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We Found Our Son in the Subway

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#121

Post by Cushman »

ck2 wrote: post #116
Evbn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In point of fact, quite many babies are conceived against the intent or desire of at least one parent. And this adoption wasn't completed until Danny signed on. Someone had to start the ball rolling.

Whoa, this isn't a puppy. You don't adopt a child when you have a partner without even mentioning to them, let alone discussing it. I mean that's insane, and I don't get the downvotes. Who the hell adopts a kid while in a long-term relationship without even asking their partner? It's all good because it turned out okay but seriously who does this? It's a massive life-changing event. You plan these things, otherwise i…

You also don't find a baby. Can we grant this is an extreme circumstance?

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#122

Post by mattsfrey »

ahoyhere wrote: post #26
chrisrhoden wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that you shouldn't read this story. I wouldn't expect a story about the latest release of Twitter Bootstrap to show up in the Wall Street Journal, though, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the Sports section front page doesn't include stories about a recent fire, heroic as the firefighters might be.

It's strange to me that you are comparing HN to traditional media. Mostly* the editors of Hacker News are readers. The readers choose what they want to read. The readers have spoken. It's too bad you disagree with the people who voted it up, but there's no point in quarreling with the format of HN itself. * there's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that moderators killfile individual articles, and we all know certain…

I feel the article has no business here as well, but as it is this format is fairly democratic and majority rules. If a mod were to kill it many would be upset and claim overreach, especially since it's popular. Knowing that if it's both irrelevant AND unpopular it will get downvoted to oblivion is about as good as it gets. People will always have their gripes, have to compromise somewhere

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#123

Post by short_circut »

lelandbatey wrote: post #93
StavrosK wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, "what belongs on HN" is basically "what HNers upvote".

Indeed, that is in fact very explicitly what belongs on HN. Quoted from the HN Guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." If it "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity, it's totally cool.

If you think about it, it is technically a hack. They sort of hacked the adoption process. From my understanding usually adoption is significantly more difficult.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#124

Post by ajtaylor »

twstws wrote: post #92

This was hard for me to read. I spent four years waiting to adopt a child.Did almost a year of training and home visits, then waited. And waited. Why does it take so long? Because we selfishly insisted that we'd only take one ortwo children. The social workers were not subtle in letting us know that we were selfish to not want a sibling group of 4 or 5(?!) kids all at once. They made it absolutely clear that we could…

My wife and I also adopted through a state Family Services division. You probably don't want to hear how we got lucky and got a baby within a few months... But we did come pretty close to taking a sibling group of 5. The case worker basically decided she didn't like/want us and that was that. We were pretty upset at the time, but things often have a way of working out.

The system is massively screwed up, but I hope you can be patient. Being a parent is worth all the waiting and heartache x 1000!

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#125

Post by philwelch »

apendleton wrote: post #68
natrius wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a shame really. Someone's open-minded curiosity shouldn't be cast aside because of a hypothesis that is politically incorrect.

I consider "political correctness" to be the sort of back-bending linguistic contortionism typical of politicians and PR departments terrified of offending anyone. That's not what's going on here. I'm gay, and while I don't have children, the idea that, were I to adopt one, I'd risk sexually damaging said child with my gayness is offensive. Can you imagine the reaction there would be to someone asking a parallel ques…

Some people refuse to adopt interracially for exactly that reason, though.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#126

Post by stevewilhelm »

mtinkerhess wrote: post #4

Great story. Can someone explain why this belongs on HN?

I think this story resonates with the HN community because it hinges on a very large leap of faith. The same kind of bold, against all the odds move that starting your own business takes.

It's encouraging to read such actions, even if in this case it's not a technical or business move, can end successfully and happily.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#127

Post by lostlogin »

mtinkerhess wrote: post #38
siscia wrote: post #30

Love the story. When we talk about gay marriage and adoption I always need to query a little more, especially about the kids. What's about Kevin ? His life is "perfectly normal" (how stupid is this expression) ? He is happy ? Does he have problem with his sexuality ? Do anybody have any experience to share ? Please to be obvious, in neither way... (Why this is on HN ? Well, because I believe that HN is one of the bes…

Parents are parents. Straight parents are parents. Gay parents are parents. There's no fundamental difference.

I think you may be wrong. To be parents as a gay couple (particularly if male) there often has to be considerably more effort to get there. This would generally mean that the parents really strongly wanted to be parents. This fact alone surely makes for a better environment for kids than one where the child could be an accident.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#128

Post by paulnechifor »

I'm wondering how many upvoted because they found the article worthwhile versus upvoting because they noticed the author is not a women and that's what's expected. I say this because to me it looks like it's something that's off-topic judging by the guidelines.

Re: We Found Our Son in the Subway

#130

Post by bwaldrep »

robomartin wrote: post #79
Geekette wrote: post #44

Ugh. This yanked a couple of thug tears outta me. And for those wondering what place this has on HN, I actually read HN for interesting, often-not-technically-related news.

Yup. Got me too. Beautiful story. Lots of love there. Neither my wife nor I were ready for any of our kids. I don't think you ever are. What these guys did was, among other things, down-right heroic. Not everyone would be open to changing their lives to such an extent by choice. It's also a wonderful representation of real values found in the gay community. This country will be far better off when we start to serious…

Sorry to nitpick, but these two quotes stuck out at me:

> "I bet you a pile of cash not one of those self-righteous a--holes would even think about adopting a non-white kid someone found in the subway."

Having known several families from the religious right who have done exactly this, I would be happy to accept your pile of cash. There, now we can let my anecdotal evidence cancel out the hasty generalization.

> "This country will be far better off when we start to seriously pull away from fanatical religiously-motivated phobias, discrimination and down-right bigotry."

While this may be true, one should not take it as an excuse to indulge in non-religiously-motivated bigotry.

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