And of course, Rigamarole, the intensely negative connotations of “child abandonment” played no role whatsoever in your use of the term. :rolleyes:
On preview: Manda Jo has got it nailed.
levdrakon, thank you for that moving description of the father-child bond blossoming.
[QUOTE=Manda JO]
Also from M-W ,
Connotation matters.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Manda JO]
People place thier children with adoptive parents because, for whatever reason, they don’t feel like they can do a good job. It may be lack of resources
[/QUOTE]
(emphasis mine)
Forgive me. Let me rephrase: I wouldn’t want to take on a project which was taken on by someone else, and then forsaken. 
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
(emphasis mine)
Forgive me. Let me rephrase: I wouldn’t want to take on a project which was taken on by someone else, and then forsaken.
[/QUOTE]
Still no? Forsaken suggests an “action more likely to bring impoverishment or bereavement to that which is forsaken”. The child is the thing “forsaken” in order to increase the resources avalible to said child It is the “forsaker” that lacks the resources, not the recipent of the child. So that usage is exactly incorrect.
Dude, I owned you on this one. Suck it up.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
OK. So what is your main function?
[/quote]
I don’t have a “main function”. Nor do I want one.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
That’s fine. But it’s still not your kid.
[/quote]
Adopt a child, let it starve to death and tell the judge you had no responsibility for the kid because “it wasn’t yours”. Let’s see how far that argument gets you.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Why? I’m not trying to discourage anyone from adopting. I don’t think it would come as a surprise to adoptive parents that their children did not spring from their loins. I’m just saying that’s the way it is.
[/QUOTE]
You’re insulting their relationship with their child.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
So the record is straight (no pun intended) - I don’t think any less of a child’s worth who was not conceived by me.
[/QUOTE]
And if that was an honest answer, you wouldn’t have said that adopted children aren’t really their parents kids.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Two lesbians can’t reproduce. Yes, they can borrow sperm to get pregnant, but the point is that it’s someone else’s sperm.
[/QUOTE]
Do you think that straight women fission like bacteria ? All women need “someone else’s” sperm to reproduce. Seeing that the female sperm count is so low, and all. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
I just want to be sure that the woman I have a child with will be the best mother available
[/QUOTE]
Well, you’re kind of screwed then, since I doubt the best mother available would want to be in the same room as you, much less have your children.
Rigamarole: That is a pretty good shovel you have bought yourself. It seems to be able to “overcome the challenge” of building an ever deeper hole for yourself.
Jim
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
(emphasis mine)
Forgive me. Let me rephrase: I wouldn’t want to take on a project which was taken on by someone else, and then forsaken.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I sure am glad there are people in the world don’t feel the same way you do about adopting children.
I don’t have children, and plan to keep it that way. I have never thought I would be a good parent, and didn’t think having a child was a good way to test the theory. Now that I’m older I would probably make a much better parent than I would have when I was young enough to have a child, but I have no regrets about being childless.
That said, I simply cannot understand how a parent can do something like this to a child. From women I have talked to who have given up a child for adoption, it is a heartbreaking decision even though they know they are doing what is best for the child. To raise a child, and love it, and nurture it, and then turn your back and treat the child in such an evil manner because you don’t like the sexual orientation they turned out with? As if they had a choice in the matter? How can a parent do this and sleep at night?
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
I never said you had to. I promise I won’t reproduce with you. 
[/QUOTE]
I’d rather you promise not to reproduce at all. It takes more than biology to be a parent. Like I said, my grandfather was a shitty excuse for a father.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Interesting - I don’t doubt the sincerity of the parent bond one bit. I was saying if you adopt, you didn’t create the child - which is factual. As I acknowledge above, if you love your adopted child just as much, that is surely what’s most important. But I don’t believe the biological heritage of the child doesn’t matter at all, and I stand behind my statement that I want to create my own child.
Something like that. 
I didn’t want to have to do it, but I knew someone would make me pull out the dictionary sooner or later.
Merriam-Webster’s:
Main Entry: aban·don
Function: transitive verb
1 a : to give up to the control or influence of another person or agent b : to give up with the intent of never again claiming a right or interest in
2 : to withdraw from often in the face of danger or encroachment <abandon ship>
3 : to withdraw protection, support, or help from
4 : to give (oneself) over unrestrainedly
5 a : to cease from maintaining, practicing, or using <abandoned their native language> b : to cease intending or attempting to perform <abandoned the escape>
Yep. Abandoned.
[/QUOTE]
You just want to push all the hot buttons in the world, don’t you?
My wife, not that it’s any of your business, but just to stuff your stupidity firmly down your craw, was orphaned at 16, and seduced at 19, by a boyfriend who proceeded to beat her up. She carried the child to term, but had absolutely no resources to raise it or family to help. She gave her daughter up for adoption, not wanting to but seeing no other way to assure that the child would have the resources she needed to survive. She’s regretted having to do so for nearly 40 years now.
