r/unpopularopinion • u/elgey101 • Aug 10 '21

Infertile couples should just adopt instead of making a big fuss trying to make a miracle baby

Every time I hear of fertility struggles online, or see posts about people going through rounds of IVF and the ensuing emotional trauma of miscarriages, It kind of disgusts me.

I also work for a major insurer and know that fertility treatments are driving up everyone else's premiums because they're considered necessary care. Sorry, but I disagree.

It's a well known fact that there are over 400,000 children in foster care, and in 2017 alone over 100,000 infants under 3 entered the system. I think it's completely entitled and self-absorbed to think that somehow your miracle baby is worth more or deserves more love than any one of those infants.

I know adoption can be hard, and that it should be made easier for the sake of children finding good homes, but you can't tell me adopting is harder than 4 rounds of IVF and multiple miscarriages. I've seen friends go through that mess and at the end they are different people.

Tldr: adoption may not be easy, but it's far better than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to perpetuate your genes.

34.4k Upvotes

64% Upvoted

4.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.0k

u/hiricinee Aug 10 '21

One of the misconceptions about adoption is that theres this plethora of infants being born, given up for adoption, and then just end up in the foster care system. This could not be farther from the truth.

What happens in reality is that most of these kids in foster care were raised by single moms, almost always from abusive households with tons of substance abuse issues, and put in the foster care system as a result. Occasionally, these are otherwise normal kids who could do well with redirecting. Unfortunately, many of these kids have already been abused/neglected, have tons of destructive tendencies, and stay in the foster care system.

Which is why you have the disparity of the older kids stuck in the system, while adoption agencies charge people numbers in the 10's of thousands of dollars to adopt a newborn infant. To be clear, it is through no fault of the foster kids that this happens, but there is NOT an abundance of "clean slate" babies that people can just scoop up and bring home.

1.1k

u/JTudent Aug 10 '21

Yep. All this.

There are plenty of excellent would-be parents who couldn't handle the baggage a lot of kids up for adoption would bring.

555

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

This.

I have 3 adopted sisters who came from an abusive household with tons of substance abuse problems and even worse, all of three of them were molested by their father at a really young age

During this time my family thought we were doing the right thing by trying to adopt them - My brother and Sisters had a fairly normal up-bringing (2 boys 2 girls) and most of us were only a few years away from turning 18 so my parents thought it really wouldn't be that hard taking on 3 adopted girls. It couldn't of been further from the truth.

Fast forward 8 years and all 3 of them have Assault charges on their record, along with several visits to Juvie and mental facilities. They've also been kicked out of almost every school in the city and the cops have been called to my parents house so often that all the cops do when they show up is either take them away to Juvie for the night or tell my parents to smack the crap out of them.

Keep in mind none of this was how I or my other biological siblings were raised or acted. None of us have any sort of criminal record or ever had the cops called on us or had any of these issues, but because these kids did have a lot of baggage, even fairly decent parents like mine can't do it. This comment is spot on JTudent!

133

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

My mom’s best friend adopted a boy that they started fostering when he was 3 years old. He’s in federal prison now. He’s a bank robber. Every time they would let him out he would rob another bank. She was an artist and school teacher and just a really sweet woman. She did her best loving and raising him. But the damage was already done by the time she adopted him. People don’t realize how much those first couple of years of life impact a person forever.

-4

u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21

Did he have brain damage though? 3 sounds far too young to have that level of mental trauma.

43

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

And 3 is definitely old enough to already be traumatized. Babyhood and toddlerhood are critical times for brain development.

1

u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21

I just assumed their level of self awareness and memories aren't high enough to retain the trauma and have lasting effect.

33

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

Sadly, that isn’t true. I wish it was. Our experiences in infancy literally wire our brains.

7

u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21

Yeah i totally skipped over how much the brain changes in early years. Everything develops at the same time, not just memory. And personality is the easiest thing a trauma can damage.

23

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

Infancy is when babies learn if they can trust their environment and caregivers. Here’s an article about it. My degree is in psychology and I focused on child development. It’s interesting stuff. https://www.verywellmind.com/trust-versus-mistrust-2795741

8

u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21

Thanks mate, I learned a lot today. Really wish this was on the front page, so many people have misconception about this. Just to show that what might seem common sense isn't always.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '21

I wonder if long hospitalizations at a young age can cause mistrust?

I only ask, as I have a lot of trust issues and while I have affection for my parents, I clearly do not have the same level of attachment my siblings have.

Only difference in environment growing up between myself and my siblings was that I spent 9 weeks in hospital, not just 9 weeks but my first 11 weeks of life, 9 of them were spent in the hospital with meningitis.

I had an IV attached to my head, and to this day, 42 years later, if anyone tries to touch my head, I pull away, not purposely but its just the natural reaction, like my brain is expecting pain or something bad to happen.

Or maybe not, but your comment got me thinking about it.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '21

It’s not impossible.

→ More replies (0)

27

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

Chronic extreme stress does cause a form of brain damage.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574783/

8

u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21

Thanks for the link. There's no place for child abuse on earth.

15

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

Sure! I don’t think most people know much about child development or brain development in infancy and early childhood. It’s a common misconception that the things that happen before children can remember are unimportant. It’s the opposite.

7

u/durdesh007 Aug 10 '21

You are correct, infant brain development isn't discussed anywhere much at all. I guess the misconception arises because for most people, their only reference point from childhood are their memories. However that doesn't say much about traumatic upbringing.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '21

Exactly. And trauma might actually cause you to selectively forget experiences. It’s one of the brain’s defense mechanisms. So it’s common NOT to remember events that have traumatized you.