Motivation to adopt a child

Now that I have outlined ever so briefly the bad and the ugly or adoption, I would like to spend time discussing some of the other reasons for adoption. All adoptive parents want a child to love. Beyond that the individual motivations and stories are quite varied. Some I have met are crusaders for the underdog, others possess social goals that lend themselves to adoption and still others are more spiritual in nature. In the previous pages, I have outlined social reasons and family choice reasons to consider adoption. In the parents I have met the common thread in an adoption story is something that “we have thought about for a long time” or “I always knew/ wanted to adopt a child”. I have yet to find parents that simply say they had nothing better to do with there free time than collect kids. It’s O.K. whatever has called you, but a number of parents tell me why they adopt, so I think it bears some hard thought.

I believe I am more spiritual and my wife more socially responsible. What has motivated you to get to this point? Mine was clearly spiritual. Our adoption coincided with what I would classify as “spiritual adoption”. By this I mean, we had thought about adopting a child for a long time. We had been on the fence so to speak, until several defining moments caused us to move into it. In our little world, we have consistently strived to make a difference. We have tried to do so professionally in service businesses, and personally. We run a service business and starting a non-profit disabled riding program in our area. We moved from Los Angeles in 1995 to expand our focus, start our own business and attempt to do something that was meaningful for us and others. This worked for several years, without a change in our basic premise, until our little world was altered by Columbine.

We live about ¼ miles as the crow flies from Columbine. This place and this moment became the September 11th of Littleton, Colorado. Seeing it happen, and the despair that followed, is one of the most difficult experiences you can imagine. For a community you know, kids and friends of kids you know; memorials, funerals, sole searching and fear tend to alter anyone’s perspective of what is important in life. It was at this moment in time that we were forever drawn to adoption. In our on again off again consideration of adoption, we changed to on again. Over the next months a series of “chance” things kept moving us down a path. The first was my wife meeting three or four families with children adopted from Russia. Several were taking part in the physical training offered that the Pegasus Program was offering at our Stables. We were interested and drawing closer. Shortly thereafter we began to sing in the Youth Mass band at St Frances Cabrini. This was a powerful experience as the community and the teens in that community were so deeply affected by events at Columbine. Kids needed help and we felt that we were doing our small bit. We began thinking on a more socially and spiritually responsible level.

I was pushed over the edge one August Sunday. In this Mass the priest anointed a young girl. She had been shot many, many times at Columbine and was to endure yet one more operation. It was in that service that I felt moved by the Holy Spirit. I guess it was a call to participate in RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults). That program lead me to an opening of my heart, a conversion within me. We started our paperwork in February 2000. In essence we were running our adoption plans concurrently with my RCIA experience. I feel that there is a basis for adoption in the Bible and within the context of the Catholic Church. After all, this is a Church that has a “Respect Life” message as the centerpiece. There are some references in the Bible that support the idea of adoption, and I have listed a few:

“Any one who welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me.” Matthew 18:5

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James I 1:27

“Give fair judgment to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute” Psalms 82:3

The help ones religion plays in adoption can be an important one. There are reasons that many adoption agencies are faith based. Without the religious trust that I developed in the Church, I may not have had the faith and strength to keep going in the adoption. Ultimately, when we were presented with a very sketchy picture and some fairly scary medical information about the child matched for us, it was I who felt through faith that this was the child for us. The strength and peace of this type of decision was spiritual in nature. I was initiated into the Catholic Church the day prior to making our first Russian trip to meet our daughter. I havn’t looked back since. With our my experience, and those of some adoptive parents I have met, a real strength and ownership in adoption and the process can be seen as spiritual in nature. In just about every case the people we see, feel certain that what they are doing is right or “just”.