The month of November is Adoption Awareness Month. This awareness theme gets a little old and can be lost on those who might turn away from the truth in adoption. Most of us learned that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Adoption begs for squeaky wheels to step up and recreate adoption to address the appropriate audience, the children without homes.
Following the adoption blogs (just Google for the latest) will educate you on the swell of awareness that has started. Adoptees are beginning to find their voices with help and support. Birth families find it easier to speak up about the difficulty they encounter in “getting on with their lives” after placing a family member. Fathers find themselves in forward motion to claim a stake at parenting versus placing a child for adoption unlike ever before in history. Adoptive parents find voice and something to add when the integrity of adoption is at risk.
The parties whose silence is deafening in helping change guidelines of adoption are the agencies and attorneys who complete adoptions. Anyone who follows the trend of ethics in adoption practice easily understands the reasoning behind the silence of these entities. The “almighty dollar” serves to quiet the disquieted soul of destruction. When did society decide that a price tag could be placed on the life of a child?
Apparent in the voices of all those who must live out the decision of adoption is the common thread of trauma. Trauma in separation, loss, identity, belonging, and family, seep through every pore of those separated from families of origin and grafted into families of strangers. This statement offends none but those who deny the substantive loss of the “other.” Money fails to connect family. DNA and biology came together to fashion an offspring, sibling, aunt, uncle, grandchild, or cousins. Money only buys the paper to make those feigned connections.
Growing up hearing that money cannot buy happiness defies the attempt being made at buying happiness when acquiring a child in exchange for money. The purpose of the exchange is perverted when the attempt is made to create a family (not for the real purpose of offering an orphan a home). Money substitutes for a lot of tangibles these days, children being no less attainable by the same means.
Advertisements, “gofundme” accounts, adoption fund car washes and garage sales, fertility funds, court funds to fight biological parents commonly headline social media sites as well as websites of adoption services. One adoption advertisement site proudly posted a picture of a nice looking young lady with the words: “Will find your baby a good home,” “Will pay living and medical expenses.” Advertising for children would place them in a category of a good piano for sale “will pay moving costs.” How did stooping to the level of offering children as commodities happen in a civilized society? When connected with money, the answer boils down to greed, selfishness, and lust. Harsher words could not be spoken about the evils of humanness and carnality that is disguised as being Christian.
Taking a good, long look at what adoption should be and what adoption really is would behoove everyone because with nearly 70% of the population being touched by adoption, the dilemma will be faced by many. Educate, speak out, find compassion to recognize the trauma that adoption leaves in its wake. Make November a month to become aware of adoption more than ever.