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Should they have a say?
By Sanika Nalgirkar
Last updated on Dec 12, 2023
When it comes to making the difficult decision of whether or not to raise a child after an unplanned pregnancy, most times we only consider the feelings of the immediate parents, as ultimately the mother and father are responsible for that child.
However, one young single mother's situation raised the question of who exactly should have a say in a baby's future.
A single mother asked if she was in the wrong for putting her son up for adoption without telling her ex's parents.
After realizing that she wasn't fit to care for her 8-month-old baby and support him financially, a 21-year-old single mother took to Reddit to describe her situation.
“I (21 f) gave birth to my son (8 month son) in April. After 6 months of having him, I realized I did not have the maternal requirements to give him the love and attention he would need,” she wrote in a since-deleted Reddit post.
She explained that the child's father had already made it clear he didn't want to be involved, though she did still require his signature for the adoption papers. She made the hard choice to let her son go and give him to a family where he would be loved and cared for. After searching for the right family, she gave him up with the baby’s father's consent.
However, after a while, she received a call from a furious grandmother.
Her ex's parents were furious that she didn't consult them before giving her son up for adoption.
Her ex’s mother was angry that she gave up her baby and criticized her for making that decision. Unfortunately for grandparents, according to the adoption website American Adoptions, grandparents have no legal right to their grandchildren when the birth parents decide to give a child up for adoption.
While it's understandable that grandparents go through a grieving process of their own when losing a grandchild, it's important for birth grandparents to support the birth parents' decision. While grandparents are legally able to adopt their grandchildren, that decision, too is ultimately up to the birth parents — and in this case, the woman learned the child's grandparents also did not have a stable home life to provide for the child as they were homeless.
Even though the baby was their grandchild, she knew that she made the right decision as that wasn’t the right environment for any child, let alone a baby.
“I talked to my ex about it and found out his parents were actually homeless. I’m in no way shaming them for being so, I just know that is no place for a 6 month old baby,” she wrote, adding that they had never shown any interest in the baby’s life earlier. “I got an angry call from my ex’s mother, screaming at me for 'throwing her grandchild away like trash.' She had never met him and not once asked me to see him.”
The mother had been so sure that she made the right decision after finding out about her ex’s parents. But after hearing from her family that she was wrong, she was beginning to question her decision.
Placing a child up for adoption is never an easy decision but ultimately is one that should be commended.
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you did wrong by getting a child into the best care possible," one person wrote in the comments. "I know deeply from experience that 'blood family' very often has no positive correlation to quality care. You did the right thing even though it just have been a difficult decision.”
“People are too focused on these parents being ‘selfish’ and don’t give them credit for actually wanting to give the child a better life than they can offer," Edelys Mariel Diaz, LMFT, told VeryWell Mind. "All children deserve to have a healthy family, and that doesn’t necessarily mean the birth family is the only one that can provide that.”
Sanika Nalgirkar, M.F.A. is a writer who covers entertainment & news, lifestyle, and pop culture topics.