The zeitgeist has turned: adoptive parents are now robbers and 'white saviors'

www.nrc.nl
11 April 2022

"Is adoption still of this time?" I read. Is war still of this time? Love sickness? Death? The maddening prose of progress of the time readers, who know exactly what time it is on the clock of world history. In the adoption case, a decision will be made today in The Hague about the 'intercountry adoption stop' that has been in effect since February 2021. Is it okay again, a little bit? Because adoption is no longer hip and happening, while in my time, well, I was adopted once.

That noble thing had to get rid of that kind of development cooperation, because those aspiring parents wanted children, and there was certainly an egocentric motive. But how the zeitgeist has changed: adoptive parents, especially of foreign children, are now robbers, imperialists, neo-colonialists, 'white saviors' and, if we go on and on, Putin supporters. How was it again? There are orphanages in distant countries that are full, there are Dutch people who would like to have a child, and that's how those parties were linked. We now know that a lot went wrong: orphans turned out not to be real orphans, papers were forged and the adopted child was sold over the counter. Sometimes.

This total, intercountry adoption by the state can be compared to an absolute ban on car traffic, given the many deaths. No one is allowed to drive a motorized vehicle anymore. Everyone for? No, because people drive cars and motorized, and adoption was and is an exception.

I just read on the NOS site: 'The surnames of Dirk Jan and Christiaan are known to the editors, but have been omitted at their request.' Dirk Jan and Christiaan are a couple, probably a gay couple, because the site mentions 'partner' and that's always right. The two are waiting for a baby from the United States, and they've been doing that for a long time now. These men have become more or less suspicious. D.J. and C. would have been even better, because the state-imposed adoption ban has made them half criminals, not people who want children.

I'm decency to do that for personal reasons, because I won't posthumously say that about my parents.

Of all the things a person can do, adoption is the least optional: your 'real' someone to your child, even if it does not resemble you, it is universalism in practice, the opposite of Blut und Boden. It is about the other who turns out to be the neighbor.

The retroactive charge that applies to all adoptive parents, as if they ever committed a sex offense, also applies to adoptees. They get grubby. It seems like a small matter, but it is a big one.

Something is at stake. This idea: I don't know you, you're not mine, and yet you are me wholeheartedly.

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