Adoption Study going around the blogosphere

Adoption statistics for mothers who place a child for adoption

Significantly, unwed mothers who choose adoption do better than mothers who choose to be single parents:

• They have higher educational aspirations, are more likely to finish school, and less likely to live in poverty and receive public assistance than mothers who keep their children.
• They delay marriage longer are more likely to marry eventually, and are less likely to divorce.
• They are more likely to be employed 12 months after the birth and less likely to repeat out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
• They are no more likely to suffer negative psychological consequences, such as depression, than are mothers who rear children as single parents.

Source: McLaughlin SD, Manninen DL, Winges LD, Do Adolescents Who Relinquish Their Children Fare Better or Worse Than Those Who Raise Them? Family Planning Perspectives, 20:1 (Jan. - Feb., 1988), pp. 25-32

Adoption statistics for adopted children

Adopted children do as well as or better than their non-adopted counterparts, according to a 1994 study by the Search Institute, a Minneapolis-based public policy research organization providing leadership, knowledge and resources to promote healthy children, youth and communities. This study, the largest examination of adopted adolescents yet undertaken, concludes:

• Teens who were adopted at birth are more likely than children born into intact families to live with two parents in a middle-class family.
• Adopted children score higher than their middle-class counterparts on indicators of school performance, social competency, optimism and volunteerism.
• Adopted adolescents generally are less depressed than children of single parents and less involved in alcohol abuse, vandalism, group fighting, police trouble, weapon use and theft.
• Adopted adolescents score higher than children of single parents on self-esteem, confidence in their own judgment, self-directedness, positive view of others and feelings of security within their families
.
• On health measures, adopted children and children of intact families share similarly high scores, and both those groups score significantly higher than children raised by single parents.
• Seven percent of children adopted in infancy repeated a grade, while 12 percent of children living with both biological parents repeated a grade.
• Compared with the general child population, children placed with adoptive couples are better off economically.

Data indicates that adopted children:

• Do better in educational attainment than single parent children and children raised by grandparents.
• Enjoy a quality of home environment superior to all the other groups.
• Have superior access to health care compared to all other groups

The above Study has gone around the blogosphere promoting adoption.  Can you really see anything bad about it?  Come on obviously adoption is great for everyone. Shoot it is so great I have no idea why everyone doesn't place all of their children for adoption. The adoptee is much brighter and well rounded then if they lived with their natural family.  Obviously adoptive parents surpass natural parents.  I will not speak for adoptees because several have already explained why the adopted children seem to do better than natural children.  I can easily explain the side of the natural mother though. 

Lets take the first point:

They have higher educational aspirations, are more likely to finish school, and less likely to live in poverty and receive public assistance than mothers who keep their children.

Well if you do not have to worry about daycare, feedings, and normal mother duties and the reason why you placed is because of money wouldn't you have aspirations of high education?  A lot of times natural moms have to throw them selves into something to survive such a loss.  For a lot of natural moms the goal is work, education, marry, and then get pregnant.  We try to do those things as fast as possible but each will take a significant amount of time.  Where as immediately after you have a baby you start paying for things so you have to get to work and not necessarily be going to school or see a viable way to continue your schooling.   Of course most parents that keep instead of place will live in poverty temporarily and receive some sort of public assistance.   If they had all financial needs taken care of they would never think of placing.  Does poverty/poor mean bad parents though?

Second point:

They delay marriage longer are more likely to marry eventually, and are less likely to divorce.

Duh of course they delay marriage longer.  Since the mother is no longer tied to the father legally she will more likely delay marriage longer.  She will not be looking for a father figure for her child.  I can tell you exactly why women are less likely to divorce after relinquishment, you feel as though placing your child will be used against you.  Almost any fate in life is easier to deal with than losing another child. 

Third point:

They are more likely to be employed 12 months after the birth and less likely to repeat out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

Well when you are having a hard time looking for work around child care needs and you take off time for doctors appointments and sick babies you are more likely to lose your job.  Having a child out of wedlock is terrifying after you have placed.  You are so scared and afraid.  Any fate is better than another unplanned pregnancy.  I wonder if this "study" also has taken into account the number of women that are infertile after placement?  That would lower the percentage of women having out of wedlock babies after placement too.  

Fourth point:

They are no more likely to suffer negative psychological consequences, such as depression, than are mothers who rear children as single parents.

I did find the study below and it goes totally against the above study.  I wonder if 24% of woman suffer from depression when they are single mothers.  12% of natural mothers needing inpatient treatment as the study below indicates.  I think the above statement is a bunch of BS.  I can tell you comparatively I have suffered much more negatively than my sister who kept.  We grew up in the same family, we were raised the same way, we even had our first child at the same age.

“While only an insignificant proportion of birth mothers had been diagnosed with a mental health problem before adoption (three percent), in the time between the parting and contact, 24 percent had psychiatric diagnosis mainly for depression, with half of them having inpatient treatment."This is from the most comprehensive follow-up survey of first mothers after surrender, one done published by the British Association for Adoption & Fostering, the leading UK-wide membership organization for all those concerned with adoption, fostering and child care issues

And then there is this study below that I'm sure not one adoption agency would touch.

Google “suicide and adoption” and what pops up is an entry from Pediatrics, “Adoption as a Risk Factor for Attempted Suicide during Adolescence.”[2] The main conclusion of the three authors? Adolescents who live with adoptive parents are more likely than their peers to attempt suicide. The researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine looked at more than 6,500 students in grades seven through twelve and found that nearly eight percent (7.6) of those who were adopted had attempted suicide in the past year, compared with only three percent of their peers. They were also more likely to receive psychological counseling, nearly seventeen percent (16.9) of adopted youth compared with eight percent  (8.2) of the non-adopted.