The adoption process moral pedestal

The adoption process has changed me in one way at least.

No longer do I hang my head in shame as I walk past the high street charity workers claiming that my five pounds can save a life. Instead I elect to clearly say no, without remorse.

I can happily watch Children in Need guilt free, without feeling the need to pick the phone up and divulge my credit card details.

This adoption process has (rightly or wrongly) given considerable boost to the feeling that my contribution to society has allowed me to stand proud at the summit of my moral pedestal.

Admittedly fate has played its part, but I still feel an enormous sense of pride that I will be helping society by sharing my home with someone who may could well have been deemed a lost cause in two or three years’ time.

It is of course, much more that that. The uk adoption process is a journey like no other, and brings the rawest of emotions to the surface, whilst enabling lost souls like myself, to come back from the brink, and achieve their dreams as well as lending a helping hand to society.

I am not just opening my home to a stranger. My wife and I are cultivating love for someone desperately in need of it. A person whose start in life was much less fortunate that our own.

Does the adoption process allow me to judge?

Is it that my adoption story sees me sit on the moral high ground pouring judgement down upon those of you who haven’t adopted – shame on your having your own children, the fires of hell await?

Or I could opt to patronise you and say that ‘not everyone is cut out for adoption’.

No of course that isn’t my view.

I did hear a woman on the radio exclaim rather rambunctiously that everyone who has their own children is selfish, but that was the bitter rant of a petty and jealous soul who clearly has not reconciled her own loss of infertility, and quite genuinely I pity her, but I certainly don’t share her view.

My life in the last three years has twisted and turned, and I am today who I am because of that journey and that is simply the way the adoption process is put together. Yes I am proud to be adopting, and no I am not bitter about not having children naturally, but it has taken a lot to reconcile the loss.

Lest I forget, this whole thing started because I couldn’t father my own children, not because I am the new saviour of children in care. It isn’t a ‘last resort’ either though. As the adoption process fills more of my life, the greater the realisation that this was meant to be.

So my adoption pedestal helps me hold my head high, and saves me a few quid, but it is not license to bark my pseudo new moral army of beliefs at people.

Besides, I will still start blubbing when Wogan gets going on Children in Need…

—

To join me in donating to Children in Need please click here

Related posts:

About the Author: Andrew McDougall

Andrew is an adoptive father, and stay at home dad. Having adopted his son in January 2013, he is a new adoptive parent, but well versed in the adoption process. He is a married, coffee drinker, Xbox addict, and a graduate of Marketing. Andrew McDougall is an alias he uses to protect the identity of his adopted son.