A Horror Show Called Juno By Jessica DelBalzo

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_jessica__080128_a_horror_show_called.htm



Why, then, am I shuddering to think of the masses of young people pouring into the theaters to see this season’s critically-acclaimed Juno?...If I had to sum up my concerns in one word, it would be: adoption....Glamorizing adoption may be nothing new in Hollywood, but it is as dangerous a phenomenon now as it was when Joan Crawford acquired two children and became Mommy Dearest. Although Americans are thoroughly conditioned to view adoption as a benevolent institution, this insidious thinking is all too often devastating to young parents and their children. Having studied adoption for ten years, I have seen first-hand the distinct psychological wounds it leaves on mothers, fathers, and adopted people. Even the natural siblings of children who are adopted away have their own issues to face as a result.

Like many adoption-themed movies, Juno portrays adoption as a “loving choice” made by a young mother. Though other horror movies can be easily dismissed as unlikely or completely impossible scenarios, this one cannot. Juno is terrifying precisely because it seems so real. Young women who sit through this movie will come out believing that adoption is a choice – one made by a strong, smart, savvy, and otherwise adorable teenager, no less.

I am sure that you are probably thinking that, of course, adoption is a choice. Is it? In all my years as an activist and researcher, I have yet to meet a mother who made a free and informed decision to surrender her infant child to the adoption industry. In fact, organizations like the National Council for Adoption, a large lobby made up primarily of adoption agencies and their employees, are doing everything in their power to make sure that adoption is not a choice, but an expectation for young, poor, and otherwise vulnerable parents.

A federally funded program called the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program, operated by the NCFA and other pro-adoption groups, teaches professionals who work with pregnant women how to sell them on the concept of adoption. The House of Representatives is currently working to pass a resolution praising women who surrender children to adoption. Adoption agencies and crisis pregnancy centers exalt adoption using phrases like, “loving,” “responsible,” “caring,” and “unselfish.” And despite heartbreaking testimonies from women who experienced them in the 1950s and 60s, maternity homes are making a comeback, isolating pregnant young women from their friends and families with the expectation that they will hand over their babies at birth.
While books like Ann Fessler’s The Girls Who Went Away have helped to elucidate the impact of closed adoption on mothers who lost children in the decades before Roe v. Wade, our society still holds a positive view of the open adoptions which have become commonplace in recent years. However, rather than giving expectant mothers more control over their choices and their children, open adoptions like the one portrayed in Juno, present a unique set of complications for natural parents and young adoptees.

First, it is important to note that any agreements made between adopters and parents in an open adoption are not legally enforceable. Prospective adopters can, and often do, promise expectant parents that they will stay in touch through letters, pictures, phone calls, and visits throughout the child’s life, but there is no obligation for them to follow through once the adoption has been finalized. In fact, the majority of open adoptions are closed at some point by the adopters. Though the promise of future contact is used to coerce expectant parents who are hesitant to surrender their children, it is not a promise parents should ever trust.

Another coercive aspect of open adoption is the relationship that commonly develops between prospective adopters and expectant mothers. With hopeful adopters accompanying mothers-to-be to their prenatal check-ups, treating them to maternity clothes, fancy meals, and other material things, and even securing themselves an invitation to be present during labor and delivery, mothers who decide to keep their babies in the end often feel guilty and allow the adoption to proceed against their better judgment. A mother should never be put in such a compromising situation at such a critical time in her child’s life.

Even in the so-called “best” open adoptions, the law’s failure to protect the natural mother against adopters who revoke their agreements puts mothers in a terrible position. In my research, I have encountered countless parents who know that they must silence themselves, shy away from their children, and otherwise reject the primal instincts they have toward their babies in order to preserve any shred of contact they have left. Not only is it unhealthy to live this way, but it is also unfair for a child to see only a shadow of his or her mother.

Rather than allowing the glamorized version of adoption portrayed in Juno to influence their beliefs, it is my hope that any young women who came to see open adoption is a reasonable solution in the face of an unplanned pregnancy will go on to educate themselves about what it really means to lose a child to America’s billion dollar adoption industry. After all, being strong, smart, and savvy means recognizing propaganda -- and rejecting it.


