[dpen6]

Originally Posted by Waiting4Celeste

OK, I just had a chance to read the article and I don't see any problem with any of it.

They were quoting the daughter - and who better to explain how SHE feels than to explain it herself.

If I was her and grew up knowing that I was dying in an orphanage on the other side of the world and my mother found me, met my medical needs and gave me a chance at life, you betcha I'd be grateful and I'd want to share it with everyone.

Not every child has the chance to tell such a story.

Too many children in our country and abroad, have terrible, terrible stories to deal with. Let's let a girl share her gratefulness that she was given a chance, because a woman saw her and fell in love with her and let's celebrate that. I would imagine, at their age, the two daughters are probably involved in what information is given to the media. I would hope that their parents "cleared it" with them before putting their story out there for everyone to hear.

From what I have read, the McCains weren't addressing the situation because they didn't want Bridget to feel different, yet when John McCain was accused of having an affair he had to explain how she became part of their family. He could have come out with the whole, "Look at me! We have saved helpless orphans - don't I deserve to be president" mantra - but he didn't. Although I am happy to know he IS an adoptive parent, I appreciate the fact that he didn't flaunt it to try to pull in more votes.

OK, back to the whole "gratefulness" discussion...
Personally, I WANT my children to feel grateful for what they have - doesn't EVERY parent want that?

I don't want my kids to look at me with their big doe eyes and say, "Mommy, Daddy, THANK YOU for rescuing me from that awful situation and bringing me to the glorious U S of A where life is perfect and opportunites are abundant."

No, I don't want them to think that without me, their life would be miserable, BUT I do want them to realize that this isn't the way of life for most of the other children around our world.

Our kids wake up in a warm, cozy home each morning with more choices for breakfast than they really need.

They don't ever think about where their next meal will come from, or if they will be safe walking home at night.

They won't ever struggle with treatable diseases because we have health insurance that pays for their vaccinations and regular health check ups.

The reality is, our kids have it pretty good.

For all of that, they should be grateful and not take those things for granted. I don't feel that those opportunites happened because I wanted to go rescue a child. No, we adopted our children for selfish reasons - we wanted children and couldn't do it the "natural" way.

If any adoptee "needs" to feel grateful they will figure it out for themselves. To be brought up and totally told you "should" feel grateful because ofyou have food and shelter and you almost didn't is in a very subtle way telling that person that you really were less desrving then non adopted peole and don't ever forget whence you came....thats how it could be taken. It makes theshouldars droop a little more.

NOW...you have a very american kid that is starting to be not grateful like all kids do...then its time to tell them they should be grateful for what they have, ALL children need to learn about graitude..its the name of the game...BUT not BECAUSE they are adopted. Like I said, most of us adoptees DO figure that out for ourselves and I was NEVER told to be grateful because I was adopted by my parents. I would get a kick in the pants if I was not grateful for todays blessings. Strangers use to tell me how "lucky" I was and I hated it. It made me feel much smaller as a little one.

No matte what the situaion, at first glance adoption for a child is not something to be grateful .....its intially a great loss of biology that is big. Even if my bio's were attitlla the hun and spouse!(Which they were not)