'anabaptist' Attitude Toward Adoption

[mike]

I was pondering this earlier... I do not think I ever really heard a sermon preached on adopting children. At least nothing in depth. I've heard sermons preached on a single person's role in a church setting, but can't say I heard anything on adoption.

It should be part and parcel of the comprehensive Christian view towards children, which should inform subtopics such as birth control, child training, adoption, and the theology of their standing with God. We should hear more about all these things, particularly as society has fewer and fewer children.

That would assume that a church (let alone a church group) has reached a consensus on any of these things.

The modern irony is that young Mennonite couples go and get on birth control for a few years before having kids; then if they find out they're infertile, they spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to adopt a baby.

Yep.

[Ken]

Even if adopted children "don't turn out", does that mean we just don't do it? Is the end goal to have a guaranteed positive outcome or is it to love someone who needs it and may not rise as far above their circumstance as we would hope they would? (I have heard the argument mennonites should not adopt because "those children typically don't turn out well".)

If, to use recent examples, a family insists on adopting children who then set fires on the neighbour’s property, keep necessitating the sheriff coming out, sexually assault their siblings, and try to smuggle hard drugs across the border, yes, some introspection is necessary to say “Maybe we need to reconsider what we’re doing.”

An obvious way to help is to choose to foster children (and that means access to a lot of resources to help with these very challenging situations). And, of course, I’m not speaking against kinship adoptions, which nearly always make sense and should be done. I’m talking about people who just keep on going thru with adoptions and then cause a reign of terror and chaos for everyone around them. Because they aren’t accessing the resources they need and end up in a state of denial about the situation they’re creating.

And how are you supposed to know ahead of time that children will be arsonists and criminals?

Look to the parents. In most cases it is problematic child rearing and not genetics. Whether the child is adopted or not.

[Heirbyadoption]

If, to use recent examples, a family insists on adopting children who then set fires on the neighbour’s property, keep necessitating the sheriff coming out, sexually assault their siblings, and try to smuggle hard drugs across the border, yes, some introspection is necessary to say “Maybe we need to reconsider what we’re doing.”

An obvious way to help is to choose to foster children (and that means access to a lot of resources to help with these very challenging situations). And, of course, I’m not speaking against kinship adoptions, which nearly always make sense and should be done. I’m talking about people who just keep on going thru with adoptions and then cause a reign of terror and chaos for everyone around them. Because they aren’t accessing the resources they need and end up in a state of denial about the situation they’re creating.

And how are you supposed to know ahead of time that children will be arsonists and criminals?

Look to the parents. In most cases it is problematic child rearing and not genetics. Whether the child is adopted or not.

I appreciate this thought. While some things may indeed be a matter of nature over nurture, SO MUCH of it is circumstantial influence.

[AndersonD]

I was pondering this earlier... I do not think I ever really heard a sermon preached on adopting children. At least nothing in depth. I've heard sermons preached on a single person's role in a church setting, but can't say I heard anything on adoption.

It should be part and parcel of the comprehensive Christian view towards children, which should inform subtopics such as birth control, child training, adoption, and the theology of their standing with God. We should hear more about all these things, particularly as society has fewer and fewer children.

That would assume that a church (let alone a church group) has reached a consensus on any of these things.

The modern irony is that young Mennonite couples go and get on birth control for a few years before having kids; then if they find out they're infertile, they spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to adopt a baby.

How do you know this about young Mennonite couples? I consider such a topic risqué. Do you discuss it around Sunday dinner or what????

[AndersonD]

If, to use recent examples, a family insists on adopting children who then set fires on the neighbour’s property, keep necessitating the sheriff coming out, sexually assault their siblings, and try to smuggle hard drugs across the border, yes, some introspection is necessary to say “Maybe we need to reconsider what we’re doing.”

An obvious way to help is to choose to foster children (and that means access to a lot of resources to help with these very challenging situations). And, of course, I’m not speaking against kinship adoptions, which nearly always make sense and should be done. I’m talking about people who just keep on going thru with adoptions and then cause a reign of terror and chaos for everyone around them. Because they aren’t accessing the resources they need and end up in a state of denial about the situation they’re creating.

And how are you supposed to know ahead of time that children will be arsonists and criminals?

Look to the parents. In most cases it is problematic child rearing and not genetics. Whether the child is adopted or not.

I wish I could believe this. Personally, I believe there's a genetic component to mental illness which would fall outside of nurture.

I think your belief is outdated.

[AndersonD]

My favorite book on adoption is "Another Place at the Table". And my dentist neighbor adopted 6 children. It's beautiful, especially considering we're adopted by God.

[Josh]

Look to the parents. In most cases it is problematic child rearing and not genetics. Whether the child is adopted or not.

Adopted children are far more likely to have social problems than natural children, all else being equal.

It is possible that adopted parents are unusually bad parents, but it seems unlikely.

[Josh]

How do you know this about young Mennonite couples? I consider such a topic risqué. Do you discuss it around Sunday dinner or what????

Because they don't get pregnant for the first few years of marriage, which is statistically unlikely without birth control.

And yes, women do talk about these things and generally have a good idea that they know what is going on, and since I'm married to a woman, she shares these observations with m e.

[Josh]

I wish I could believe this. Personally, I believe there's a genetic component to mental illness which would fall outside of nurture.

I think your belief is outdated.

Might also be due to prenatal traumas and other environmental types of factors.

[Heirbyadoption]

Look to the parents. In most cases it is problematic child rearing and not genetics. Whether the child is adopted or not.

Adopted children are far more likely to have social problems than natural children, all else being equal. It is possible that adopted parents are unusually bad parents, but it seems unlikely.

Josh, it seems like you and I had this discussion a couple years ago on here somewhere, but I'll just re-iterate for the sake of this discussion that, as I am an "adopted-into-Anabaptism kid" myself, the claim of "far more likely" strikes me not only as an unfair (and mildly offensive) generalization that will skew any attempt at an objective consideration of the question, but also, it certainly doesn't match my general experience as an adopted child in any way, nor that of several of my similarly-adopted peers (in both Anabaptist and non-Anabaptist settings), nor that of various families we interact with who have adopted children "into" Anabaptist world.

Having said that, where I HAVE seen social challenges on the part of adoptees, and there have been some, I submit to you that they were usually resultant (or strongly influenced) from:
A. the age at adoption
B. pre-adoptive circumstances/trauma (possibly including pre-natal circumstances such as you mentioned in the comment before this one), or
C. the positive or negative affirmation of their identity by their adoptive family/peers as an equal child in the community.

Btw, and this is a question for anybody, is there a thread on here somewhere RE cross-ethnic adoptions among Anabaptists and the potential challenges in that? That would be an interesting vein to pursue as well.