So you have adopted a child or are planning to? How about a highway, an impoverished family at holiday time, or a dog at the local pound? There are currently tons of ways people or groups take the terminology of adoption and use those words to create empathy for their situation or purpose, but is it always right? As adoptive parents should we have more concern about the how the word “adoption” has been used to mean a variety of other things in our society? Isn’t this use of adoption language demeaning to our families?

So many seek to take the word “adopt” and use it for a purpose other than to describe family formation that it really is now everywhere you look. There are road signs in many states that encourage you to “adopt” them for clean up, zoo programs to adopt an animal, adopt a stream, adopt a group, adopt this adopt that. Where do we begin to draw the line? All the ways society uses the term adoption are reason for concern to adoptive families because this misuse of the terminology is actually harmful to our children.

With in our families we explain adopting to mean a sense of permanency for our children, a definite sense of forever belonging. The programs who use this play on adoption words take away from the sense of security that should belong to our families and children. Our kids already know that if we “adopt” a highway that it does not then become a permanent, living member of our family. What do these programs then say to them? In some programs if you sponsor an animal at the zoo you may only be doing so for a limited amount of time and you are not allowed to actually bring the animal home and make it part of your family for life. If this type of program begs us to adopt animals and also inanimate objects it also takes a great deal of respect away from the real live human beings for whom adoption is their reality.

If we understand that adoption is a method of providing children with permanent families (and not roadsides with a temporary clean up crew) our obligation is then to object to these programs and how their language demoralizes adoptive families. Writing to the originators of an “adopt-a” program that you are aware of stating in clear terms how harmful this description of sponsorship is in connection to REAL adoptions is a must. There are some great resources that will further explain the impact of “adopt-a” programs on children and families and what you can do to help make a change in your area. Small steps together move all of us further along to protecting our children from negative and harmful practices in our world. Be active, get involved and you can make a difference!

Resources

Adopt-A promotions

Adopt-a programs: Pitiful in a party dress.

Adopt-a confusion