Where will the money come from: AKA; it takes a village

Normally, when I write a new post, I wait until the post is complete to name it. Why? Because when I start writing, I have a thought of what I want to say, but I never know for sure where it will end up. My ideas start out as small little thoughts and become “complete” during the writing of a post. As I write, I learn more about what is truly in my head. This is the way my mind works. I’m sure that it is the way many writers minds’ work.

This time however, I do know where I want to end up at. I have a beginning and I have an ending… Or perhaps the ending is the beginning… I’m hoping for that anyway. What will come in the middle is what we shall see…. 

In my last few post, I’ve been trying to find some alternatives to adoption and to find a way to make the act of adoption … More human… So to speak. Some of my thoughts were to utilize programs that are already in place with in the our government. (Ok, here I must stress that I am talking about the U.S. Government, because truly I don’t have enough knowledge to speak of any other country, even though this is a world problem that needs to be addressed everywhere, I am only able to talk about what I know.)

Thanks to Harlow’s Monkey, we know that at least in some states, the family foster system does indeed already exist. Unfortunately, many of the women do not know about the existence of such programs that could mean the difference between being able to keep their child, or loosing that child to adoption.

In my last post, I talked about the need for government regulations on the adoption process. There needs to be a requirement that any woman who is considering adoption must be told about the programs that she could access to help her raise her baby. We need to stop telling women that they can’t give a child what another couple could, just because she is poor or under educated or doesn’t have job skills that could land her a good paying job.

Instead, we need to have programs that are readily available to her, that will provide day care, and skill education so she can learn how to support herself and her child. I’m not talking about putting yet another family in the “welfare” system, so that they will be trapped in that government controlled life without hope of making it on their own, EVER. I’m talking about our government using the programs that they already have created to help these people to gain control over their own lives.

So if the government suddenly, today, starts telling everyone about the programs that exist that could help them… What then? Well, I am sure that a lot of women would suddenly realize that adoption isn’t their last hope for the child they love so much. Suddenly the increase in women who are asking for government help could be astronomical. Who will pay for all this?

Well, first off, if it was done correctly, the cost would be temporary. The benefit would be that people wouldn’t remain on Welfare all their lives. They would go to school and learn skills to get careers and they would become productive members of society that would increase the taxes paid in to fund these programs.

But also, I’m a bit angry that I am sure the government officials would be asking this question. I see public, government supported schools that have books that are outdated, and doesn’t have enough supplies for all the teachers without help from donations from citizens in the community. I drive on roads and even interstate freeways that are in such disrepair that you could easily damage your car if you do not avoid the potholes and cracks.

And then I see people working two and three jobs just to make ends meet, because the government is taking so much of their hard earned money in taxes! And then they go to the stores to buy supplies for their lives and pay more taxes. And the people like my dad, who worked all their lives, paying into the social security program for fifty years or more and now they don’t even get enough back to pay rent on a house! Who’s going to pay for it? We are! We already are paying for it! Everyday! We are paying and now the government needs to step up and use that money that we’ve paid with blood, sweat and tears to save these families.

You would think that this would be the end of this post. As I have said in my past post it is important for us to make our voices heard. We have to speak up, yell out for the rights of those who can’t or don’t know how to speak up for themselves. But is that enough? NO! It’s not nearly enough!

Should we stand here on these self proclaimed pedestals and demand that the government fix this all themselves? No! While I truly believe that the government has the power to fix this broken system, we need to realize that we are all here, now, together on this lovely planet we call earth.

This blogging group, that I consider myself a member of is a diverse little group. There are people in it from all walks of life. Adopted Adults, First mothers and fathers, and Adoptive Parents. We “come together” here on this thing we call the Internet and our differences fall away. We are here for one thing.. We seek out information, answers to our questions… And we share our own answers with each other.

