bajenaghe naghi

being a parent

People who feel uncomfortable about adoption should NEVER adopt! No sense of arguing or trying to convince them either.

Parenting and raising children is a big responsibility and it takes a lot of love and courage and discipline (not in disciplining the child but to stick to your own rules and values). If someone is considering adoption and has cold feet about the genes, they should seriously stay away from adoption.

You raise a child the same way you treat them. If you love them, they'll love you back, if you don't trust them, they will never confide in you either. If you use violence, they become violent and if you show them affection they become compassionate people. So if you worry that you can never feel close to an adopted child and you're going to watch for signs of genetic disorders all the time, then just don't adopt! The child would have serious personality and development issues due to your doubts and you may blame them on their genes!

Adoptive mom, your son sounds like mine when he was 17. You love him and he trusts you and loves you back. Congratulations for raising a caring son and a good, responsible student. It takes a lot of work to be a parent, but the pleasure of seeing them all grown up and happy is the highest reward. Enjoy it!  

IRANdokht

I love children

and i have two of them and as i mentioned i was about to adopt two children some years ago. But the question i have asked is a real question and real concerns. 

when you meet a mate and marry him or her you hopefully learn all you can about him or her and the family. You will know who her parents are and what kind of job they have. what is their education level. who their other family members are and so on and so forth.

But when you adopt a child, in most cases you have no idea of his or her history. and that is the concern of the adoptive parents. 

In this way, i think adoption involves more risk than if you have your own child. otherwise, i must say that i love children and i think they are the gift to us from god whether you made them yourself or adopted them. 

My experience

I do not have any children and might adopt one, but my experience is that 3 out of ten adoptions turn out okay which is the reason I have not adopted yet.

Man is the supreme Talisman.

Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess. Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.

Dear BN , do you realise that you are making so many wrong assumptions? one is that all birth parents are bad so their seed is bad too! Also your advocating that these bad seeds will stay bad , and only have 50% chance of turning good! Also your totally ignoring the fact that lots of people procreate children that are not healthy ( physically and emotionally).

I believe no one is born bad, we may have children that their temperament is different from us, but it happens all the time around us with biological children but we do not see it.

When someone behaves bad  or is dysfunctional it is because of their circumstances, not their genetic make up.

A child who is abused , and has lack of love has a chance of becoming a dysfunctional adult. Even in that situation they can turn around and be a healthy person. just google attachment theory, even having a loving teacher, neighbour or any adult in a neglected kid makes a big difference.

Please , if I did not know you from your previous writings, I would have thought differently about you. since Hitler did believe in the gene superiority too:)))

Keep well,

Tahirih

bajenaghe aziz

don't know whether it is because of my own confusion, but i don't see 50-50 odds there. let us assume - although it may be a false assumption - that the child may have genes that make her/him more prone to violence (like a testosterone imbalance). what you can have in the other 50% is the right training and learning to cope with that, possibly plus medication. gives you a hell of an advantage that you can plan ahead. genes are just fixed. actually, they now say that genes change on basis of behaviour and health too. there's your chicken and egg. action leading genes or genes leading action?

basically, (the rather strange!) point was that odds are stacked against the genes because we can strategise and they can't! that make any sense? unless of course it is actually my genes writing this, in which case i have no case here at all!

do you have biological children?

I woke up this morning went to my adopted son's room , he is 17 , so handsome , and smart a little lazy in the mornings. called him to wake up. he turned and in Farsi said ** maman beya inja** as soon as I went close he kissed my face twice. that was the reason he called me. then he nagged about dad being unreasonable about him being up until 12 last night on a school night!he is on honors roll every term not sure what he wants to study at the university yet .
shall I go on and on as how normal and wonderful he is and how ridiculous you sound MR genes fanatic!!!

Undesirable genes? Are you

Undesirable genes? Are you serious? As a birthmohter I am truly offended. My birthson is now five and his parents are quite thrilled with their happy, healthy, well adjusted son.

Studies in fact show that adopted children do not fair any worse off than biological children.

Pish pish, bio children "could be psychos who turn against you" too. What a crazy attitude.

You both need to educated about the realities of adoption. Talk to many adoptive parents....the vast majority of adopted child are just like any other child. Also, guess what? Bio children can turn out to have issues as well.

so your saying ?

all criminals  were adopted? my good man this is Iranian mentality which I am afraid is not corrected even after years living in the west.If all adopted kids end up as ill adjusted human beings then how do you explain superman,spider man,batman, and hercules.oh, these are fictional!!!!!! I guess  they created them this way to fight against this kind of mentality!

