Is adoption selfish?

As adoptive parents, "Are we seen as noble families that have provided a home to a needy child, or are we seen as members of a group that is taking advantage of the financial inequalities around the world to feed our own interests in raising a child we often can't obtain otherwise?" questions Brian Stuy, an adoptive dad. I just came across an essay that Brian posted on his blog that was written by an adoptive mom. Here is an excerpt from it:

In a developed country, many feel compelled or perhaps drawn towards offering help to those who they deem as less fortunate. Yet one must wonder whether those who are hungry or orphaned need us or is it our need to feel validated that drives us to want to adopt? Are there not better ways we can help others without having to get such a huge payback in the end?...And why did we adopt? Can any of us be honest about our motives and can we admit it if they were less than admirable?...we all need to look internally on why it is we chose to adopt and the consequence it may cause on our children. Will Vanessa or others in the adoption community ever recognize that all of their well-meaning behaviours were actually self-driven to some extent? Driven to fulfill a personal desire for more -- More love, more life, more of whatever it is people crave. Sometimes it seems that the void is endless and can never be filled. Or as Greg puts it “Just because they don’t know the certain things we call luxuries doesn’t mean that we’re better than them.”

In respect to the woman who wrote this, I appreciate her honestly and effort to point out another selfish reason why people may adopt. Of course most people adopt for selfish reasons. The first and almost unanimous reason, obviously, is that the couple couldn't conceive. I mean, people almost always assume my husband and I can't have children when we tell them we are adopting. It's universally assumed that when people are born, they in turn want to reproduce themselves and go into depression when they can't...I guess I am missing this almost univeral human trait. The second most common reason appears to be couples having two boys, wanting a girl, and not wanting to chance having another boy, or vice versa. Another selfish reason this essayist points out, perhaps sometimes in conjunction to not being able to conceive, is that people unknowingly want to fill a void in their life and to validate themselves by being a hero and saving children from impoverished societies. I could see where this could happen, as people often try to fill a void they have by many different means. People crave meaning and purpose.

However, she is assuming orphans might actually be better off not being adopted and being orphans in their native birthplaces. I have to strongly disagree with this.

Obviously, considering the toll adoption takes on adoptees' psychies, kids are always better off with their biological families or with relatives of their biological families, unless the children are getting sexually or actually physically abused (not just a slap across the face or a spanking, which was accepted at one time). Even if the children are living in what we would consider deplorable conditions and barely get enough food, they are still better off with their parents. Hence my thinking the famous Elian Gonzalez belonged in Cuba with his parents, no matter the conditions of Cuba. Who are we to judge what material things and comforts a child needs over the cruelty of being separated from their own parents? If you know anything about what being separated from one's parents can psychologically do to a child, that's a given.

However, by definition, "orphans" are children without parents or any permanent caretaker who can act as a parent. Orphans are not children frolicking freely throughout their village, being raised and loved by the village. They are not part of the society. Anyone who's read anything about parenting children with attachment disorders knows that orphanage life causes severe mental, emotional, and physical delays. Yes, you will meet parents with seemingly healthy adopted children, but they often don't tell you about the effects orphanage life had on their kids, the counseling they are receiving to help their kids form emotional bonds because they were not able to do so previously, the physical therapy, etc. They are institutionalized children who can't go outside enough, who don't get enough nutrition and medical care, which causes their bodies to suffer, who sadly form animal-like agressive survival behavior from not being able to form an attachment with a parent, from having no one to rely on, and from competing for any type of care. Kids in orphanages do not get enough stimulation to make the brain develop in healthy ways, which causes behavior disorders. The longer they spend in an orphanage, the more delayed and more warped their mental, physical, and emotional conditions get. After reading a plethora of information on orphanages in China, I know this is the case there.

Parents who adopt orphans are not stealing them from society, as they are not even a part of the society. I highly doubt the society wants a delinquent on the streets who turned of age...A report on Russia tells us that most become part of gang crime or become prostitutes. I highly doubt that those orphans, if given a chance to do it again, would choose to grow up in that dehumanizing environment again without a loving family, without knowing the outside world, without proper care and education, without someone to believe in them, without the chance to be mentally and emotionally stable individuals, for the sake of growing up in their birthplaces. I can only assume that those former orphans hate themselves and their village. Adopting is not taking a child from anywhere but the trash bins called orphanages. Even if some of the caretakers in orphanages are kind, there's never enough to go around, and the workers are constantly changing. One adoptive mother said that while she was in China, some Chinese women stopped her on the street and asked why she would want their "garbage." She was stunned. At the same time, most Chinese people give Westerners a thumbs up for adopting.

The essayist, an adoptive mom herself, is exploring why some people who judge adoptive parents are against adoption and whether people should really be adopting kids out of their native places of birth. However, in most countries, there aren't enough "villagers" who want those kids and they end up being thrown into institutions. The fantasy that we are just being blind well-to-do westerners again and that we were wrong about those orphans being so bad off afterall is ignorant. It's an easy out for people who want to feel better about not doing anything for the plight of orphans. The idea that adopting is only simply offering help to those we deem less fortunate, as the essayist puts it, completely neglects the orphan, denies their true state of inhumane suffering, and denies their chances to be human in any society.

What's better...being judged by selfish people who are assuming we only adopted for selfish reasons or coldly letting kids rot in orphanages? I think the answer is clear.

