Adoption to gay men

[sarah_beth]

I’m not quite sure where to start but here I go. My husband and I are Catholic and we have raised our children in the faith. We attend mass regularly, they go to Catholic schools and overall our faith is a large part of our life. I thought I was doing everything right until I found out my oldest daughter was pregnant. She is 17 now. Her boyfriend and his parents are Catholic as well. Obviously an abortion was out of the question. Collectively the boys parents, my husband and I discussed adoption and that seemed to be the resolution. We found a wonderful agency and a wonderful Catholic couple was picked. Now my daughter has decided against her original plan. She still wants the baby to be adopted but insists she doesn’t want ‘strangers’ raising the child. (She has communicated with the couple for months and met with them a handful of times. They adoption would even be open with pictures and updates). Now her and her boyfriend have announced they want his uncles to adopt the baby. That’s right, uncles! His homosexual uncle and his ‘husband’. My daughter knows homosexuality is a sin. I’ve tried to talk to her about the difficulties this child will face until I’m blue. We’ve prayed, we’ve had her speak to a Catholic counselor. She is rebelling hard. I am heartbroken for the innocent baby. I am heartbroken for this couple who were promised this baby. I’ve even mentioned the alternative of her keeping the baby and her father and I helping her until she gets settled into a career. She insists on the adoption with these gay men. I’m beyond frustrated. I need advice, I need help and I need prayers!

 

[whm]

I’ve even mentioned the alternative of her keeping the baby and her father and I helping her until she gets settled into a career. !

I would push for this ^. Regardless of the other people being homosexuals. Having the grandparents be the primary caregivers and your daughter remaining the mother is by far the best option for the baby. You don’t even have to bring homosexuality into it to make a good argument. The baby will then forever know that her mother loved her and wanted her.

 

[marymary1975]

I would push for this ^. Regardless of the other people being homosexuals. Having the grandparents be the primary caregivers and your daughter remaining the mother is by far the best option for the baby. You don’t even have to bring homosexuality into it to make a good argument. The baby will then forever know that her mother loved her and wanted her.

I second this. Specially if the reasoning why they rejected the open adoption was because they want someone familiar to them. The best scenario would be if the grandparents become the primary caretakers and the baby remains close to the mother and the father. Don’t focus on the homosexuality part focus in that the best for your grandchild and daughter would be if you become the caretaker. I will be praying for you.

 

[gardenswithkids]

It occurs to me that your daughter may consciously or subconsciously realize that if she allows these two men to adopt her child, the child will not know a mother. Perhaps your daughter doesn’t really want her child to have a mother who isn’t her. Giving her child to another woman to raise would replace your daughter as the child’s mother. It may indicate that in her heart she wants to be the child’s mother and not let some other woman have the privilege.

Prayers for this situation.

 

[styrgwillidar]

“I thought I was doing everything right…”

Please don’t beat yourself up. You may very well have been doing everything right, your daughter chose a course of action. We’ll never know if our kids successes or failures are because of us, or despite us. Parenting in a large part is taking the credit and/or blame for things that to a great extent are outside of our control. We just have to do the best we can given the things we know at the time we make various decisions.

I would ask your daughter if she would have wanted to be raised without a mother. Does she see you and your husband as interchangeable? Does she view each of you the same, go to you to talk about the same things? She learned about male/female relationships from observing your relationship with your husband. A same sex couple, no matter their intentions can not model a heterosexual relationship. Two men raising a child are two men raising a child, not one man and one female simulation.

 

[sarah_beth]

Sadly, my daughter is adamant about the adoption. She claims she does want the baby to be adopted. We’ve gone over various scenarios, told her how much help we’d be willing to give her, she is still insisting on adoption.

Our familial roles have always been very traditional. My husband works to support us and I’m a homemaker. I’ve always been the nurturer and he’s the more strict, disciplinarian parent. He does have a good relationship with our children, they often go to him for advice but my daughters have always been shy about discussing feminine issues with him. If they have questions about their bodies or need products I’m the go to parent. I don’t know how she can feel a mother isn’t essential to the child’s well being.

One of the reasons she keeps bringing up is that she is there only chance for a baby. Obviously they can’t have one on their own. Neither can they first couple she promised the child too though, for different reasons of course. I just am at a loss.

 

[EasterJoy]

One of the reasons she keeps bringing up is that she is there only chance for a baby. Obviously they can’t have one on their own. Neither can they first couple she promised the child too though, for different reasons of course. I just am at a loss.

