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 would have the side benefit of decreasing abortion, but I don’t’ recall whether they cited any research to back this claim.) The speakers advocated starting adoption specific ministries within churches, presenting adoption seminars to educate people about the types and costs of adoption, and generally urged Christians everywhere to consider (and pray) about whether they could make room in their hearts, families, and homes for more of God’s children. There were inspirational stories from adoptive families and adoptees, messages about financial assistance, and information about how families can get started in the process, or if adoption isn’t their particular “call,” how they can help other families who do feel “called.”

As informative as the programming was, I found myself feeling a bit concerned about the heavy adoption-as-charity message. On the one hand, there are indeed millions of children in the world who are in need of families and it would surely be pleasing to God to see them find families of their own, but on the other hand, how does the growing adopted child process the charity message? I cringed a bit as I listened to a young woman who’d been adopted as an older child (from South Korea, I believe) express gratitude to her parents for making her a part of their family. Sure, we should all be VERY grateful to have a loving family, but it felt uncomfortable to me to hear her talk about how much she owed her parents. This young woman seemed to feel beholden to her parents, and even though she was saying sweet and lovely things, it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.

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