Nine years later, we married, and attempted to start a child. But remember my mentioning her boyfriend beat her up. Some of his blows landed on her abdomen – thank god not injuring the fetus. But they did give rise to polycystic ovarian syndrome. Her chances for pregnancy were less than a third of normal.
By the time we were financially in a position to adopt, we were in our 40s. Instead, we took in homeless teens, and gave them a stable home that their parents were unable or unwilling to. Eventually, they grew up, got decent jobs, married, and started families of their own, most of which are characterized by healthy stable loving family life.
I am very proud of my wife for at the time putting the baby’s needs ahead of her own desire to raise a child with no visible means of support. I am extremely proud of “our kids” – none of whom have any legal tie to us. I am excessively proud of “my honorary grandchildren” who are terrific kids, and about whose lives I will bore you silly with stories if given half a chance.
Now, kind sir, let me point out that you share with an adult mental defective and a masturbating 13yo the ability to produce sperm. But with your attitude, I suggest that your dirty socks are the proper depository for any you happen to produce, as based on your comments in this thread, no child should be subjected to you as what it is forced to refer to as a father. So far, you have managed to insult us twice – my wife’s anguished decision at 19 regarding the only baby she will ever bear, and our efforts to make sure “other people’s children” )by your standards) got decent lives.
I do not much care where you stick your dick; you will never become a father in anything but the strict biological sense with the attitude you have. And I think that you owe about half the board an apology – not that you’re likely to give one at this point, if I don’t miss my guess.
Now, can we revert to Ginger’s OP – the fact that there are assholes out there who disown their children for being gay? Including, I might add, some children in the strict sense – young teens not old enough to live on their own.
They deserve, even more than Rigmarole, to be pitted as the hypocrites they are.
[QUOTE=Manda JO]
Still no? Forsaken suggests an “action more likely to bring impoverishment or bereavement to that which is forsaken”. The child is the thing “forsaken” in order to increase the resources avalible to said child It is the “forsaker” that lacks the resources, not the recipent of the child. So that usage is exactly incorrect.
[/QUOTE]
Forsaken by its biological parents, saved by its adoptive parents. I’m not going to be the one to save someone else’s forsaken project.
Now you’re just getting ridiculous. Of course I would never do that because at the point of adoption, I’d be accepting responsibility for the child whether it was originally mine or not. And as I’ve said, I wouldn’t do that.
Why not? It’s just a fact.
Of course. Presumably it belongs to someone they’ve at least had dinner with a couple times though (usually).
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
I’d rather you promise not to reproduce at all. It takes more than biology to be a parent. Like I said, my grandfather was a shitty excuse for a father.
[/QUOTE]
That I won’t promise - but I can understand about your grandfather. Many of us have had shitty excuses for fathers. To me, that’s all the more motivation to be a good one to my children.
As for telling parents that you’re not on the reproduction train: I don’t think either of mine give a shit, they’ve given no indication that the news came as a surprise, it shouldn’t have. I told them when I was 17 and nothing’s changed. Mum suggested that my biological clock might kick in when I hit my late 20s, but wasn’t anything other than mildly interested when it didn’t. Dad hasn’t said a word either way. There was a little pressure from the in-laws which was later lifted when in a drunken moment my mother-in-law confessed that Mr. Wild wasn’t exactly planned, and there was certainly never any jeep-repossessing drama from any of the genetic lines involved.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Presumably it belongs to someone they’ve at least had dinner with a couple times though (usually).
[/QUOTE]
Maybe they use a sperm donation. Maybe they have a one night stand, the birth control fails, and they decide not to abort. Why would it make the child less theirs, no matter where the sperm comes from ?
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
(emphasis mine)
Forgive me. Let me rephrase: I wouldn’t want to take on a project which was taken on by someone else, and then forsaken.
[/QUOTE]
You’re right. Obviously your parents and teachers started a project (turning you into a civilized human being) and then gave it up as a bad effort. Why should we take on what they forsook? Go away.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Forsaken by its biological parents, saved by its adoptive parents. I’m not going to be the one to save someone else’s forsaken project.
[/QUOTE]
Um, this is exactly the point. When you place a child in an adoptive home, you are not committing “action more likely to bring impoverishment”. Do you have any idea what the adoption process is like? The adoptive parents go through a series of invasive home studies to make sure they have the tanglible and intangible resources needed to adopt a child. Adoption is not an act likely to bring impoverishment. To say that it is is to suggest that biological parents are careless about their child’s welfare, when that is not true. That is the connotation people find offensive.
