There are as many answers as there are adoptive parents. Each person has their own story, their own personal motives. Here are a few ideas from past clients that have inspired me. I would welcome receiving any similar thought from other adoptive parents.
- "Adoption is like a marriage, only more permanent. Foster care was our engagement period. We fell in love with our foster child and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Now we’re waiting for the court ceremony that makes it official."
- "We found we weren’t able to have children the usual way. But we wanted a family, a chance to pass on our hopes and dreams. I think raising a child, helping him or her to grow up, is even more real and important than merely passing on my genes."
- "I want to adopt the child that no one else wants or is willing to spend time with. Perhaps a teenager or a child with disabilities. Someone very vulnerable that would really need a parent."
- "A friend of ours said kids were a nuisance. They would interfere with what he wants out of life. My husband and I feel the opposite. Children are our joy. They make each day worthwhile.”"
- "Love and commitment go together."
- "Adoption made us more than just foster parents. Adopting is more than an impulsive action that can be rethought when things don’t seem to be working out. Adoption is for life and we are glad, glad."
- "We have a family of both birth and adopted children. Sometimes a thoughtless person will ask us which ones are ‘really’ ours. I was baffled for a moment. Of course they are ALL really ours. Perhaps our adoptive children even more, because they were a free choice. Or do we ‘own’ any of our children? Ownership is a different notion than loving and feeling privileged to be very important in their lives."
- "For us, adoption started with an idea. Let’s take in a foster child. We got to like the little rascal, although sometimes she gave us fits. My husband and I woke up one morning and found that we were in love with her. Our lives had meaning. There was an important reason for us to be together. Our marriage had a new purpose. Last week the judge made it final. We have a new five-year-old daughter."
- "Because that’s who we are."