Adoption Stories

Yours. Mine. Ours.

by Meredith Resnick, L.C.S.W.

Madonna: What is official is not necessarily true

There is always the fingerprint of that original relationship.

Published on April 1, 2009 by Meredith Resnick, L.C.S.W. in Adoption Stories

Little more than one day after Adoption Stories' reader Shannon, commented about child stealing for my previous blog post, "Hear the collective sigh? Madonna's adopting," a judge postponed the adoption in Malawi. Global media outlets report that the child's grandmother said Madonna was stealing her granddaughter. It's been reported that the biological mom died soon after childbirth and that the biological father is alive but his "role in the child's life is unclear."

A judge will rule Friday to determine how or if the adoption will proceed.

Shannon said:
"It's so important, particularly with international adoption that parents make every possible effort to ensure that the child they are adopting was legitimately surrendered to an agency. In places like India, Guatemala and Samoa, children have been kidnapped or their parents have been duped into signing adoption papers. It's tragic and it's an issue that's been overlooked."

Find a Therapist

Search for a mental health professional near you.

Find Local:

Shannon is right. And isn't it better that an adoptive parent know about there being family wanting to be involved? Wouldn't that help everyone prepare?

Thing is, this whole issue makes me sad, and for a personal reason. I wrote about it for Newsweek.

One of the reasons we selected Russia was because there weren't supposed to be these issues. But there are always, beneath the surface, these issues, even if every "I" is dotted and every "t" crossed on the paperwork. There is always the fingerprint of that original relationship. It's naïve to think otherwise or to argue over.

And why would we want to?