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An interesting article in Newsweek online, “Putting Motherhood Before Matrimony”, says that four out of 10 births are to unmarried moms. Depending on your social and political views, this is either a distressing sign of the end times, or no big news.
In the adoption world, we tend to talk about single motherhood out of both sides of our mouths. If we’re speaking to women considering relinquishing, we say that single motherhood isn’t good enough, and that a child needs a two-parent home. But if we’re talking to hopeful adoptive parents, single status suddenly becomes no problem. In fact, single parents who want to adopt are actively recruited, and hailed as heroes. Single parents who want to adopt are given financial assistance from their workplaces, while single parents who want to keep their kids are often given nothing but a hard time by their bosses.
Am I the only one who sees this is a little schizophrenic? I mean, which is it? Can’t we just admit that very few people enjoy truly “ideal” circumstances when it comes to pregnancy? Almost everyone has at least something going against them when starting a family: too young, too old, too poor, too stressed or overworked, not healthy enough, marriage in a shaky place. Obviously, some circumstances are better than others, but my point is that perfection is hard to come by. Babies arrive, and we may or may not be 100% prepared for them – but we generally adjust, and grow to meet the demand. It’s only when you are pretty darn certain that parenthood is not for you that the idea of adoption ought to come into the picture…and not because “society” tells you that raising a child alone is second-best. (I’d argue that the people who really ought to consider adoption – drug users, abusers, incompetent parents – are the very people who never will. And the people who do think of adoption would actually make pretty great parents.)
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I had never considered that particular paradox for single moms…great insight.
You know…there are days when I WISH I would have had my first child at 17 instead of 27…this 30+ motherhood can be fully exhausting! Lisa
You know, Nicholas was 100% planned, down to the day.
And even then, we felt unprepared for certain things. Like car seats: man, they were (and sometimes are) confusing. And the fear that coursed through my veins on the way to the hospital to have him… I’ll never forget.
Parenting involves the unknown… no matter how you got there.
No, Heather, you are no the only one who has made the observation that the business of adoption talks out of both sides of its mouth with respect to single parenting. When my daughter was considering adoption for her baby, we saw through agency double standards for “qualifications” to be parents immediately. Her marital status and the fact that her birth control failed made her “unfit” to parent. Any other qualifications were off the table in the face of those two “shameful” facts.
I know many happy, successful families headed by single parents who became parents via pregnancy and adoption. My daughter receives heartwarming support for raising her son from many of my single parents friends at work and from two single adoptive moms (1 domestic and 1 international) at our church.
Happy G’Ma
i agree…even having a planned pregnancy leaves you no more prepared for the actual raising of a child untill you finally do it!