We recently had the opportunity to foster a lovely little dog named Bessie.  Bessie is a sweet lab mix who was rescused from a ‘kill’ shelter in South Carolina and by Last Chance Animal Rescue Fund.

While we weren’t responsible for finding Bessie her ‘forever’ family, we were naturally interested in helping Last Chance finding a great home for her.  When one of our acquaintances expressed interest in her we were quite pleased.

My excitement dimmed when the acquaintance grilled me about Bessie.  “Ok,” I reasoned, “this is normal.”  But as the questioning continued, I became increasingly uncomfortable.  It seemed to me that the prospective owners were looking for the ‘perfect’ dog.

As the parent of a child of adoption, this plucked every string and even reminded me of a conversation I had with my daughter’s pediatrician when I recieved her initial paperwork.  In the pictures, my daughter appeared to have crossed eyes.  When I questioned-perhaps even grilled-the doctor she sternly reminded me that there was no such thing as a ‘perfect’ child-biological or adopted.

It strikes me that parents who choose adoption seem to think that they are entitled to some kind of guarantee that is not available to parents who grow their families biologically.  In the words of a kindergarten teacher, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”.  Right?

Isn’t all parenthood-at its core-a leap of faith?   

Sure a guarantee would be great, but if that is what you are waiting for-good luck with that!

With Respect,

Deb

PS: Check out Adopting Smart for more great adoption information!

bessie

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 6:28 am and is filed under adoption, children, community, culture, education, family, kids, life, motherhood, motherhood parenting, parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.