Malawi's leading child rights group will seek a court injunction to stop Madonna adopting a one-year-old boy.p “It's not like selling property,” said a statement by Eye Of The Child. They were speaking a day after Malawi's High Court granted an interim order for the star to adopt the boy, named as David Banda.
“It is about safeguarding the future of a human being who, because of age, cannot express an opinion,” said the group.
Adoption is a funny thing. It’s done for all the right and sadly, sometimes the wrong reasons. Mostly it is for all the right reasons. I can speak with a little authority on this. Mrs. VW and I have eight children between us. She has four and I have four. We both have 2 boys and 2 girls. Each of us adopted a child.
I adopted my oldest son. He was born to my first wife from an earlier relationship. He was less than a year old when we married and about 2 and a half when the adoption was final. We changed his middle name from his biological father’s middle name to my middle name. He’s never cared to search for his biological father and when someone asks him about it he tells them if the guy ever showed up at his front door, he’d punch him. If his biological father didn’t want him, he says he sure as hell don’t want him.
Mrs. VW and her ex adopted a child given up for adoption. They got her when she about two weeks old and have had her ever since. Lexie’s father was black and her mother was white. The teenage mother gave her up for adoption. When I married Mrs. VW, Lexie was 11. Lexie has never shown any interest in finding her biological parents.
The child that Madonna wants to adopt is black and a little over a year old. I’m not going to argue the fitness of Madonna and her husband as parents. I don’t know how they are as parents. Her public persona is usually disgusting, but how she raises her kids might be totally different. This isn’t about that. This is about what she is facing in the process of adopting this young boy.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries on earth. The average life expectancy is 35 years. It is estimated that up to 30% of the population has AIDS. The average household income is less than a dollar a day. Corn, or maize, is the mainstay of most Malawians’ diet.
And they say “It is about safeguarding the future of a human being who, because of age, cannot express an opinion.”
Safeguarding from what future? An early death? Starvation? Abject poverty? I think it has to do with two things. The first thing is biracial adoption. Trust me, that is an issue with a lot of liberals. Second is Madonna herself. She is wealthy and probably did pay some bribes to grease a corrupt system. The appearance is that she went shopping and bought a kid. Maybe, but she chose that boy.
If Madonna wants to adopt some poor Malawian kid, I say let her. Adopting this kid might be unfair to the estimated 700,000 other orphans in the country, but if one gets a chance to escape, why stop him?
Speaking as a parent who adopted, I can tell you that my oldest son was loved and treated just like the others. I can tell you that I honestly forget he is adopted sometimes. I remember reading a novel back in high school about an adopted boy and a frantic search for a kidney replacement. (I cannot remember the title or author). At some point the father had tucked away the fact that his son was adopted and I remember wondering at the time, how that could be. Now I know. Josh (his name is Joshua) has very fine hair. My ex (we were still married at the time), myself, and someone else were discussing where he got his hair from. I was somewhat adamant that he got it from my side of the family as I have similar hair. Finally, my ex said, “Don’t be silly, you know it’s impossible, you adopted him.” It literally caught me by surprise. I now understood how the father in the book could forget.
VW
