I have noticed a phenomenon of sorts in people my age. No one wants to have kids. And by this I mean that few of my female friends actually want to give birth. I have heard time and again, “oh, I don’t want to have kids, [the idea of giving birth scares me] [I don’t want to do that to my body] [it wouldn’t be good for my career]. I’m going to adopt.” Like it’s that simple and is the solution to all of their problems. Not everyone gives these reasons either, some just want to adopt because they think it would just be a great thing to do. It’s such a trendy thing to do and everyone seems on board. When I hear these things I want to scream “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!”
I cringe because I know that these people are not prepared for the reality of adoption. They aren’t even aware of it.
About six years ago, my family adopted a 3-year-old boy from the foster system in the state of Georgia. And then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Just kidding. But seriously, this is the single-most difficult thing my family has ever gone through and we’ve seen our share of hard times. When my brother was placed with us we knew little about his background or the effects they had on him. We weren’t prepared to deal with the emotional trauma that manifested as some pretty extreme behavior issues. As far as I know, the idea of any kind of attachment disorder was far from our realm of possibilities, but there we were, struggling to connect to him and even to each other. I’m not going to lie, there was even some resentment from all parties involved.
I have found that the term “process of adoption” is generally used only to refer to the legal steps taken in pursuit of adoption. I have found a very different reality from this common perception. Adoption is a lifelong process. Just like parenting is a lifelong commitment and marriage is a forever endeavor of building a relationship and becoming one flesh. The process of making someone part of your family is not as simple as filing the proper paperwork and signing on the dotted line. Once you start the process of adoption, it will never be over. You will always be bringing that child closer to your family and healing from the brokenness that creates the need for adoption.
Adoption is hard. And nobody tells you that. Before we adopted, the only example of real life adoption we had was our pastor’s family who had recently adopted a little girl from China and another church member who had just adopted a little boy from Guatemala. At least on the outside, these adoptions seemed so easy. We didn’t see any attachment or bonding issues, no real behavior problems, the language barrier even seemed like it wasn’t really a struggle. I am not saying that these adoptions didn’t come with their own sets of struggles but what I am saying is that nobody said anything about them if there were.
No one came up to us with friendly advice or warning about the kinds of things we would have to deal with. No one suggested a support group. No one told us a support group would even be necessary. Everyone acted like the process of adoption would be easy or like bringing a biological child into the family (not that it can’t be a harrowing process but you get my drift). I wonder if it was because they really weren’t struggling or if it was because, as members of the church, they felt they shouldn’t show the kind of struggles they were really going through. They should be able to deal with it all because “we are called to help the widows and the orphans” and we shouldn’t complain about it. If my mom were writing this article, she would be talking about the immense lack of support the church provides to foster and adoptive families. Oftentimes, churches don’t even do things like bring meals to newly adoptive families like they would to parents of newborns. If it was because they weren’t struggling, let me tell you that those adoptions were truly anomalous.
Once my family realized that we really didn’t know what we were doing, a search for others facing the same kind of struggles commenced. We did not have to go far. The number of cases of adoptions dealing with the same, similar, or worse problems than ours is far greater than the number of cases that don’t. There is a community of thousands who have gone through and are going through the process of adoption that have provided a kind of support for us or at least the knowledge that we are not as alone in this as we had originally thought. Something else we discovered is that there is hope, even for people like us who entered into this thing so wholly unprepared.
Here’s the deal though; even with all of this, I do not want to adopt. It is not something I feel called to do in my life. Having been a part of the process and continuing to live through it (and we will, for the rest of our lives, be going through the process of adoption), I don’t think it is something that I could knowingly and willingly go through again or ask my own family to go through. I know this makes me sound like I’m a terrible person which, let’s face it, I am, but adoption just doesn’t seem like it’s for me. This is not me trying to talk anyone out of adoption. If you feel called to it then go for it. this is me telling you that there is more to it than those adorable “forever family” campaigns would have you think. This also does not mean that I don’t love my brother with all of my heart, because I do. This isn’t even me saying that I will never adopt. If it comes down to it and I truly feel that calling on my life, then who am I to be outside of God’s will? But if your motivation to adopt is just to get out of childbirth or because it would be less damaging to your career then I would strongly encourage you to rethink your priorities because whatever your decision, there are literally lives on the line and they deserve to be more than convenient.
