Parenting

"What ... should be the effort on the part of parents and educators?..."

"It is the older generation who foster in a child an early and most unnecessary sense of guilt, of sinfulness and of wrongdoing. So much emphasis is laid upon petty little things that are not really wrong, but are annoying to the parent or teacher, that a true sense of wrong (which is the recognition of failure to preserve right relations with the group) gets overlaid and is not recognized for what it is. The many small and petty sins, imposed upon the children by the constant reiteration of "No", by the use of the word "naughty", and based largely on parental failure to understand and occupy the child, are of no real moment. If these aspects of the child's life are rightly handled, then the truly wrong things, the infringements upon the rights of others, . . . the hurting or damaging of others in order to achieve personal gain, will emerge in right perspective and at the right time."

"Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage through their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

"I am now the father of four. In the tradition of my mother, my wife and I read individually to them every night. As a result, they love books too. There is no greater tool for bonding with children than books. There is no greater instrument for teaching lessons for life. Now my children reach for books before they reach for the remote control."

"Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons."

"The greatest gift you can bestow upon your children is your time and undivided attention."

"Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery — the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones." Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them."

"Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies."

"I learned the right way to live from my parents. I never heard any hate in my house. I never heard my father say a mean word to my mother, or my mother to my father, either. During the war, when food was hard to get, my parents fed their children first and they ate what was left. They always thought of us."

"“Damn it, Dad. You make me crazy.” “That’s part of my job as a parent. If I read the manual correctly.”"

"“There’s a moment of disrecognition that I think occurs for all new parents. One minute you’re looking at your child lovingly, marveling how lucky you are; the very next instant you’re wondering, ‘Who let this loathsome reptilian thing into my life? Whose good idea was this?’ Eventually the perception shifts again, this time stabilizing into a more natural and permanent state. This isn't a loathsome reptilian thing after all; it's just a short person with some serious opinions of its own. And it expects to be listened to. Parenting is the acceptance of that other person's existence as a person, not a thing.”"

"“What’s the matter?” “What if I'm really not good enough?” I said. “That’s what I'm worried about—I can’t shake that feeling.” “Oh, that—” she said, lightly. “That’s normal. That’s the proof that you’re going to do okay. It’s only those parents who don’t worry who need to.”"

"Parents face an uphill climb in understanding what their child is going through, more than ever with the internet consuming their child’s attention. Rather than assuming parents will harm their children, the state should recognize the inherent right of parents to make decisions for their own [children]. Practically, children need their parents to put boundaries around them, boundaries LGBT activists relentlessly work to remove. …Parents need to be ready to protect their [children], help them through severe emotional struggles, and keep them away from outside influences that want to isolate them."

"The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother, which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician."

"When we talk of parental influence we do not think of terror in connection with it—that is not the primary idea—it is not terror and coercion, but kindness and affection, which may bias the child's mind, and induce the child to do that which may be highly imprudent, and which, if the child were properly protected, he would never do."

"The relationship between parents and children can break a thousand times over, and it is the job of a parent to go searching for the pieces, searching for the glue."

"When parents know how to assign the task with authority, when the coachman knows from seasoned experience how to assign the task, it is indescribably helpful. So it is also for the adult when the task is firmly set with the authority of eternity, which is indescribably helpful in carrying out the task. If a child is so unfortunate as to have a father who does not know how to command, or the horses a second-rate driver, it seems as if the child and the horses would not have half of the powers they actually do have. Alas, and when the adult who is the sufferer surrenders his soul to the power of vacillation, he is actually weaker than a child. But then it is indeed also a joy that hardship is the road, because then the task is immediately at hand and stands unshakably fixed and firm. Hardship is the road-and this is the joy: that it is not a quality of the road that it is hard, but it is a quality of the hardship that it is the road; therefore the hardship must lead to something; it must be passable and practicable, not suprahuman."

"It is the fundamental unfairness of parenthood that if we do our jobs well, the deepest bond we are given will walk out the door with a wave over the shoulder."

"I suppose that every parent loves his child; but I know, without any supposing, that in a large number of homes the love is hidden behind authority, or its expression is crowded out by daily duties and cares."

"Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had to lay waste our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid brainwashing their dirty minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.s if possible."

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you."

