Black Market Adoption ('Escape From Plan A' Ep. 29)

Sunny J. Reed, an emerging adoption writer, mom, and transracial adoptee joins Mark on the podcast to discuss an important aspect of the Adoption issue, re-homing. Re-homing is a term used to describe the act of returning a child to an adoption agency or between two private parties. In America, hundreds if not thousands of private re-homings occur with no oversight and facilitated by Internet message boards on sites like Yahoo and Facebook.

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The following are edited excerpts from “Black Market Adoption,” the 29th episode of Plan A’s podcast, Escape From Plan A.

The practice of adoption is framed as just another way to create a family. [But] at the same time things that would be shamed, looked down upon like re-homing a child…that would not be looked upon with understanding from the more traditional ways of creating a family…they would not be seen in the same way. They’d say you’re a monster. So, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have it be some sort of great alternative family building method but then also treat them [adoptees] like they’re a dog to give up to the pound when they won’t be house-broken as quickly as you’d like.

— Mark

It goes back to “how could a mother do this?” When I look at my son, as an adoptee, my son has something I will never have. When he was a newborn I couldn’t take a bath with the shower curtain closed with him in his bouncy seat in the bathroom. He would scream, scream. I was fine, I wanted to shower, but…when you see that, as an adoptee, and you think of what a child who’s being left by a caregiver, by their mother who never comes back, who isn’t just behind a curtain…think about that. And think about how that will damage a child and how that can’t be fixed.

— Sunny