What I Spent to Give Up My Child for Adoption

A response to the New York Times article, What I Spent to Adopt My Child

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

The title of the recent New York Times article on adoption horrifies me. “What I Spent to Adopt My Child” by David Dodge profiles three couples that adopted children by three different paths, tallying the cost of each method. Okay.

There’s much to be admired in each story. How does one point an accusing finger at a single schoolteacher living in a one-bedroom apartment, or the couple (one spouse, an adoptee himself) who adopts a nine-year-old from foster care, or the couple drowning in over a hundred grand in student debt who work extra jobs to pay it down and buy a house all for the cause of qualifying to adopt? I don’t have any criticism for those parents. But the title of this piece in a pre-eminent newspaper begs for a response.

The first unacknowledged truth is that every adoption begins with loss. Loss so great it cannot be quantified by a dollar sign. Every adoption begins with unquantifiable trauma. That trauma involves a child and at least one other person — the child’s mother. Most likely the trauma will ripple outward, encircling others — whether or not they know it at the moment of the child’s birth, the adoption, or later.

Here is what I spent to give up my child for adoption: I parted with my self-respect; my feeling that, as a…