Replacing 'Adoption'
An Editorial Opinion "Adoption" is a legal process that creates a parent-child relationship, with all attending rights and responsibilities, where none existed before.
Over the past decades, use of the word "adoption" has been extended to pets, zoo animals, endangered species, and roads.
But it isn't only use of the word that has changed. The way we adopt (international, transracial, subsidized, open) has changed greatly, and our understanding of the impact on adoptees and biological families has brought a new awareness that is changing the way many of us view - and practice - adoption.
These changes have led many to question whether or not the word "adoption" is still the best to describe this process.
I think the answer is "no." I think there is a better word.
EntrustmentWhat actually happens when children are adopted? Their care and well-being and futures are
entrusted to adoptive parents - by the children's biological parents (either directly or implicitly), by social workers who approve their applications, by the courts that make the final rulings, and perhaps by others who participate in the process.
Unlike becoming parents by birth, there are many who have a say in the placement of a child with adoptive parents. And each of these participates in this
entrustment process.
I like the word "entrustment" because it implies cooperation rather than confrontation, and a recognition of and respect for a child's place in both the biological and adoptive families. It conveys the involvement of the many who are committed to each child's "best interest" and their accountability in the process. And I believe it carries an extra weight that will encourage both biological and adoptive parents to consider their choices and decisions more carefully.
Adoption has never changed a child's biological origins (despite the issuance of amended birth certificates), but adoptive parents
are entrusted:
- entrusted to parent,
- entrusted with the lifetime commitment to their children,
- entrusted to love their children unconditionally,
- entrusted to recognize the same rights and responsibilities accorded to biological children
- entrusted to remain their children's first and foremost champions.
"Entrustment" is already used in connection with adoptions. "Entrustment ceremonies" are becoming more common, involving both biological and adoptive parents. The purpose of these unofficial ceremonies is to cement the commitment of both sets of parents to the child, and underscore the
trust that biological parents have in the adoptive parents (as stated above) to parent their child, to maintain a lifetime commitment to their child, to love their child unconditionally, to accord their child the same rights and responsibilities as biological children, and to be their child's first and foremost champions.
I believe there's a lesson here, and I think "entrustment" is a better word for the way adoptive families are formed, and the way we should view the process.
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