US: The “Respect for Marriage Act” Will Harm Children
by Jean C Lloyd, Public Discourse:
The law is a teacher, and the “Respect for Marriage Act” is a bad one. Enshrining legal lies about the truth of marriage harms all of society, most especially children. From facile heterosexual marriage dissolutions to novel family arrangements, children are harmed when their rights to their own mother and father are disregarded for the sake of adult desires.
“Are you my mother?” P. D. Eastman’s classic was a favorite book from my childhood, telling the story of a baby bird emerging just as his mother flies away to find food. Resolved to find her, he goes on quest. From kitten to cow, tugboat to bulldozer, the hatchling repeatedly poses the plaintive question. His bewildering search ends with a happy reunion and him back in the nest, under his mother’s wings. I have been that baby bird. As an infant, I was adopted into a loving family with devoted parents. I am forever grateful. At the same time, from elderly piano teacher to teen Vacation Bible School volunteer to any woman whose kindness significantly touched me, I asked the same question: “Are you my mother?”
Adoption unfolds as a gift to both parties, but it exists to repair something that in the natural order of things would never happen. In a perfect world, children would never be separated from their parents. While adoption is a beautiful redemption, it is always a response to tragedy. As one therapist wrote, “adoption is a major life crisis whose impact both at the time, and over time, has often been overlooked . . . When adoption themes are ignored, therapists inadvertently collude with the powerful and destructive unspoken message that adoption means nothing.”
Honesty regarding the impacts of adoption has greatly improved over the years. Yet with respect to marriage and alternative family structures, the dishonest messaging continues: separating children from their parents does not matter.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
