Parenting Without A License

Just When You Thought Spam Couldn’t Be More Offensive

Posted by Kimberly on November 15th, 2007 — Posted in NaBloPoMo, Scarlet Letters

“We are a couple in our 30s looking for a baby to call our own. If you know of anyone looking for a home for their child, contact me at…”

I see ads like this from time to time, in the backs of magazines or sometimes in the classifieds section of the campus newspaper. I usually ignore them, save for a fleeting thought of how heartbreaking it must be to be reduced to running an ad in the want ads to complete your family. Today, however, I had not one ounce of sympathy to spare for the woman who wrote these words. I wasn’t indifferent, disinterested, and vaguely saddened when I came across this message; I was shocked, offended, and angry.

What’s so different about this ad? It was posted on a single mothers message board. Because of course a place where single moms gather to support each other as they raise their children alone is absolutely the best place to look for a new baby of your very own. Obviously, there must be a bunch to spare there, right?

This offends me on about 17 different levels. What’s most offensive about it though is that it’s not trying to be offensive. I’m sure that the woman who posted this is incredibly sincere and very probably a perfectly nice woman, albeit one with absolutely no sense of tact, common sense, or boundaries. Frankly, I find the whole idea that she thought it was appropriate or acceptable to solicit an adoption on a single mom messageboard mindboggling. How does one assume that invading an area meant for your diametrical opposite and then expecting them to not only welcome your presence but change their lifestyle to the benefit of yours is a good idea? It’s like going to a group of elimination communication devotees, offering them free diaper service, and expecting them to be genuinely enthusiastic about your offer.

There’s that same underlying assumption that we’re doing it all wrong. Coupled, of course, with the ever popular implication that we’re all a bunch of loose sluts. That we’ve gotten ourselves knocked up and now we’re looking for a way out of our troubles. It implies that our babies are disposable, that they’re a problem to be taken care of and she’s got the solution: Single moms have unwanted babies, infertile couples want babies, clearly it’s a win-win situation. It seems to say that single motherhood is a state to be avoided, and that we should be looking at alternatives to that state, even if that means not being mothers to our children at all. Of course, everyone would be so much better off this way–the baby would have two married parents, the married couple would finally be well on their way to nuclear status, and us? Well, we could go get on with our lives, of course, unencumbered by those pesky children that we didn’t really want anyway.

I realize that that seems like a fairly harsh judgment of a seemingly innocuous message, but there’s also context to consider here. This message not only appeared on a single mother’s messageboard, it appeared in response to this:

“I know that it has been done before and definately can be done and I know that it will NOT be easy by any means. Im just so afraid that I won’t be able to do it, that I’ll be miserable and lonely and depressed. Any feedback or similar stories or just anything would be a great help. I don’t know what to do.”

So, in response to a young woman seeking support and reassurance, this person offered to take her baby off her hands. If that’s not mercenary, I don’t know what is. Not to mention how insulting it is to every single mom who responded to this girl with support and encouragement.

I can’t even imagine the pain of infertility (no, seriously, I can’t. I mean, if I could, I certainly wouldn’t be writing this blog now would I?). It must be awful to so desperately want a child, and yet be denied that wish. And I would imagine that women like me, women who refuse to play by the rules, to things the “right” way, must seem like insult to injury. But that does not give women like this one the right to insult us, to use our safe place as a baby market, to negate everything about us in her quest to change this essential fact about herself.

We deal with those judgments every day. The questions about our “baby daddies,” the raised eyebrows when we confess our marital status–or, more specifically, our lack thereof–the assumptions that our lives must just be so. hard. without a husband to help us, that this can’t possibly be our choice…We don’t deserve to have that type of attitude, and the utter negation of our lifestyles that such a bald offer of adoption implies, brought to the place where we gather to seek support and share our stories with other women who “get it” any more than infertile women deserve to have their support networks tarnished by tactless questions about their family planning or an invaded by an army of single moms eager to hear about effective methods of birth control.