"But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats."

"Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself."

"The height of parental maturity is, of course, to learn to live with your child as he is—even if he is just like you."

"The fourth, and most important principle of the universal sexual morality is that moral parents, in addition to supplying the physical and emotional needs of their children should educate them to become moral adults. “Train up the child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it,” says the Bible. John Stuart Mill wrote, “The moral training of mankind will never be adapted to the conditions of life for which all other human progress is a preparation, until they practice in the family the same moral rule which is adapted to the moral constitution of human society.” In the universal family morality, parents who neglect, abuse, or desert their young or who fail to train them to become moral citizens are bad parents."

"A father would do well, as his son grows up, and is capable of it, to talk familiarly with him; nay, ask his advice, and consult with him about those things wherein he has any knowledge or understanding. By this, the father will gain two things, both of great moment. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one; and if you admit him into serious discourses sometimes with you, you will insensibly raise his mind above the usual amusements of youth, and those trifling occupations which it is commonly wasted in. For it is easy to observe, that many young men continue longer in thought and conversation of school-boys than otherwise they would, because their parents keep them at that distance, and in that low rank, by all their carriage to them."

"Shifu and Shimu are the spiritual parents of the dizi, and the Tai Ji Men community would not have existed with only one of them."

"Parental feeling, as I have experienced it, is very complex. There is, first and foremost, sheer animal affection, and delight in watching what is charming in the ways of the young. Next, there is the sense of inescapable responsibility, providing a purpose for daily activities which skepticism does not easily question. Then there is an egoistic element, which is very dangerous: the hope that one's children may succeed where one has failed, that they may carry on one's work when death or senility puts an end to one's own efforts, and, in any case, that they will supply a biological escape from death, making one's own life part of the whole stream, and not a mere stagnant puddle without any overflow into the future. All this I experienced, and for some years it filled my life with happiness and peace."

"Kids are a great analogy. You want your kids to grow up and you don't want your kids to grow up. And you can't have it both ways. You want your kids to become independent of you, but it's also in a way a parent's worst nightmare: for them to not need you. So, how do you reconcile those two very strong emotions? You don't. You live with that problem. It's the real tragedy of parenting. And maybe there's some sense in which in art you can have it both ways whereas in life you can't."

"Every person needs to be parented. By this I mean that every person needs to be helped, encouraged, and supported in becoming accountable to themselves and others. To not be threatened by taking other people into account. To not be frightened of difference."

"Walter Slezak says he's tired of arguing with his kids about borrowing the car. "The next time I want it," he says, "I'm just going to take it.""

"Cherish the children your love gave life."

"Parenting is the science of art of upbringing children."

"Have children to your heart's content."

"[H]e who does not support a child, has no cause for celebration."

"Marrying is human. Having children is divine."

"Oh, didn't I know it's the best we can do, sometimes, simply not to wish our children ill."

"Many children harbor hidden anger and resentment toward their parents and often the cause is inauthenticity in the relationship. The child has a deep longing for the parent to be there as a human being, not as a role, no matter how conscientiously that role is being played. You may be doing all the right things and the best you can for your child, but even doing the best you can is not enough."

"Children in particular find strong negative emotions too overwhelming to cope with and tend to try not to feel them. In the absence of a fully conscious adult who guides them with love and compassionate understanding into facing the emotion directly, choosing not to feel it is indeed the only option for the child at that time. Unfortunately, that early defense mechanism usually remains in place when the child becomes an adult."

"Children's painbodies sometimes manifest as moodiness or withdrawal. The child becomes sullen, refuses to interact, and may sit in a corner, hugging a doll or sucking a thumb. They can also manifest as weeping fits or temper tantrums. The child screams, may throw him or herself on the floor, or become destructive. Thwarted wanting can easily trigger the painbody, and in a developing ego, the force of wanting can be intense. Parents may watch helplessly in incomprehension and disbelief as their little angel becomes transformed within a few seconds into a little monster."

"Highly sensitive children are particularly affected by their parents' painbodies. Having to witness their parents' insane drama causes almost unbearable emotional pain, and so it is often these sensitive children who grow into adults with heavy painbodies. Children are not fooled by parents who try to hide their painbody from them, who say to each other, "We mustn't fight in front of the children." This usually means while the parents make polite conversation, the home is pervaded with negative energy."

