During last night’s stay of high brain activity when I should have been asleep, these thoughts came to mind and I quickly wrote them down. They became more coherent the longer I was awake. Hopefully, I will create a follow up piece to this (it is already in the works in my brain).

As a personal blog about childfreedom and its meaning to myself, I would most likely put more of a childfree spin on my posts. But I find this topic just as relevant to the childfree as potential parents. We can all take the initiative to educate ourselves about our options and what is best for ourselves. This blog is mostly about the non-traditional option to create a childfree family. However, I hope to encourage a patient and enduring understanding for all kinds of families.

What if….the world had an even playing field for becoming a parent? Becoming a biological parent is no big deal is my country. Nor is artificial insemination nowadays, even if you are a single woman. It is socially and morally acceptable to even become pregnant and keep the child when financially and mentally unstable (aka a young woman just starting out her life, still in high school or college). In fact, I hear plenty of stories of family, friends and anyone these ‘victims’ care about pressuring them to birth the child, and then keep it.

However, for those wishing to expand their family in a non-conventional way (adoption), comes plenty of challenges. For one, there is no absolute time frame for the process, and no promises that everything will go smoothly the first try. Of course there are legal requirements for a homestudy to judge whether the hopeful parents have a secure home for their child. This homestudy leads to another issue of expenses, everything from paying social workers for the homestudy to travel fees or possibly birth mother expenses can create an impossible situation for some hopeful potentials. Without the help of professionals, the process can become a run around. Even then, when dealing with foster children, it may come down to whether or not the birth parents will terminate their rights.*For another, agencies can give you a good old run around, filled with half empty promises and wasted time; Michelle Marchetti describes this process fairly well in 10 Things Agencies Won’t Say.

And then we have the stigma of adoptive families. Simply because adopted children are not blood, people somehow think that means there is less love or worth to the relationships between child and parents and surrounding family. Some people simply don’t believe adoption is a real possibility and currently happening option. Others will assume your child is going to be snatched from you by the birth parents, or that the birth mother was some irresponsible teen with problems and that those bad girl genes will be passed onto the child. Although this is no secret to the people close to me, it’s a big leap for this blog to announce thatI can dispel all of these myths right this moment. My family loves my brother and myself more than anything; I’d so far to say that we mean more to our grandparents than anyone else, almost.

Open adoption has created an even bigger circle of hearts that I call family. I do not resent my birth parents for giving me up, because I know and understand their situation. It is a confirmed fact that they love me to this day. Further more, because of the openness of my birth, I can identify what my life might have been if not for the adoption. I am thankful for the life I have, because it has kept me safe and living in an environment where my behavior never became vile or worrisome (I’ve always been a good girl).

My family is so much more full of love than most families I know can claim. I am so very fortunate with all this life has given me. I would never choose to go back in time and give all this up, just for a tossed up life of what ifs, to be with birth parents. My birth parents loved me so much to understand that their situation could not produce a happy home for their child. This love has spread and given my whole family something to cherish.

Adoptive parents experience so much to acquire their new family member, and it is all for the better of the child to go through the process. Adoptive families are just as happy, if not more so than families by traditional means. “88 percent of adoptive parents describe themselves as a “happy” couple, while 83 percent of non-adoptive parents describe themselves as a “happy” couple.”**

So I ask this: what if the rest of the world, or at the very least this pro-natalist country I live in, put so much thought into creating their own families, or the families of someone else? What if we put that much thought into every new human life? What if the world no longer discouraged adoption and proactive thought about types of families. Instead we encouraged the creation of secure and sound homes through some serious measures.

Dare I say it, what if screenings were a mandatory for all potential parents to insure quality homes for more children, create a more conscious society about whether the responsibility of increasing ones family is the right choice, and ultimately making for a more content and knowledgeable community?

*The above paragraph was paraphrased from a LiveStrong article: Why Is It So Hard To Adopt A Child?