She is also the only chance of the couple she lead on, too, and they married with the fair expectation that their union might have been fertile. The gay men, in contrast, knew that their union by its very nature could never produce children. (After all, it is not as if we live in times when homosexuals are forbidden by secular culture from adopting.)

She might also realize that by not choosing someone farther from the family for adoptive parents, her oldest child will be the “odd man out” at family gatherings which will include the children your daughter and her boyfriend later elect to keep–because yes, she might be married to her present boyfriend later on down the line. After all, her boyfriend and his uncle are going to tell the child who his or her real parents are. This is not 1920, when the older relative, in a heterosexual marriage at the time of the birth, might pretend to be the real parent. How is that going to work out?

 

[Sophie_Lawrence]

Why not adopt your grandchild?

 

[QuasiCatholic]

You do realize this isn’t YOUR decision right?

Your daughter is the mother of this child. It’s her choice to whether to keep it or give it up for adoption, and it’s her choice who she gives it to if she chooses the latter.

Presumably she and her boyfriend know his uncle and his uncle’s partner well (or at least the boyfriend does) and think they have qualities that will make them good parents. There’s no guarantee that the baby would be better off with a straight couple, and if this is what she and the father are most comfortable with, you need to accept that.

I mean look back at what you wrote about how the “original plan” came to be: “Collectively **the boys parents, my husband and I discussed adoption **and that seemed to be the resolution. We found a wonderful agency and a wonderful Catholic couple was picked.”

By your own description, the baby’s parents weren’t even part of the discussion!

 

[UnCatholicBride]

She is also the only chance of the couple she lead on, too, and they married with the fair expectation that their union might have been fertile.

I just want to point out that your choice of words is VERY hurtful to women who have chosen, or are considering adoption.

A baby is not a commodity to be traded. She did not “lead them on”- she was considering a couple for adoption, and then decided that they weren’t the right people to raise HER child.

At the end of the day it’s HER body, HER baby, and HER choice. Up until the moment relinquishment papers are signed, a mother is FREE to choose to parent, is FREE to choose another family, or FREE to ask for more time to consider her options.

By using language such as “leading on” a prospective adoptive couple, you’re implying that the couple she had considered for placement has more say over her child than the natural mother does.

 

[EasterJoy]

I just want to point out that your choice of words is VERY hurtful to women who have chosen, or are considering adoption.

A baby is not a commodity to be traded. She did not “lead them on”- she was considering a couple for adoption, and then decided that they weren’t the right people to raise HER child.

At the end of the day it’s HER body, HER baby, and HER choice. Up until the moment relinquishment papers are signed, a mother is FREE to choose to parent, is FREE to choose another family, or FREE to ask for more time to consider her options.

By using language such as “leading on” a prospective adoptive couple, you’re implying that the couple she had considered for placement has more say over her child than the natural mother does.

That was not my intention, and no, a baby is not a commodity to be traded. Nevertheless, I do not see why it is VERY hurtful to point out that the couple she was communicating with have feelings, too, and telling them “I don’t want my child raised by strangers” is not exactly a sensitive way to refer to a couple who has made themselves very vulnerable and open to her during her decision-making process. They are not relatives, but they are no longer strangers. To say that she “lead them on” was indeed the wrong way to put it, but they let her into their lives, too, and into their struggle with infertility, and they do not deserve to be called “strangers.” That is what I was trying to say.

 

[Loly_Maria]

In my opinion, this decision has to be left completely up to your daughter and her partner. It’s their baby, and they need to be free to choose who they think would be the best parents, without being pressured into choosing someone that they are not 100% comfortable with.

 

[vsedriver]

In my opinion, this decision has to be left completely up to your daughter and her partner. It’s their baby, and they need to be free to choose who they think would be the best parents, without being pressured into choosing someone that they are not 100% comfortable with.

the parents decision should be based on what is best for the child. Every child deserves to have a mother and a father. This is their right by nature. It is wrong to deliberately deny a child this natural experience. No truly loving parent would ever do this. Are you sure that there is no money involved?

