#''no one should breed'' is... slippery territory imo.

[carry-on-my-wayward-butt]

I’ve been thinking of this for a while and i need to ask this in the best possible faith i can: what in the WORLD made you decide to give birth instead of adopting? I can only see it as an unimaginable cruelty to bring a life into this world, the number of kids needing adoption, AND the horrible trauma that is pregnancy and child birth. I really wanna understand how, idk, the intimacy of that? Overrides it all? I don’t get your decision and i want to at least try my very hardest

this is a very common question and i don't fault you at all for asking it, but i'm laying out all of my thoughts right now in this answer and i'm not interested in continuing the conversation honestly. not for any annoyed feelings or anything, just because it was a lot to type out and i dont feel like thinking about heavy serious stuff like this any further for a bit, im stressed today lmao this is my limit.

why did i decide to get pregnant instead of adopt?

i am a fundamentally selfish person. my first priority has always and will always be myself and my family, and my/our wants and needs. i dont ask for much. so when i do, i get it. this isn't a brag, it's a fact of my life. for better or for worse(frequently for minor debt), i find a way to get what i want.

following that train of thought, i want a child that looks like me and my husband. what is more selfish than wanting to look at yourself all day long? nothing comes to mind really. all my life i saw pictures of myself as a baby and i wanted that for me. and, as previously emphasized, have that now.

sometimes i think about the way i was raised and think "why. how. what could have you looking at your child that you made, carried and raised, and lead you to this decision." i want to know first hand. i want to understand my mother, and myself. i want to treat someone the way i wanted to be treated. with respect and validation and deference. i want to prove to myself that they could have done that for me.

i wanted the experience of being pregnant and wondered how it would affect my worldview, my view of others, family and friends, of my partner, of myself. i have that information and experience now. i hated the physical feeling of being pregnant, but i loved my body at that point truly and more fully that i ever have. or ever will again. i genuinely for the first time felt so positive and loving towards my body, and that was an experience i wouldn't give up for the world. also having a c section wasn't that bad for me. being in LABOR for 50+ hours was dicks but the actual birth part was ezpz. i've had plenty of surgeries and this one was no different expect for being awake. it was surreal and scary obviously but honestly it was fun looking back on it. not a lot of people can say that, but i mean it.

i always faulted my mother for having me. i didn't ask for it. i didn't want it. there were times i truly hated her for it. i dont anymore. the world was always awful. it will always be awful. it was also always beautiful. and it will always be beautiful. babies will continue to be born regardless. i dont want charlie to be anyone or do anything. i just want them to have fun. i want them to know joy and feel sunshine and rain and cold noses and sweaty palms. i want to take them to the aquarium, and to the movies, and on their first roller coaster. certainly the world is a frightening and painful place. but i want it to be fun.

keep these points at the top. the rest of what i'm about to say are my true feelings, but they're not me saying 'ooohhh my reasons are pure and noble~!' no. im selfish. i do feel this way, but first and foremost, im selfish and im acknowledging that. everyone should. there is no pure and selfless reason to have a child and more people need to acknowledge that fact.

i am not opposed to adoption, but i am opposed to the privatized, for profit, infant adoption industry. and it absolutely is an industry. after hearing from many people who have experienced it first hand, it occurred to me that, duh, buying a baby is fucking weird and creepy. not only that but a good majority of the time, those tens of thousands of dollars aren't even going to the birth parent, it's all to the agency. that's not right. like god, if you're going to get paid for handing out children at least close out the invoice from your vendor. its insane and depressing.

speaking of the birth parent, the amount of first hand accounts i've watched and read about where the (often teenage) birth parent is coerced heavily into giving up their child, and they they come to understand later that they didn't have to, that they could have managed, and that they didn't want to and felt forced or coerced by adults to follow through is horrifying. i dont want to support a system like that. i don't want to run the risk of participating in the unimaginable traumatizing of a frightened child. my baby was taken from my arms and put into the nicu 20 hours after being born. the pain i felt then was an ice cold stab that did not cease until i got to finally visit hours and hours later. it laid there, numbing me from the inside, for the five days it took until we were able to all go home together. and it took time to melt. how could i twist that knife on someone else? how could i be the reason it freezes to their ribcage and keeps sawing the serrated edge against their heart forever? i dont want to be that person.

certainly there are also times where genuinely the best thing for the child is that they are far away from their family for good. but who am i, as a layperson, as a stranger, to insert myself into that decision making process? is the mother an underaged addict who threatened to sell the baby for drugs? or are they just a scared and suicidal kid whose smoked pot twice and looking for any other reason to add to a list of "justifications for offing myself"? did they get assaulted and don't want a reminder of the worst day of their life? or did their mother make them say that because their parents dont like the boyfriend? do they need real help and reunification? or are they an actual danger to the child? none of these are my business, but in the best interests of the child, the answers matter. the agency looking into those questions has an implicit bias against the birth parent, because a successful adoption means profit for them. which leads me to:

i cannot fully trust that the people facilitating the adoption have the best interests of each party involved, because they are making a profit. how do i trust someone whose paycheck hinges on me accepting their version of the facts? to feel personally okay with the decision, i would have to know for certain myself, verify the facts myself, and who the hell am i to get up in a total strangers business like that during the most traumatizing point in their life? that would be fucked. that would be so fucked. i would HATE that. i don't want to do that to somebody else.

the goal of foster placements is reunification as long as thats in the best interests of the child. i want to fully raise a child from birth to adulthood and then die knowing my child felt secure and loved their whole life, i don't want the constant grim overhang of "next week could be the last time i see you ever again." and as we established in chapter one, my priority is the wants and needs of myself and my family. because i'm a selfish person.

these are the thoughts i have about it. this is not me saying "oh my reasons are better because this and that" or "oh people should or shouldnt have kids because of this and that" they are simply my reasons and my feelings and i am not placing moral value on them. i believe that if someone doesn't want to have children or be pregnant, they absolutely should not have to be. finally completing a pregnancy and having a living baby has made me more pro-choice than ever.

and just to reiterate. i'm not open to discussing this, not for annoyed reasons, just for exhaustion reasons. im not a fan of deep diving into complex topics or complicated feelings. im stressed rn lol.

#op #ask #i understand why people ask this question #i dont hold it against them #just be careful it doesnt slide into the whole antinatalist eugenics-lite stuff #''no one should breed'' is... slippery territory imo.