I often engage what’s going wrong with culture, so when something good happens it would be good to talk about that as well. I’m sure most of you have already heard of Madonna’s recent adoption of a small child from Malawi, Africa. Apart from what you may think of Madonna, I think this is an admirable deed. While many people adopt children, they usually do so only because they cannot have children of their own. Madonna has two children. She did not need a child, and yet she chose to adopt an orphan.
While I’m praising Madonna I should take the time to praise Angelina Jolie as well. She was so moved by what she saw in poverty-stricken countries abroad that she has adopted two foreign children: one from Cambodia and one from Ethiopia. She even gives 1/3 of her income to charity.
I think both women are immoral in many ways, but they have acted honorably in these acts. My question for the Christian community: How many of us are willing to do what these women have done? We rightly refuse to emulate their evil, but will we also refuse to emulate their good?
Thinking to Believe 
November 11, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I’m suspect about these celebrity adoptions…
Sometimes people do charitable things for selfish reasons. Madonna may have adopted the child to make herself feel good about doing something good. I’m not just saying that she adopted the child to have others admire her, though that may well be, but rather that she did it to satisfy her own conscience.
Also, I remember readng something about a misunderstanding with the birth father of the child Madonna adopted. I remember reading that he didn’t fully understand that he was forever giving up his right to his child. That really concerns me.
Having legal experience with the foster care system of Los Angeles, I’ve seen first hand that chidren would rather live on dirt floors with their parents, than live in a castle with loving strangers. Of course, that’s not possible if the parents are abusive. I’m just saying, chacter and love being equal, rich foster parents are not better than poor natural parents.
There’s a common misconception that children in third world countries will be better off living with adoptive American parents. While it’s better for orphans of any country to live with loving adoptive parents, it is not necessarily better for kids with poor, but loving parents to be adopted by rich foster parents. (When I say “orphans” I refer to literal orphans, whose parents are dead, as well as legal orphans, whose parents have had their parental rights terminated for abuse or neglect.)
Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see more financially stable people becomming foster parents of orphans, especially orphans in Los Angeles. (In L.A., too many foster parents use the system as a form of welfare.) I’m just saying that the rags to riches adoptions are not always in the best interest of children, especially when they are being taken from parents who love them and want to raise them.
I have often thought of adopting a foster child. And this analysis can be thrown back at me, I assume. But my understanding is that adoption is supposed to give a child a family not to take them from their family because I can provide a “better life.”
Madonna is filthy rich. Why didn’t she just sponsor the child’s family in his native land, build them a home to live in together, and provide food for them? I speculate that she had some personal need to bring the child too her own home.
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November 13, 2006 at 5:58 pm
True, sometimes people do charitable things for selfish reasons…even in the church. Whatever Madonna’s reason for adopting that child (whether 95% altruistic and 5% selfish, or vice versa), she did a good thing.
I haven’t followed the story, so while I heard something about the father, I don’t know whether that’s true or not. The last I heard the father said he was glad his child would be raised by Madonna.
You’re absolutely right about children. Almost invariably they prefer to live with their parents…even when there’s physical abuse. Abuse excepted, it is always better that the child live with their parents. We think kids need all these material things, but they don’t. They just need the basic necessities of life and a loving environment. I would never support taking a child away from a poor family so they can be raised by a rich family. It’s not in the child’s best interests.
Is this what is going on in Madonna’s case? I had assumed the child was in the foster care system (presumably because the mother was dead and the father did not want to raise the boy). Is that wrong? Like I said, I have not followed the details.
Jason
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November 14, 2006 at 11:52 am
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/10/22/malawi.madonna.reut/index.html
Hopefully, you can get this link. I’m not sure how to post it on the blog. I also emailed it to you, Jason. In law, we have a saying that says, “It doesn’t pass the smell test.” In other words, something is just fishy about it. That’s how I feel about this adoption.
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November 14, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Seni,
After reading the article I agree that something sounds fishy…in the case of Madonna as well as the father.
The father seems full of contradictions and confusion. According to the article first the father railed against those trying to hold up the adoption, and then he says he never wanted Madonna to adopt him. Then the article says “he never intended his son to be adopted by the pop diva, but only for her to raise the child on his behalf.” What’s the difference? Raising him for the rest of his childhood is raising him for the rest of his childhood. Adopting him only helps Madonna to raise him effectively.
Then he says, “It would have been better for him to continue staying at the orphanage because I see no reason why my child should be given away forever when I can feed him.” If he can feed his child, and wants to do so, why was he still in foster care?
Maybe Madonna did something shady to get the boy (I hope not), but after reading this article I’m not finding the dad entirely believable.
Jason
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November 17, 2006 at 3:00 pm
I agree. It’s fishy all around.
Time will tell if the adoption was a good thing or not. And I do think good may come out of the celebrity adoptions, one way or the other. For example, it may lead people who are able to adopt a foster child actually consider doing so. And if it turns out Madonna had some kind of sinister plot in the adoption, it will raise awareness of any abuses in the foreign adoption process.
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