Other People Adopting

 My nephew and his wife, both in their 30s and with two young daughters, just announced on Facebook that they have begun the adoption process. They specifically want a boy. The post came with a family picture of the girls holding a chalkboard stating they were "waiting for our brother". The post, written by the wife, focused on the fact that while they considered foster care and foreign adoption and interviewed many different domestic adoption agencies, they finally chose one agency several states away from where they live specifically because this was the only agency that would allow them to choose the gender of the baby to be adopted. 

So, so much to unpack here. 

a) You can specify gender when going into foster care. The state wants placements to be successful so they require you to specify a host of factors: age, gender, race, numbers and ages of children, types of disability you can/cannot cope with, etc. 

In reality, she rejected foster care for other reasons but is now spreading misinformation about the foster care process to pretend this was reason to their rejection. Hey, not everyone should do foster care! I'm kind of relieved they didn't because I don't think she is strong enough to be a foster care mom--but don't lie about the system to avoid being honest about your own frailties. (She's had lengthy conversations with me about foster care so I know exactly what her hang-ups are. Mainly, she wants a baby, not an older child and, if she got a baby she couldn't give it back to its parents. I totally understand and that's a common and valid reason for not adopting from foster care, but just be honest about that. Don't make up a fake reason that sounds better.)

b) I hate the chalkboard. I hate the little girls as props. But...have I done that? I sure do post pics of my kids on FB. I'm sure I definitely do make our family look better than it is, mainly because I'd rather post the cute and funny, but also because I don't think it's appropriate to post the awful. Have others cringed at my posts because it seemed I was making my cutely dressed up kids into props to portray me as a good mom? Perhaps I'm cringing at what she posted because it's a shade too close to my own faults?

c) Designer children. On one hand I think adoption is so hard a family should have the right to remove any barriers that would make it even harder. Prime example: I don't think a white couple with zero interracial experiences of their own who live in a rural white county with a dark history of KKK affiliations should adopt a black baby. On the other hand I know that Caucasian babies sell for more than black babies and that makes me want to cry. Sure, sure, we dress it up by calling them adoption fees but when the fees are different for more desired vs. less desired races--that's just straight up selling babies. And the idea that this couple can go out and buy the kind of baby they want makes me ill.

I'm horrified by her post because precisely what is attracting my nephew and his wife is what caused us to reject domestic adoption. Neither of us could stomach the feeling that we used our privilege to buy the "right" kind of baby and dismiss the "less desirable". Not to mention having to sell our family to the birth family by making one of those profiles for the birth mother. Just couldn't do it.

We also opted out of foreign adoption because I couldn't cope with the utter separation of that child from his/her culture followed by little to no chance of connection with birth family. That seemed so harsh and absolute. And, again, the fees--imagine if those fees were donated directly and charitably to fund orphanages and foster parents in the home country? Imagine how well those children could live while in an orphanage and remaining in their home country?

d) Adoption is hard. I know how much they don't know and my heart already aches for them. I never thought I'd be saying people shouldn't adopt--it's a good thing, right?--but that was my immediate reaction to her post. They are good, but naive, people and this is going to be way beyond what they are ready for. But then again, hasn't that been true for every single adoptive family always? Nobody is ready for adoption...or childbirth or marriage, for that matter. Life is hard at every transition. But some transitions are harder than others.

e) Abortion. One line in her post said something about hoping the birth mother would choose adoption instead of abortion. Pretty much saying--please agree to be a gestational carrier for me. Please opt for ongoing lifelong trauma and regret so that I can get a tiny cute baby as painlessly as possible. 

This really bothers me because I also know they did an optional vasectomy after their second daughter was born. The girls were too close together in age and the parents felt overwhelmed and didn't want another surprise pregnancy and so he got a vasectomy at age 28 or something ridiculously young. I'm a tad irritated at their hasty choices. Now they're hoping someone else is willing to give away their baby because they made a foolish decision and are having regrets? Ick. 

f) I know, I know, never read the comments. But, I read the comments. They are chock full of, "this baby will be so lucky to have you" and "he'll be a blessing to your family". Look, I know well-meaning people say this kind of thing all the time and they don't mean to be insensitive. It's really hard to explain why "lucky" has so many negative connotations and is offensive to people living with adoption trauma. It's way too hard for a FB post. (Although, I did do that once. Early on I wrote a long post about why my girls weren't "lucky" to have had the life they lived that led to becoming a part of our family. It's like telling someone whose ship sunk and nearly died while on a life raft but finally got rescued that they were lucky. I mean, okay, sure, the rescue was lucky. But what would've been luckier still is if the ship hadn't ever sunk to begin with.)

And, no, no baby is ever meant to be a blessing to its family. I mean, babies are wonderful and miraculous, yes! But no baby should be bought for the purpose of making the family look/feel better.

I am feeling so judgmental. I'm being over-the-top critical of a nice family seeing themselves as doing good in the world. God help me. And them. 

As I am writing this post I realize that I'm backing myself into a corner. Is there only one right way to adopt? If nobody can be "lucky" or a "blessing" then what are the right motivations for adoption anyway?

I guess, in the end, it comes down to connection. If someone lived in a foreign country for awhile (not a mission-tourist) and formed a connection with a child who was truly an orphan--then I'd be okay with foreign adoption. Or, if an American family adopted a child with significant medical needs, or a syndrome that would cause the child to be rejected by its home country, then I can see that as a net positive over the negative of removing the child from its culture.

Regarding domestic adoption, if a woman could not carry a pregnancy and wanted to experience motherhood from infancy, then I can certainly understand the motivation for domestic infant adoption. And, for mothers who really do want to place a child, it is good that families are available to provide good homes for their children.

But other than these scenarios I believe foster-to-adopt is truly the form of adoption with the greatest integrity. Is it hard? Yes. Can everyone do it? No. We need a better social safety net that leads to fewer removals in the first place. And then we need a better support system for foster parents at every stage. If I could wave a magic wand this is how I'd shape the world of adoption. 

Adoption, dressed up with false reasons and expectations as her post demonstrated, is not beautiful no matter how hard she tries to make it so.

Adoption can only be beautiful in the way that a mountain is beautiful. A mountain's beauty is in its majesty. It is not smooth or perfect or flawless. It is not small or simple or easily dismissed. Adoption is huge. It can't be easily tucked away and ignored till you want to display it. Adoption is difficult. It has jagged rocky places and impossible ascents and out of reach places. Adoption's beauty is in the impossible made possible; the love that reaches the out of reach places. Only when someone lets go of the desire for smooth or perfect or flawless can one appreciate the true beauty, and majesty, of adoption.