’t justify having (or adopting) more children than I can reasonably provide for. I want to send her to college, I want her to have her own room, and maybe I’ll buy her a car. I can’t do that if I have 8 kids, or even 3 or 4. People need to start taking parenthood more seriously, and stop depending on other people to provide for them. I see excessive baby-making as a form of greed: I want lots of kids so I’m going to have them! Me me me! But the children have to live with your choices. And if things go wrong, maybe I’m going to be the one taking care of your little girl someday, the one YOU couldn’t provide for.