Maybe it's harsh but I don't think too much so. Because it's true.
Look, I understand contextual ethics but I can't be a 100% moral relativist. I'm not buying the excuse that she made a wise or hard decision to give up her child because she was "overwhelmed" and felt she couldn't properly care for him. She had a husband and an extended family to help. She didn't agonize. The moment her kid was born and she found out she told her husband to choose. Thank God he chose wisely.
This isn't about a mother making a hard choice. This is is about a woman for whom shame and status are more important than love and protection. This about gross discrimination against the disabled. And I'm sure there are plenty of decent parents in Armenia who don't dump their kids merely for being disabled. Because love is more important than the gossip of neighbors. Just not for her.
You are being very soft. In fact, you're strenuously defending her. People shouldn't get a pass for discriminating against their own children. She wanted to parent. Just not this child. This woman's utter rejection of her child to the point that she immediately filed for divorce, for the sole reason that he is disabled, is a key part of Samuel and Leo's story. And it is hugely important.
What you are advocating, IMO, is brushing discrimination under the rug in order to allow a fully grown married woman with family to support her (rather than some poor single teen mom, for example), to save face. But her actions need to be discussed if attitudes around the world toward the disabled are going to change.
Yeah, well our cultural norm used to be slavery. Just because something is a cultural tradition doesn't mean it must be accepted or is okay. (Bride burning in India? Genital mutiliation in Africa? Honor killings in the Middle East?) Shushing up the ugly doesn't change anything.
First, thank you very much, gitana, for your comments, and the conversation. I
always respect and look forward to what you have to say, even if I don't always agree. That said, I'd like to explain a little more where I'm coming from. Maybe it will help us all understand each other's ideas better. (or not, lol!) And a little apology for the long post.
The suffering of, and prejudices toward, the exquisitely vulnerable and innocent is something we should
all be outraged about. Earlier in my life, when I was young and idealistic, I spent a lot of thought and energy being mad about the abuse and abandonment of children, especially disabled children. But now I’m older, and my youthful righteous, but futile anger and frustration is more tempered by the reality of what is actually achievable by flawed human beings. I've just seen too much, maybe, to be very idealistic anymore. I've left behind a lot of idealism as I've matured, and now I'm far more of a realist. As in, let's all just get the job done and help these kids the best we can, and leave the idealistic outrage to others to carry the torch. Let's all show, by example, how to love and care for the "less perfect" among us.
I am old enough to be a grandmother (lol, still hard for me to say that!), yet I have young children at home. I’m on my third career change in health care, and I’ve served in the military active and reserves for an extended period in many countries, as well as volunteering for charitable health missions in poor countries. I am a birth mother, and I am also the mother of an internationally adopted daughter, and largely raised another internationally adopted girl whose American adoptive mother died when she was 4, and her adoptive father was in his 60’s. (We previously tried to adopt from 2 other countries, as well as domestically from foster care, but it didn't work out, for various reasons.) Both of these girls were born in China, and abandoned, most likely by their birth mothers. Almost certainly my youngest was abandoned not only because she was a girl, but also because she had physical disabilities, and mental disabilities were suspected (but have never manifested; she is of normal intelligence, and a delightful and very cherished child.)
So, like other adoptive parents, I’ve had to give a lot of thought to what I think about their birth mothers, the issues of abandonment, and how to talk with them about that at different ages as they grow up. More than anything else, I do not want my girls to hate their birth mothers, or be ashamed of their disabilities, or feel unwanted, or hate the issues of their birth culture that lead to them being abandoned. I hope they don’t ever feel resentful or angry that they were adopted away from their birth countries into a racially different family, with a new mother that doesn’t look like them. I want to acknowledge to them both that their birth mothers chose to give them life, even as they also chose not to raise them. There are “angry” adult adoptees who struggle all their lives with those issues, and never come to peace with them. And I’m eternally sad, and ache for those people, who are unable to move beyond the hurt, anger, and resentment of their personal birth and adoption circumstances. I don’t expect my kids to be “grateful” they were adopted, just as I don’t expect birth kids to be “grateful” they were purposely conceived and born.I just want them to know their stories, and come to some peace about their beginnings, and how that lead them to where they are now, as they grow into resilient, loving, and well-adjusted people.
