Why Adopt? Part II

Apparently, I heard the question wrong.  Probably because the question I answered is more common and I'm used to getting that one.  But here's some clarification from paragraphein:

...for me the question isn't "Why adopt even in an unethical system?" but rather "Why adopt at all?" Why invite all this pain and complexity in, on purpose? Because the pain and complexity is there even if it is (somehow) done 100% ethically.

For me it's not a question of ethics, it's a question of adoption itself.

I didn't realize that was the question, because it would never occur to me that the answer isn't obvious.  My family is worth any amount of pain and complexity.  I love my family.  I love my children.  The give me untold joy every single day.  I am a great parent.  We have a terrific family.  The pain and complexity that would be a part of my children's lives--regardless of who adopted them, whether they were adopted or not, whether they grew up in the foster system--is something I am more than willing to help them navigate, teach them to understand and grow through and simply be here to comfort them when it is too overwhelming.

I do not discount any pain or complexity of adoption.  In fact, my understanding of adoption's difficulties increases every day as I live it out.  Would I go back and do a single thing differently with regard to my family-building choices?  Never.  I would do it all again.  I may yet do it again (adopt) and if I do, it will be a situation with yet more pain and complexity because I am beginning to feel that as far as ethics go, the less desirable a child on the "adoption market," the more ethical the adoption (as a rule of thumb).

No matter how complex, how paradoxical, how painful, there is no way anyone will ever convince me that my family is not a gift--a gift to each of its members and a gift to the world in general.  Yes, I am including my children's first family members in that assessment.  I truly believe that placing their children with my partner and me was the best option available among a few pretty bad options for my children's mothers.  (Okay, maybe not with my partner and me specifically, but with people like us--adoption in general, open adoption in general, adoptive parents with our philosophy of family more specifically--we aren't the only ones on the planet.)

Life is complex and painful and riddled with messes we couldn't have anticipated.  Parenthood is complex and painful and riddled with messes.  Any kind of family is a big disaster waiting to happen.  Am I wrong here?  Look at all the disfunction and difficulty in families everywhere--all kinds of families.  To choose to become a parent is to invite, on purpose, suffering into your life.

Adoption doesn't have a corner on the complexity and pain market.  It may have a rarer type of complexity and pain, since it is not common compared to biological family relationships, but if avoiding complexity and pain were on my agenda, I'd have to retire from life.  I don't even know where I'd go to do that.

And much as I agree that lots and lots--perhaps even the majority--of adoptions are unnecessary, there are adoptions that are the best available option for the people involved.  If some folks at least, didn't feel adoption's particular complexities were something they could handle, where would these people be?

I realize that too many people assume that every adopted child is a child saved from some terrible fate--even death.  And I realize that is actually true only in a small minority of cases.  In fact, that is a caveat here at Peter's Cross Station--adoption is very, very rarely about rescuing anyone from anything.

And yet, I do believe that adoption is needed.  I do believe that work as we might to reduce adoption, to encourage and support women in crisis pregnancies to raise their babies, those women deserve the option to place their babies in adoption as truly as they deserve (and I fervently believe they do) the option to terminate a pregnancy.

Asking me why I would be willing to adopt in spite of the complexity and pain of adoption is, I feel, like asking a young, single mother why she would keep her child instead of placing it for adoption.  That path has complexity and pain too.  But a mother is a mother.  Her child is her child.  And that's my answer too.

Comments

[Global Librarian]

If that is the question, does this individual also have another question: why have children at all?

Life is pain, regardless of how we enter this world, who are parents are or whether we are with an adoptive family or our birth family.

People have children because life is not just pain. It is also joy.

[Sadie]

Shannon, every so often you blow me away.

Thank you for this.

[Allie]

It is perhaps wise to remember that pain comes, invited or not, into all our lives. People can assume that they are taking the least 'dangerous', most 'mainstream', of paths and find themselves struggling in the day to day with the unexpected. No-one knows when ill-health or loss of some kind will visit their family.

I believe, as a parent, the job is to glory in the joyful moments with your children and be a rock through the pain. You won't be able to predict the joy or the pain. You have to be ready for both. You won't always manage that perfectly. That is the reality for all kinds of parents, is it not?

[Judy]

This is just amazing. Thank you.

I stand by "everything worthwhile in my life has come with some pain involved, has come with some fight from me" -- from adoption (though I didn't know much about it then) to fighting my way to life from a very serious cancer last year. Pain? It's a part of life. We can't escape it.

I love this post. I'd love to link to it.

[Lisa V]

Damn girl. Brilliant again. And again what I wanted to say and couldn't figure out eloquently. These last couple of posts are huge, huge keepers.

And as for the unnecessary adoptions- who gets to judge if they are necessary? It still is a choice issue and women should have that choice free of the judgment of others. I may think a woman's life is perfectly capable of raising a child, but she may not. Even knowing options on and on. She may choose to terminate or place. That still gets to be her decision and I won't judge it by calling it unnecessary. She may change her mind at seem point and deem it that, but it's not up to me.

[marta]

Shannon, I'm sending you a quick separate note via email, but I just feel compelled to come out of the woodwork and say amen, sister. These two posts are you at your very shining best, and I thank you for them.

[B mama]

Thanks for this.

[Johannah]

This bit- "I am beginning to feel that as far as ethics go, the less desirable a child on the "adoption market," the more ethical the adoption (as a rule of thumb)." is what I was trying to say in my comment to the last post but in a far more garbled way. And I heartily second your entire post. My children are full of contradictions and difficulties- and yes, losses around their adoption- but they are my children and despite everything all of our lives are vastly enriched for the presence of each other- every member of our complicated, extended, family. And that is worth anything.

[rosemary Starr]

I really enjoyed both this post and "Why Adopt". You have done an excellent job of wading through these complicated and emotionally charged issues. We're all learning together and I'm grateful that you shared your views!

[Mei-Ling]

"It still is a choice issue and women should have that choice free of the judgment of others."

But for those of us in IA, there is NO WAY of knowing if the mother actually chose to relinquish. We don't know if it was necessary. For all we know, the agency has promoted lied, and we walk in blindly without even realizing we have the blinders on.

[Lisa V]

Mei-Ling, I really wasn't speaking to IA, because while there are similarities to domestic adoption, it is as you point out a totally different situation. Most truly don't anything at all about how the adoptions came about.

[Mei-Ling]

Of course, of course.

[Jessica]

Yes