A Word on Adoption

I have met countless friends and acquantances over the years who have thrown around the notion that they would like to adopt a child.  These are always friends who have a few children of their own and they have a daydream of a multicultural family that satisfies their need for altruism.

OK, that sounded really negative.  I certainly do not mean to degrade any family that grows through adoption and I have said many times that I think adoption is as beautiful and natural way to build a family as any other.  However, I think that the vast majority of these people are doing just that - fantasizing and have no real understanding of what adoption entails.

Here comes the brutal honesty: I think many of my kind, caring and like-minded friends have caught a case of JPS - Jolie-Pitt Syndrome.

I think it is wonderful that my friends want to offer a new life to a child in need, but the cold hard fact is that they will probably never adopt.  If they had any intention of adopting, then they wouldn't be throwing these stories around because they would know the harsh reality of real-life adopting.

Just from cruising the boards on TB, there are always stories of adoptions that occured through some miracle match-up and that cost less than the federal income tax credit for adoption.  I am truly happy for those people.  Unfortunately, the majority of adopters will not have this luck.

I can honestly say that if my phone rang tomorrow offering me an infant from anywhere in the world, I would be on the next plane.  In reality, you must meet hundreds of criteria and have your entire life - personal and financial - scoured by an agency.  You must have agents come to your home and assess it multiple times.  You must make videos and brochures of yourself as a couple and "sell" yourselves to the birth mothers who are flicking through catalogs of other couples.  This does not even include the financial aspect.

I have contacted a few women who achieved their adoptions more easily and for less money, but unfortunately for us, their adoptions were through religious organizations.  While these are sometimes less costly, they have their own religious criteria that we certainly do not meet. 

International adoptions are often more costly.  Besides the placement fees and the payments for lawyers and court fees in two nations, you must travel to the country and pay for accommodations, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks depending on the laws of that nation. 

Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive, but as a possible future adopter, it breaks my heart when I hear couples with children throwing around the idea so lightly.  They already have a family and this avenue would just be a bonus, an add-on. 

I have seen several children come through my classroom who were adopted in addition to biological children.  Sometimes, their families are beautifully completed by adoption, and other times, the situation turns out to be downright unhealthy.  I have seen families with children already who adopt another child, close in age to the others, then they struggle with some of the issues and complications that can arise.  The parents want to do right by the adopted child, but they also feel compelled to protect their biological children and they cannot help but compare them.

Obviously, these situations are not overly common, and perhaps my one experience with a particular young girl have clouded my judgement about these close-in-age adoptions.  That does not change the fact, however, that every child deserves to be treasured by their parents, and some of these scenarios do not lend themselves to a healthy valuing of the child. 

Either way, for reasons that only a childless couple can understand, it pains me to hear another family throwing it around as something that would be "nice to do."  In addition, only a childless couple can understand the emotional roller coaster that the adoption process also entails.  When a birth mother changes her mind, or when laws and logistics interfere with the process, I think it would be a lot easier to go home to an already happy, healthy family than back to that empty home with the empty "nursery" that as been taunting you for years. 

As I have posted before, an infertile couple that goes forward with adoption may very well be the happiest family in the universe, but there was still that moment in time when they had to grieve the baby that never was. 

Call me jaded and bitter, I don't care.  I can't help but feel that jab, though, when I hear adoption thrown around as an easier option...