this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2022
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Haha. "Adoption". There haven't been any recent world wars. No plagues (close miss on that though). There are no children to adopt. So few, in fact, that those who want to adopt often find themselves on waiting lists...
So much so, that many give up on that course of action, and instead choose to fly halfway around the world to buy children from warlords and conmen in Africa.
Or, you could become a "foster parent", which is like adoption except that the kid's even less yours... they might come along and yank them away from you for a variety of reasons. The most heartbreaking of which, I'm told, is that the real parents have convinced some bureaucrat that they won't abuse or neglect them like they had been doing, when experience suggests that it will just happen again.
Though, don't be too sympathetic to the foster parents, they're helping the government prosecute the war on drugs and ruin families, just by supplying the demand for child abduction technicians. And all so they can scratch their itch of (fake) parenthood and feel self-righteous about it.
Also if you want to adopt you need a very square life where I live. You need proper jobs, a lot of money to show them, be married etc. Not saying this is bad, it's probably best for the adopted children, but I don't have many of these things.
Nah, for $50,000 you can buy an African child. Takes about a year or so. It's not human trafficking because it's good and wholesome.
It can be. You just have to label it correctly. Call it "international adoption" and the money "adoption fees", and it's all good.
I get what he's trying to say here; he's being ironic about it, as some people gullibly adopt from immoral sources such as african warlords. It is child trafficking but, since it is being "whitewashed" and not labeled as such, it becomes somehow acceptable in the public eye.
There are no moral sources. Those who would adopt morally would be compelled to adopt children from their own family first... who better to not let an orphan forget their parents than someone who also loved and knew those parents?
And if there were no family, then friends of those parents for the same reason.
And if no friends, then that community... except today, there aren't really any communities left. Just people who live near each other as accidents of geography.
And if none in the community, then at least someone from that culture. So that the child might grow up knowing his or her own language and songs and whatnot. But western culture isn't a culture so much as the absence of one, a void, and so it can't imagine that anything like that's important.
But none of these rules allow hipsters who live in California but are too eco-conscious of their carbon footprint to want to "bring another child into this world" but want to raise a child to do so. So these rules are bad. And that's why adopting African children is good and moral. Because they want to, they have the money to do it, and that warlord uses a cutout so that the adoption has the appearance of being above-board.
I... agree with you? You're making a strawman out of me in this argument. I never said I advocated for adopting from Africa before adopting from your own family or circle of friends. Heck, if I do decide to adopt in the future, that's the route I'd try to take first. Not that it's a big desire of mine, but that's what I'd choose to do.
We're on a public forum. Though my comment may be the literal reply to yours, it isn't necessarily true that I am speaking to you and only you. I'm speaking to others in response to what you've said.
I apologize if this makes it seem I'm hostile to you.
But I'll drop another rule on you and see what you make of this. Adoptions are about the children who need someone to care for them, and not for the people adopting who want to gratify their need for a human pet. If you're doing it for yourself, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Therefor, the only people who should adopt are those who do not want to, but out of a sense of duty.
And if people accepted that rule, then we'd have no discussion at all about adoption in this thread. Because adoption can no longer be a substitute for having one's own children.
Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood your argument.
I somewhat agree, in the sense that, from a moral perspective, if you're adopting just to satisfy a desire, without any good intention to help the child being adopted, you're just as evil as if you've had a biological child for that same reason. That might be where you disagree with me though.
I don't think people in this thread are advocating for adoption from a strictly selfish point of view, they are merely acknowledging that, in the face of wanting a child to take care of, adopting a child who was neglected seems like a more morally sound choice than having a biological child, in those circumstances.
Absolutely. Quite honestly, adopting from another country had never crossed my mind, since I grew up with so many orphans. I was surprised that some people immediately jumped to that conclusion
Yeah, I've read that comment. I don't agree with what he said in general but it's undeniable that there are plenty of scams to lure rich people, typically americans, to poor countries under the guise of adopting children from underfunded orphanages when in fact there are far grimmer ulterior motives behind them.
Your pessimism and ignorance is truly astounding. There need not be wars for children to be abandoned, and it should be common knowledge at this point that foster parents have a high chance of being nothing but another loveless cage for orphans to suffer in. Full fledged adoption is hardly done right, but that's all the more reason why good and caring people should step in and try.
I grew up around orphans, and I know how hard and lonely it is to be foisted from foster family to foster family, surrounded by siblings and adults who resent and use you until you're once again abandoned to some other equally cruel house. Maybe you don't think adoption does any good (god knows why), but I know for certain that there are a lot of children who grow up alone without any support that would be so much better off if they had someone in their life who truly cared for them. Is it really better to just not care at all than to try and help even one person? If you think so, you're a terribly sad person.