Guest Column – This column is reprinted with permission from Mom•Logic.com.
Last month, the 5-year-old daughter of Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman died in a tragic car accident. The reports of Maria Chapman's death saddened me, not only for the loss of this beautiful little girl, but also because of the adjective most frequently used to describe her: ‘adopted.’ I understand why people feel compelled to use this term, but I speak for many adoptive parents when I say I wish that they didn't.
The instinct to describe Maria as the ‘adopted daughter’ of Steven and Mary Beth Chapman (instead of just ‘the daughter’) demonstrates that despite its increasing prevalence, adoption is still a mixed signifier: Parents who adopt are ‘heroic’ and ‘courageous,’ while the children that they bring into their homes are ‘lucky’ and ‘fortunate.’
Until you have been touched by adoption, you do not realize that it's the other way around. For this reason, I find it strange and unfortunate that the first adjective that comes to many people's minds when describing a child born in China, Russia, Guatemala or Taiwan is ‘adopted.’ Most of us don't think twice about describing our neighbors' son as ‘Jim and Pam's adopted son from Guatemala,’ but we would never in million years describe another friend's daughter as ‘Allison, who was conceived in her parent's bedroom.’ How a child enters into a family is irrelevant. What is important is that he/she is there.
Persistent use of the term demonstrates that for most population, there is an important difference between ‘adopted’ and ‘biological’ child. The difference is, in part, superficial — based on skin color or nationality. But there's also something else that is deeper and more insidious: The notion that a parent can't fully love someone who doesn't share half of his or her DNA. I wonder how these people feel about their spouses.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, I love that. “Allison who was conceived in her parents bedroom”. I’ll have to remember that one!!
I too HATE having children labelled as adopted in contexts where this is utterly irrelevant. Every time I see an obit. where someone is survived by their “adopted son/daughter so-and-so” I want to scream. It’s almost like saying their grief is less profound because they were not born to their parent.
I believe that at a certain age, (about the time they began school) identifying my children as adopted was no longer my business, and became information that my children could share or not as they saw fit. Other than in a medical situation where it might be necessary information, it is up to my kids to decide if they want to share this information with teachers or friends or anyone else in their lives.
Another adoptive mom of my acquaintance was upset by this because she felt that I was abdicating my responsibility to educate the world about adoption. She also felt I was returning adoption to secrecy. Guess what? It’s not my responsibility to educate the whole world. And it’s not a secret, it’s just often not relevant information to be sharing about my kids with everyone I meet. If someone sincerely wants to know more about our open adoption experience I am more than happy to talk about the profound circumstances that brought our children into our lives. But I don’t have to satisfy the idle curiousity of the lady behind me in the grocery line as to why my sons and I have different skin colors. If she wants to assume that I’ve come to know several different races of men in a biblical sense, so what!
Most of the time, my children are happy to talk to their friends about being adopted, to let their teachers know that they think this is an important thing to know about them, and to introduce their birth moms to people as just that. But they are pretty savvy at knowing that they are not required to satisfy the curiousity of the world at large, or that if they are not in the mood to discuss it they are in no way obligated to do so.
And no, we didn’t adopt because we are unusually noble. Quite the opposite. We wanted to have a family. Conception wasn’t cooperating in a timely manner. We didn’t care if our kids were ours biologically or not. So we adopted children. End of story.
But having read this, I think I’m going to put it in my will that my kids are not to be identified as my adopted children in my obituary or at my funeral. They are my kids, period. No matter how they got here.
I guess I am still too new of an “adoptive” mother to disagree with the term. It does help explain how my two boys can be three months apart and I do not find that the term is ever used to treat my son differently by those who use it. In the Chapman case, since the family is an advocate of adoption and make it well known, it calls attention to the 143 million orphans world wide rather than the condition of how this particular child entered their family.It is hard to encourage others to do it,if you have not yet done it yourself. I too am constantly encouraging family and friends to consider adoption as more than a “consolation prize” for infertile couples, but something more families should consider because we have generations of children growing up without knowing the love a family. Having it be known that we are adoptive parents helps others watch how our family has grown and adapted and encourages them that despite the horror stories in the news, adoption can be a beautiful journey!
Thanks for your insightful comments to this guest post, readers!
I’ve been an adoptive mom nearly 16 years and haven’t encountered much labeling. Mostly, when people meet one of my sons for the first time (both were adopted), they ask, “Is your other son ‘yours’?” I just say, “Yes. They’re both ours.”
The media does tend to make a big deal about distinguishing “adopted” children from “bio” children. I’ve noticed that nearly every article about Brangelina notes that Brad and Angelina have four children (soon to be six), and that several of them were adopted.
I can understand mentioning adoption in the context of a story about them adopting some of their kids, but why bother to point that out–for them or for anybody else–if it isn’t pertinent to the storyline?
I include a whole chapter about this issue in my book, “The Adoption Decision: 15 Things You Want to Know Before Adopting.”
I agree with you Laura. I think only if it is pertinent to the storyline. There are some stories I have watched in my local news the past few years that have just puzzled me why they insisted on labeling individuals as adopted or adoptive parents when it had nothing to do with the storyline. Why when an individual is murdered, commits suicide, goes missing or so forth they have to emphasize the irrelevant information that the person was adopted and that it is only the adoptive parents over their crying on the your television screen. The news media acts like it would be professionally unethical or factually inaccurate to call them the victim’s parents or the victim as their son or daughter. How insensitive! When the news media feels compelled to make this distinction at an uneccessary time it gives the notion that the parents’ grief would be more profound if was a biological child that was the victim.
Fantastic post. Must admit, I love the bedroom line too!
At first, after The Little Booger was born, I felt I had to explain myself b/c I went from no baby or pregnancy to a toting a cute little dude around. “I didn’t know you were pregnant?” “Why does he have brown eyes when you and John have blue?” That kind of stuff.
Now that he’s two, the whole adoption thing feels ancient. Booger is mine. He’s John’s. He has his daddy’s sense of humor, and wrinkles his nose like I do when I smile.
Look at how much people love their pets – no human can claim to have given birth to a Shetland Sheep dog or hermit crab! But people (in some survery) would save their pet from drowning before saving a stranger.
By now – the 21st century, adoption should be as normal as conception.
And I too, hate how some people consider these precious kids consolation prizes for an infertile couple. Can I barf on my keyboard?
The Little Booger is the best thing God did for my husband and I. When people ask dumb questions about my son, I tell them I get the benefits without the hemorroids (sp?)!