[SKL]

Originally Posted by GDSinPA

Prepared Remarks by Wes Gullett : RNCAPFeed : The Rocky Mountain News

Actually, it's not just the wording that's a problem. It's encouraging your kids to be grateful that you saved them that's a problem. It's likening them to charity that's a problem. Think about how that feels to an adoptee?

The reality that a child may have or would have had a better life (or even no life) in their home country is beside the point. The problem comes in how you present their becoming a part of your family and whether you raise them to believe that you're their savior rather than their parent. In other words, if you want to save a child, there are plenty of ways to do so, but that should be separate and distinct from parenting them. Saving is not a healthy thing to have over your children, IMO.

It's OK to talk about how adoption has impacted your life, perhaps even to advocate for adoption (ethically of course), but to have your life story presented to the world in the context of your parents saving you is not acceptable. A child should not be encouraged to believe they should be grateful for being adopted, which is the actual end result of this for Wes Gullet's daughter (which you'll see in the text of his speech.

Does that make better sense?

Blessings,
-Greg

I am not sure I ever understood this concept fully.

Everyone's life has difficulties and hurdles, many of which our parents have helped us to overcome. Many of us are grateful to our parents for things that have resulted in our having more opportunities or even life. For example:

I'm grateful that my mom taught me to value education, despite the fact that neither of my parents attended high school past their 16th birthdays, and the fact that my dad is so dyslexic that he couldn't read a nursery rhyme to his children. My mom's actions made a huge difference in my life.

My youngest sister is grateful that my mom stood up to people, including her own mother, who tried to convince her to have an abortion. My sister wouldn't be here otherwise.

A colleague is grateful to her mom for faithfully going on bedrest during pregnancy, saving her life.

I have friends who are adoptees and who have talked about how grateful they are that their parents went through a lot to adopt them and give them a better life. Nobody sat them down and told them they need to feel grateful; they just are.

Sometimes I feel we're being advised not to tell our kids the reality of their stories, lest we let them think we "saved" them. The fact is, a child who isn't getting nutrition is going to die without intervention. That is a fact of that child's life. We advocate sharing every good and bad detail we know of a child's first family, however hurtful that may be, yet we shy away from sharing the stark reality that most orphans in the world would have a rough life if they weren't adopted.

There's a right and wrong way to communicate this reality, but if we are honest with our kids, there's no way to stop them from making the connection between the act of adoption and their relatively blessed situation. I don't understand why that is seen as a bad thing.