An Adoption Opinion I Totally Agree With
I just started reading this adoptive mother's blog (foster care plus adoption from international disruption). I don't find her adoption opinion to be controversial at all. It strikes me as simply practical! However, I realize it's a minority opinion among some strongly Christian-oriented communities, so I think it's great that she's linking her argument to Christian teaching.
I think adoption is best when there is no other option for a child's life. Like when the birthparents pose a death risk. Or when they are dead themselves. If adoption were not so glamorized, perhaps more young mothers who don't feel prepared and "selflessly" choose adoption so she "can move on with her life" would simply step up to the plate and become the person God created her to be. Perhaps their families would value supporting and helping the young/addicted/immature/etc. mother. The Bible is very clear: children are a blessing. All children. The world teaches the antithesis of that fact. People are being lied to. The Bible is also very clear that if God gives us a job to do, he will provide the strength and wisdom to do it. Where is the church today? Why is it so silent on this issue?
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Where is God in this equation? Are we willing to decide for him that people will not change? In a lot of cases, neglect and verbal abuse are probably not worth adopting out a child. It doesn't matter how wonderful your home is.
The way I like to phrase it is that adoption should not be imagined as a method for moving a child from a Grade D or C family to a grade B or A family. It should be thought of more as a last-ditch resort for cases in which the original family is either dangerous, non-existent or completely unable to parent the child.
I'm absolutely horrified by Christian arguments that uphold adoption as some kind of wonderful, win-win solution to abortion. The proposed license plate below was recently held to be unconstitutional by Illinois, and I'm quite relieved about that.
From their website:
Adoption is a positive choice
The Donaldson Institute and the Dave Thomas Foundation performed a survey showing that Americans have a very favorable impression of adoption. 40% of Americans have considered adoption and 60% have been personally touched by adoption. The number of people seeking to adopt children makes every child a wanted child. Many people involved with adoption are supporting Choose Life plates.
I feel like waving my hands and screaming "NOT ME NOT ME NOT ME!"
And I wish I could make them change every instance of "child" in that paragraph to "healthy (preferably white) infant." There are layers upon layers of manipulation and exploitation at that site.
Foster Care System Perspectives
1 comment:
This blog post (from Kimchi Mamas) also appeared on my Google Reader today, and I thought it was interesting and somewhat connected to your post:
http://kimchimamas.typepad.com/kimchi_mamas/2009/10/unwed-mothers-in-the-motherland.html
I have mentioned the situations of single mothers in Japan in a comment here at some time or other, I think... I can only go with what I see in my daily life, as I have not studied this subject at all, but...
According to my observations, at the current time and in the community where I live (a roughly middle class community a large northern Japanese city, with a good mix of various income levels, etc.), it is more-or-less socially acceptable to be a single mother. I know many women at my son's school who are quite open about being single mothers, with the qualification that they do invariably say that they were married at some point but divorced, and that they do not necessarily volunteer the information of their singleness in every social situation.
Single mothers get preference for extremely cheap public housing, and they get cheaper rates on various things such as school lunches for their kids. There are many free after-school childcare options for elem. school kids (at least in my city), and fees for daycare for small children are based on the family's income. It is very different from the situation that is described in the post about Korea (linked above). In terms of public assistance, I would rather be a single mother in Japan than in the U.S. The option of working & putting your kids in affordable but good quality childcare is very well provided for here.
I know there are still some single moms here who end up putting their kids in orphanages rather than caring for them, but I would tend to think that these people have other issues involved in the decision (such as personal resistance to caring for a child, or perhaps family or social complications that are beyond the normal), as opposed to the Korean situation where it seems that public denigration or a lack of public financial support would force someone to give up a child.
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