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    andthenshewaslikeLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:05pm

    The venn diagram between people who say, “Just adopt” and people who don’t know the first fucking thing about adoption is pretty much a circle. I’d love to see them try it, except they probably shouldn’t be exposed to children.

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      quagmireandthenshewaslike
      6/15/15 3:10pm

      THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. Anyone who says “just adopt” has never thought about it beyond the fact that there are kids who need parents. Like it’s that easy, you decide, and then the next day you bring home a kid.

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      Kalliequagmire
      6/15/15 3:16pm

      Yes, they seem to view it as akin to getting a kitten from a shelter or from the people down the road who found a pregnant stray cat.

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    peasandriceLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:11pm

    I’m guessing most people don’t realize how difficult (emotional, financially, etc.) the adoption process can be. A couple I’m friends with adopted three siblings from foster care about two years ago, and have worked hard to make sure the kids, who came from a tough background, have the emotional and educational resources they need. And the process wasn’t finalized until this winter—if the birth parents had petitioned, my friends could have lost the kids.

    Adoption is wonderful, and it makes amazing families, but it’s not something you “just” do. It can take a lot, and it should be undertaken by people who are committed to that path.

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      JaneyRottenpeasandrice
      6/15/15 3:17pm

      Totally. I have a friend who desperately wanted to adopt, but ended up getting pregnant instead because the adoption process was so expensive and grueling. Not only is adoption difficult, but it’s also flawed in many cases.

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      AP Bearpeasandrice
      6/15/15 3:17pm

      I feel like this is the justification given when people choose to adopt kids (/buy trafficked babies) from overseas. Yes you generally have to foster first, and yes their is a small time period in which the family can petition depending on the circumstance. But in many cases the time is not that long. Adoption is a life changing opportunity. From perusal to closing should probably take a little longer than it takes to purchase a condo.

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    BrianGriffinLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:08pm

    I think *any* person or couple, regardless of gender or sexuality, should be labeled as (at best) misguided or (at worse) simply stupid for spending tons of money on IVF and the like when there’s plenty of adoptable kids out there.

    What's more fiscally irresponsible than havering children? Spending untold thousands of dollars just to try to have them.

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      easybakeovenBrianGriffin
      6/15/15 3:15pm

      Adoption ain’t free or guaranteed, either. Far from it. And as to the “plenty of adoptable kids out there,” there really just *aren’t* unless you adopt older children who may have emotional issues or children with special needs. It’s great that some families are willing or able to do this - but let’s face it, it’s not for everyone, and we shouldn’t guilt people who aren’t up for that sort of family into adopting children that they may not be cut out to raise.

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      BlueBellyBrianGriffin
      6/15/15 3:18pm

      I was one of those adoptable kids. I have every intention of being misguided/simply stupid when I’m ready to have kids because being adopted fucking sucked and I want children that are biologically related to me.

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    Bears for PresidentLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:13pm

    Talking about the decision to have kids with my queer friends: “I don’t know, I know it seems like a lot of time and effort and money but the truth is we’ve just reached that point in our life where we want to start a family and grow our love, you know?”

    Talking about the decision to have kids with my straight friends: “I don’t know. I think that she was pretty amped up after we saw Drive and we finished both bottles of wine.”

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      ThereIsASeasonTurnTurnTurnBears for President
      6/15/15 3:15pm

      Or “well I thought it would fix my marriage, like how we got the dog when it seemed like he was flaking”

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      eliz41Bears for President
      6/15/15 3:37pm

      Ahhhhh, yes. Husband and I are firmly in the child-free camp*, and we often get questioned about our decision, as if we hadn’t thought long and hard and agonized over it, both separately and together. We both agree that it is a selfish decision, but we don’t see that as a negative thing, we see that as a mature and self-recognizing thing.

      Lots and lots and lots of (straight) couples have kids without ever making it a captial-d Decision, it just “happens.” But those of us who have made a Decision not to, or like the author who has made a Decision to (because in their case it can’t just “happen), we get all the judgement.

      *That being said, we both agree that if we ever changed our minds**, we would adopt from the foster system.

      **Though I feel like I will never change my mind purely out of spite to prove the judgers wrong. Cuz after they question the Decision, they all insist that we will Change Our Minds. (Yes, more capitals.)

      /selfish rant

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    Cocopop!Lindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:15pm

    People should build their family in the way that feels right to them, and everyone else should butt out of it. Piling on someone who is going through infertility, and accusing them of selfishness is pretty crummy behavior.

    The great part is, even if we have children within the standard cisgender heterosexual paradigm, there are so many ways to do it wrong. I had one child instead of two. Doing it wrong! Have two girls? Better try for a boy! Have another go at it? You might fuck up and have another girl, and at any rate, now you have too many kids! Plus you’re probably too old or too young, so there’s that. BAH.

    If someone wants to have a family, it’s none of our business how they do it.

    Best of luck to the author and her partner.

