I think a lot of adoptive parents find it somewhat cringe-worthy when they hear another family mention that they plan to adopt to “save a child”. If you read adoptive parenting literature, the key flaw in this can be related in the same way one might relate a relative’s attempts to “save” someone close to them suffering from an addiction. The flaw being that if that person doesn’t realize they have a problem, they also don’t realize they need to be saved. In the same manner, when you view a child that has grown up only knowing his or her environment, it stands to reason that they have accepted their environment for what it is and the thought that they would need saving has never crossed their mind. Compounding the issue is the concern that if a family approaches adoption as “saving” a child, there is also the potential that there might be an underlying desire for the child to express gratitude and parenting a child is not meant to be done to receive gratitude.
Now this is where I personally diverge and differentiate between “saving a child” vs “adopting where there is the greatest need”. This is also where I struggle. While ultimately, we chose to adopt for selfish reasons (because we wanted a family), over the years, we have also more and more weighed where the need is into our decision of where to adopt. With increasing ethical issues cropping up in international adoption, it becomes harder and harder to assess where the need is vs where the corruption is. And while I struggle to grasp the gut wrenching decision of a birthmom to sell one of her children to a baby handler to feed her other children, I would never be able to justify, in my mind, that the adoption of that child would ever be the right thing to do. At that point, it becomes a matter of social justice and I would probably be the first one with my hand raised to sponsor that family through an organization like World Vision to avoid a birthmom having to make that kind of decision in the first place. The other key issue I struggle with is the use of the orphanage system in many countries as a day-care. Families that are unable to educate or feed their children leave them in the care of an orphanage so that they may get the support they need to continue to grow and develop with no intention that the child would ever be adopted. But unfortunately, this sometimes isn’t how it works. The birthfamilies may be in constant contact with the children at the orphanage. So how does an adoptive family discern this if the child is really available for adoption? They don’t. And that becomes something that keeps me awake at night. We need to be the voice for the voiceless, ask the questions, and be a part of the solution, not contribute to the problem by greasing people’s hands and using the excuse that because we are “saving” a child the ends justify the means. This mentality benefits no-one and only serves to hurt those who are most vulnerable.
I am reading “The Hole in Our Gospel” by Richard Sterns, the CEO of World Vision. And while I would like to stay safely in our little cocoon in the good ‘ol US of A, the fact of the matter is that we are on the front lines of the increasing global disparity between the rich and the poor, bridged between both worlds through the adoption of our children. If we leave this world having seen the social injustices and haven’t stood up and taken action, hiding in our cocoon with our 4 beautiful children, I have to wonder how we would answer God if he asked us “Why?, why didn’t you do something?”
