What's Justice Got to do With it?

Have you ever noticed that a lot of people treat adoption as a last resort for couples unable to create kids biologically? For some families it was a decision made due to infertility but there are actually many reasons to adopt. For older couples it is often because they want kids but don't want to start with someone as young as an infant.

I have a cousin who is adopted, my aunt and uncle chose adoption because it was unsure if her mother would be able to carry a child to term. She was living with severe endometriosis. From the second that my cousin entered our family she has felt like family. She was never thought of as the adopted cousin. She came into our family when she was only a couple weeks old. It has never been a secret that she was adopted, she's known that she was adopted since before she was old enough to really understand what adoption meant. My aunt and uncle didn't want it to be a secret, revealed to her later in life, they felt she'd be better able to accept the facts if they were always known to her. One day while looking through her baby pictures we found a picture of her as a 2 week old baby. The picture taken as soon as she was brought into our lives. When told how old she was in the picture she said "right after you got me" I nearly corrected her and said no it would have been 2 weeks after we got you... forgetting that she spent her first 2 weeks somewhere else.

I have 2 other cousins who were also recently adopted by another aunt and uncle. They were my cousins before there adoption but there parents died in a horrible tragedy. As 6 and 10 year old kids they still needed adults to live with. It's a confusing situation because they now have an aunt/mom and an uncle/dad as well as several cousin/siblings. Not exactly a typical family, one that will probably be a confusing aspect of their lives for many years to come. It will be hard to explain to friends as the years go by but it was the best situation after what had happened.

Situations like these create difficulty in the lives of many families. Adopted kids face many identity challenges not known (or not known to the same extent) by kids living with their biological families. Unfortunately, many people don't bother to try and understand what is being faced by people in these situations. Adoption jokes run rampant in tv shows and movies. When a character has different facial features than those of the rest of the family it is joked that the person is adopted making them not really family.

In the popular movie The Avengers *Spoiler alert*... spoiler of a minor line, not the plot... Bruce Banner comments that Loki is "as crazy as a bag of cats". Thor then calls for caution because Loki is his brother, Black Widow then comments that he "killed 80 people in two days" Thor responds that "he's adopted". Adoption should not be used to explain away violent or evil behavior. While the comment was included for a cheap laugh it is important that we examine how we are getting our laughs. A good friend of mine, who has an adopted son was hurt by having hearing that line in the movie. People responded that he was being over sensitive and that people these days worry too much about political correctness. Please remember that we usually comment about over sensitivity when it comes to issues that don't effect us personally. When a 14 year old adopted child watches this movie with his friends what will he think? The teen years are a very difficult time for everybody. Add identity issues and cheap laughs at a youths expense and you have a very hurtful cheap laugh. Joking at someone else's expense really isn't funny.

I once watched a movie called "Expecting A Miracle" starring Jason Priestley. *Spoiler alert* the basic premise of the movie is that Jason Priestleys character Pete and wife Donna are unable to get pregnant, they've been trying IVF treatment to no avail. Pete is ready to stop IVF and look into adoption but Donna doesn't want to. To ease the tension that this decision is causing the two take a trip to Mexico, they end up stranded in Mexico while a local mechanic works on their car. They meet a young disabled boy and bond with him. The effect this seems to have is that Donna realizes that she could love an adopted child, biology doesn't mean as much as she first thought. When they return home all set to start the adoption process Donna realizes that she is pregnant. While I have nothing against biological children I was really bothered by this movie ending. The moral of the movie seemed to be that if you learn to love wholeheartedly you won't have to resort to something as desperate and second class as adoption. The movie writers had an opportunity to show that the bond in an adopted family can be just as strong as the bond of a biological family. Lets all make the choice to end the prejudice against adoption and adopted children.