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      panUNDEADdroid7Cocopop!
      6/15/15 3:22pm

      I had one child instead of two. Doing it wrong!

      I’m an only child, and I’ve always been weird and socially anxious like, straight out of the womb. My second grade teacher (who by the way was only 21 years old and not a parent) told my mom she was a bad parent for only having one kid and that I would never be properly socialized unless she had a second one. I really wish I could go back in time (as an adult of course, so I could fully appreciate it) and watch my mom freak out on her.

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      Cocopop!panUNDEADdroid7
      6/15/15 3:26pm

      I’m a teacher, and that kind of thing makes me insane. I’m sorry. I hope your mother set her straight.

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    The Noble RenardLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:03pm

    People who judge other peoples’ reproductive choices are terrible people*, so my sympathies go out to you.

    *Unless it’s judging the Duggars, because, come on.

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      randilynThe Noble Renard
      6/15/15 3:05pm

      Theirs wasn’t a choice. It was a mandate from heaven.

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      ThereIsASeasonTurnTurnTurnThe Noble Renard
      6/15/15 3:09pm

      Having worked in the foster care system, sorry, but taking a kid out of it is a decidedly higher ethical state than not doing so.

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    Morifarty's ringtoneLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:14pm

    Excuse me, but I think I am better equipped to make decisions about starting a family with your partner and the contents of her uterus than either of you two are, I am an anonymous commenter on the internet.

    It’s like that doesn’t even mean anything anymore.

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      Bears for PresidentMorifarty's ringtone
      6/15/15 3:32pm

      Right? If I can’t snarkily judge other people’s personal decisions on line what am I going to do? Have meaningful and fulfilling relationships with my friends and family?

      I have a word for people who do that and it begins with a “Ch” and ends with an “Umps”.

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      Morifarty's ringtoneBears for President
      6/15/15 3:35pm

      I DON’T EVEN LIKE THOSE PEOPLE

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    Loose_SealLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:15pm

    When my husband and I had fertility issues, we had a few “Why don’t you just adopt?” questions. Asinine. No one just adopts. We did quite a bit of research and had decided that adoption would not be right for us. It’s not like it’s a back-up plan. Adoption is not simple and can take forever. And that’s just the process, not to mention everything else that goes along with making that decision. Just deciding what kind of adoption you want can be an agonizing journey.

    The fact that people are putting this pressure on you is ridiculous. No one should have to justify their birth/adoption choices. Do people think that it’s more acceptable to interrogate and judge LGBTQ family choices?

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      Violet BaudelaireLoose_Seal
      6/15/15 3:22pm

      I think you make an amazing point, which is that people tend to treat adoption like it’s sort of the dregs of having children - “Oh, nothing else worked for you and you’re a complete failure? I guess it’s ADOPTION time”. It’s a subtle reinforcement that adoption and adopted families are lesser, not the same, what people only do if they “have” to, etc.

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      unreliable narratorViolet Baudelaire
      6/15/15 4:03pm

      I don’t know if it’s necessarily that so much as “Why are you wasting so much time and effort (and money, in some cases) trying to have your OWN children when adoption is so EASY!”

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    mollymlf05Lindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:08pm

    No matter what you do re: reproduction, people will think you’re doing it wrong somehow, so I say fuck ‘em and do what you want.

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      Zabellamollymlf05
      6/15/15 3:43pm

      “Damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, so you might as well just do whatever you want.”

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      Mr.Noir, Liberal Hippie KingZabella
      6/15/15 4:03pm

      Truer words never spoken.

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    napsauceLindsay King-Miller
    6/15/15 3:14pm

    No matter what your reproductive choices are, someone is gonna call you selfish for it. Unless you’re a man, of course.* This type of terrible behavior seems to be directed toward women only.

    *I have never personally heard of a man called selfish for reproductive choice reasons, but perhaps this happens to them too?

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      Violet Baudelairenapsauce
      6/15/15 3:24pm

      Actually, weirdly, I feel like you’re right. I feel like (THIS IS ALL MY FEELS NO SCIENCE HERE) when we see a gay male couple turning to a surrogate or to IVF or insemination to have a child, we think awww. But bring in any couple that involves a woman, be it lesbian or hetero, and they’re selfish for doing the same things. Even if medically, that person with a vagina isn’t physically able to create or carry a child to term any more than a person with a penis is.

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      AstridLuViolet Baudelaire
      6/15/15 3:59pm

      I think the problem here (and the root of a lot of other problems as well) is that society is really obsessed with genitals and other reproductive organs and what they’re all FOR. Womb-people are walking wombs who carry children and nurture children otherwise humanity is broken, and penis-people ACT ON STUFF and leave their MARK ON THE WORLD. I think on a very deep level we have a hard time computing when reproductive organs (and the people attached to them) are used for anything other than their One True Purpose. Which all makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view but surely in 2015 we’re grown up enough as a species to get over it already.

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