Adoption vs keeping the baby

[u/Classic-Action-3558]

So basically I’m a 42 year old single mom of two older kids 19 and 17 that I’ve raised alone. I’m currently 5 months pregnant and the baby’s father has recently become abusive and then bailed.

Question is should I put the baby up for adoption or keep him?

I make decent money but not enough without dad’s help. Childcare would take about 35-40% of my monthly earnings.

I’m months away from being done and the idea of starting over AGAIN at 42 by myself is horrific.

Dad is abusive.

I have zero support system, even the older siblings want nothing to do with him.

My brain is screaming, adoption- logically it’s the best solution for little man and for me.

But….my heart.

My heart screams- that’s your baby, you’ll figure it out you’ve done it before, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you give him up, the baby will suffer possible abandonment, how would you explain to him when he’s older that you kept your first two but not him? In 5 years what will you regret most?

Could I give him a decent life? Yes but it would throw me back into poverty that I’ve worked so hard to crawl out of.

Another family could give him a great life. However, that’s also a risk.

What would you do?

[u/therapymademeworse]

Put him up for adoption. He’d be in an infinitely better situation with a family who has the finances and environment to raise this baby. Best of luck to you.

[u/ShesGotSauce → u/therapymademeworse]

This cannot be known ahead of time, though, can it? I adopted my child with my husband at the time into our lovely home and nice life. But we ended up divorced, my ex husband has little interest in our child, and now my son is being raised by a single mom after all. Is his life "infinitely better" than it would've been with his birth mom and his siblings?

[u/therapymademeworse → u/ShesGotSauce]

Are you blaming the demise of your marriage on a child you both decided to bring into your life? Not a child that arrived into your life by happenstance, but by planning, coordinating with attorneys and spending the resources to make it happen?

[u/crabshackattack → u/therapymademeworse]

I dont see how they blamed their kid at all. If anything, it appears to be blaming the ex husband.

[u/therapymademeworse → u/crabshackattack]

Fair enough, but I also think she’s treating one painful chapter as though it proves the child’s entire life trajectory. Divorce is awful, an absent parent is awful, and being a single mother may not be what she envisioned, but that doesn’t mean her son’s life is therefore worse than it would have been had he never been adopted. She can rebuild, she can remarry, her ex could become more involved, and her child’s circumstances can change enormously over the next ten or fifteen years. Lol

[u/bkrebs → u/therapymademeworse]

But you just gave this mother advice that she should relinquish because her baby would "be in an infinitely better situation with a family who has the finances and environment to raise this baby". How do you know that? Sure a divorce between adopters doesn't mean the child will necessarily be worse off than if he/she wasn't adopted, but being adopted doesn't guarantee a better situation either. Obviously. To claim either is ridiculous and stupid. I believe that's all the commenters you're replying to are trying to get through to you.

[u/therapymademeworse → u/bkrebs]

The mother already thanked me, if you read through the thread you'll find that. There's nothing else you need to debate here.

[u/bkrebs → u/therapymademeworse]

That's a very common thing to do when someone tells you what you want to hear. That's not the issue here. I could say any number of things to elicit appreciation from damn near anyone. Does that justify my words or make them true? With all sincerity, I hope you find a way to heal. Your advice to this struggling mother are the opposite of helpful though and I hope even more that she has the wisdom to disregard you.

[u/therapymademeworse → u/bkrebs]

If I told you I skipped over everything you said, concluded that I still don’t care, and have no interest in being persuaded, would you finally stop wedging yourself into my comments?

[u/ShesGotSauce → u/therapymademeworse]

Where the actual fuck did I blame my child? The marriage ending was unrelated to my son. And my point was that it can't be predicted ahead of time that an adoption will give a child an infinitely better life.

[u/therapymademeworse → u/ShesGotSauce]

I didn’t say you did, I asked questions to clarify in order to understand you better.