Jessica DelBalzo is the founder of Adoption: Legalized Lies and the author of Unlearning Adoption: A Guide to Family Preservation and Protection.




Authors Website: www.unlearningadoption.com

Authors Bio: Jessica DelBalzo is a radical author, activist, and mother from Flemington, NJ. She is the founder of Adoption: Legalized Lies, a grassroots organization protecting families from the adoption industry. Her writing has appeared in various publications online and off, and her book, Unlearning Adoption: A Guide to Family Preservation and Protection, was released in July.

Maybe it's because I had a friend who was adopted, and I saw what it did to her, but I never understood how you can tell your child not to talk to strangers, but it's noble and good to give your baby to them.

made me cringe...because it makes teen pregnancy all cutesy and happy endings...when in reality it's not...I know it's suppose to be a comedy (really? I only laughed out loud like 2 times and the rest of the movie the audience and I sat silent), but I find this movie quite a one-sided view of choice...Plus I think it's very over-hyped and mediocre..not Oscar worthy really...like Little Miss Sunshine (worst nominated Best Picture ever)...

or all those biblical epics from the 50's? those movies were worse than "Sunshine" and "Juno" , IMO

I don't see "Juno" as a portrayal of the typical teen pregnancy or adoption, but it's a plausible scenario, well acted, well written...a good movie.

"Life Is Beautiful" wasn't a typical portrayal of Nazi death camp inmates, but was still a good movie.

My mom was adopted, and although she had a far from perfect, but still fairly typical childhood in the 30's, the thing that bothered her the most was her adoptive parents keeping it a secret, as if it were something to be ashamed of.

My friend's single mom (who was herself adopted) adopted 5 high needs (deaf, mentally handicapped, Vietnamese airlift baby) kids in addition to her two biological kids; although raised in a stable, caring environment, her mom's working graveyard shifts most of the time put alot of responsibility on my friend (she's the oldest) to care for all her siblings- she got married and moved out at 20, and things went downhill from there. Not the best scenario for adopting, but who knows how things would have gone if they'd been adopted by others?

that wasn't even pro-abortion as much as literally pro-choice.

It hits a bit too close to home to explain exactly why...but thanks.

who became a family with me through adoption, emailed me last December a website talking about how bad adoption is. She was appalled that anyone would try to say that her life is wrong. She does understand that each person's adoption story is different, but she is happy with her life. On the other hand, she also believes that every adoption comes with pain, for her and for her birth parents, but she has also told me that everyone has a story that has pain.

She respects that others disagree, but she wants her story to be respected as well.

I wonder if her birth mother feels lucky, too.

And as I said, she acknowledges that adoption comes with pain.

Both my birth mother and I agree she did the right thing. Adoption is not a horrible thing. I have a great family and now I have 2 great families.

It was also the last day I had any contact with my birth mother.

The product of a ceasarian delivery, I taken from the woman's belly and caressed lovingly by the Ob/gyn who delivered me.

Then I was shuttled off to a hospital nursery for six weeks. The original couple who had planned to adopt me relinguished me back to the hospital, as they did not want a girl.

Finally I was taken by my adoptive parents. Things were fine, in fact, rather stunningly perfect, until at the age of twelve, my mother became histrionic over the inner vision that I would be a slut offering myself to the wanton desires of the boys I didn't even have access to (I was sent to an all girl's high school.) Endless physical, emotional and psychological abuse followed.

At the age of eighteen, I attempted to find the hospital where I had been born. But the address on my birth certificate led me to a Keebler's cookie factory in South side Chicago. The building had never ever been a hospital.

Often when friends meet my mother and see her and my sister interact with me, they will take me aside and ask me when I was "Fostered" into the family. I have been basically a "foster" kid since the age of twelve, when my overly prudish mom decided that I would be followng the wicked unseemliness of the woman who bore me.

From my perspective, adoption SUCKS.

