December 10, 1999

Well, I've got some correcting to do if I hope to avoid being thought of as Ebeneezer Scrooge, or worse. In fact, some of my November 12th column sounded more like a Nazi and in good faith I'd rather not leave it hanging in humane readers' memories, let alone cyberspace, forever.

That column concerned public child care and the working poor. I set out to make the case for private arrangements of children's care, but due to digression and clumsy writing, I messed up my own message. My intention was not to advise existing families to adopt out their children during financially hard times. It would be monstrously cruel to engage in, as one concerned reader wrote, "Breaking up an otherwise functional, loving family," just because of money problems.

I meant to address people--young or older--who through failure to make the most basic plans for taking responsibility, have no visible means of financial support for a baby born out of wedlock. And let's face it, this is usually a young woman, abandoned by the biological father, whose own future and the future of her baby are bleak if she keeps the baby.

It is those unmarried, unskilled, and unemployed whom I would encourage to adopt out their infants at birth. That way all three of them will have a chance at a better life, with the baby being raised by a resourceful couple who yearns for a child and is able to support it emotionally and financially. This is the most loving thing to do for an unplanned baby whose parents can't take care of themselves, let alone a helpless, needy little soul.

A few years ago I learned separately through friends of two teenaged girls in that predicament. One kept the baby and drifted into drug abuse while the other selflessly gave up her baby to a young couple. The latter is now in university and her baby is thriving in a secure household.

As for established families, the phrase is self-defining and because they are already functioning units they have extended families and friends to pick up the child care slack while one or both parents get back into paid employment. Most of us have helped in just this way out of loyalty to people we love. My final point should have been that child rearing be handled within our own circles of private alliances, not publically controlled services. Please excuse my previous careless and seemingly heartless summation.

© 1999 Cynthia Hahn