Let's even look at the hypothetical situation that a woman who wants to adopt from a village in Africa decides to get in contact with the birthparents and offer them assistance if they will raise their own child. If that works, that would be better for the child. Hurray! However, the major problem with that is: How does the average person connect with the parents of orphans in order to support them? Here is the problem with starting a system to do that: 1) Are orphanages going to agree to be a part of a program to get kids back to their parents? certainly not Chinese orphanages that profit from international adoptions. 3) Are the parents going to actually use the money for the child or for something else? And perhaps they will have more children to get more "assistance to keep their children." Perhaps b/c of ignorance about or unavailable birth control, they'd use assistance for the one child and have another anyway. 4)We can't assume other cultures view children like we do and perhaps the parents didn't care to lose the child, as was pointed out in "The Myth of the Grieving Mother" article. This might cause certain parents to take the money and give the same child up for adoption again. 5) While a hypothetical program like that would be going on, there would still be children growing up miserable in orphanages without parents. This hypothetical system of dealing with orphans is ripe for more corruption. So again, do we turn a cold, blind eye to orphans because we believe they should stay in their villages?

Yes, the best answer is to support poor communities so that poverty and thus orphans are reduced. We definitely have to do this. Reputable, fiscally responsible child sponsorship programs such as those through World Vision and other orgs are great. I think every person on earth who can afford it, should sponsor a child and donate to orgs that help communities build themselves economically and teach AIDS prevention. At the same time that we do this, there will still be orphans growing up in institutions who deserve to have a normal life and love and who need to be adopted. They are the reality now.

People who think children need to stay in their communities instead of being adopted need to first prove they are supporting an impoverished community; otherwise, they have no grounds for finger-pointing. They also need to come up with an alternative for the orphans growing up w/out care. Critics who are not doing anything to help orphans are like hypocritical SUV-driving Americans who don't bother to recycle yet complain about big oil and the gov's role in our environment. I'm not saying there's something ethically wrong with driving an SUV. And I totally agree that our government doesn't do enough for the environment, that global warming is a serious problem, and that there are problems with "big oil." However, I have to laugh when someone driving a Suburban starts to talk about big oil or someone who's too lazy to not throw garbage in a recycling receptacle talks about global warming. I also cringe when people criticize other people's efforts to help a situation when they themselves have no alternatives and don't care to do anything.

I am also amazed at those who say there can't be a God because there's so much suffering in the world, yet they are doing nothing to ease the suffering in the world. I have also struggled with the fact that God allows suffering. But I don't understand people who ask that question and yet are too selfish to contribute anything regularly to a charity or to give their time to others. I understand the question, and I'll have a serious conversation about it with someone when I see him/her in the field, bettering the lives of others. All I know and see for certain is that people cause suffering on some people, while other people turn away and that my God has given His people who will listen compassion on the suffering and the will to help. Anyway, that's a side point!

This finger pointing may be accusing adoptive parents of being selfish but how many of these critics selfishly want to make themselves feel better about not being an adoptive parent, when the existence of adoptive parents annoys their egos and conscience? It's so much easier to deny the suffering an orphan endures and to point out flaws and corruption in the system so they can validate their decisions to not be bothered with orphans. Not everyone is cut out to adopt, but there will always be critics who want to make themselves feel better about not doing a darn thing. It is very hard for a self-centered person to understand that there actually are some people out there who have compassion on others and want to help the suffering because of compassion and not because it will earn them points on earth with others or earn them points in heaven or because of some other selfish need. Because they can't understand the feeling of compassion and not doing something in order to get something back, they come up with theories as to why compassionate people do the things they do to help. Yes, they are right about some people who "help," but not all. Compassion and love without strings and kickbacks do exist. I'm sorry that some people are unable to be selflessly compassionate and therefore, can't understand it in others. My Lord has given my hubbie and me more compassion than we had in the past. We had some innate compassion, but nothing close enough to start our adoption organization. I am not blowing our horn and showing off because our compassion is from Him, not from us.

I actually think it would be much easier for us to turn a blind eye to orphans and not adopt...My husband and I have a lovely, easy life w/out kids who can cause problems and distress and to be honest, I am selfishly worried that our happy life will be turned upside down with kids, especially emotionally affected adopted kids. I'm not so naive as to have fairytale visions of idealized family life, with us all laughing and holding hands in the sunshine all the time. I don't need recognition from others for doing something seemingly heroic as it doesn't mean much to me to get recognition from mere humans in all their pathetic humanity (I am also a pathetic human!). We are adopting because we think it's sick that the world is letting orphans suffer in orphanages.

I don't need the reader's or anyone else's approval or admiration. I've lived long enough on this earth to fail to be that impressed with anyone and to know that what's behind closed doors can be pretty scary. Don't get me wrong...I'm far from perfect and make mistakes that involve others. And there are good people in the world. But you just never know which ones are those who would surprise you with who they really are. Yes, the approval of my husband and my boss is important to me, but the approval from anyone else doesn't do anything for me. I would like to see more excitement in my community about helping others, but that's a subject for another day.

I believe we need to work to build communities economically and work to help reform corrupt systems, but at the same time, we can't turn a cold, blind eye to orphans who are already orphans and, despite the reasons we attach to them being orphans, are orphans in need of a loving home now. We can't let corruption prohibit the great need for millions of legitimate orphans to find forever families. There's an estimated 143 million orphans worldwide; that's half the population of the U.S.