Adoption, Destiny and Magical Thinking

How does magical thinking manifest in adoption? The New York Times Motherlode article explores the phenomenon, and I do, too.

I love this post & Harriet's (will head over to Lori's later). But... I kind of disagree - I need to go write my own post instead of these ridiculously long comments. I'm a "things happen for a reason" person. Bad stuff, good stuff, all of it. I wanted to punch anyone who said that to me while we were in the throes of grief, but that was because people are stupid and tactless not because I didn't believe in it. I agree that adoption is romanticized and it shouldn't be. But my experience with international adoption is so different from yours - we weren't "chosen" and didn't have to work at it - because there is no direct birthparent involvement in international adoption. Shit happened to us, shit happened to Miss E, choices were made, but all on a timeline where a couple from Chicago, Illinois, were matched with this particular girl in Kinshasa, DRC. That is amazing to me... that Miss E who fits our family so perfectly ended up in it. Adoption is messy and not a Disney fairy-tale and Miss E will have her own feelings about it that we will do everything we can to support. But I marvel at how we got here and am incredibly grateful to whatever led us here-- circumstances, coincidences, fate, higher power, or whatever.

Our adoption was “meant to be.” This statement is a perennial favorite for debate among adoption writers and bloggers. Was our adoption meant to be? Or was it in fact, a painful and pos...

Magical thinking in adoption hits a nerve with many adoptees

Dear people who believe placing children for adoption and adopting children into your families is “Destiny” and a “Part of God’s Plan”: This is my mother. She passed away 1.5 years after I was adop...

This post is written as a response to an article in The New York Times in which the writer addresses adoptive parents who think adoption is God’s Will, part

Most adoptive parents feel their children are meant to be theirs though God's hand or destiny.Was it my destiny to become a birthmother?

We don’t believe God orchestrated S. getting pregnant so WE could be parents. To think so is arrogant and unloving towards a woman whose decision was painful and difficult. But we believe God took all of our choices, hers to place, ours to adopt, and directed us to find these particular children to become part of our family.

This is the original article as published in the NYT.

Here is my view – when you stop and think about adoption it’s a little crazy, decisions that four (or less) people make impacts generations of people. The rippling effects of adoption go farther than I ever imagined, and the deepest (and very possibly sometimes negative) impacts of those decisions are to the person at the center of it all, the adoptee. Accepting responsibility for all those ripples and that intial impact to this person I love most in the world is terrifying, but not taking any responsibility and saying this was how things were meant to be for all of us seems unfair to J.