I’m short on time today. Coming on the heels of the blog yesterday, this from The Adopted Chamelon seemed perfect –

I hear pro choice people say, “how many kids have you adopted?” Then you have these comments from people who have no understanding of adoption, “You can always adopt if you can’t have your own kids.” “If you don’t want to parent just put the kid up for adoption?”

There is no “just” to it. It is a complex decision that will affect you and the child for the rest of your lives. Adoption is trauma. People treat it like it is a simple solution. “Just” means they have put no thought to what happens after adoption. Children are not born blank slates. We have our family’s heritage, intact, inside us.

The adoption industry has done such a good job dehumanizing children that people think you can “just” put adoptees in the family that had the money to pay for them and everything is great.

The truth is that separation causes a lifelong trauma that could be prevented. We need to see this trauma first and foremost. Stop treating adoption as the answer. Adoption is a lifelong struggle that often gets ignored. If we are going to continue treating children like property at least acknowledge the harm it has done. Stop saying “just” adopt. Stop bypassing the very real trauma that has to happen for a child to be put in the situation where they are permanently being removed from their family to be put with strangers.

We don’t “just” get over it either.

#adoptedchameleon