Which probably evolved for practical reasons: life used to be nasty, brutish and short. (In some parts of the world, it still is.) People died, children died (many, MANY children died), and the only hope for care in your old age was a child. And for a child, then as now, the only hope for survival was a stable adult in your life.

People on the American frontier routinely took in children who were not "theirs." Tribes like the Shawnee adopted everybody. Adoption was so common in the Pacific Islands that up to 29 percent of the population in a given area was adopted. In some cultures, people were adopted for reasons that are bizarre to us: an Indonesian man might give one of his sons to an honored war chief, because with such a warrior as his new father, the boy would absorb those qualities and do honor to his people. Then there were the Greeks, who adopted for financial reasons. If a man didn't have a son (daughters didn't inherit) he would adopt an heir, who might be an adult. Marcus Aurelius and Augustus Caesar were both adopted.

One thing about our culture, it has a really WEIRD attitude towards adoption. On the one hand, many right-to-lifers insist on nothing but, but these same right-to-lifers will forever refer to the child as "the adopted one." (I know an uber Christian who always referred to her granddaughter in this way. DH and I confronted her about this, "when does she get to stop being the adopted child,' and she did stop it, at least in front of us.) People differentiate between "real" children and adopted children. When the sixty-something son of George Burns sits at his father's deathbed, the media refers to him as Burns' "adopted son."

Young girls who opt to keep their babies are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they accept aid and stay home with their babies they're leeches on the system. If they go to work, they're endangering their children by putting them in daycare. And a girl who gives birth very young often has no help,(unlike days of yore, when she had a whole tribe of experienced, older women to help her. She is left to flounder, which is damaging to her and the baby.

And girls who do relinquish their babies are often castigated by friends and family. I remember reading one tragic story about a young girl who became pregnant at 13. When she became pregnant the third time (by the same man) she decided she couldn't possibly finish school while raising three children, and decided to give the baby up for adoption. Everyone she knew thought she was the most terrible person in the world. Her boyfriend -- even though he signed off on the adoption -- announced that she would give away no more of his children, and that now they would marry. It wasn't until years later'd she found out that he begun molesting their two daughters when both girls were still very young. One hung herself in the basement when she was fifteen, the other developed a severe drinking problem. She said if she had to do it over again, knowing what she knew now, she might consider relinquishing all three girls, or at least getting them into a safer environment, possibly longterm.

I don't know what the answer is. I've also come to the conclusion that an awful lot of people aren't fit to parent, whether by birth or adoption. I've done some work with the courts, with law enforcement and social services, and it is absolutely appalling what people will do their own flesh and blood.

and this adoption debate just one result. I don't have a clue how to fix it, either.

Your first descriptions of adoption describe adoptions of necessity. The adoptive family needs the child as much as the child needs a family. If they were living in a tribal arrangement, childcare may have fallen to a group of women, not just one on one.

Your next example - where the man gives a child to the chief - clearly indicates that the child is the possession of the father - where is the mother in all of this? Oh, I forgot, the mother is a possession of the man, too.

Adopting an adult as an heir - only the men again.

Nothing has changed - the women and the babies "belong" to the men. That's why the young mother is "damned if she does, and damned if she doesn't" because she and that baby NEED to belong to a man.

Why aren't the young men castigated for abandoning a child? Why is it always the responsibility of the woman? Why are women ALWAYS "the bad guy" in these cases? Its because that uterus is supposed to be controlled by a MAN.

Yup - its time to blame the patriarchy again!

I love my parents very much - they adopted my brother and me as babies and it seems I've always known. I'm well adjusted and have the two best parents in the world. In fact my biggest fear in life is the pain I'll feel when they are no longer in this world. I can't even think about it without tearing up.

My parents made it clear from the beginning how much they wanted me in their lives, and I have always felt very special and wanted because of it. I did locate my birth mother several years ago and she is a kind and wonderful person. I am very thankful to her for loving me enough to try to provide the best life for me. The man she had an affair with when she was young was married with a wife and three children, they wanted to raise me but my birth mother said "no way!". I shudder to think what would have happened if she would have agreed. We were happy to get to know each other over the last years and my parents supported me in finding her.