"While the child is having a painbody attack, there isn't much you can do except to stay present so that you are not drawn into an emotional reaction. The child's painbody would only feed on it. Painbodies can be extremely dramatic. Don't buy into the drama. Don't take it too seriously. If the painbody was triggered by thwarted wanting, don't give in now to its demands. Otherwise, the child will learn: "The more unhappy I become, the more likely I am to get what I want." This is a recipe for dysfunction in later life. The painbody will be frustrated by your nonreaction and may briefly act up even more before it subsides. Fortunately, painbody episodes in children are usually more shortlived than in adults."

"You that are parents, discharge your duty; though you cannot impart grace to your children, yet you may impart knowledge. Let your children know the commandments of God. "Ye shall teach them your children." You are careful to leave your children a portion; leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your children."

"The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents-- because they have a tame child-creature in their house."

"Your Lord has ordained that you must not worship anything other than Him and that you must be kind to your parents. If either or both of your parents should become advanced in age, do not express to them words which show your slightest disappointment. Never yell at them but always speak to them with kindness. Be humble and merciful towards them and say, "Lord, have mercy upon them as they cherished me in my childhood.""

"Every young adult has the potential power to help the entire world. He just needs the right guidance and support. A garden with different flowers becomes beautiful when it blossoms. Similarly, if parents learn how to be a ‘gardener’ and are able to recognize their child's personality and nourish it, then their ‘garden’ will become fragrant! This is what positive parenting is all about!"

"At the Democratic convention, in the United States, I listened to the speech of a young man who was very confident, very serene, very calm, very... bright, I would say. He, I don't remember his name, said in his speech that he was the son of two mothers. And he said it simply, without too much emphasis. He didn't seem like a freak to me. It seemed normal to me."

"Sometimes I ask myself questions too. Here we are talking about love towards children, who have the right to love. That can come from a man and a woman, God forbid, but I ask myself: why can't that love come from two men or two women and instead can it be given by seven nuns? This is a question I ask myself. Why not? Why?"

"As experience shows, the absence of sexual bipolarity creates obstacles to the normal development of children possibly placed within these unions. They lack the experience of motherhood or fatherhood. Inserting children into homosexual unions through adoption actually means doing violence to these children in the sense that their state of weakness is taken advantage of to introduce them into environments that do not favor their full human development. Certainly such a practice would be seriously immoral and would be in open contradiction with the principle, also recognized by the UN International Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to which the best interest to be protected in any case is that of the child, the most weak and defenseless (from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding the projects for the legal recognition of unions between homosexual people )"

"It was a beautiful gift to Italy to have prevented two people of the same sex, who are prevented by nature, from having the possibility of having a child. We prevented an anti-natural and anthropological revolution and I believe it was our achievement."

"It is too simplistic to believe that a child, to grow in a balanced way, needs the presence of a father and a mother of different sexes. No scientific research demonstrates that being the children of homosexuals is dangerous for the acquisition of one's gender identity. The truth is that society needs time to adapt to changes: just think of what happened 30 years ago to the children of separated people, who felt uncomfortable and tried to hide their reality. Now, however, being separated children is almost normal."

"I have met wonderful same-parent families in America and a couple here, and it is certain that overseas they have a much better chance of living like so-called "normal" families. Even on the 'gestation for others', the horrible term uterus for rent, my position is one of great acceptance, even if I would never resort to it or give it to myself. But for me individual freedoms are above everything."

"After all, what establishes relationships is essentially the emotional relationship, that is, love. Let's stop thinking that homosexuals are essentially "sexual". First of all, they are emotional, they have significant cohabitation relationships just like heterosexual families. They can very well adopt children because it is not necessarily the case that two people of the same sex are "bad". And children need love, not necessarily sexual differences. Let them stop saying that the family is made up of a man and a woman, because this is a fundamentally materialist vision, defended by Catholics who always talk about the spirit. Because if the criterion of being together is simply to bring children into the world, then this is the most sinister materialism. While being together also has the meaning of loving each other, of dedicating oneself to an educational work. [...] children are children not because you sleep with a woman and the woman sleeps with a man, they are children because you raise them, because you are together [with them], because you answer their questions , because you pay attention to their needs. This means "fatherhood" and "motherhood", whoever it is carried out by."

