I have always been a strong advocate of adoption. It is a family tradition: my parents adopted my sister, my husband and I adopted our youngest, my sister and her husband adopted their little girl and my brother-in-law and his wife adopted both their children. There was a time when I thought of starting an adoption agency because it seemed the perfect answer to two deep human yearnings: a child needs parents, parents want a child. What could be simpler?
In fact, however, few things can be more complicated.
I have stopped advocating, stopped trying to persuade young couples to adopt before having a homemade baby, stopped trying to convince the world that “Each One Take One” is the solution to the problems of abortion and unwanted children.
I still believe fervently in adoption. I still thank God every day for my sister, my daughter, my nieces and my nephew. I just know now that it isn’t necessarily the right thing for everyone to do. I believe couples considering adoption should be far better prepared for the journey they are embarking on, far clearer about the guaranteed burdens their new baby will come into their family bearing.
A child who has been abandoned by its mother, no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter how sensible her decision, suffers a loss nothing can make up for. Life contains sorrows that cannot be assuaged and it is important to be honest in acknowledging this. Too often, in our desire to believe in the healing powers of love, we deny the power of grief.
Couples volunteering to be the parents of such a child need to understand this and to realize the enormity of what they are taking on. When my husband and I adopted our baby daughter, Moy Moy, we were as innocent as babies ourselves. She was 12 weeks premature, but I think our pre-maturity was far more profound. Luckily for us, and for her, some things were given: we were deeply in love, we had already raised two homemade children and I was a stay-at-home mom.
That stay-at-home bit is crucial. Somebody – man or woman – has to be willing to do it. A baby who has been abandoned needs to be held more often, cuddled more convincingly and loved in ways which go beyond “quality time”. That baby needs unconditional acceptance, and she needs it constantly.
The recent decision of Catholic Charities of Boston – under unwarranted pressure from the both Massachusetts’ bishops and the Vatican – to refuse to allow gay couples to adopt children is an example of wrong-headedness and intransigence which would make the angels weep. It is a disgrace to all that the Church stands for and an indictment of all that we believe about the sanctity of life and the gift that every child represents. As a Catholic, I am grieved by this rejection of love freely offered, selflessly and heroically. As the mother of an adopted child, I am amazed at the stupidity of a policy which denies the unique capacity of gay couples to provide what would-be adoptive children so desperately need.
Without being sentimental or biased, it is possible to say that certain people, because of their life experiences, are better qualified for certain tasks than others. People with disabilities, for example, and those who work with them, are more likely to be able to accept others as they are, simply because they have more experience with doing it. People with disabilities may drool or have difficulty in expressing themselves. They may use sign language rather than words; they may read Braille rather than conventional print. Those who are disabled themselves, or who have experience with people with disabilities, tend to be calmer about the variety of life’s gifts, knowing it is the same Spirit which provides them.
Similarly, gay couples, having staked everything on love in a world which denies them their right to exist, let alone happily, are better suited than most to the challenges of caring for children who need unconditional acceptance. If, having risked being ostracized and rejected by the community they desire – like anyone else – to be a part of, they are still willing to offer their lives and their hearts as a haven for children in the most desperate need of protection and unconditional acceptance, who on earth are we to say they are unworthy?
As a Catholic, I say no to Boston’s Catholic Charities’ decision to refuse to provide adoption services to gay couples. Love is rare enough in this world of violence and meanness. Can we truly consider rejecting it because it comes from people of the same sex?
