Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Creepy Picture

Does this creep you out the way it creeps me out? First off, as an adoptee I have to say the words bother me quite a bit. For better or worse, my birth mother gave me a heck of a lot more than "a need for love". It's far, far more complicated than that. And my adoption is a simple one as these things go. When you're talking about adding the complexities that come with international adoption (which is what the picture illustrates, obviously), it doesn't even come close. And speaking of international adoption, is the picture itself racist, awful, something truly ... just blech?! I see the "inscrutable Asian" face on the birth mother, and the gloating smile on the white mother, and it makes me shudder. The wall on the left where the words are is otherwise blank, contrasted with the open window (opportunity! the world!) on the right. Oh how perfect it is to be adopted! Oh how completely lacking in emotional and ethical complexity! Yes, I know it's just a picture, but what a piece of propaganda.

How did I come across such tripe? Well, I was nosing around the internet down all kinds of rabbit trails and I found it on one of those over-the-top adoption blogs – y'all know the kind I mean, I think. One of those blogs where it can’t just be “God blessed us with the chance to step in where someone was needed and be an awesome Plan B for you, precious child”, but it has to be “God pre-destined you from before you were even conceived to be our child, so to hell with your birth mother – you’re much better off without her anyway.”

Ack. The world is broken by sin. Sometimes adoption can be a part of mending that brokenness. But whatever it is, whatever it can be, it isn't this picture.

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