Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting

by Elizabeth Bartholet

Book Overview

In this powerful book, Elizabeth Bartholet attempts to make sense of the worlds of adoption and fertility treatment by combining a moving personal narrative with compelling policy analysis. Family... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395510856
• ISBN13: 9780395510858
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Intelligent Exploration of Adoption

Family Bonds is a bit more personal than Bartholet's other title, Nobody's Children. Bartholet is a mother to one child born prior to her divorce, and two boys adopted from Peru as a single, divorcee. Batholet states that "The myth is that the legal structure surrounding adoption is designed to serve the best interests of the child. Actually experiencing the system as an adoptive parent shattered this myth for me." As a woman who endured the international adoption process I too had this myth shattered. The current adoption system, both domestic and international, is a travesty. The needs of children are the lowest priority and their "best interests" is something to which only lip service is paid. Anyone who has traveled to a foreign country can attest to the heartbreaking conditions of orphanages and the bizarre affinity for orphanages over international adoption. You need only be exposed briefly to babies languishing in wooden cribs or strapped to potties as early as possible to be appalled by the fact that so-called "advocates" for children oppose adoption and actually support anti-adoption sentiments. Most of the children in these orphanages are not legally "available" for adoption, yet they are purportedly "better off" being NOBODY'S CHILD than being an American's child. It is a disquieting notion, but nonetheless a reality. Elizabeth Bartholet is a voice of reason in the adoption world; a world that is sadly perverted by anti-adoption forces clinging to a mythological ideology that blood equates to the best parenting scenario for all children. This is a dangerous ideology as many are willing to sacrifice children's lives in order to defend it. Children rot away in the foster care system and most are reunited with their parents at all costs - to the point that many are killed by their biological parents who are unfit to parent them. It is reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery. We cling to barbaric ways simply because it is "the way we've always done it".

Compassionate ideas

I found Elizabeth Bartholet's view of parenting to be thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate. As the birth mother of one, this book made me want to consider adoption as a compassionate way to expand my family -- even without fertility problems as the motivation.