"The natural family is under attack. They want to dominate us and erase our people."

"My mother was a widow and I am gay, but I know many other children of widowed mothers who, despite missing their father, did not become gay. After all, I am convinced that for a child almost anything is better than an orphanage. Nor can we pursue perfect family balance. It is sufficient that the adopters are normally civilized, not sadists who slice up creatures, that they have an income to support them, without necessarily having to be an Agnelli."

"We parents, [...] hetero couples, know well that the serenity of children is not dictated by having a mother and a father. Their serenity begins precisely from the feeling of love and understanding that is felt in the family and, instead, it often happens that we parents, instead of helping them, contribute with our fears to instill taboos and insecurities that they would not have. It is not easy to be a parent, even less to be a good parent, but sexuality is certainly not the discriminating factor between a good parent and a bad parent. These are just lies dictated by fear of change. Meanwhile, the world changes anyway and will change again."

"I speak as an open homosexual. [...] I conceive the family [...] in the traditional sense of the term, that is, made up of a father and a mother because nature wanted it that way."

"For too long schools have been afraid to intervene, while in truth there are delicate methods to explain to children, already in primary school, that some of them have two mothers and others two fathers, as in the case of our son."

"What children need is adult, mature and responsible love from parents who put their needs before their own and who at the same time know how to set the right limits for them and help them grow. Growing up with two women or two men is no problem. In the Middle Ages many children grew up in monasteries with only women or only men and many of them became saints."

"...compared to love, affective availability equally belongs to different behavioral genres. What does it matter if they are two men with a child, or a man and a woman, or two women? I don't know who is able to decide how it is right to love."

"[On the detractors of the Cirinnà bill who oppose homoparentality to the family of the Christian tradition] If you consider in which family Jesus was born, you realize [that] Mary conceives from a sacred entity outside of marriage, Joseph adopts - because "putative father" means "adoptive father" - a son who is not his and he does so out of love for his wife. And faced with this situation [...] the Cirinnà bill becomes fresh water."

"I am in favor of civil unions but children are not a right. And they can't be bought. Point. Anyone who disagrees respects the opinions of others."

"I'm gay, I can't have a child. I believe that you can't have everything in life, if it isn't there it means it shouldn't be there. It's also nice to deprive yourself of something. Life has its own natural path, there are things that should not be changed. And one of these is family."

"On the adoption of children I instinctively find the traditional figures of a man and a woman more appropriate. I try to think about the balance needed by children, but it is a complicated issue. It is not that one can argue that a heterosexual couple is necessarily able to give more love to a child."

"[On the contrast between those who are in favor of civil unions and homoparenting and those who are against] [...] I would like someone to explain to me what the traditional family is. That of 5th century Athens? The one in Sparta? The one in Rome? [...] The patriarchal one of fifty years ago? That "wife, husband, son-two sons"? Is that? Is that the traditional family of the last fifty years? [...] The family is a socio-cultural product. [...] It is therefore completely clear that its concept is changing. [...] it would be necessary for these transformations [...] to take place with a minimum [...] of cultural foundation, of awareness, of conscience. Not in the face of "We want everything" and everything that comes to mind is a "natural right" because then two "naturalisms" are opposed: the Catholic one which is totally absurd because anything can be a Christian except a "naturalist "; and the one on the other side of the so-called "natural rights" which are a ghost [...]."

"Adoption by same-sex couples"

"Same-sex marriage"

"Homosexuality"

"Civil union"

"(About prostitution and surrogacy) Both are industries that commodify women and turn what at the foundation of human life into products. In prostitution what is sold is sex without reproduction. In surrogacy, it is reproduction without sex. In both cases, however, it is the woman who is sold and she is denied the fundamental point of the activity itself: she does not get pleasure from sex and she does not get any children from reproduction. In both cases she is totally dehumanized."