[QUOTE=Polycarp]
My wife, not that it’s any of your business, but just to stuff your stupidity firmly down your craw, was orphaned at 16, and seduced at 19, by a boyfriend who proceeded to beat her up. She carried the child to term, but had absolutely no resources to raise it or family to help. She gave her daughter up for adoption, not wanting to but seeing no other way to assure that the child would have the resources she needed to survive. She’s regretted having to do so for nearly 40 years now.
Nine years later, we married, and attempted to start a child. But remember my mentioning her boyfriend beat her up. Some of his blows landed on her abdomen – thank god not injuring the fetus. But they did give rise to polycystic ovarian syndrome. Her chances for pregnancy were less than a third of normal.
By the time we were financially in a position to adopt, we were in our 40s. Instead, we took in homeless teens, and gave them a stable home that their parents were unable or unwilling to. Eventually, they grew up, got decent jobs, married, and started families of their own, most of which are characterized by healthy stable loving family life.
I am very proud of my wife for at the time putting the baby’s needs ahead of her own desire to raise a child with no visible means of support. I am extremely proud of “our kids” – none of whom have any legal tie to us. I am excessively proud of “my honorary grandchildren” who are terrific kids, and about whose lives I will bore you silly with stories if given half a chance.
[/QUOTE]
You seem to have built up quite an inaccurate impression of me, because I think that’s wonderful. Everyone has an ideal path in life, but ends up following a real path. And it sounds like under the circumstances you’ve experienced you and your wife have done a fine job, and as I have always attempted to reinforce in this thread, if you’re proud and happy about it, you’re absolutely justified and I don’t want you to stop being proud and happy.
I’ve had a good time discussing this with all of you, but it’s time for me to bow out today as I do have some other work to do. I’d just like to say this:
It seems to me that many of you have taken personal offense to my “views” on adoption, but the only view I really have on it, which I’ve been attempting to clarify all along, is that I would rather father a biological child of my own than adopt one. This does not in any way invalidate your relationships with your children, biological or adopted. I do not doubt that you love your children every bit as much, and as long as you are happy, I’m happy for you.
I would like to see more would-be parents taking responsibility for the children they create. I understand that this is not an ideal world, people make mistakes, and this creates quite a number of issues, not least of which is this one. And those of you who get involved in it, seem to roll with it just fine and I commend you for it.
And as long as we’re sharing personal stories, I have one of my own: I once had a girl very close to me who was adopted. She had a host of medical issues due to her biological mother attempting to self-abort the fetus before birth as well as heavy drug use. I don’t want to judge her parents (both biological and adopted), or her relationship with them, but I know that she led a very unhappy life. Due to her medical conditions, according to what she told me when we were together, by now she should be dead (she would be in her early 20’s). I have attempted, but not yet found out if that is the case.
So merry debating to all of you, I’ll probably drop in again tomorrow. Oh… what was the OP again?
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
True. But that also means half the chromosomes are being borrowed too. Kind of like renting an apartment with a roommate - you get a place to stay, but you have to share everything with someone you hardly know.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a pretty weak argument, and I suspect you already know that. Considering asexual reproduction has a stunning record of failure among people, the kid’s chromosomes are gonna come from two separate people each and every time. If the rest of what you say leads you to believe that no research about the potential fathers or mothers go into the selection, you’re mistaken. This isn’t buying a used car or picking up an old pair of jeans at Goodwill; most parents-to-be in this situation are picky about whose genes land up in the child. Your Craig’s List quip, while entertaining to you (I imagine), only reveals a lack of knowledge on your part.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
It seems to me that many of you have taken personal offense to my “views” on adoption, but the only view I really have on it, which I’ve been attempting to clarify all along, is that I would rather father a biological child of my own than adopt one. This does not in any way invalidate your relationships with your children, biological or adopted. I do not doubt that you love your children every bit as much, and as long as you are happy, I’m happy for you.
[/quote]
But the use of words like “abandoned” and “forsaken” seems to suggest otherwise. It suggests you think that people that place their kids in adoptive homes are doing a bad thing.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
So the record is straight (no pun intended) - I don’t think any less of a child’s worth who was not conceived by me. I’m just not going to commit to raising them.
[/QUOTE]
Assuming you do get married and have a kid, are you planning to get DNA testing done once the child is born to ensure it’s yours? Cause otherwise there’s no way to know for sure.
[QUOTE=HowieReynolds]
Assuming you do get married and have a kid, are you planning to get DNA testing done once the child is born to ensure it’s yours? Cause otherwise there’s no way to know for sure.
[/QUOTE]
We’ve secretly replaced Ringamole’s child with the neighbour’s. Let’s see if he notices.
I would wonder what Rigamarole would do if, in the future, he were to fall in love with a woman who already had children…
[QUOTE=jayjay]
I would wonder what Rigamarole would do if, in the future, he were to fall in love with a woman who already had children…
[/QUOTE]
Or he had a child, only to find out said child was switched at birth. But he didn’t find out until said child was say, eight years old.