One thing I am sure of, we all work hard, in one way or another, for what we now have. What ever that may be. But I’ve also seen the hearts of this “group”. And it amazes me! These are people who know what love is. They know how to love and how to care for others. They share that love in small ways with other members of this “group” even though most of us have never met in “real life”

So when this woman: http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/ showed her heart in this post, http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/2006/09/teddy-bear.html

I was not surprised of the love she projected. But I was a bit taken back, because here she was being proactive in trying to start in some small way to help the people that I was sitting here shouting out for someone else to save them. Suddenly I realized that having a voice, was a good start, but it is not enough! I have to jump in and take action to help those faceless women that I write about with such passion. I have to use that passion to help them get started in a new life.

So I wrote to Cloudscome, and told her that not only did I want to make baby blankets for these women, but I wanted to help her form a group that could grow into something wonderful. We could be mentors for women who love their unborn babies but don’t have anyone to tell them that they can keep their babies. We can help them get a foot up so that they can start out on the right road to the wonderful world of parenthood.

And she wrote back with enthusiasm for this. So now we begin.. for now, we begin with an idea and we present it to you, our “internet blog friends” for your approval. Who among you will reach out and take our hands and help us help someone else?

Of course this group will start small. We don’t have resources to just jump in and start a huge charity. And of course, there is life, that tends to demand attention from us, so we will have to find ways to juggle our jobs and children and family and this new adventure. But it is my dream that someday it will grow with the help of other’s who know the need of this.

For now, we want to start with, using the words of Cloudscome, a closet of hope. My next post will be about my dreams of what this can and I hope someday will become. I will go into how the differences among us will be a great help in this project. Each of us bringing their own talent and resources to the group.

While you are waiting for my dreams for the future, be sure to check out Cloudscomes latest entry on this: http://awrungsponge.blogspot.com/2006/09/this-little-nagging-idea-that-wont-go_25.html

It will give you more of an idea of her wonderful idea that will hopefully some day grow into a real Answer!

pt 2 is on the draft table

Just a note to say that part 2 of my how to make adoption more human is in the works. I am awaiting permission to use a quote from a special friend of mine.

 Should be ready to post by tomorrow.

Can’t afford a child? Consider this!

This was sent to me by a friend. I have to share it! If you find yourself pregnant and don’t think you can afford a child that you know you would love…. Consider this….

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to

18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker

shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,

* $741.38 a month, or

* $171.08 a week.

* That’s a mere $24.24 a day!

* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don’t have children if

you want to be “rich”. Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get

for your $160,140?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!

* Glimpses of God every day.

* Giggles under the covers every night.

* More love than your heart can hold.

* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.

* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites

* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how

your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,

* carve pumpkins,

* play hide-and-seek,

* catch lightning bugs, and

* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,

* watching Saturday morning cartoons,

* going to Disney movies, and

* wishing on stars.

* You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets

and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in

clay or Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero

just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,

* taking the training wheels off a bike,

* removing a splinter,

* filling a wading pool,

* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never

wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

* first step,

* first word,

* first bra,

* first date, and

* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree,

and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called

grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology,

nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no

college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the

power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a

broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them,

without limits, So . . one day they will like you, love without counting the

cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Thank God for Sisters!

Sisterhood: The solidarity of women based on shared conditions.

Sometimes we find sisters in the oddest places. I've found many that I would say I am in sisterhood with inside this odd little box, I call my 'puter. These are the woman who share with me the horrible loss of a child, or children to adoption. It's a sisterhood that we all wish we didn't have. Not because we don't want to share with each other, or support each other. (I've met some of the most wonderful giving women anyone could ever hope to meet in my travels on this Internet quest.) But if we could step into some kind of time machine. Knowing what we know now, we'd change the part of our lives that put us into this sisterhood. We'd find a way to keep our kids! Some way, some how, we'd not be, according to the eyes of society, Birth-mothers! We'd just be mothers!

But there is no time machine! We can't go back and change it all. We can't get that piece of our hearts, our soles that were, lost, stolen from us. All we can do now, is go forward and try to support each other in our sisterhood. And pray that someday… Some wonderful day we will reunite with those little lost souls. Sometimes it seems that is all we live for. That someday!

