Motivations

Is there such a thing as “selfish adoption”? I am a believer that there are no deeds that are selfless. I don’t mean that there aren’t people who do things who do things out of the goodness of their hearts because I do believe that nice people exist. I just know that even if you’re [...]

I’m betting that if you find some Joe Schmo on the street and ask him to tell you the first ten words he thinks of when you give him the word “adoption,” he’s bound to throw in words like “expensive” and “complicated” and even “dangerous.” He might tell you a story about a friend [...]

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.” * I wonder if we sometimes forget this, and [...]

I’ve mentioned before that I work 2-3 days per month assessing children from birth to six years as part of a multidisciplinary team, and today happened to be one of my workdays. Probably 50% of the children we evaluate are either current foster children, or were adopted from foster care, and we occasionally see [...]

So, what of charity? Is it such a poor adoption motivation? After all, you can look up “orphans” and “fatherless” in the Bible and find numerous references to the way the Lord wants such children to be cared for. We’re expected to provide for them as we are widows and the poor, [...]

Some adoptive parents argue that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing and go so far as to embrace the notion of “saving a child” and see it as a noble endeavor. A fellow adoptive parent once chided a group of other adoptive parents for distancing themselves from the notion of child saving. [...]

In January, our local Christian radio station did a weeklong series on adoption. The underlying message in the programming was that if Christians are going to call themselves pro-life, they need to be willing to put their money where their mouths are, so to speak. (The argument was also made that increasing adoption [...]

If you have a family anything like mine, you’ve likely been praised for “giving a child a home” or “taking on these kids” or some similar sentiment. Most adoptive parents I know bristle at such comments, even though they’re usually well intentioned. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’ve found that the well [...]