Selfish Parent

Earlier this week (okay maybe it was last week) I read an article that kind of fried my cookies. Well it wasn’t so much the article itself that got me steamed as it was some of the comments left on the accompanying message board.

Go ahead and read it. I’ll wait.

There. Did you read the message boards? Did you see it? No?

“Fostering a child when you're 50 is different than giving birth to a child for selfish reasons. I wouldn't hesitate to foster any child. I would hesitate to have a child for purely selfish reasons…”

It seems that the prevailing opinion among some people is that if you are older and infertile and need fertility treatments and choose to carry and birth a baby you are somehow ‘selfish.’ I really don’t understand how wanting a child makes me selfish. If I were 25 and wanted to have a child I would not be selfish? If I adopted I wouldn’t be selfish?

My child was compared to a ‘chihuahua’ and an ‘accessory.’ I am an ‘upscale career woman’ who ‘purchased’ my child ‘via fertility treatments’ while ‘defying nature’ and ‘distorting my values and morality.’

Huh? I just wanted to be a mom. Just like most other females on the face of the earth. I just wanted a child. And adoption is not possible for us (whole other can of worms...don't wanna go there).

“She did not foster a child, she did not adopt a child, she is not a grandparent stepping in and she is not raising a child whose birth parents cannot or will not. This is her own baby at a late age. There is a whole lot of difference in the two.”

I don’t understand what the difference is. Because it cost a lot of money to conceive my child? Has this person ever looked into what it costs to adopt a child? Because it took years to conceive and birth my son? Again, ask someone who has spent a year or more gathering paperwork, going through home visits, getting fingerprinted, waiting to hear from adoption agencies about how long it takes to adopt a child. Does she think adoptive parents walk into a big room and choose from a pile of children in the corner? If that’s what you think then take a look at Soper or Shelba or Karen.

Sure I may not have as much time with my child if I had had him at age 25. But I hadn’t even met my husband at age 25. The father of one of my best friends died of a massive coronary when she was still in elementary school. One of my uncles died in a car accident when his wife was pregnant with their 3rd child. Young people die too.

If I had adopted a child, I would still be over 40. If I fostered a child, I would still be over 40. I just happened to birth a child. And, yes, I am, most definitely, over 40.

And totally in love with my child.

I raise my middle finger to all who would deny me my son.