Adopting a Kid, Not a Cause

Last week, Together for Adoption held its fifth annual national conference in Atlanta. That thousands of people from a variety of churches heard God's purposes for human adoption warms the cockles of this adoptive mother's heart.

According to its website, the mission of Together for Adoption is "to … magnify the adopting grace of God the Father in Christ Jesus and mobilize the church for global orphan care." It's a mission that's become an increasing priority among American evangelicals.

Russell D. Moore, who speaks at Together for Adoption events, expanded on this mission statement in a 2010 Christianity Today cover story with the provocative subtitle, "Why every Christian is called to rescue orphans."

Moore, and the rest of the Christian orphan-care movement, speaks in missional terms. Adoption is about embracing a diverse kingdom, fulfilling our duty to the needy, and proclaiming our own spiritual adoption in Christ.

When Christians discuss the personal aspects of adoption, it's often with a focus on hard realities. The confessional blog posts of author and adoptive mom Jen Hatmaker are widely re-posted in the adoption community because she tells it like it is. (I've scraped smashed banana off my walls. I hear her.) Adoption is a tough calling. Its difficulty gives weight to the mission.

Christians are right to counter dishonest, overly-romantic presentations of adoption. Adoption is a beautiful picture of God's redemption of us, his broken children. And human adoption is a compassionate response to the divine love that we ourselves have received.

But I want to propose that adoptive parents don't have to be on a global crusade. Whether they admit it or not, many Christian couples adopt simply because they want kids. And that's okay.

God thinks it's good to want kids.

In the very first days of the newborn world, God tells humans to get married and have children. He created people designed for creating other people, for parenthood. The picture of the good life in Psalm 127 and 128 includes children at the dinner table. And, throughout Scripture, children are described as a reward, blessing, heritage, and sign of God's favor.

We also have a great cloud of women in Scripture whose prayers for a baby were heard by our gracious God. Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth wanted to be moms, and God blessed them.

So I propose that wanting children, or wanting more children, is a legitimate reason to adopt. Christian couples might be God's gift to orphans, sure, but these children are also certainly God's gift to us. Let us give thanks.

Maybe because we live in an age of countless reproductive choices, and maybe because many people who are adopting in this new wave already have biological children, we appear to have the ability to separate our participation in a social cause from our desire to have children.

But every Christian mom I know, whether biological or adoptive, fundamentally loves being a mom to her kids. And we talk like that's an unimportant, or at least less important, impetus for adopting.

There are three bad things that happen when we emphasize the missional aspects of adoption while minimizing our longing for children.

First, we marginalize those women, our sisters in Christ, who suffer the trial of infertility and who pray month by month for the Lord to open their wombs. These women are grieving the loss of pregnancy and delivery and breastfeeding. They often come to adoption, but only after many years of hoping for something else. These women are walking beside the barren women of Scripture, and we'd do well to remember that the Lord often received their plea for children with compassion. Their desire is not inferior in his sight.

Saving the world one adoption at a time also risks objectifying our children. Adopted children are no longer allowed to be simply kids. They become involuntary ambassadors for a cause.

I live in Mississippi. I am the Caucasian mother of two black children. But my children were not adopted to be overtures of peace in a racial reconciliation campaign. One of my children came from a continent where a child dies every minute from malaria. But he is first and foremost my child, not my personal platform for children's health initiatives.

These children are God's precious fulfillment of my request. They have souls that will never die, quirks that make me laugh, and the most amazing smiles I have ever seen. They're my kids.

Finally, when Christians focus on response to a need—the number of global orphans, the bleak future of older orphans, and so on—we encounter a third problem: a false hierarchy where some adoptions seem more worthy than others. For example, there's a sense in the adoption community, to which I belong, that couples who adopt international, special-needs kids are doing something more valuable than couples who adopt same-race, healthy infants. By ignoring our common joy in family, adoptive parents often lack mutual respect for one another.

Strangers at Wal-Mart who see me coming with my children sometimes tell me, "You're such a good person!"

It's tempting to be drawn into applause for taking a hard road in the service of a godly cause. But we must not. To the woman in aisle 9, I don't preach the priority of adoption. I just tell her: I'm thankful to be a mom.

In addition to our conversations about mission and calling and the global orphan crisis, I'd like to hear something else.

I'd like adoptive moms to stand up and say it loud together: "I wanted children. I love being a mom."

Too obvious? I don't think moms have said it enough.

Megan Hill has children by birth and adoption. She writes a weekly blog, Sunday Women, with her mother. She has written for Her.meneutics about authenticity.