The term ‘giving up’ is filled with negative connotations. Whether you’re throwing your arms up in the air when a challenge proves to great, waving a white flag of defeat when an enemy overpowers you, or casting aside a bad habit, you are giving up. But when it comes to placing a child up for adoption, the term ‘giving up’ is a misnomer.
After all, it takes bravery and a whole lot of love to choose the adoption path. It is far from giving up.
You Are Creating A Better Future
By placing your baby up for adoption, you are not taking a passive role in determining their future. According to ‘Giving a Baby Up for Adoption is Not Giving Up,’ by deciding who the adopting parents will be and how much contact you will have with them, you are, in effect, creating a plan for the life you want for your baby. By taking steps to ensure that your baby has everything you want for them, but cannot provide yourself, you are not giving up. You are being proactive–an advocate for your child.
It takes Self-Reflection
Placing a baby up for adoption is not any easy decision that anyone enters into lightly. It involves taking an honest appraisal of your situation and your ability to care for a baby. This means examining your emotional and mental preparedness for parenthood, your financial situation, the level of support from family and friends, and the stability of your home.
If these do fall short and you decide it is in your baby’s best interests to be placed for adoption, this is far from ‘giving up.’ It is, instead, taking action to do give your baby a better life.
You Can Improve Your Own Situation
Sometimes, placing a baby up for adoption is not only best for the baby, but it is also best for your future too. Juggling high school or college with motherhood may prove too overwhelming for you, jeopardizing both your future and that of your child.
In fact, according to Livestrong’s ‘What are the Benefits of Giving a Baby Up for Adoption?,’ birth parents who place their baby up for adoption tend to receive more advanced levels of education and find better jobs. This, in turn, will enable them to provide a better life for themselves and their future children. Again, this sounds nothing like ‘giving up.’
It’s Based on Love, Not Surrender
‘Giving up’ an arduous task, a bad habit, or a loathed occupation is often followed by a sense of relief. Placing your baby for adoption will likely be the most difficult thing you will ever do.
In an interview with Psychology Today, one birth mother describes her decision as springing ‘from a deep knowing in [her] soul from the bottom of [her] heart to every inch of [her] being that [she] might think it’s okay to drag [herself] through hell financially, physically, and emotionally, but to do it to a child is another story.’
The decision to ‘give up’ your child is not based on the desire to remove a negative from your life–it is all about putting positives into your baby’s life. It is a choice entered into out of love.
It is important that you remove ‘giving up’ out of your adoption vocabulary. You are not giving up your child. You are ‘lifting them up’ by providing them with a better life.
If you’d like to learn more about picking the right family for your baby, you may want to check out ‘A Family Made to Order: Choosing the Right Adoptive Family for Your Child.’
