Adoption Search, Birth Family Search, Reunion

09/07/06

Crossing the Bridge

Posted by : Jan Baker in Adoption Search Blog at 07:12 am , 327 words, 91 views
Categories: Birth Mothers, Adoptive Parents

Back in my corner, to discuss the verbal sparring matches between me and Sandra Hanks Benoiton (Older Adoptive Mom and International Adoptive Mom Blogger.) To catch up, read Sandra latest blog on the subject.

I have to admit, I was somewhat surprised when Sandra had such a dramatic negative reaction to my comment which she described as "touching". After I received her email back after making my comment, I was kicking myself for making the comment and feeling that maybe I totally misjudged her.

I was pretty puzzled, I must admit. I had made a positive comment to her, and here's her description of how she responded.

So, Jan made a touching comment on my blog, and how did I respond? By biting her head off, of course.

I really mulled over whether to even reply. It was clear that she was steamed, and frankly, I was not too certain that I had the time, energy or desire to "duke it out" with her, as she seemed to want. Her quote below is somewhat of a challenge, right?

To be honest, I'm rather up to my eyeballs in birthmom angst sometimes and would love to have a really knock-down, drag-out, get to the nitty-gritty arm wrestling match.

SPONSOR

Both of us do enjoy a rousing debate with a worthy opponent, and the challenge was too much for me to resist. In addition, just as Sandra wanted to understand, I did as well. I wanted to understand how someone who had experienced a crisis pregnancy could seem so unmoved by how much losing a child to adoption often traumatizes a woman.

Walking away from a verbal battle is not in my make-up generally either. The sheer challenge of her words compelled to respond. I finally decided after several days that I needed to address her email and try to make my position on adoption and my feelings clearer. For me, adoption has been anything but joyous.

To Be Continued...................................

1 comment

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: Margaret [Member]

Jan, You go girl! Good for you!

This Sandra Benoiton strikes me as a case of someone with more money than sense. I am almost her age and I cannot imagine raising two pre-schoolers and having enough time left over to harrass everyone on line who has different viewpoints than she does. I am reminded of the joke about why menopausal women are not supposed to have children -- we would put them down and forget where they were.

She kept her out-of-wedlock children, which she gave birth to as a teen mother, before it was a career choice -- good for her! But she did not learn from her first experience; she went on to have a second child while the other one was still a toddler. So she isn't the brightest light in the firmament! I hope her parents helped her but she seems so bitter that I wonder. But she managed to go to college and complete her degree so she must have had beacoup help. Maybe the experience of bringing up her natural children was so stressful that now that she can afford help to do the actual mothering to raise her newly-acquired child accessories -- 32 years younger than her biological children, younger than her grandchild -- she's enjoying motherhood.

I have to wonder what a well-educated individual with grown children who has room in her heart to bring more children into her family would not adopt an older child stuck in foster care. Instead, she trekked off to a foreign country where she can effect a transracial adoption of a child from another culture, which anyone associated with adoption knows requires more effort that adopting a child from your own country.

That she blogs for adoption.com is absolutely amazing. Because adoption.com is a for-profit enterprise trying to serve the interests of all three corners of the triad, I'm really suprised they would allow such an argumentative and polarizing person to be a blog host.

Maggie

Permalink 06/07/07 @ 19:52