"Who are we to know that all women are unaware, uninformed, exploited? Who are we to decide that any woman who consents to gpa [Gestation for Others], even if well paid and properly informed, has no sense of her own femininity and integrity? We believe, dear mothers, that it is possible to connect the desires of some and the availability of a woman to carry on a pregnancy for them. We reject the idea of ​​the barbaric man and the manipulated or manipulable woman. A special thank you therefore goes to the new fathers and the new families, and I am not referring so much to the same-parent families, but above all to the hetero-parental families who support all families if they are based on love, respect and care for their children, and who have in the square, on April 30th, to celebrate rainbow families, families like any other."

"There's something about the concept of a rented womb that scares me. And it has nothing to do with homosexuality or heterosexuality; The logic of "we do it because it's possible" scares me."

"As long as it is on a voluntary basis and there is no exploitation, in my opinion it is legitimate. Research shows that altruistic motivation and the transfer of money - for example in the form of expense reimbursement - can coexist. Let us rather make a strict law that does not allow abuse, given that 95% of Italians who resort to it abroad are heterosexual. However, I am surprised by the battle against surrogacy that some feminist comrades are carrying on."

"I have many reservations about surrogacy [...]. It is a practice that lends itself to the exploitation of women."

"The term "womb for rent" has in itself an offensive connotation, as a term used, both for the woman, who is reduced to her uterus, and for the people who believe they can resort to this instrument to pursue the aim of have a child."

"I have always found it monstrous that you can rent a woman's uterus and then take away her baby - and the baby will never know who its mother is - out of a form of emotional selfishness which however does enormous damage to both the mother and and to the children who will always wonder whose children they are. [...] First of all you create the unhappiness of a mother who will not know where her children are just because in a moment of economic difficulty she had to accept money to do an action that she will regret Surely. [...] If you want a child, you adopt him first of all, and this is a wonderful thing, because those who are rich can also afford to adopt not one, but ten children, visit them, cuddle them, give them gifts, prepare A beautiful life. Why does one have to say "No, this is my son because he comes from my seed but I stole him from his mother"?"

"I have met wonderful families homoparentality in America and a couple here, and it is certain that overseas they have a much better chance of living like so-called "normal" families. Even on 'gestation for others', the horrendous term uterus for rent, my position is one of great acceptance, even if I would never resort to it or give it to myself. But for me individual freedoms are above everything."

"Surrogacy is an abuse of power in an economically unbalanced world like the current one we live in. It increasingly puts poor women in the position of choosing whether to commercialize and sell their motherhood or condemn themselves and their children to poverty. It is extremely cruel, as it is also when women have to emigrate and abandon their families to earn a minimum wage to survive or end up in the network of prostitution for the same reason. [...] Apart from economic exploitation, I reject surrogate motherhood for ethical reasons: a person's psyche begins to build itself during pregnancy through the perception of the voice and the effects of maternal hormones that circulate in the fetal tissues and which match to the mother's voice and state of mind. Therefore, separation from the biological mother is always traumatic for the child and should be avoided whenever possible."

"Surrogate mother. Uterus for rent. Far-fetched words, to express a reality that is not human. [...] Nobody here condemns the desire for motherhood or fatherhood, God forbid. But children are not a right, they are a gift, and if science can help us it is clear that it must have limits. Children must have only one father and only one mother (an aggravating factor for the horrible spectacle of homosexuals hugging their stuffed animal), and having to prove this is so ridiculous that it really seems like the times have come - Chesterton – in which "everything will become a creed... fires will be stoked to testify that two plus two equals four, swords drawn to demonstrate that the leaves are green in summer"..."

"When we are faced with an altruistic gestation, when we have clarified the difference that exists between the principle of non-marketability of the human body and intangibility, we must also recognize, at this point, the principle of female autonomy. The moment a woman decides clearly, autonomously, altruistically to help a couple become parents, having already been a mother herself, having already carried on a pregnancy, having no particular economic needs, in the name of what we must victimize her and we must consider that she has no ability to freely express her consent?"

"It is not a question of homosexuality, we are talking about both homosexual and heterosexual couples. It is a practice to be avoided because children are not bought. It is a trade that must be blocked."

"I have no absolute certainties, but I recognize that the world is changing, that sterility is increasing and young couples who want a child don't know what to do. If other countries emancipated from the point of view of public ethics accept this choice, with conditions, I don't see why we can't do it. Reality comes before political and religious positions."

