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Why confuse issues?
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There should not be two standards in bringing up children, whether natural or adopted.
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Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself,
They come through you but not from you.
The Prophet,
Kahlil Gibran
HAVING A child is one of the powerful desires of mankind. Often associated with a "sense of completeness" and driven by familial and societal pressures, childbearing has become an expression of a human being's innate as well as induced need. The range of emotions — joy, apprehension, oneness — from conception through childbirth, is an experience, they say, one has to undergo. But what about couples unable to conceive or those who want a child without the bother of matrimony? What happens to their innate desire?
Adoption, a practice that is increasingly gaining acceptance, is an obvious answer. Here, it should be pointed out that the adoptive parent goes through the same spectrum of emotions that a natural parent does. There is joy, apprehension, longing, and, thanks to the elaborate pre-adoption procedures, they even undergo a gestation period! But bringing up a child is no joke, whether she is one's natural-born or adopted. Factors such as an increasingly materialistic society, changing priorities, and erosion of the joint family system have brought fresh challenges in the arena of parenting.
Nuclear families have become the norm, and our emphasis is now on individualism. While such a system definitely encourages the concept of space and freedom, it has made deep inroads into our traditional values and belief system. Most families have working couples trying hard to earn their bread and butter. However, we are not content with just bread and butter; we need more jam, more of this and more of that. The impact of these needs is felt directly by children. Couples find their patience wearing thin and they become less equipped to handle pressures in child rearing. It now becomes imperative that they think long and hard before they have a child, either their own or adopted.
There is an ongoing debate on the risks that adoption seems to forebode. One school of thought views it as a boon to two needy individuals. There is another school which raises a multitude of questions about the risks involved - the child's genetic endowment, her family background, repercussions of being an adopted child which may show up later, the child's desire to know her roots, and so on.
But it is a lopsided approach to only talk about such issues in adoption. Can anyone vouch that nothing will go wrong in case of natural parents and their children? Are there no concerns and problems in such parenting? Don't these children also undergo problems typical during adolescence? They too face insecurity in the competitive world, and conflicts within themselves. All of us are aware of the problems that face us in the arduous journey of parenting. But do they in any way prevent the decision to bear a child? On the contrary, childbirth has an exalted status, without giving a second thought to things going horribly wrong in future. Why do we then have reservations only when it comes to adopting a child?
Whether it is childbearing or marriage or any other human relationship one gets into, there are bound to be ups and downs. Irrespective of the manner in which a child enters one's life, the concerns remain the same; they differ only in degree. The world has changed so much in our own lifetime, removing from our lives things we have long taken for granted. To bring back order and stability, the foundation - starting with the family - has to be strong. That is the fundamental aim of upbringing. It definitely does not mean that we are in control; it only means that we need to learn to let go of things that we are not entitled to handle. As Gibran's Prophet says: "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. For even as "He loves the arrow that flies," so "He loves also the bow that is stable."
PADMA SUBBIAH
(The autor can be contacted at padmasubbiah@rediffmail.com or padmasubbiah@vsnl.net.)
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