Adoption is often thought of in rather fairly-tale like terms.
A lost and unwanted child finds a home in a loving family and everyone lives happily ever after. The reality can be very different.
As a Christian I believe that adoption was not part of God’s original plan for humanity. Children were to be raised by the couple that gave them birth. In a fallen world, however, sometimes things go seriously wrong. Adoption can be the best option we have available. In the days when I taught Psychology I would sometimes ask my students, ‘What advice would you give to a 13-year-old who is pregnant?’ The Christian students mostly (and quite rightly in my view) would not consider abortion. But what then? Try to turn a 13-year-old into a mother? Ask her parents to adopt the child? Adoption outside the family may be the best option. The same may apply if the mother is mentally ill, has severe learning difficulties or a serious drug problem.
