Bye-Bye Baby

Dear Prudie,
My youngest sister, a junior in college, is pregnant. She is friendly with the baby's father but is not in a relationship with him, nor does she wish to have one. My sister and the baby's father decided to give their child up for adoption and quickly found a couple. I am having trouble accepting my sister's decision. I understand being 21 and finding yourself pregnant is not ideal, but our parents are well-off and are paying for her education. I said to her that as a mother myself, I did not understand how she could give her child away. I told her I would be happy to watch her baby while she is taking courses, since my kids are in school. I know our parents would help with the finances. I simply cannot understand why she is choosing adoption when she has support, both financial and otherwise. I think she is being a bit entitled. After all, she got herself into this mess, and it doesn't seem fair that she just gets to put the child up for adoption and resume her life. How can I impress upon her that she can, and should, take more responsibility for her actions?

?Willing To Help

Dear Willing,
You sister is making one of the most difficult, and generous, decisions a young woman can make. After what must have been many agonizing nights of wondering how to proceed once she found herself pregnant, she realized that being a single college student meant she could not provide the life she would want for her child. So she decided that out of her pain would come something good, and a grateful couple will get to be parents. The real issue raised in your letter is what kind of person you are, since your attitude toward your sister is both contemptuous and baffling. Your opinion is irrelevant, so it doesn?t matter that you can?t accept your sister?s decision. You say that as a mother you cannot understand how your sister could ?give her child away.? (I was once rightly rebuked by an adoptive mother who explained that children aren?t ?given up? or ?given away? but are ?placed? for adoption?an important distinction that puts the act in better context.) Yet you view the pregnancy as a ?mess,? one that your sister should not be able to just walk away from. Apparently you think she should be forced to raise her child as a fit punishment for what you see as her sense of entitlement. Perhaps the thought of handing her child over to you every day, and getting one of your superior little lectures, helped your sister make up her mind. No woman who places a child for adoption, no matter how right the decision, simply resumes her life unchanged. But her choice does leave me thinking that when the time comes and she is ready, she will be a wonderful mother.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=26fabb40726fd78d486e150ba12246c9

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