Your Questions Answered: Adoption Fundraising?

Wow! I hardly EVER get comments, let alone questions. I was SO excited to receive this really great question from Jennifer in regards to adoption fundraising efforts:

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This is a really interesting idea. Please don't think I'm criticizing when I ask my question. I'm only thinking this through "out loud" (or in print, as it may be...) I am an adoptee from a large adoptive family and my parents didn't fundraise for any adoption because they felt we would be made to feel like a "project." It's purely speculative, but it seems to me that would have indeed been my feeling. As an adult, when we chose to adopt, my husband is in full-time ministry and I am a home maker, yet we have seen the Lord provide for three private adoptions (the fourth and now our fifth are through foster care). We didn't tell very many people of our plans to adopt privately. Only the Lord and we knew if He willed, He would fund our adoptions, which He did. But back to my question, does fund raising for an adoption make the child feel like a "project?" Please accept my question in the spirit it was intended...just trying to learn and grow by thinking out loud. Blessings, Jennifer

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Jennifer, I am not offended in the least by your question. I think it is a good question and I am happy to address it here! Of course, I am not the expert, nor am I adopted myself, but I can give you our "take" on it:

I think that if parents think of and treat their children as "projects"then the children may feel like they are a "project" rather than a beloved child.

I believe this is true of any child - foster, adopted, or biological.

I don't think that fund raising to bring a child home is necessarily an indicator of the parents' heart attitude towards the child, nor an indicator of how they will treat that child once they are home.

Certainly, we can all think of MANY cases where foster children are certainly "projects" of parents - sadly, often it is a financial project. However, in our case and in MANY others, parents have felt very called by God to pursue foster children coming into their homes.

Should all foster parents refuse state subsidies so that their child doesn't feel like a project? I don't think that is the case.

I really think it is about the relationships developed within the family that would cause a foster child to feel like (or not feel like) a "project."

I know many a biological child that has certainly been treated like a project. You know the ones - the parents are having their 2.5 children to "round out" their nice little lives with their beautiful house, dog, boat, and cars and then take the child to every activity known to man so that they can be little achievers in every way and also completely expect the child to meet their psychological and emotional needs for security and love. . . ya know?

I can remember a recent adoption story in the news where a very rich family adopted internationally (without assistance or fund raising), only to bring the child home and then be OFFENDED and frustrated that the child was not immediately meeting their emotional needs to be loved, was not responding with gratitude towards the parents who felt like they had done the child "such a great service and given them so much."

In this case, I can CERTAINLY see where the child would feel like a project! In our home, when we talk about our Liberian children's adoption, we often discuss and remember how many gracious and generous friends and family members helped financially to bring them home.

We recall with great fondness the large and small donations made by so many who visibly demonstrated God's love so that they might be able to come home to be a part of our loving family instead of suffering hunger and lonliness in an orphanage for the rest of their lives.

WE talk about it in a positive light because we really believe that it is positive.

All of our children think it is AWESOME that SO many people were able to be a part of their homecoming.

I imagine (and I could be completely wrong) that one reason you think you would have felt like a project (if your parents had fund-raised) is that you have heard your parents tell you why they didn't fund raise and so it has become a part of your pattern of thinking.

I'm not saying it is right or wrong, just pointing out that children often "take on" a lot of what their parents talk about. For example, my girls often will say that an outfit is "not appropriate" while another girl of the same age will feel like the same outfit is "sexy or cute." The difference? Discussions with their parents that have helped to formulate their thought processes.

We, of course, always want our children to know that they are beloved and wanted and are NOT projects, but are precious gifts we have been given by God.

Part of His gift to us was providing (through His people) the funds to bring them home to us!

Those are my initial thoughts. Thank you for being brave enough to ask about it! I hope you will let me know what you think.

I would also love to hear what others think about adoption fundraising. I have to admit that I had never given it a whole lot of thought before - at least not in regards to the feelings of the adoptive child towards the process.