Please define "opportunity" for me...?

Question

Adoption is often referred to as giving a child an opportunity, providing opportunity for a child when they wouldn't get that from their first parents.
What could hold back a child from having "opportunity"?
What requirements and characteristics does a person capable of giving opportunity have?

Definately not for a paper, just my own personal "want" to know what other human beings are thinkging about "opportunity" in adoption.

Great answer Nicole. :)

Rileys mom - thank you for your reply. I am interested in seeing people compare "opportunity"
some opportunities in life may not necessarily be great opportunities for others. I'm feeling like opportunity is a matter of opinion in certain situations.

I'm certainly not saying every child is better off with their first parents however... I believe some are missing opportunities lost by separation and loss of identity, culture, mother and clan that could very well be more important than those gained like wealth, 2 parents compared to 1, ponies, private school off in a far away land etc.

Thank you Victoria, for those of you who don't know I am an adoptee, and having been living in an "adoptees" shoes since I was 6 months old thank you! I was adopted from foster care. Been there, done that.

more on giving the unloved...love.

my mother, who surrendered me, loved and still loves me very much.

Answer 1

The problem is that people make the assumption that an adoptive home will be a good one. I'm not sure what opportunities people mean, but I imagine they are referring to love, "being wanted," adequate material goods, education and the like.

Well, there are children from adoptive homes that don't get these things, just as there are children in natural homes who don't get these things. If a child is placed for adoption simply because the natural parents are young and don't have much money, even though they do want and love the child, then I don't think this is such a great reason. Finances change for the good or for the worse for everyone. My adoptive parents lived in a small apartment when I was placed with them at the age of 2 years. They didn't have a regular bed for me. I slept on a small cot. They had one car, and it was older. My father used public transportation so my mother could have the car in case she needed to drive somewhere. We didn't have a lot of money, although things did get better as I got older and we were financially comfortable. But, we certainly never were people "with money." So, I'd have to say the idea that children will get good financial opportunities isn't a realistic one.

I've known more than a few kids who've grown up with abusive/alcoholic/neglectful adoptive parents, just as there are those who grow up in natural families of the same sort.

The point I'm getting at is that there are good and bad adoptive homes just as there are good and bad natural homes. Two parent homes end up divorced and single people get married. Poor people build better circumstances and sometimes people of means lose those means. Just as one cannot predict that an adoptive home that looks good won't turn sour, one cannot predict that a natural parent with little means won't be able to better those means while providing well for their child.

Plenty of natural parents have relinquished even though they felt love for their children, and even wanted to keep them, because they believed that their children would have a better opportunity with the idyllic adoptive family. Well, just as there's no idyllic natural family, there's no idyllic adoptive family. They're all just made of human beings with varying flaws.

I think it makes the whole reality of something as sad as giving up a child and having non-family members raise it much more palatable looking if one sees it through the filter that shows the natural parents as much less capable, and the adoptive parents as much more capable. But, no matter the reason, it's still unfortunate when children can't stay within their own families.

Answer 2

I'm often confused by these 'opportunities' as well, Gershom.

If potential adoptive parents are often borrowing money from relatives, and having 'fundraisers' to adopt children, then there certainly won't be ponies, swimming pools, or private schools, will there? In fact one wonders if these PAPs aren't resourceful enough to come up with 10K on their own, how will they handle the inevitable financial emergencies?

And when single women adopt children there is no 'two parent' family 'opportunity', is there? With an adoptive mother working full-time (the only option, right?) these kids are either in daycare for 9-10 hours a day, OR before/after care with public school. I don't consider institutional child care an 'opportunity' many children would miss.

Maybe the 'opportunity' to have siblings is an experience some of these kids have...but do non-biological siblings have lasting relationships? In the HUNDREDS of adopted people I know, I've never known an adoptee who has a close relationship with an adopted sibling. By adulthood the differences become too profound to sustain a lasting bond.

So 'opportunity'? Unless the mother is a drug addict, abusive, or neglectful, a child is better off with their mother/parents/extended family.

