hard%20life.jpgHere’s an email I received today:

I was adopted at birth in 1963, when abortion was illegal. Supposedly I should be “pro-life” because the odds are I would have been aborted. But I am very much in favor of abortion.
When a child is born to two parents, that child is something like them. In cases of adoption this is not necessarily the case. Adoption can turn out well but it can also become a nightmare for all concerned….

In my own case, my parents were nothing like me and my childhood was a nightmare. I was adopted by a couple who could not have children, my mother had a tumor on her pituitary and she had female problems. She did not have a period until she was 38 and nearly bled to death.
But the reason for my adoption and that of my younger brother was to hold what had become an untenable marriage together.
My father was a decent man but horribly immature, and his thinking was very much different from mine. He never understood me at all, and he died from cancer feeling that I considered him an idiot. My mother was inclined to use my brother and I as weapons against him for his “philandering” and often was emotionally abusive. I thought of strangling or stabbing her but the fear of going to prison and the shame of having to face members of my extended family, who I felt understood and respected me, for an act like that deterred me.
She encouraged my brother to dress up in girls’ clothes and play house because she really did want a girl and my father wouldn’t consent to adopt a third child. He is a flagrant homosexual today who has been severely beaten by homosexual lovers and has attempted suicide.
Today I am living a normal life as best as I can but I have issues. I weigh over 350 lbs. and have had only fleeting relationships with women. I can only find work in call center jobs because I do not have a college degree and there are no manufacturing jobs where I live.
It’s true that had my mother been fertile she could have had two children who could be equally dysfunctional, but I doubt either would have had the problems I had with my father. The sad fact is that adoption was a failure in our cases and had we been terminated the effect would have been exactly the same as had we not been conceived.
Two years ago I received a phone call from a private detective asking public information about me and saying that he was calling because my birthmother was trying to get in touch with me. He had my DOB and city and the fact I was adopted and where I was born, which agreed with the records, and asked if I would like to meet my birthmother. I told him that he had probably made a mistake since I knew who my birthmother was, and that she had passed away some time ago, and that the adoption was an in-family affair. Therefore, probably his adoptee was still out there. It was not true, but it was what I had rehearsed if I ever were so contacted, and I never heard back from him. I have no desire to ever met my birthmother: I frankly hope she dies, or I do, before I ever get the chance.
You probably think I am a terrible person. Perhaps I am. But all I know is that adoption is not always the answer. Sometimes it’s a disaster for all concerned. I often think that had I been adopted by some other couple I would have had a happier life and had my parents had a different child they would have had less problems as well. Perhaps, and perhaps not.

I encouraged the writer to check back here for comments and participate in the dialogue. I hope he does.
My thoughts.
I’m terribly sorry for J’s upbringing. My understanding, however, is that his scenario is increasingly rare, particularly thanks to open adoptions. It seems to me J is advocating death for millions of children because of his situation.
Is J saying he wishes he had never been born? I think so, a certain sign of depression and sense of worthlessness.
And how many children in biological homes, wanted or not, receive equal or worse treatment at the hands of their parents? How do we know?
It seems J’s solution is to guess which homes will be bad and kill the children before arriving.
And is it right to kill for fear a child will have a hard life? Is that the solution? Kill the victim? And do hard lives always end badly? Is that our call?
[Artwork, “Hard Life” is courtesy of Laura Leiden Originals]

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