September 28, 1966

Chosen Children Bring Love

Steven Wilger Williams has come to our house to stay. We signed the final adoption papers this week. Tomorrow we will celebrate the event simultaneously with his first birthday. His mother will bake him a cake, his sisters and brother will sing him a song, and I will give him his first haircut.

Steve (his mother and sisters persist in calling him Stevie) is a winsome little guy with a lumpy head and a fetching dimple in his left cheek. We adopted him from Summit County Family & Children Service Society when he was five months old to complete our planned family of two boys and two girls; and to enjoy the ineffable love of children.

It is difficult to convey to non-parents the fun and satisfactions of children. To watch them develop day by day is fascinating.

When we first got Steve he mostly ate and slept. In rapid succession we watched him learn to bounce on our knee, patty cake, say da-da, crawl, wave bye-bye, walk and roll a ball.

His best trick right now is to touch his head to the floor as if getting ready to somersault and then raising a leg or arm to demonstrate his skill in balancing. How he chortles when you exclaim over his cleverness.

You will have to excuse me if I go on at such lengths about our baby, but adoptive parents have the same permission as grandparents to brag.

* * *

There is a shortage of married couples willing to adopt children. The orphanages are bulging with bright, lovable children who need the attention and guidance that only adults with the emotional ties and responsibilities of a parent can give them.

In recent years psychologists have established the paramount importance of tender, loving care in the development of children into happy adults.

There are plenty of childless couples qualified to adopt, but a number of groundless fears dissuade them from making application:

RESPONSIBILITY TOO GREAT - Responsibility is certainly a major requirement, but it is NOT too great. Sure kids get sick and break bones and get lost. But the Lord helps take care of them in mysterious ways, and the worries are transitory. Children are remarkably hardy little creatures and survive fearsome troubles without lasting effect if love is generously administered. Dr. Spock’s little book on child care resolves half the problems and common sense the rest.

FAMILY INCOME INADEQUATE - It used to be that adoption agencies favored high-income families on the basis they could best provide the “advantages” of life. The shortage of adoptive parents, and a greater understanding of the value of spiritual attitudes, rather than material possessions, has changed all this. The job stability of the father, rather than the amount of his weekly pay check, is now the determining factor.

NOT MY FLESH AND BLOOD - Those who concern themselves that they might have difficulty loving a child not of their own blood need only talk to other adoptive parents. Parenthood, and parental love, flows from the response of children to daily care and demonstrated kindness, not from biological factors. The complete trust and dependence of an innocent child melts the hardest hearts. After a week of feeding, changing diapers and maybe worrying about a fever, the doubts as to whether one is a bona fide parent become academic.

WE’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH - Lack of a college education or experience in high society has not, to my knowledge, ever been a requirement for parenthood. Civilized people expect their children to be smarter, richer and more cultured than themselves. Only in primitive societies do the children remain at the same social level as their parents. It is natural for youngsters to progress. As a child grows up he reveres his parents for the sacrifices made on his behalf and for the ethical principles taught him.

OTHER CHILDREN WILL TAUNT - Several generations ago this would have been a possibility. When the “begetting” of heirs was important in an agricultural, property-inheriting society, adoption was hush-hush. All too frequently the fact of adoption was hidden altogether from a child until he learned it accidentally from children of relatives. Today, the adoption story-that the child was wanted and chosen above all others-is a thrilling and beloved treasure of adopted children. When my older daughter was in kindergarten, she came home one day with a mimeographed note to adoptive parents asking them, please, to get their children to stop boasting about being adopted, as it gave the other youngsters an inferiority complex.

WE ALREADY HAVE A CHILD - Many parents to whom a single child has been born would like additional children but are uncertain as to the relationship that might develop between the youngsters. Adoption counselors assure us that unusual problems do not occur in these instances if the parents are emotionally stable-and only such parents are allowed to adopt. There is a certain amount of “sibling rivalry” between brothers and sisters no matter what. Adoption of a second child when the first child is of pre-school age is of no consequence to either. When the first child is older, the adopted second child should be of the opposite sex and as much younger as possible. The affection of teenagers for babies is amazing, and the older child is a great help in caring for the younger one. The advantages of adopting an older child as a companion to a first child should not be overlooked. In two instances I know well, such adoptions have been highly successful and rewarding.

* * *

In this era of a shortage of adoptive parents, I feel strongly that agencies should consider allowing single men and women to adopt children. There are many reasons why emotionally mature persons are unwilling, or are unable, to marry. It is more difficult to be both mother and father to a child, but not beyond reasonable accomplishment as thousands of widows and widowers prove every year.

Adoptions to single persons would be particularly helpful in the cases of older children and children with handicaps. The independence that comes with making your way in the world without the help and encouragement of a spouse perhaps give single people a special outlook valuable to the handicapped child.

* * *

One of the things that most amuse adoptive parents is the excessive admiration of those without experience of adoption. “Oh, you are so wonderful to take these children in and give them a good home!” they will exclaim.

When I become involved in a situation like that, I thank the person for his good wishes, but point out the principal recipient of good fortune is me, not the child.

Money can’t buy the satisfactions of learning that your teenage daughter has confided to her best friend she intends to marry a man just like her dad; or of having your son hotly defend your prowess as the best fisherman in seven counties; or of your little one climbing up on your knee, planting a little wet kiss on your cheek and saying, “I ove oo.”

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist