Pam Connell's comments

Methamphetamine Exposure in Babies - Blog Entry

18 Aug 2008 05:23 PM

Thank you for sharing your positive story of recovery, and congratulations--recovery is a lot of work! Best wishes to you and your family, Pam.

Teens who Choose Adoption More Likely to Succeed--So Why Don't More Teens Choose It? - Blog Entry

31 Jul 2008 09:49 PM

I wholeheartedly agree that adoption should be about finding families for children, not children for parents. That was the first criteria I looked for in choosing an adoption agency--that it be a child welfare agency, which provided many programs for children, whether they were going to be adopted or not.

Stating that adoption is a pretense for "most adoptive parents" is a pretty sweeping judgment also. There may indeed be problems with certain agencies, but some agencies, and some adoptive parents, really are child-focused. And I would point out that infant adoption is only one kind of adoption. Many people adopt from foster care or overseas orphanages. Many of us are not infertile and adopted kids who had been waiting for some time for a family.

Helping Kids have a Clearer Vision of both Pregnancy and Parenting - Blog Entry

31 Jul 2008 03:22 PM

I never said a young single mother would be better off placing her baby for adoption. It is a loss for both of them. I said that she may be financially and educationally disadvantaged by parenting young, but that doesn't mean she should place the baby. I am only saying that youth should know all of their options--ideally, they should hear personally from young women their age who have placed babies for adoption AND from those who decided to parent.

Adoption Education for Teens - Blog Entry

31 Jul 2008 03:01 PM

As I said in response to the comments on the previous blog, I believe that the presumption should first be that the birth mother will parent the child and to help her assess what that would be like for her, and only then to offer information on adoption.

I have been away with my family so I am just now reading and responding to comments. I left a comment on the last blog which attempted to respond to many of the issues raised by commenters both in that blog and in this.

AdoptAuthor, I am very willing to hear your opinions and experiences. I realize that I may not have heard all sides of the story or that I may sometimes make mistakes. However, your statement that I am " "selling" adoption with INTENTIONALLY inaccurate or incomplete myths dubbed facts" is simply malicious. How in the world could you know what is an honest mistake of mine (or for that matter of yours) and what is intentional?

I have never worked for an adoption agency or made money off of adoption in any way. (Unless you count these blogs, and when you count the research and reading time I put in I earn less than two dollars an hour.) I am, as one reader pointed out, an adoptive parent sharing my experiences and thoughts.

I fully agree that birthmothers need impartial education and support. As I said in one blog, I wish teens could hear speakers who have both decided to parent and who have decided to place for adoption.

Saigalsera, I am so sorry for your pain and that of your son. I don't dispute that adoption has caused a lot of pain. But your statement , "If [their] testimony is to be believed, it is also a terrible thing to be raised by genetic strangers" should, at the least, have read "MAY also turn out to be a terrible thing". I do believe your son's testimony, but the ideas you've heard cannot speak for all adoptees. Remember that people tend to surround themselves with, and thus only hear the opinions of, people who share their views or experiences, and that people who are happy usually feel less need to comment publicly.

These blogs ought to be a forum where we can learn from each other, not accuse each other.

Reunited, you totally dismissed centraloregonmom's question by asserting that it happens "rarely" (how do you know?) Do you have any constructive ideas on how the birthmother could be approached so that she might accept the invitation to participate in her daughter's life?

May we all have "truth-filled days", as reunited says, and may we all respect each other's truths, as hard or painful as they may be for us.

Adoption Education for Teens - Blog Entry

31 Jul 2008 02:40 PM

Samual, I am confused about your statement that open adoption does not exist in the UK when the study "After Adoption: Direct Contact and Relationships" was conducted in the UK and involved only British families. It was written by two British university professors, I believe at the University of Manchester. (I can't be sure of the university at the moment since I have loaned the book out.) You can read my review of it in the adoption books section (see the "Adoption Categories" section at right.

Teens who Choose Adoption More Likely to Succeed--So Why Don't More Teens Choose It? - Blog Entry

31 Jul 2008 01:27 PM

I'm sorry I haven't responded to your comments sooner--I've been having a holiday with my family--having written the last ten or so blogs before I left and scheduled them to post while I was gone. I will try to respond to the many individual concerns you raise here.

First, let me say I am very sorry for the pain many of you have suffered. I know it is impossible to understand for someone who hasn't been through it so I won't claim to.

I did not accuse young mothers of abuse and/or neglect. Neither did I say that there are statistics proving that their children are more likely to be abused and neglected.

What I wrote was, "Most social service workers agree that children of single teen-age mothers are at higher risk for being abused or neglected."

I am willing to concede that that is a fairly sweeping statement. I should have said "many" instead of "most". Again, I am not citing statistics, but having worked in social service areas myself, having a single teenage parent is one (only one of many) risk factors that community workers are trained to pay extra attention to and attempt to provide preventative support for. I realize this is a matter of opinion--again I never said statistics--but it is usually based on the training social workers' observations from the families they have worked with.

Where I did use the term "statistics" was in saying that teen mothers who place their babies for adoption are less likely to drop out of school and less likely to be on welfare. I got some of these statistics from Dr. Beatrice Sparks, a therapist who has worked with teen mothers and with support groups and school programs for teen mothers. However, I concede that I did not investigate where she got her statistics, and that is a mistake for which I apologize.

I will also concede that Bernadette is right to point out that the fact that mothers who place children for adoption attain higher educational and financial status may not be a result of having placed children for adoption, but may, as she says, because more ambitious women are more likely to place their children for adoption.

Using the same caution about statistics, couldn't it be that Samual's statement that the smallest percentage of children taken into care for abuse /neglect in her country (the UK) be simply that the smallest percentage of all children have teen parents, and a much larger percentage of minor children have parents in their thirties?

I thank Bernadette for giving us a link to a different point of view. I recently posted a blog (written before I read these comments) which speaks to the suffering of birth mothers through the stories they tell in the book "The Girls Who Went Away". I also reviewed the book "Opposing Viewpoints: Adoption", which contains essays advocating the abolition of the adoption system as we know it, as well opinions for and against open adoption, open records laws and other topics. (You can find my reviews by clicking on Adoption Books" under the "Adoption Categories" section to the right of the page.)

Families.com's sister site, Adoption.com, does have blogs by birth parents which I have tried to link to from time to time.

I am very interested to hear from those of you who have experienced open adoption recently. It is still a fairly new concept so it will be interesting to see how many adoptive and birth parents honor their agreements or wish they had made different agreements, and whether laws will be changed to make them more enforceable. Thank you, "kitty", for writing to alert us of the problems you have experienced.

Adoption is a loss for both parents and children, although more so for some than for others. I have met angry adoptees and also happy adoptees. Remember that people who have had good experiences usually feel less need to comment about them or join advocacy groups.

I do believe that the first priority is to help parents keep their children and objectively analyze how well they are equipped--primarily from an emotional standpoint and only secondarily financially--to raise a child. I wholeheartely agree with "reunited" when she says churches need to embrace and help single parents.

I also strongly suggest that both birth and adoptive parents use nonprofit agencies, not for-profit ones, and avoid any agency that does not use separate counselors for expectant parents and parents wishing to adopt, to prevent a conflict of interest on the counselor's part.

My main point here is that teens need education about all options. Formerly it seems that teens did not know as many people who single-parented successfully, and pressure from adults and peers was to place the child for adoption. Now, most teens know single parents, and do not have any exposure to adoption today. I have had counselors tell me that peer pressure has shifted, and that other teens make teens feel bad about not keeping their babies. Mothers who do place babies for adoption should not be looked down upon as "unnatural" for giving up their child.

I do think that in the past too many mothers were forced into adoption. But we have gone from over eighty percent of births to unmarried young parents resulting in adoption placements, to under three percent. Don't both of these extremes seem wrong?

Remember, I'm talking about high school students here. As I have said, I believe the first response should be to help the mother consider how she could raise her baby.

Guess How Much I Love You - Sam McBratney - Blog Entry

25 Jul 2008 08:54 PM

I love this book, and have another to share--Papa, Do You Love Me? is by the same author and illustrator who wrote Mama, Do You Love Me? This new book is set in the Masai culture of Africa.

Tragic Death of a Baby--Why Not Adoption Instead? - Blog Entry

22 Jul 2008 12:43 PM

I have a hard time believing that too--I guess I can imagine a private adoption lawyer not wanting to get involved but certainly the state welfare system places babies like this all the time. I write a bit more about that in the next blog.

I'm not feeling terribly sympathetic toward this mother. Even if she didn't know what to do during her pregnancy, she could have seen that the child needed help and called 911.

Shouldn't Kids Be Exposed to Different Teachers? - Blog Entry

10 Jul 2008 05:02 PM

Many public schools are now keeping kids with the same teacher for two grades, and in the Waldorf schools the class has the same teacher from first through eighth grade.

Even Teachers Don't Finish the Textbook - Blog Entry

10 Jul 2008 04:53 PM

No kidding--we had American History in 3rd, 5th, 7th and 11th grade--starting at the beginning each time. We went into more depth, granted, but the furthest I recall getting in a year was World War I. I could tell you more about the Battle of Saratoga (Revolutionary War) than the entire Korean or Vietnam Wars, which must be a lot more relevant to understanding our world today. My sisters' high school had a class "American History Since 1945", which would have been a great idea.