Two months ago, upon reading the article that the planet is reaching its population height of 7 billion very soon, I drafted a note discussing how adoption should be considered as the ultimate means of "human recycle". This idea is initiated by a college friend, possibly the most passionate and daring woman I have ever met. I never finished the note, but after watching a cult movie about a 28-year-old guy adopting a baby from China last night, I thought I'd share a few main points here anyway.
Adopting a child is just like shopping at a thrift store. We look for and buy things that other people no longer need because we ourselves find these things beautiful and special. We could find an Anthropologie dress from the $5 racket or a Marc Jacobs jacket hung next to a Walmart coat, manage to pull them off and feel like a million bucks. Could we do the same to an abandoned child – get one from the orphanage, take her home, feed and educate her, and love and cherish her as if we are her parent?
This is the minimalist metaphor. I know it is incompatible to compare child adoption to thrift shopping. I know there are many people out there who love the feeling and smell of a new dress or pair of shoes, and just as many who crave the extremely painful pleasure of giving birth to a baby of their own blood. But is biological bond the basis of love and attachment? If that is the case, how do we nourish our feelings for friends and partners?
It’s easy to counterattack this rhetoric question: all relationships are dyadic. No love is unconditional. There is always a “because” after “I love you”, even though it is not always spoken, and sometimes it is taken for granted. [haven't figured out a critically sharp argument yet, looking for suggestions]
I thought about adoption since I was a kid. Sometimes, my mother was angry with me, she would tell me that I was not her daughter, and that a poor woman on the street gave me to her (yeah, no stork for the naughty kid). Had I been older and smarter, I would have responded like this, “Then why the heck did you take me in?” – that would definitely shut her up. Instead, I only had this eccentric thought that she must have loved me very much, otherwise she would not have adopted me in the first place.
What do you think?
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