 

[gardenswithkids]

This thread has been on my mind. I really feel for you, Sarah Beth, and the disappointment you must be feeling, first in discovering your teenage daughter was inappropriate with her boyfriend and now her wanting to place your grandchild up for adoption to a couple that can not provide the child with a mother. I have thought of all kinds of points that I might make to your daughter: the need for her child to have a mother, how this baby is not the gay couple’s only chance at having a baby because gay men use women as surrogate, treating wombs like incubators instead of cherishing women as wives; how if these men wanted a child they could have individually chosen to love a woman; about how several persons raised by loving gay couples have written to the Supreme Court on behalf of children’s need for both mother and father. etc. etc. Oh, yes, I could say a lot! I might ask your daughter about her decision not to choose the other couple, for instance-- did the potential adoptive mother seem a bit too grabby, maybe touching your daughter’s pregnant belly too much, giving your daughter an uncomfortable feeling that the woman was already claiming the child as her own? I might ask her to hold off before she sign final adoption papers even if she gives the child to the uncle, to consider a longer waiting period before making her decision irrevocable. I could say a lot and ask a lot of questions. And NOTHING of what I could say or ask would likely make a difference to your daughter if her mind is made up.

Just as in the case of abortion, (which we can all be grateful your daughter did not choose!) the law does not allow us to make the final decision. Even though the law won’t consider your request on behalf of your grandchild, you CAN turn to a higher authority. We all can do that. My best suggestion for you at this point is to PRAY. Pray hard. Pray, fast and make small sacrifices for everyone involved. Have a Mass said for your daughter and grandchild. I’d particularly recommend the intercession of St. Joseph, patron saint of the family.

St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the Throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord; so that having engaged here below your Heavenly power I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. O St. Joseph, I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms. I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me, and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. St. Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for us. Amen.

 

[masondoggy]

Collectively the boys parents, my husband and I discussed adoption and that seemed to be the resolution. .

I could be very off base here but it sounds here like you and the father’s parents left your daughter and her boyfriend out of this very important discussion? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if your daughter is acting out in anger towards you and seeking to “punish” you by adopting your grandchild out to a gay couple. What better way to make you suffer? (in a teenager’s rebellious mind?)

Again, I could be completely off base here. But if this discussion did happen without the baby’s parents involved and their feelings taken into account, you may want to address this with your daughter…because I wouldn’t blame her one bit for being angry if that is the case.

 

[whm]

I could be very off base here but it sounds here like you and the father’s parents left your daughter and her boyfriend out of this very important discussion? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if your daughter is acting out in anger towards you and seeking to “punish” you by adopting your grandchild out to a gay couple. What better way to make you suffer? (in a teenager’s rebellious mind?)

Again, I could be completely off base here. But if this discussion did happen without the baby’s parents involved and their feelings taken into account, you may want to address this with your daughter…because I wouldn’t blame her one bit for being angry if that is the case.

I wonder wouldn’t the girl’s parents be the ones with the legal right to make these decisions?

 

[UbiCaritas]

I could be very off base here but it sounds here like you and the father’s parents left your daughter and her boyfriend out of this very important discussion? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if your daughter is acting out in anger towards you and seeking to “punish” you by adopting your grandchild out to a gay couple. What better way to make you suffer? (in a teenager’s rebellious mind?)

Again, I could be completely off base here. But if this discussion did happen without the baby’s parents involved and their feelings taken into account, you may want to address this with your daughter…because I wouldn’t blame her one bit for being angry if that is the case.

This was something that struck me, too. At 17, the OP’s daughter has the legal right to as she wills with her body and child. (Whether or not that’s a good thing in the former case is another point entirely.) She’s an adult, and having other adults get together behind her back to decide what will happen to her and her baby would probably make her very angry. It certainly would me!

Of course, I could be misunderstanding the situation, and if that’s the case, I apologize.

 

[Havard]

This was something that struck me, too. At 17, the OP’s daughter has the legal right to as she wills with her body and child. (Whether or not that’s a good thing in the former case is another point entirely.) She’s an adult, and having other adults get together behind her back to decide what will happen to her and her baby would probably make her very angry. It certainly would me!

A 17-year-old is a minor, not an adult. And unless she’s an emancipated minor, her parents are still legally responsible for her in almost all things (and most likely financially as well.) All that said, minors can enter into adoption contracts without their parents’ approval, however that does not make them adults in the eyes of the law.

 

[UbiCaritas]

A 17-year-old is a minor, not an adult. And unless she’s an emancipated minor, her parents are still legally responsible for her in almost all things (and most likely financially as well.) All that said, minors can enter into adoption contracts without their parents’ approval, however that does not make them adults in the eyes of the law.

Insofar as her legal right to abort, carry, raise, or adopt a child, she’s an adult.

 

[masondoggy]

I wonder wouldn’t the girl’s parents be the ones with the legal right to make these decisions?

No, not legally. When it comes to pregnant teens, parental rights go out the window as far as the law is concerned.