Conflicted

I sometimes feel that advocating for adoption and also advocating for a realistic picture of what adoption looks like are at odds with one another. I know first hand both the joys and the difficulties adoption can bring to a family. The trick is to communicate the joy while being realistic about the difficulties. It is a fine line to walk, it seems.

I want people to adopt children. Really, I do. But I also worry about some families and wonder if they really know what they are getting into. I'm sure it stems from one too many, "I didn't know it was going to be this way" conversations. The majority of people have the best of intentions when they adopt. They know there is a need and they want to help. It is a good thing to want to provide a home and a family for a child who does not have one. I don't doubt their motives. 

It is so easy to look at the smiling face of a child, a child who needs a family, and to imagine onto that picture a personality. A personality which is charming and loving. A personality which is added into the family structure with little disruption. Maybe even a personality which is a bit sad at the changes which have occurred. It is a little more difficult to imagine that smiling child in the picture screaming and kicking. Or whining at every turn. It is more difficult still to imagine that child recoiling at your every overture or trying to injure you. And until you have witnessed a full-blown rage stemming from unimaginable fear, you cannot imagine what it would look like, much less that smiling child in the picture behaving like that.

Yet this is the type of behavior that many parents of newly (and not-so-newly) adopted children witness. There is a reason why some agencies have the rules they do... one child at a time... home a certain length of time before bringing another home... no disrupting birth order... no virtual twinning... no adopting past the age you've already parented. It's because these are the types of things that can add to the stress of adopting a child. The rules are in place because responsible agencies want families to be successful. They want the family to remain intact, disruptions are not good for anyone.

I know the reasons for the rules, yet sometimes it is best for everyone if the rules are bent a bit. We've certainly bent the rules a couple of times. I do have three nine year olds after all. What is good for one family is not necessarily good for another. The converse is true as well. What is bad for one family is not necessarily bad for another. And here's where I really struggle. How does anyone know which it is going to be?

I vacillate. What if a family is really called to adopt an older child when they only have young children? Or what if a family is really called to adopt older children when they've never adopted before? Or what if a family is really called to adopt out of disruption the first time out? I know God can do anything. But I also know that there are a lot of broken people out there who did feel called to adopt and for one reason or another (they weren't prepared for what it would be like; they knew but couldn't believe that would be their experience; there might have had a chance but there was no support) the adoption disrupted. I know that God can redeem bad situations, but no child needs yet another loss in his or her life.

I want families to adopt. I want children to find homes. I want parents to go into this whole messy business with their eyes wide open... or at least as open as they can be. I want people to be honest about their adoption experiences. I don't want adopting out of disruption to have to be the next "big" country.

Because adoption is messy and hard, but it is also wonderful and miraculous. And those miracles aren't only about children finding homes and parents finding children. Those miracles are about people allowing God to take over every aspect of their lives and turning it upside down. Being turned upside down can be unexpected and scary and confusing, but in the end, at least I found, that what I thought was upside down was really right side up.