Unnecessary Labels

This is the beautiful baby, Magnolia Earl, who was chosen as the new Gerber baby for 2020. As I read more about this little darling, I saw that she was chosen as the first “adopted” Gerber baby. My next thought…why was the label “adopted” even used? I would not have known whether or not any Gerber baby was adopted, and why does it matter? Through the years, I have read one article after another and heard one report after another about “adopted” children. I have heard parents with both biological and adopted children introduce their children as my “biological children” and my “adopted daughter/son.” I find this to be disrespectful and hurtful to the children who are adopted…even damaging. It’s as if these children are less or not real. I have heard from many adults who were referred to as the “adopted” child. This was very painful for them. Do we refer to some children as “sperm donor,” or “surrogate,” children? This feeds into the myth that adoption is somehow negative. 

More often than not, when a crime is committed,  articles or news reports refer to the person as the “adopted” son or daughter of the parents. There is never a reference to the “biological” child of the parents when they commit a crime. What does it matter? It’s as if children who are adopted commit the crimes, or perhaps that is why, yet we know plenty of biological children who do the same.

Some parents fear that if they adopt, the child will not look like them, or that the child will be damaged, be mentally ill, or that they won’t be able to truly love a child that is not their own flesh and blood. Quite frankly, all of these situations occur with biological children as well. There are many that don’t look like their parents, many who commit crimes, many who deal with mental illness, and oh so very many that are damaged often because of their upbringing. 

I remember a class in college, and we were asked to speak – while writing on the board – about our genealogy as far back as we knew. When finished the professor asked if anyone was adopted. One beautiful girl said that she was. This was followed by the professor asking her what she felt, what issues she had around her adoption, and so forth. As the girl proceeded to tell the professor that she was just fine, the professor started arguing with her. 

It appears that it is often the parents or adults in general who perpetuate these biases and prejudgments against children. What about parents who have the ability to adopt children, love them more than life itself, raise them, provide for them, and give them as much as they possibly can? What is more real than that? This seems to me to be pretty special and significant. We don’t live through our children. We raise them however they come into our lives. They are quite simply our sons and daughters.