I wanna be like Mama Angie
I’m tired of reading anti-Angelia Jolie sentiments. I admire her for her enormous heart, and the fact that she has an extraordinary amount of love to give as an adoptive parent and as a biological one… even if she had been a “bad girl” in her youth. I feel that too many people out there have this odd conviction that all women are “once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker,” and for that reason are not being fair in their opinions of lady Angie. I for one was stoked when she first adopted Maddox, because I’ve been wanting to adopt a son (or 3) for as long as I can remember, so when she brought the little guy home, I was giving her a standing ovation. The thing that interested me the most was that she seemed to have adopted Maddox without B.B. Thorton’s help; more good news to my ears.
So for the long and detailed reason why I can’t fault Angie for being the woman she is with the children she has, I shall now type out my story of prospective motherhood and its connection to my fate:
Being that I am unmarried, and my current relationship is on hold, pending a parallel of futures (I’m moving to one country; he’s moving to another), I have often wondered what I could do as a woman who wants children, but refuses to ask the man in my life to take responsibility for any child he is not ready to take care of, especially considering our current status may see us separated for good, five years from now. Since adoption has been my greatest dream, and the likelihood of a single parent being able to adopt a child is becoming greater every year, I’m considering adopting as soon as I get settled into my first stable career. (Hopefully that will be sooner, rather than later.)
Recently, the New York Times reported that more than half of the Nation’s 9.8 million African-American children (less than 18 yrs), nearly one-third of the 7 million Hispanic children, and one-fifth of the Nation’s 51.1 million Caucasian children live with a single parent.(1) With the traditional family dynamics evolving from the traditional duel parent home to single parent home, adoption agencies have been more willing to consider unmarried women and men as potential adopters.
As noted, the New York Times is only considering adoption agencies within America. As someone who wants to adopt overseas (and, yes, I am prepared for the flaming hoops to do this), I still feel the excitement to think that I may be allowed to start a family by myself, without needing a man to stand by my side. I have to look into the international politics for adopting in order to figure out exactly what I must do in the legal process, but I really feel like the moment I am financially capable of adopting a child from overseas (or three, as my long-standing dream is to be mother to a trio of sons) I’m so ready to dive into motherhood, and provide a life to children who might not have had a fighting chance otherwise. I’ve heard too many horror stories of unwanted and abused children to even consider having children of my own (if it were even possible.) My calling as a woman is to adopt children whose parents were incapable of providing for them in less privileged countries.
Now, some people may ask me why I, a single 24yr old woman, would want to adopt; what makes me think I’m mentally and physically capable to providing a well structured home environment for my children, without the bonus balance of a father in the picture? Why would I choose to do that? I suppose I could start by quoting Dorothy Dooley, adoption director at the New York Foundling Hospital. She said, “Loneliness cannot be your only motivation for adoption but it certainly could be part of it. The need to share is a complex human response. If you care enough about children to want to share your life with one of them, that’s a healthy need.”(2)
There is no guarantee that I will return to the US for any long periods of time after I make the leap and dedicate the next five years of my life to teaching young children overseas. Leaving behind my friends and family, and being separated from my dearest love, is almost a bigger decision to me than the choice to adopt and be a single parent. I will be lonely without my loved ones, and will feel a need to share my life with someone special to me. Since I already want to adopt children so badly, I see no better answer to my loneliness than adoption for the purpose of creating my own family and sharing my love with them.
I know that if I had the money to adopt a child once every two years (until I am a mother of three incredible children who are just as much my babies as if I’d have given birth to them), I could raise a fine family in which I would share part of myself with, instill my own ideals into their minds, and teach them how to perceive the world around them with a critical and analytical eye. I want to be someone’s mother—a parent who takes pride in watching her boys make logical decisions based on what they can understand from just paying attention to this world, and be proud of what they can achieve (with my guidance, of course.)
My parents divorced when I was young and took turns raising my brother and I in two separate, single-parent environments. Growing up in these very different non-traditional households, I feel that I have not lost out on anything that a child in a traditional dual-parent family had. With my understanding of diverse family dynamics, I’m sure I could provide the essentials of a good family life, as well as make my children want for nothing and get the same amount of love and care that any biological child receives.
Now, I don’t mean they will be spoiled and get everything, and so they want nothing. I mean I wish to raise my children in an environment where materialistic wants are just not even a remote thought in their heads. I wish to raise my children to want the finer things in life: such as love, compassion, understanding, and strong work ethics. Like my mother had done for me, I want to encourage my children to be passionate about something, and work hard to achieve goals that will allow for them to have the less important material luxuries, if they so choose it, but I want them to know that luxury is just that; they’re not necessities. I will teach them the difference between security and struggling, and how they can live happily no matter what path in life they choose, as long as their choice is ethical and always leaves room to take people forward with them.
This is not to say that I don’t care if my children build difficult lives for themselves. I would want my children to take the high road, if and when at all possible. But I also know that the best things in life are not free, cheap, or even easy. The most worthwhile things in this life take perseverance, heart, character, and the ability to compromise or sacrifice. I would teach my children to balance emotion with logic, make decisions based on ethics and compassion, and at the end of the day, make sure they remember to be grateful for what they have—a family.
1. “Rise in Single-Parent Families Found Continuing,” The New York Times, National Edition (July 15, 1990): 17.
2. Gertz, Kathryn R., “Single Parenthood,” Harper’s Bazaar Vol. 114 (August 1981): 185.