Of course, for me, until very recently, I never thought there might be a someday. At least not for me and my youngest son. OH I'm not kidding myself here, I know that my chances of even finding him are slim, but now I see that there is at least a tiny microscopic chance. Some times I feel like I'm walking in a fog, sometimes I feel like I'm walking on air. Sometimes I get so depressed I can't even cry at all. Finding that there is a sisterhood that I can be in helps, but when the computer is off… I am alone….. And scared! Yes, I am. Scared that this is a fruitless search, scared that I will find him and he will reject me. Scared that I'll be a little old lady someday still searching and never finding. I'm scared. This is not a good place to be, all the time.

What I had forgotten is one other source of support that I wasn't using. I haven't really discussed any of this with anyone in my family. I haven't talked about all of this to anyone in years! On my bad times, I usually just say I'm sick. My family sees what they want to see for the most part, so they accept my depressions as illness without question. And if it is not too bad, I can usually fake it enough for no one to notice anything being wrong. Except when it comes to one person in my family. The one person who knows when something is "not right" with me, even through email, or lack there of. The one person who has more than proven time and time again just how much she cares for me and loves me. She has never judged me, never. And yet, because I have spent much of my life being judged and judging myself, I didn't reach out to her . For no reason what so ever, I didn't trust her any more than I trusted the people who had hurt me. Ironically, this person is my sister!

K and I lost touch for several years when I was a young adult. It wasn't until my marriage to my second/current husband that K and I found our friendship again. But it didn't matter, all those lost years. We were best friends again immediately just as we had been as kids. And we are today, best friends. We email each other daily and K is the only person that I actually like talking to on the phone. I hate the phone. Ha.

Recently, I pulled away from K., because I had entered the blog world of lost mothers. K knew something was wrong. She felt it. But I gave her excuses why I missed writing to her yesterday. Why I only wrote three words today. She didn't push, but she let me know she was worried about me. Finally, I told her everything. I had never even told her my complete story …. This seems unreal to me now. Why Why hadn't I turned to her before? Because, partially anyway, I thought, she's never been through this, she won't understand, and she'll see me as bad like everyone else did.

I wrote her a letter that was easily 5 pages long I think. Everything! I told her everything. I had also told her that I didn't want her to be my sister, when it came to all of "this" I just wanted her to be my friend. I begged her not to be angry with me. I begged her to still be my best friend… I cried the whole time I typed that letter. When I hit send, I jerked my mouse back to where the button would be trying to get the letter back. I checked my mail every hour for the rest of the day until I went to bed. I couldn't sleep that night. And when I got up, there was her letter.

"I'm not mad at you. I love you. I can't believe you had to go through all this by yourself………." were just a few of the wonderful things my sister said to me.

My favorite thing in her letter was so simple yet held such love and understanding and knowing. She knew just what I need and she's there for me. What was this magic sentence?

"I also hope I can help you to find your son."

My dear sweet sister! Again I have to tell you I was wrong to say I didn't want you to be my sister in relation to my adoption loss. I need my sister now more than ever! You are and always will be my sister, not because of the blood that runs in our veins, but because you are my best friend! And I love you!

Hello world!

Well, here I am in my new home. I will continue to post on my other site, KrazyCraftnstuff

But I will keep that blog for my creations up date. I have decided to move my past revelations to this blog as it is not fair of me to confront some people involved with my feelings. My family is very important to me and I do not want to hurt them with my words.. There are some actions of some of my family that I question in my mind. But to question them, now after all this time seems to be too self serving and would only create hurt feelings and make any rifts larger. I do not want this.

This is my story. Seen through my eyes. It isn't about anyone else's short comings or mistakes. But to tell my story, the whole story, I will need to tell some things that happened in my life that involved members of my family. I don't want this to become a finger pointing story, that will only serve to hurt those people. There for I have decided, for now, to keep this from those who may be hurt by it.

The people in my stories to come will be protected by false names and false initials. I may not be telling them about these stories, but I also will not allow their lives to be openly displayed for all the world to see without protections. As this is my story, as seen and felt by me. It is true as far as truth can be from a one sided source. My truth is not necessarily the same as someone else's truth. All I know is my side.