It's weird but my adoptive Dad and I are exactly alike. We even look alike and we have the exact same temperament. My adoptive Mom is my best friend and she has supported me 100% in every thing I've done in life. I find myself doing more and more things just like her. My parents gave me and my brother everything we could want in life and every advantage.

I just wanted to share my story because when I read the article it made me sad to see that point of view... not everyone has the same story. Being adopted has always made me feel special and wanted and I can't think of anyway it ever hurt me psychologically.

It hits very close to home with me.

I'm so happy to hear your birth mother is allowed to contact you.

You and your adoptive parents are all very fortunate.

Thank you.

:hug:

That's very nice to hear.

I look at my birth mother as very much a friend. To find that we had so many things in common was very fun. It was also a relief to finally be able to provide health information to doctors about family medical history... that was one thing that did use to worry me a little - the not knowing what possible genetic things to watch out for healthwise.

I do feel very lucky and fortunate everyday for my whole family - they mean everything to me.

what does she propose? keeping the babies at all cost? (there is no mention of abortion)...

So honest, decent, loving childless couples who want to adopt and are capable of being good parents (they do exist out there) are just SOL??

And I'm none the wiser. She weasels out of giving a straight answer on abortion, but whilst her language was too vague to be certain, it does seem that "keeping the baby at all costs" is her preferred solution.

in its attitude toward sexuality.
Many European countries had the same problems with teen pregnancy. They delt with this through comprehensive sex ed programs and now their "unwanted pregnancy" rates are extremely low.
In this country, we pursue abstinence programs that prove to be useless.

Sex ed, available birth control, available "Plan B." Makes sense.

Being raised by your own parents does not guarantee a child a good life any more or less than adoption does. Please don't generalize. Every situation is as special, distinct, and unique as the child involved.

it plagued her life...always wondering what happened to her baby. She did search and find her when her daughter was an adult.
She also watched Juno and thought it was nothing more than a fairy tale.

she said she wish she had gotten an abortion because it hurt too much to give up the kid and she felt it's absence.

That is not a reflection on my attitude toward abortion vs. adoption, but one corner of this where I can agree with the OP.

The part I don't agree with is elevating abortion to a right like free speech or something like that.

At best, abortion is legal because society made a pragmatic choice that less harm will be done by having it legal, just as we made that determination for alcohol, smoking, gambling, and tattoos (have you ever seen one that enhanced someone's looks).

Adoption WAS NOT glamorized. The adoptive parents are flawed people who eventually separate. The adoptive father doesn't really want a baby and makes his thoughts known to Juno and his wife before the baby is born.

Juno considered abortion but decided against it.
She knew she could not provide for her unborn child and came to this decision ON HER OWN. No one forced her or even mentioned adoption as one of her options.

Also, there is a very telling scene in the movie in which Juno's stepmother, upon accompanying Juno to her first ultrasound, basically calls out the ultrasound tech in doubting Juno's ability to parent her child. (for those who have seen the movie, you'll remember that scene well)

As the mother of teens, I found this movie to be a very realistic account of teen pregnancy.

You know, maybe you and your ridiculous agenda should actually watch the movie.

Something you might try someday, once you leave the silver screen.

You might get a new perspective on the subject. A perspective from the point of view of someone who may be or may have been important to your history. And your future.

of easy to get oil with in 5 years. Kids can expect that they will not be owning or driving a car. The only possible future for any kids is that they learn agriculture and conservation. Clean water and food will be the foremost priority for everyone and that is the future. Putting your faith in science to get us out of this mess is about as intelligent as worshiping an idol. The smart thing to do is to not have kids because without easy to get oil there will be no resources. You are free to study this now and make plans or become more of a victim by ignoring the facts about world resources vs population and the coming end of oil.

This author writes as if there are no children in the world desperately craving loving homes. Hell, ANY home.

We live in a world where there are people willing to spend the price of a house on fertility treatments to have a baby that's "theirs", but would never consider adopting a child already present with an urgent need for a home.

Might be fine in theory to get all anti-adoption in a world with no homeless children, but that ain't any world I know, sadly.