Answer 3

Beats me, Gershom.

I think most people define "opportunity" as material wealth. And certainly wealth does open up doors for people--I'm not trying to deny that wealth=privilege--but money alone doesn't provide ALL opportunities.

My daughter has a few opportunities she wouldn't have had if I had parented. These opportunities, though, only amount to this: she lives in a large city with her adoptive family, so she has easy access to the zoo, art museums, and some culture.

Oh, one other... her parents are bilingual, so she has the opportunity to learn Spanish from them, which I really like.

Had I parented her, she would be living with me in a more rural area, so we would not be going to the zoo every week and museums once a month. However, the opportunities she would have had with me (which she lost by being adopted) would be to have a parent with artistic ability nurture her own artistic ability; the opportunity to grow up with her biological sister (and other bio family members); and so on.

Schools, vacations, travel, lifestyle... all of that is comparable in terms of her adoptive home vs. her biological home. Really, her adoptive family and I live very, very similarly.

So as far as I can tell, in our adoption situation, the losses outweigh any gains. In some situations that's not true, in some cases children need new parents because of abuse or neglect or whathaveyou, but in ours? Nope.

Answer 4

In adopto-land opportunity equals money. The poor pregnant woman has "no" opportunity, the wealthy agencies "provide" opportunity (at a cost) and the adopters already "have" opportunity, they just don't have any small people to share it with.

Opportunity means a waiting list for the best childcare, jam packed schedules so the child can be "well rounded", designer clothes and pricey useless toys that do nothing to foster creativity or brain development, a nice house in suburbia, a car for the sweet sixteen party, a posh dorm room or apartment on campus at the finest schools so that Jr. can learn how to use his or her entitlement in mastering the fine art of beer bonging, huge weddings in 5 star resorts and a nice fat inheritance when the parents pass on.

I don't think all this opportunity did me a bit of good. I grew up spoiled into thinking that money equaled love and the poor were not fit to raise their children. I grew up thinking that unless you had all these things to offer you had no right becoming a parent. This is the opportunity of a lifetime? Being a broken adult unable to figure out who you are but having really cool "things" to make up for the loss. woo-freaking-hoo.

Anyone want my opportunity? I think I have lost my taste for it.

Answer 5

First, I was not unloved by my mother, and I was very much wanted, but I was taken.

I was also very much wanted by my adoptive parents. They loved their bio son whom they had first. I am sure that they fully intended to love me, but they did not. I think they could not. I was too different from their son, too different from them. Before they realized they couldn't love me, they adopted another baby - my adoptive sister - whom they also did not love. She was not only different from our adoptive parents and their son, but she was also different from me.

My mother was artistic. So was I. But I was denied the opportunity to develop my love of making art by my adoptive family because they didn't think it was "proper." Rather than spending the money on prep school, they should have let me go to public school and take outside art lessons - which my natural mother would have done, because she was an artist.

In addition to prep school, my adoptive family offered material comforts. But not the pursuit of an art career. In prep school, they don't teach typing, so I was not marketable. I was expected only to marry well. Which I did not. And was left with no marketable skills, after the wonderful "opportunity" of a better education.

I was not able to pursue an art career until my mid forties. Thanks, mom & dad, for all the wonderful opportunities. Not.

Answer 6

I have a feeling this is for a paper or something, and i ususally don't like doing those. But anyway, in a social sciences sense:

Education and income would be the two big ones. Geographic location might rank #3, because it is affected by income, but if you're growing up in an inner city gang-infested area, and the adopting couple lives in the suburbs, that's a plus.

Also, you could come from a religious, racial or cultural background that could be more advantageous to fitting into society.

Answer 7

well, if a child is in a bad family home, say for instance with parents who do drugs, and dont have any money, the child isnt getting the oppotunity to have a normal life, one where they can go to school, invite their friends home and learn and have fun and feel safe. are you against adoption in some way? it has saved many children from having unhappy lives, and yes, has given them more opportunitys.

Answer 8

what victoria said...that's just rude