The other side of adoption
Lara Johnson writes: Re. “Why adoption should, in some cases, continue” (Friday). While not disagreeing with Jeremy Sammut’s argument that in some instances adoption is the right option, I was absolutely horrified that he included single motherhood as a “serious and intractable problem”, along with substance abuse and domestic violence. Does he seriously believe that single motherhood is a good reason to remove children from mothers? I cannot believe Crikey would publish someone who still thinks this. Perhaps next week you could publish someone arguing women should still be at home barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
Bill Leigh writes: I severely resent Julia Gillard’s carping apology regarding “forced” adoptions. As a family man and wife and also adopters of two needy babies, now grown to fine men in their own businesses with their own wonderful families, I respect their mother. That is, the good, hard-working and principled young woman, now a grandmother, married to me for 47 years, who nurtured the babies, in sickness and in health, led them through kindergarten, sat through endless hours of homework and sports, bringing them to mature young men. We knew the circumstances of the birth mothers, and the boys never expressed any interest in anyone but the mother who loved and nurtured them.
Threatened by Gillard?
Brigid Tancred writes: I am amazed at the number of middle-aged male commentators who continue to write Julia Gillard off. It’s sad that they feel so threatened by a strong woman. I dare either of these pundits to write a column setting out the accomplishments of the Gillard government without writing one word of denigration. Can’t be done, eh?
Bravo to Whitlam whose move to support single parents removed much of the ‘need’ for the sorts of adoption policies and practices that so obviously went off the rails in a big way.
I detect a touch of arrogance in Bill Leigh’s “severe resentment” of the Prime Minister’s comments about forced adoptions. He & his adopted children had a great outcome as did, I imagine, a lot many more. A lot of young mothers were traumatised & hurt by the experience and the apology hopefully went some way to ease their pain. A lot of the adoptions were driven by social mores reinforced by religion. I’m happy that era in Australia is over even if Bill finds reasons to celebrate it.
Bridget – In different circumstances, maybe Julia Gillard would have made a reasonable PM. However, there is no way a large number of people are ever going to forget what she did to become PM in the first place.
Just about everyone on these blogs is blaming Kevin Rudd for what happened last week. That is just idiotic – he didn’t do anything. I have read all the comments about how he has wrecked the Labor party with leaks and other diabolical happenings. Rudd has always denied this, and I have never seen anyone present any evidence to the contrary. It is all third-hand nonsense, mostly from the Murdoch press! If ever there was a campaign to completely destroy a person, this is it. Hopefully, it will continue to fail!
All these amazing policies that Gillard is supposed to have “got done”, came mostly from the vision of Kevin Rudd. She just implemented them. I can’t see where she has ever had an original thought or the capacity to communicate policy to the people. You cannot deny that Rudd is twice as popular as Gillard, and I believe that will continue. People are just not listening to all this cr+p coming from the media about Rudd – the majority switched off years ago. They certainly don’t listen to anything Gillard has to say.
And by the way, I am not threatened by Gillard – I am female and over a long life have seen many women like her. Not my favourite people!