[mdesi]

Originally Posted by MamaS

I also disagree. While I do not want my children to feel indebted or obligated to me, I do want them to realize how fortunate they are -- they live in a country with free education for all, they have a family who can provide food, clothing, non-essentials, love, laughter, and joy.
When there is a thunderstorm I tell my son how fortunate we are that we have a roof to keep us dry AND how good that God sent the rain for our garden and flowers.
The Christians of Bennett Chapel in Possum Trot, Texas felt that it was their Christian duty to adopt. That does not mean they love their children any less than someone who adopted because of infertility. And I think if you asked their children, they would say they were lucky to be adopted, rather than spending their childhoods bouncing from one foster home to another.
Luck is so much more than a winning lottery ticket. It is a blessing from God on all the parties involved.

Although I truly get what you are saying about an attitude of gratitude in general, shouldn't children that join their families through biology also be grateful for these same things? That's really not the attitude I was speaking to in my original post. I was talking about the people that just assume that people adopt to save children. As another poster pointed out, people foster to save children. (I have a close friend who really has devoted her life to saving local children, and physically caring for them in her through her own fostering - w/o taking a DIME from CPS for their care - is just the beginning of her ministry for children.) Also, what both of us described is the excpetion and not the rule, but the excpetion is what gets the most press.

I do want to say that what you described is OUTSTANDING parenting, so I really don't want to diminish your message. I think all parents should be teaching their children that these are things to grateful for no matter how they joined their families.