Browsing in a used bookstore over the weekend, I was in the parenting section, looking for books on adoption.  My eyes scanned the pregnancy, newborn, awaiting a child books, looking for a title that would indicate adoption.  Finally, toward the bottom of the section I spotted it: the label “adoption” separated with a slash, next to the word “divorce.”  “Oh,” I thought,  “They ran out of room and they smooshed these two sections together.”

I would not have chosen to put adoption books in the same section with books on divorce but it’s telling of how mainstream society values and views adoption–not quite in the same category with books about starting a family, but more in the category of when family plans go awry.  Still, somehow, second best, not equal to.

What about those of us who choose adoption, not as a back up, but as a great and valuable journey to pursue, equal to having a baby biologically?   And what of the children who are adopted, how then are they viewed by society?  Will they struggle against the social stigma that the circumstances that created their families were somehow tainted?

Adoption is about creation.  It’s about choice.  Adoption is about love.  And this one word doesn’t stand to qualifiers and hierarchies. There is no such thing as second class love. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 9:27 am and is filed under Your Turn, Adoption Pages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.