and now, a poll

[kindkit]

Following on from my previous post, because now I'm beginning to wonder if what I think is my culture's view of adoption and birth mothers is not actually the case. The poll is as anonymous as I can make it, and anonymous comments are allowed.

Poll #18972

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 27

When a woman places her child up for adoption rather than raising the child herself, how is that predominantly viewed in your culture (not necessarily by you)?

Good! This is an excellent thing to do if she felt unable to raise the child herself.
11 (40.7%)

Neutral, neither good nor bad.
6 (22.2%)

Bad. She should have raised the child.
3 (11.1%)

Adoption is extremely rare or nonexistent in my culture.
2 (7.4%)

Other, which I may choose to elaborate on in the comments.
5 (18.5%)

Comments

[sovay]

I don't actually know how adoption is predominantly viewed in my culture! Since I am not answering this anonymously, I think the answer in the U.S. is neutral-to-good and relatively normal, but I don't know how much of my thinking is influenced by knowing, growing up, two adopted kids and one friend of the family who had had a sibling adopted; it was presented to me as a thing that happened, but also something that was obviously complex.

[kindkit]

I think the answer in the U.S. is neutral-to-good and relatively normal

That's my sense as well, and I didn't grow up knowing adopted kids, apart from one family I met--and didn't know very well--when I was fifteen.

[sovay]

That's my sense as well, and I didn't grow up knowing adopted kids, apart from one family I met--and didn't know very well--when I was fifteen.

Actually I grew up knowing three adopted kids and one person who had had a sibling given up for adoption! I forgot about one of the kids. Which is just another data point on it being relatively common in the U.S.

I bounced your question off spatch and he had actually encountered, in the U.S., the idea that a young unwed mother should be socially stigmatized rather than praised for giving up her child for adoption—she's dodging the consequences of her irresponsible sexual behavior! It should ruin her life! She should suffer! How dare she pass the responsibility off on somebody else? And of course the people who espouse this opinion would not be happier if the young woman in question had an abortion, or if we actually had enough of a social safety net that she could comfortably raise the child herself, because the whole point is not really the welfare of the child, it's punishing women no matter what they do (and the weird-ass Randian bootstrap fantasy that if a person is not perfectly, magically self-sufficient, they deserve nothing at all). Whee.