If I hear another person say how unnecessarily difficult it is to adopt a child in England I think I’ll go nuts. Adoption is not like supermarket sweep. Natural birth takes nine months. It is not easy. Raising a child takes forever. It is not easy. The adoption process is difficult? Go figure.
We are so quick to assume that the British social services is overly protective of the child when assessing adoptive parents that we forgo our common sense. All of this shows to me is that the need to adopt is greater than the need to be adopted. The adopttion agenda is defined by those in need, the prospecting adults. And if they don’t get a baby here they can go abroad. Let me correct myself. It is like supermarket sweep.
Dear Lemn:
I listened to the debate on adoption today. While I appreciate your point about not knowing the effects for another 25 years, does that mean that today we should continue to err on the side of caution by, for example, not placing a black kid in a white home? Given the statistics that show that black kids are not being adopted as quickly as white kids because of the policy of placing black kids in black homes, don’t you think that the benefits of finding parents for these kids outweighs your 25 year concern? My own view is that it does. I know the public vote went against you this morning, but maybe that is because of demographics. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those demographics. I am a gay white man and my civil partner is black. I have always said to straight people that they have no idea what it is like to be discriminated against because of sexual orientation. The same is true of racial discrimination. But I do think that in today’s multicultural society, we have a greater awareness of these issues and therefore the risk of a cultural identity crisis for the kid in 25 years time is less than it is today, and significantly less than it was 25 years ago. Cheers, Peter.