Tough one

Agha you ask a tough question.  Couldn’t you ask ‘Ghom behtar ast ya Kashoon?’ o:)  I guess if you say 50% is genetics, then one hopes the other 50% which is environment and up-bringing will kick in and you end up with a ‘good’ child. 

I know someone who adopted a child from China and she is great so far.  I guess this is a moral question as to what fault the poor kid who is being adopted had?  If we go by this approach, who will adopt them?

niloufar parsi jan

i am very glad that the child your sister has adopted is doing well. spoiling kids a little is ok for both the parent and the child. they will feel special when they are allowed to spoil a little.

as for the 50% chance i must say that when i gamble i do not bet when i know my chances are 50-50. but then i am too conservative and that may be  my problem.  

Ebi jan

thank you. yes my english is inproved somewhat but there is always more room to get better. i study all the time and learn new word every day. 

the kids involved were a boy and a girl who had been neglected a lot. the boy was very angry and for the first few days did not respond to anything we said. he tried to hit me a couple times. it was very sad and upsetting.  

Bajenaghe AZIZ !!!

Good point.

BTW

1-Your English has improved drastically since the days you wrote the blog about Robert!,please tell me you secret,might be usefull for me too.lol.

2-By any chance,weren't the two kids you wanted to adopt,Borat & his buddy!!.

sepaas

Ebi aka Haaji

My sister has a son , who has tried to kill her .

She has given birth to her son so i am very sure he is of her genes! still she was surprised by the natural accident of having a schizophrenic son. I can not see your point. we all can produce children that are mentally challenged or emotionally unbalanced. also we are all capable of raising healthy children but in the process hitting and abusing them to become dysfunctional.
Please do not use one case as the source of your theory. and as far as genes your going to muddy waters of prejudice!

ali jan

I am sorry for not being clear. Robert and Sylvia have both passed on since I started writing here. The following was posted last August I think and will tell you more about these two lovely people.

yesterday i saw robert reich (my CPA neighbor) pass my store to enter the building to go up to his office. he had his head down. but i saw he was very upset and he had a black eye. i knew what had happened. he had been beaten again by his son. robert reich and his wife sylvia had adopted a child many years after they had married when they knew they were never going to have any children of their own. the little cute child that once was has now grown into a three hundred pound six foot tall man with semi mongoloid features who i am certain is completely mad. i have heard him enter robert's office and shout and scream at him demanding money and then he would threaten him if he refused to pay up or pay him less than what he had demanded. i have heard robert plead with him in high pitched crying tones to leave him alone and the son would just  laugh at him and demand more. once sylvia told me that she wished she had never adopted him. sylvia has cancer and is losing weight fast. i am worried about her and robert. i have hinted to robert that me and my greek friend chatalas can teach his son in fifteen minutes  how to respect his parents but robert is too scared that he will hurt him even more.  i know it is a noble thing to adopt a child. but there is always the danger of things going wrong since you do not know the genetical history of the child you are adopting. 

Ali

glad you asked! i was wondering too :) 

bajenagh

interesting topic. you raise some tough questions. my sister adopted and raised a kid. it's gone real well so far. a lonely child and a woman who could not have a child with her husband were all united. motherhood was her biggest dream. naturally, the kid is spoilt already!

in any case, our own genes have plenty of faults too (and forgive me for saying you may be a little open to criticism for the emphasis on genes), and, as you say, 50% of our characters can be attributed to genes. that leaves 50% to the other side. the cup is half full.

in a loving home, adoption is a great idea i would say. it is very human.

though, of course, it is a gamble, as you point out. there are many risks. it is important to be aware of those risks before one goes for it. 

in the old days children were raised in a communal way. you could 'adopt' children much more informally. they were not sentenced to solitary confinement with 1.8 other people. the nuclear family is problematic.  am not sure it is natural for children to spend all their time couped up with adults in a tiny home. so they roam the streets. but i digress!

OK, I'll ask...

BN jaan:

Robert and Sylvia are...?

I agree. Too many potential

I agree. Too many potential issues. They could be psychos and turn against you. And who knows, usually , a lot of their parents, are druggies, alcholics, or have mental issues, and these kids are risky. Even under good circumstances, they have issues, and they rightly want to know lots of questions, such as who their parents are, why, where.... and the adoptive parents have to deal with it. I can think of a lot of good and bad adoptee examples.

Anyways, if you could please enlightern me on Robert and Sylvia, it would be great.