From time to time May and I will be featuring guest bloggers. Our first was Mindful Momma this past weekend.

Today we would like to share freelance writer MaryLou’s perspective on Madonna’s current adoption of a little boy from Malawi.

As the adoptive mother of two African children, I have to admit that�
my motherly instincts get replaced with the fight/flee instincts�
every time I see another headline about Madonna’s imminent adoption�
of a young Malawian boy. Fight: I challenge anyone to say there is�
not a need for stable, loving, safe homes for children, around the�
world and in our own back yard. Of course Madonna should be allowed�
to adopt, so long as she’s been checked out by the local They Who�
Have Say authorities. Of course she’s getting preferential treatment.�
She’s an uberrich rock star, and if my own international adoption�
experience is any indication, what is a hard-and-fast rule in one�
situation is only a suggested guideline in another.

But then there’s the flee urge: What if Madonna’s paparazzi-
documented experiment in parenting turns people off from adopting?�
What if she’s just doing it for the attention (Madonna? Clutch the�
pearls.) and not for the best interests of the child? When we brought�
our children home, we over and over again endured the comment: “Oh,�
you just want to be like Angelina.” Well, yeah. I’d love to be a�
unbelievably hot Amazon that most of my girlfriends would switch�
teams for. But when it comes to adoption, it boils down to this: You�
just want to love a child. You just want to raise a child. And if you�
are lucky enough to pass the scrutiny, scrounge up the not-
inconsequential funds, and ride out the roller coaster, you get a�
little one in your life that changes the way you look at everything.�
Including Madonna.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 10:38 am and is filed under Adoption, Guest Bloggers, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.