"[Offering one's body, even if for financial compensation, to donate a child to someone who cannot have it independently, is it not an act of freedom?] If done with love, why not? The world changes, new realities, new needs arise. I consider the desire for motherhood or fatherhood to be legitimate. And beautiful too. It is not an act of selfishness: there is the desire, very human and ancient, to prolong life, to find those who will continue to follow our path after us, to take care of and grow a new creature that will have something of us, despite being autonomous."

"We didn't invent the family. The Holy Family made it an icon, but there is no religion, there is no social state that matters: you are born and you have a father and a mother. Or at least it should be like this, which is why I am not convinced by those who I call children of chemistry, the synthetic children. Wombs for rent, seeds chosen from a catalogue. And then go and explain to these children who the mother is. Procreating must be an act of love, today not even psychiatrists are ready to face the effects of these experiments."

"I have always been against it, I would never use a woman as an incubator."

"Homoparentality"

"The use of human adoptees to separate nature from nurture was first suggested by (1912–1913). During the early decades of the century, interest in adoptees first centered around the question of nature and nurture in human intelligence, which was stimulated in part by the development at that time of tests to measure intelligence. The adoption strategy involved a study of adoptees, their biologic parents, and their adoptive parents. As adoptions developed in the early years of this century, children generally separated at birth from biologic parents and birth environment were placed with nonrelatives who legally adopted and raised the children. In nature-nurture studies the focus of the investigation was usually a trait, behavior, or other characteristic—as in the early studies during the teens and twenties of this century when the focus was on intelligence. The crux of the technique involves comparisons between adoptees and both sets of parents, biologic and adoptive."

"In , only children ... may be adopted ... Adoption is usually associated with the desire to nurture and protect the child as if one's own, and s or illegitimate children are the most frequent candidates for adoption. ... This has little in common with adoption among the . ... Those given in adoption are mostly adults ... Very few adoptions are directly attested. Roman legal writings are one of our best sources of evidence for the actual practice of adoption among the Romans; inscriptions are insufficiently specific for certainty in detecting adoptions, and the adoptions mentioned in literary sources are numbered in tens rather than hundreds. There is even less direct evidence about the reasons for adoption. Of the adoptions that are mentioned in literary sources, those in successive imperial families are not entirely typical of Roman society at large, since they generally have a specifically dynastic and political purpose. As in private families, however, a definite preference is shown for adopting persons related by blood, or at least by marriage, where any are available. This is the case between and , among the and the , and is most evident among the ."

"It was also the only country in the world to allow fully privatised adoptions from 1977 to 2008. At the height of the adoption boom, one in 100 children born in Guatemala was placed for adoption with a family abroad. “Some countries export bananas,” one lawyer who arranged private adoptions told the in 2016. “We exported babies.” Guatemala is often cited as the worst-case scenario for what can go wrong when adoptions are commercialised and children are sent from poorer countries to wealthier ones."

"When you are adopted, the desire to search for your parents can suddenly seem unquenchable and the curiosity has to be sated. That's when it becomes dangerous. It is an oddity that many adopted people embark on the search just when they have settled, finally, on an adult identity. I suppose they feel that now they can. Then the findings of the search throw everything into chaos."

"... if offspring of poor parents, adopted when newly born into well-to-do and well-educated families, turn out markedly different from the birthright members of those families then the presumption is that the dullness, of whichever is the duller, is a saturated growth. If on the other hand they all turn out much alike there is no proof that growth is saturated for any of them. There remains the presumption that the conditions have been much alike for all the members of one family and we get a more uncertain but still useful comparison of native worth, as pointed out above. A thorough study of a hundred such cases of adopted children would do more to reveal the nature of the poorer than statistics of 100,000 poor persons brought up in poverty."

"While and followed their father's footsteps to , (regarded, in the absence of the disabled George, as second in age) left for a new life, as the adopted heir to a wealthy, childless couple who could offer hims great prospects. Edward's benefactor was of in , son of the kinsman who had presented the Steventon living to the Revd . The unofficial adoption of children for social advantage — so strange to twenty-first-century sensibilities — was by no means uncommon in Jane Austen's time: in her own fiction it would be central to the plot in two of her six novels, with being sent to live with the haughty Bertrams, in ', and becoming the adoptive heir of his rich aunt in '. In 's case, the arrangement worked well."