Thread by @DanaHoule

They’re making her in to a saint for adopting poor black children from the country where Donald Trump thinks everyone has AIDS. It appears she’ll willingly accept the adoration

I think that’s gross

Adopting isn’t an act or decision. It’s a lifelong set of moral ambiguities /2

Every adoption is tangled up in sadness & loss. If you do everything right & you’re lucky it can be OK. Different, but OK. But adopting infants or toddlers w whom you have no preexisting connection isn’t something that makes you a wonderful person. It’s something you do…/3

…so you can raise children. Maybe it’s something to do to raise children in addition to your own bio children. But people need to stop thinking about it as some saintly act that saved one from a sea of millions of children awaiting adoption. There aren’t millions of children /4

…awaiting adoption. In fact, there are very few infants or toddlers awaiting adoption. Even when you include foster systems there are many, many more childless couples desperate to adopt than there are children to adopt. It’s no more noble to adopt than it is to…/5

…be a good parent of ones own bio children. (Except for adopting special needs kids; those people aren’t necessarily saints, but they have voluntarily chosen to nurture kids sometimes difficult to raise but still in need of love. It is a virtuous choice of how to live…/6

…ones life.)

We don’t adopt because we’re good. We adopt because we wanted to raise children, and if we’re not assholes, we know upon entering an adoption that it can be difficult, it comes w special obligations, & that there are more relationships to seek/nurture/sustain…7

…than just the relationship between the adopted child & the adoptive family. You have obligations in multiple directions, especially if it’s a transracial &/or international adoption, including an obligation, when appropriate & wanted, to keep a relationship w the child’s…/8

…birth family/family of origin (an obligation to that family but also to the child), you have obligations to keep the child connected w the culture in to ewhuch she was born, contact w her nation’s community where you live, you need to be hyper aware that your child will…/9

…never experience the world as easy & accepting as what you as a white person experience, you need to consider whether you should adopt a black or Asian child if you live in North Dakota or rural Appalachia…adoption comes w many obligations _in addition to_ the obligations…/10

…everyone take on if they become a parent

It’s hard. And it requires humility (which is probably especially difficult for people who didn’t adopt bc otherwise they wouldn’t be parents)

This stuff isn’t entirely selfless. If you do everything right, & you understand…/11

…adoption, you know you’re not indespensible, that there are ten couples in line behind you willing to adopt that child, most of whom will do as good or better than you think you’ll do. Ultimately, while many aspects of adoption are hard, there’s also a bit of selfishness…/12

…You are taking possession of a child Robben yours the rest of her life, a child who probably had some family, & who could have been raised by someone else

This stuff is hard. It’s complicated. It’s never completed. And I can’t put myself in the emotional place where…/13

…I’d accept shallow, uninformed adulation for adopting. As hard as it is to adopt, it’s infinitely harder to place a child for adoption. To accept adulation for getting what you wanted wipes away that it’s tangled in loss & sadness.

Anyway, I’m open to compliments for…/14

…being a good parent should someone who knows me thinks that I am & feels the need to express it. But don’t laud me or any other adoptive parents for the act of adopting. Recognize there aren’t infants & toddlers going un-adopted, its not a substitution for ameliorating…/15

…poverty, for providing healthcare and childcare, or for allowing women control over their bodies. You’re not saving a child nobody else would adopt. It’s something you do so you can parent that child. /16