None of us have any control over when, where, or how we are born, or whether we end up in a loving family, or an ignored, neglected, abused, or abandoned child in a slum or urban ghetto. I would always wish that every child was wanted, planned for, and born into a loving committed relationship. But that just
isn’t reality for many babies both here in the U.S., and in other countries. For many disabled kids, including kids with Down syndrome, it’s my opinion that the bleakness of their lives, and their exquisite vulnerability, often makes me wish they hadn’t been born in the first place. I know that’s vehemently opposed by many, and that some people are alarmed that the total potential population of DS and disabled people is being reduced due to elective abortion. There is some truth to that, but there are many DS and disabled babies still being born. No one is forcing eugenics on our society. Certainly there are people who do not want to raise a handicapped child, and quite honestly, if they feel that way, I don’t want them to have a handicapped child either. I know that is a heretical statement for some to hear, but IMO, I’d rather some of these children were compassionately spared the burdens of life. I’m glad that safe medical abortion remains an option for women, even if I don’t know if I could ever choose it for myself or a fetus I was carrying.
On the other hand, once a child is here, fully born and separate from the birth mother, we have a collective responsibility to care for relinquished and abandoned children as best we can. This is why I have a “let them go” attitude toward birth mothers who choose to abandon their infants, healthy or disabled. We can’t “fix” the way they think. We can’t make them “want” to raise a disabled child, and I don’t think we should even try to “guilt” them into trying. The prejudices within some cultures against the disabled are deeply, deeply entrenched, and will not be eliminated easily, if ever. Just let them go, and then let’s all move our focus back to the child. And frankly, for mentally disabled children abandoned, like Leo, they will thankfully never have the intellectual capacity to deeply question the “whys” about their birth mothers, and suffer the angst of questioning “why” they were abandoned. These kids, especially Down Syndrome kids, are very loving and trusting, as Frigga discussed, and will usually easily bond with new caregivers. They tend to live in the here and now, which is a real blessing for them and their caregivers. And many are wanted, and deeply loved and cherished by their families and friends. These kids are very, very lucky. But sadly, that isn’t the case for a lot of DS kids and other disabled kids around the world.
As long as a child is not physically hurt or abused, (and this baby, Leo, was relinquished in a hospital by the birth mom), then I’ve come to my own conclusions that I’m okay with relinquishment. Here, or in any country. That’s what our Safe Haven laws are supposed to provide an option for—safe relinquishment, for any reason, without fear of prosecution. By 2008, all 50 states have safe haven laws, which I support. Abandonment is not the same as honor killing, bride burning, or female genital mutilation. It provides an alternative to abortion, abuse, neglect, and abandonment elsewhere in society. Between finding kids in trash piles, sewer pipes, or abandoned on the streets, or safe relinquishment, I’ll take relinquishment as the best option. I'm a pragmatist.
I wish baby Leo’s mom wanted to keep him, but she didn’t. And she left her marriage over it. Ok. It isn’t ideal by a long shot, but it’s reality. She made her choice. None of us can fix all the myriad of issues that went into her decision within a reasonable time period of this child’s life. So I’m content to let her go. I don't have as much energy as I used to, and I'd rather focus my constructive energy on the kids, not "fixing" the birth moms, or "fixing" the prejudices within societies and cultures. Baby Leo is very, very lucky that he has his birth dad, and hopefully, loving and accepting relatives in NZ.
But she doesn’t get a “do over” in my opinion, nor should she get a single penny of the money, or a ticket and a visa to immigrate to a rich country to “try” to make it work, or visit him later. She didn’t even want to try to make it work. She “just” gets to walk away. That’s all. Someone else gets to have Leo, someone who wants him, and hopefully cherishes all that he is for all his life. That’s about a big of a “win” for Leo as is possible on this earth, IMO.
