A home for a child..

@worldadoptionday @adopttogether
I don't usually go out of my way to promote things and rarely fund raise. Not least of all because I feel people will contribute in their own way themselves if they really want to and I hate the idea of someone giving out of guilt.

Anyone going through the adoption process will know what an absolute roller-coaster it is. You're eyes get opened very very wide to the "system" and it's people. Those involved in removing children and finding them homes. You are exposed to the situation. The sheer numbers. And worst of all, the beautiful faces. So now I'm taking up my mantle and having a good shout..

That's why I'm so proud to have become an Ambassador for World Adoption Day and will be fundraising for AdoptionUK (an invaluable resource for families before and after adoption!) throughout November in support of National Adoption Week.

national adoption week

We've come so far since the 70s. Even though by then we had stopped taking orphans from workhouses in return for food and lodgings, it was still the end of a stretch of maybe 20 years which laid the foundation for the adoption "industry" and the commodification of babies.


Adoption then was focused on the interests of the adopters and in finding a child for a home. With sometimes horrific cruelty, it was socially acceptable to remove babies from unsupported, vulnerable and powerless pregnant young girls and women in order to create families that were supposedly physically, psychologically and economically better placed to look after them.

Today's adoption for the most part is a different story. There is a reason why people looking for healthy newborn babies can have a very long wait. There aren't any. And as sorry as I feel for anyone that wants that and that only.. I'm glad. Arguably, I appreciate that maybe the balance has tipped too far the wrong way. In some cases there are children that will suffer more through being left with unsuitable parents whilst society tries to support them only to be removed later when it will cause more damage. But there must still be a vast number that do go onto to raise their children themselves well enough, with the support they wouldn't have had 50 years ago. Maybe we'll never get it totally right but what I do know is, though the process today is long and some may say cruel in a different way.. the fact is the emphasis is now on the child, whose needs are paramount and that's the way it should be. No longer a child for a home but a home for a child.

And that's partly why it's so important to me and by extension my husband. Children really are the future (to paraphrase THE cheesiest song ever) and we should be doing everything we can to look after them. We talk about the atrocities that are happening around the world. In Africa, Syria, Iraq.. we go about with our noses high and our civilisation worn around our shoulders yet what about what we do to our own children.

Adoption is important to me because they're out there. The abandoned. The battered and bruised. The raped. The neglected. The unheard and the unseen. Those that just need more from the people that are supposed to love them. Children like my brother who should still be here today, who simply should have had more. Should have been loved and supported by the people he called parents. They're out there and they need a home.

Unfortunately I only have one but this is what it means to me..

A chance to make a difference and
Dreams coming true
Our family growing, we'll be
Parents to one then two.
There's toys to be bought and
Introductions to be made. There'll be
One less child suffering.
No reason to be afraid..

No comments:

Post a Comment