My first bride and I separated our 6-year-old daughter from her close, best friends in Madera, California and moved her to Clarksville, Indiana. After careful consideration and some investigation, we decided to enroll her in a Catholic school, even though I was not practicing any religion and Cathy was a lapsed Episcopalian. It was there that Lisa met someone who would become her best friend, and it was there that she formed the idea that she was adopted.
At St. Mary’s School in New Albany, Indiana, there was an incident where some child who had been adopted had been subjected to unkind comments from her classmates. The nuns ordered up an assembly and informed the students that being adopted was not something about which to be ashamed, and that children who were adopted were special, because they had been specifically chosen to be in their families. Years later, Lisa told me that she had felt “disconnected” from her parents; she did not think that her physical appearance matched either one of us. (She recently acknowledged that she knows that she looks like me, poor kid.) But she came home from the school assembly with the firm idea that she had been adopted. And when she told us of her belief, we disabused her of the notion.
In December 2018, I wrote for this publication, “Oh, Holy Night,” the story of how my eldest child came to be. She was born on December 22nd, and we brought her home on Christmas day. Her parents had long ago chosen a name for her, one that had an infinity sign as a substitute for a hyphen, and her mother, due to medical conditions that made conception and delivery difficult, spent the last trimester of her pregnancy at home. We worked hard to have this child and though the process to determine gender in utero was too risky, I told everyone who would listen, “It’s a girl; we made a girl.” And when that girl that we had labored long and hard to conceive and deliver decided that she had been adopted, her parents insisted, “No, baby: You were born to us.”
Those who snort and belch fire about what used to be called “political correctness” – now more bitterly called, “cancel culture” – would question why an assembly had to be called to address a schoolyard taunt. When my daughter, one of two African-Americans in the school, was spoken to by a classmate using a popular pejorative, she drop-kicked Murphy (not his name) in a sensitive place. Problem solved. Had she brought the offense to the attention of the staff, I’m not sure if there would have been a politically correct gathering of students and staff to attend to the affront.
Naomi Campbell, a fashion model, recently surprised the world by announcing that, at age 51, she had borne a child. “She’s not adopted,” Campbell firmly insisted, wanting to make sure that everyone knew that she had carried the child and delivered the child. But adoption is not a “less than” choice for people to make. For whatever reason people choose adoption, lives are enriched; children are given love, safety and security, and families often grow in grace.
As for my first child, her mother and I wanted to make sure that she knew that, though we had not shopped for her, we wanted her, worked hard to ensure her safe delivery into a loving home and tried to ensure that she knew what a joy she was, and that she had indeed, been chosen.
cjon3acd@att.net