What About the Children?

I have wondered for some time if we are not seeing widespread social re-engineering with little thought given to the long-term consequences. Last Thursday night the ABCs 7.30 Report included a segment that only reinforced that view for me.

Over the last 20 years or so we have seen how important it is for many adoptees to reconnect with their birth mother and family. This for many has not been in any way a rejection of their adopted parents. To the contrary, many have known nothing but love in their adopted families and have been grateful for what they have been given.

Obviously, it seems, deep within our psychology who we are really matters to us. And that was the subject discussed on the 7.30 Report. The Prime Minister has promised to streamline overseas adoption and that proposal has met with opposition by some adoptees. Professor Nahum Mushin, Monash University, who met with hundreds of adoptees, believes it is time to rethink the whole process. He says many are troubled and have mental health problems and that this should not be ignored.

The fact that many of these may have been forced adoptions seems irrelevant. The adoptees could not have known the circumstances of their birth. One of those interviewed on the program was Korean, adopted by an Anglo-Saxon-Italian family. She was to find out the story she had been told about her family of origin was false.

Our world is not perfect. There will always be orphans or children who have lost one parent. In different times and places these have been adopted, raised by a single parent, extended family, tribe or community. They may have been raised in single parent families, as was my grandmother, or by any possible combination of siblings – brother/sister, sister/sister, etc.

Now science is opening up a whole new world – one of surrogacy and same sex couples. In some places birth certificates legally record two parents of the same sex. I acknowledge research that has shown these relationships do not harm the children and some claim that same sex couples can be better parents. But all research can and should be challenged, for it is only as research is challenged and repeated in different ways that we begin to understand.

Regardless of the relationship of the adopting parents, or that of a couple and a surrogate, the first consideration should always be the long-term interests of the children. Children were never meant to be fashion accessories, status symbols, or simply to fill maternal or paternal instincts. The future of any society is dependent upon its ability to raise children in a loving, supportive and safe environment. And where there is evidence that what we are currently doing fails to do this, we should give careful consideration to what that means for our future.

Interestingly, around the same time I saw the 7.30 Report I saw a YouTube post of an Irish gay couple opposing marriage equality. They had concerns over the future implications of gay marriage and the welfare of children. Their belief was that the welfare of the child should always come first. I concur.

Personal Stories

Nothing like a personal story.

Many years ago I read a story 'My Place' by Sally Morgan. It told of her search for identity, of not knowing as a child that she was aboriginal because her family kept that from her. It told me that there was something wrong with this country that made that necessary. For me, it was also personal. I have an adopted cousin who worshipped me as a kid, so much so that she was devastated when I married for the first time. I always thought she was Indian, or Pacific Islander or something. It was only around the time I read Sally's book that I learned that my cousin was also aboriginal. Why did families feel they had to protect kids by not telling them who they really were.

Then, some years back I was staying in a motel room in Hobart. The paper I picked up had a piece on Bob Brown, not his politics, but his struggle with his sexuality, of knowing he was different and wanting to be normal. As a young person he was told by his Christian counsellor to pray about it and it would work out. He did, nothing changed. Finally, while studying in England a GP told him to accept who he was. For Bob, that was liberating.

Not long ago I saw on Australian Story the story of an Australian Army Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Cate McGregor, who had lived all her life being mixed up until she accepted and acted on the fact she was a woman trapped in a man's body.

I can't really identify with Sally, but listening made a big difference to the way I see our indigenous Australians. I have no idea why it is that some people are homosexual or transgender or anything else. The evidence that I have seen tells me that for some, if not all, it is not a lifestyle choice. Rather it is something complex that perhaps no one really understands.

But listening evokes empathy, and empathy leads to acceptance. This does not mean that I need in anyway to change my personal values on how I should live. But when it comes to the way adults relate to one another, so long as one is not hurting another, lets live and let live. And lets work with one another to try and make our world a better place for all.