Saturday, May 10, 2008

Mother's Day and Questions

I adore my mother. She is an amazing human being and central to who I am and what I believe about life. Perhaps because of her example and her great capacity for love, I am driven to parent as well.

Here are 10 beautiful "my mom" qualities that I hope I can live up to in my own life as a parent:
1) Selflessness for the good of my child
2) Hope for my child
3) Loving my child unconditionally
4) Having an unfailing perseverance to protect and support my child
5) Devoting time for my child to be the center of everything
6) Providing an education for my child
7) Providing a warm, safe home for my child
8) Accepting my child for exactly who he is, and celebrating his unique qualities
9) Providing an example of how to live with integrity and faith
10) Deliberately and often, experiencing joy with my child

All of the talk about ethical adoptions and what people should be doing in this crazy situation seems to be lacking in one area.

What does an ethical adoptive parent look like when her child is relegated to an orphanage with no proof of fraud, nor any accusation of such?

Does she shrink from the discussion because people throw around words like fraud and insinuate that every adoption from a country is tainted because the word has been used like a gavel in a courtroom?

Does circumstantial evidence of some cases of fraud (even though NO fraud has been found in cases similar to her child's case...cases of children now united with their adoptive parents who waited for up to 120 days for an I600 APPROVAL) make her lose the hope that her own child will grow up in a warm, safe home?

Does her unconditional love wane when she notices that her child is experiencing developmental delays after spending the first year of his life in an orphanage?

Does she stop crying HELP US PLEASE to anyone and everyone who might be able to help her child come home?

NO. An ethical, good mother will have the qualities listed above.

Show me proof that his life mother is searching for him, or give me a travel approval. This stalling tactic of form letters sent to large groups of waiting parents about blocking of investigations is a smoke screen for a job poorly done. My child has been waiting for us to bring him home for 101 days longer than he should have waited. His rights, the orphan's rights, have not been "first" in this debacle. He is almost 11 months old, and he IS suffering because this process is flawed. How can we, as an adoption community, be allowed to scream ethics while simultaneously ignoring that our own children are having their rights to a home taken from them because of this BROKEN process? How can we consider ourselves ethical parents if we ignore that most of these children ARE orphans who should be home with parents who already love them so very much.

Let me bring my child home.

5 comments:

Kelly said...

Written like a true mother! Happy Mother's Day, Gregory!

Anonymous said...

Brilliant. Happy Day to you, Mommy. I can think of a few people who should read this. Seriously.

Alix said...

Terrific post. I hope your son comes home soon!

Jill said...

I could not have said it better. Perfectly wonderfu post.

James and Melissa said...

I hope you have him home soon.