Kudos: Open Letter to APs, PAPs

From time to time, REFORM Talk will offer our kudos to particularly insightful blog posts. This one goes to iadoptee blog for the December 8, 2011 post of an open letter to APs and PAPs written by Lillie. It is a must read for anyone who has adopted or is interested in adopting. Be sure to read ALL of the enlightening whines and comments at the end including the last one from the author.

http://iadoptee.blogspot.com/2011/12/please-read-this.html

A few things to comment on:

(1) The poster correctly and eloquently states that the child is not a “gift.” That is one thing that continues to annoy Rally on adoptive parent blogs. The gift is the responsibility of parenting the child NOT the child herself.

(2) Love that “Gotcha day” was condemned. Rally has never celebrated that and does not like the repeated use of that term.

(3) When an adoptive parent puts up the strawman argument in the comments about how “–“bio kids do not choose their parents either” , there was a great response that I want to highlight. The commenter said “No kidding. But an adoptee has bio parents too. They have TWO families they didn’t choose. Twice the complications. Twice as much to deal with.”

(4) One word that Rally disagrees with (I have to disagree with something  ) is “After all, you, as the parent, are responsible for your adopted child’s happiness and well being…not the other way around.” No one can be responsible for anyone else’s happiness. The well-being part, yes on the APs part, but ultimately, every person has to be responsible for their own happiness–that cannot be put upon biological or adoptive parent or spouse or child or anyone else. (I agree with the part further in the post when “health and well-being” is mentioned as the adoptive parent’s responsibility and everything else.)