04/30/2004: "More on adoption"

On my brother's blog (be afraid, be VERY afraid! Only go there if you have thick skin!) my brother responded (scroll down to April 27th) to my entry about the adoption show on 20/20. His thought is that we should make a reality TV show out of getting to have someone's baby.

Brian (my brother) suggests that I'd think hell was freezing over (well actually getting bigger, but you know what I mean) with such an occurance, but I don't think it would be as bad as what's happening. What bothers me is that it is entirely becoming about money and to the degree that we're on the road to having 'babies for sale'. Right now it looks more like college football: If you come 'play' for us, we'll make sure you have a really nice facility to 'practice' in and everything you need, whatever that may be, will be taken care of. There's even been a case where a pregnant woman in jail made the adoption contingent on getting her out of jail (all adopting lawyers take note!).

If there was some process for determining who was more 'qualified' to be parents and it wasn't judged by the government or based on how much money the applicant had (even indirectly), even if it was somewhat random, I wouldn't be opposed to thinking about it.

Now the actual reality TV show, that may be a little over the top.

Ken Crawford :

You have to remember that Kindergarden in Oakland only covers the California Penal Code system. This lady was in Utah. I don't think many at Oakland High School took the elective National and International versions of Kindergarden. Most were looking for something easy like finger painting.

05.02.04 @ 07:00 AM PST

Kens Brother :

Re: the woman's whose adoption contingent on her getting out of jail; actually i believe there are some legal legalities happening there. Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you're in jail you're not allowed to sign any legal documents regarding work and or pay (since you're being taken care of by the state, you and any money you make while in jail belong to the state). So to sign adoption documents, some that would grant her financial compensation and whatnot, she'd have to legally be able to do so. Now granted it's been a while since I took Getting Out Of Jail Schemes 101(or kindergarten as it's otherwise known in Oakland), but I believe that judge should hard line her ass back into jail. I mean if she has the child in prison (again correct me if I’m wrong) and she doesn't want it, the child would go into care of the state and be adopted... which is exactly what she wants to do at the moment.

But back to the reality show, you could make the challenges ones that could prove ones worth as a parent. Granted not being a parent myself, I wouldn't know what that would entail, but I picture something like changing diapers every five minutes while driving from the Bay Area to Crater Lake. lol.
cheers,
me

05.01.04 @ 01:12 PM PST [homepage]