Before I continue, I would just like to state for the record that I know very well that all babies are delivered by Stork, not just the ones who are adopted. Also, I ask you to read this with an open mind, as well as a dose of humour.
I was inspired to write this post when I read about a natural mother who praised the opportunity to give her baby up for adoption. She was a Christian, and her life was so blessed because she could help another couple to become a family. It sounded like a tragic and twisted fairytale.
Men are from Mars, and women from Venus, adoptive parents are from Dreamland and Adoptees come from some Unspeakable Secret Place somewhere, maybe on the Dark Side of the Moon.
These days we arrive by Jumbo-Jet, since the Stork retired a long time ago of old age. He was worn out completely from having to deliver far too many of us around the world. Maybe that’s the reason why some of us have a fear of heights? We are the ones who are dropped in the fields among the cabbages, or on the top shelf in the store along with the cuddly brown teddy bears, or brought by Santa on Christmas Eve to be stuffed in stockings with ribbons and glitter, or gift-wrapped under the Christmas tree next to a puppy. Perhaps we were sown as seeds in a flower bed, and popped out of a lotus. Or maybe Mommy laid an egg in a country far, far away, and had it mailed to this address. Or our new parents drew a ticket in line at St. Peter’s Baby Delivery Department, and when their number was called we came sliding off a rainbow and into their arms to receive all the love that they had in store for us.
To many adopters we are, or at least we’re supposed to be, the final pieces in their puzzle to make their dream complete, a naive dream of helping poor children because they have so much love to spare. No-one can predict what the future will be, or guarantee that adopted children arrive into nice, harmonious families, as many Christian families like to call themselves. They praise the Lord and the glory of adoption, and speak of how beautiful and wonderful it is, ever since Moses was sent off in a basket on the river by his mother, the Jewish woman Jochebed in Egypt, and was raised by another woman, who was the daughter of the Pharaoh. Nowhere does it say what Jochebed must have felt, being the first woman to give up her child to adoption, at least according to the Bible.
When are the adoptive parents going to wake up from their Dreamland? When is the world going to wake up and see the many difficulties that so many adoptees have to struggle with? Reality is cruel and hard, and the phrase ‘they lived happily ever after’ doesn’t exist in the Land of Adoptions. Ask any of the mothers who have lost their babies to adoption for any number of reasons. Ask any of us adoptees who dare to speak up and are not in denial.
Our destinies might as well be decided by the rolling of dice, and the adoption agencies give themselves the authority to roll them on behalf of God. The claim that adoption is done in good faith, and that the agencies work hard to ensure that every adopted child ends up with a good, Christian family, is just another lie. It’s time to move from Dreamland and into Reality of 2012. Amen to that.
Namasté
~ Khara
PS: Please don’t look at me as still an adoptive child. I am in my forties now, and even adoptees grow up, eventually. It’s a long time since I outgrew the Christmas box or the bundle that the stork carried, so long ago. 🙂
And here is a small bonus for those of you who have actually read this far:
Indigo Child Khara 
Love it!! Didn’t Moses’ mother get taken into the fold to care for him as his wet nurse?
That’s partially correct. I’m not very well versed in Bible history, but the Wikipedia article on Jochebed says that she was taken in as a wet nurse, but as I read it, the Pharaoh’s daughter – who adopted Moses – did not know that Jochebed was his mother. In other words, not only did Moses’ mother have to give him up, but after doing so she still had to breastfeed him for the woman who adopted him, and had to keep the fact of being his mother secret.
So Moses had the benefit of being cared for substantially by his own mother while having a secret mother, nothing much changes in some aspects of adoption!