Adoptive families are not saints. They are people who have a burning desire to love and parent a child regardless of reproductive ability or feel that they don't need to contribute genetically to form a family. Do you know how many children in the US alone do not have a 'forever family'? How many grow up 'in the system' - a progression of foster homes, group homes, institutions and possibly some time with their biological parents or extended family? There are people who feel the need to help children in this situation. In my case it was selfish: I felt compelled to be a Mom; my husband and I felt compelled to be parents, we were just unable to 'make our own'. So we went through adoption. We wanted children; period. We did not feel a need to 'hide our reproductive deficiency'. When asked about the kind of children we were looking for, our response was 'human'. Really, THIS is a question they ask. They asked if we could be more specific, we told them that five fingers and five toes would be nice but were not required. In other words, we were open minded. We have decent health care, so that was not necessarily a consideration. There are no guarantees as to health or intellect when one 'makes a baby'; we did not expect any when adopting. To be honest, spending all but the most recent year in military communities, my children and family were completely accepted. There were no double takes, rude questions, or misunderstandings (well except for one, and I'll share that sea story at the bottom of this post). It's only in the last year that my son was 'profiled' when walking into a store, my daughter has been asked what she is (she is a 50/50 mix of two very different ethnicities/races) and why she doesn't speak Spanish. This has been a heck of an experience for them - these are very patriotic American children (both were born US citizens) raised on an overseas US Base for eleven years. They know to stop immediately and 'pop to' when our Anthem is played. They've known all the words since first grade (if not earlier); they recognize, understand and appreciate the sacrifices made by our veterans. One has met at least one Medal of Honour Recipient (from WWII) and both have met a Tuskeegee Airman. Yet in their own country they are met with racism and suspicion.
As to the 'sea story': military Priests are usually on 12-18 month tours because being unmarried, they are unaccompanied. Towards the end of one of our Priests' tours, the Parish Counsel was discussing donations. I suggested the adoption agency that placed one of our children with us; the Priest questioned some of their other services, but I explained that we could 'earmark' the donation specifically for Foster/Adoption services. He asked why I was so attached to this charity and barely able to talk at that point (I thought it fairly obvious, since we were very active in the Parish and pretty much everyone could figure it out based on our family's physical characteristics). I barely croaked out that the agency was responsible for the child being part of our family and the Priest was astonished to learn that our children were adopted. When I pointed out (giggling) that my children sat on either side of him as Altar Servers every other Sunday and the 'Giant Leprechaun' and I sit in the front pew every Sunday his reply was that he didn't make assumptions about people. I'm not sure WHO the heck he thought I'd been sleeping with since our 20th Anniversary had also been celebrated with the Parish.
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