there should be a term for it

[deird1]

Is there a word for being flagrantly anti-adoption?

I'm used to reading Agatha Christie and thinking "my WORD, Christie, you're so RACIST". Right now, it's a whole lot of stories making me think "my WORD, Christie, you're so [insert word for thinking that adoption doesn't really count in making you family]", which admittedly makes a change, but...

Values dissonance up the wazoo, that's all I'm saying.

Comments

[vass]

if she's exploring and critiquing attitudes about adoption that were more common in her day and we've forgotten.

I think a bit of both. The modern Western concept of adoption is very recent and local (which is one of the reasons international adoption can get so terrible, with living parents who gave their children up thinking it'd be something more like sending them to school or an apprenticeship, not permanently giving up all parental connection to their child and having someone else take on that role entirely.)

But I wouldn't ever want to bet against Christie being prejudiced herself, or uncritically reflecting the prejudiced attitudes of her society.

[luscious_purple]

Yeah, I think many people in the Greatest Generation (and older) had strange notions that adopted kids were all the diseased children of prostitutes, or would grow up to be "inferior," or whatever. And the truth used to be completely hidden from adoptees, even more so than now, lest they find out they weren't their parents' "real" children. And adoption agencies insisted on exact ethnic-group matches between parents and child. Thank goodness times have changed.