I personally know three individuals who have shared with me the fact that they were adopted. These are three very talented people. More importantly, all three of them are among the most well-adjusted and highly motivated people that I know. My admiration for each of them is considerable. I have met the parents of two of them: the friend from France and the parents of one of my students. I hope that I shall have the occasion to meet the parents of the third one.
To date, not a single one of them has ever said to me that there is a fundamental piece of their life missing on account of not knowing their biological parents—that meeting their biological parents will give them the key to who they “really” are. And that I find very significant. I find this significant because nowadays it is not uncommon to hear people insist that they need to meet their biological parents in order have a complete conception of who they are. Indeed, the claim nowadays is that one has a right to that information.
On her radio program, Dr. Laura has claimed that it is just so much nonsense to think that one does not fully know who one is until one has met one’s biological parents. I wholeheartedly concur. It does not take much reflection to see that she is right.
Suppose that Opidopo is adopted and it turns out that both of his biological parents are hardened criminals. Opidopo, on the other hand, has been a model citizen on every account, doing admirable charity work that has won the praise and esteem of all. So what key to who he is might he possibly gleam from meeting his biological parents?
Let us go the other way around. Schmuel’s adopted parents, who conceived him when they were both 14 years of age, are now model citizens doing admirable charity work that has won the praise and esteem of all. Schmuel, by contrast, is nothing but a scoundrel involved in drugs and prostitution. Through wronging others, he has made lots of money. What key to who he is might he possibly gleam from meeting his biological parents?
In the case of either Opidopo or Schmuel, it would be simply absurd to intone “See you turned out just like your parents”. Of course, it could turn out in either case that that the lives of either these two individuals mirrors the lives of their parents. But who on earth would be prepared to say that this is owing to biology? I should hope that no one would; for surely that is false.
Raw intelligence is undoubtedly hereditary. However, even that is considerably influenced by social environment. If that is right, then surely the key to who we are is tied to what our environment is like, a most fundamental part of which is our family context. Change the family context and with rare exception one will get a change in the way in which the children turn out. This has to be really, really obvious.
So it is something of a mystery that nowadays so much is made of adopted children getting to know their biological parents. Indeed, this is presented as an incontrovertible good. A natural right even.
Extraordinarily wonderful incidences do occur, with an adopted child meeting her or his biological parents. But as with winning the lottery, they are extremely rare. They do not occasion reasonable expectations.
How is it, then, that such an absurd view about the rapport between biological parents and adopted children has taken hold in society? The answer, I think, is that there has been a direct correlation between the deterioration of the family structure and the rise in the view that adopted cannot really know who they ultimately are without meeting their biological parents.
Unwittingly, perhaps, we have increasingly trivialized the family structure. And one incontrovertible sign that we have done so is that more and more things and arrangements are seen as a suitable substitute for direct parental bonding contact with their children. Indeed, to hear some people tell it, nothing is more important than bonding with other children. Bonding with parents is almost seen as having little or not value. In fact, in the Idaho Statesman,(8 January 2007, “Van Service Ferries Kids Between Parents in Boise, Twin Falls”), there is a story of hiring a van service to shuttle children between divorced parents. So divorced parents are too busy to do the driving themselves. That this should be celebrated underscores the point.
In friendships and loves, some of the most extraordinary moments of bonding occur precisely when there really is no point to being together, save just to spend time together. And if it is good for children spend time together with one another when there really is no point to their being together, why isn’t this equally true when it comes to parents and children spending time together?
Increasingly, what has become definitive of the parent-child relationship is none other than the biology. Or, should I say biology coupled with money? In either case, what has dropped out of the picture is the actual role of parenting, with all that this was once seen to entail—not simply in terms of monetary sacrifices on behalf of the child but in terms of sacrifices in order to realize concrete expressions of caring via interacting together. Trivializes the importance of these latter sacrifices and guess what: there simply isn’t much left but biology.
It is against this social backdrop that suddenly, nowadays, the adopted child so desperately needs to meet her or his parents in order to know who she or he really is.
There is no greater gift than parental love manifested fully in the sinews of our experience. Having met two of the families of the three individuals who informed me that they were adopted, I have seen the love between the parents and their children. In each case, but in different ways, it is obvious that there is no biological tie. Yet, I have never been able to think of these parents as anything other than the parents of these two individuals. And every indication that I have suggests that this holds even more so for the children, as indeed it should. The explanation for this is ever so straightforward: In each case it was manifestly evident that these parents had majestically fulfilled the role of parenting.
Biology ain’t got nothing over these individuals. I know it. But more importantly: the parents know it and the children know it. That, alas, is precisely the way that it should be.
