One of the challenges of marriage is the ability to give birth to and nurture one’s own biological child/children. Immediately after wedding, a couple is expected to begin making plans for the arrival of their babies, which expectedly should come within the first one year. If after nine months the baby come, the situation throws in flickers of worry around the couple. The anxiety gets heightened when delay gets longer and matures into years of childlessness. The couple in question no matter how spiritual is shaken both in faith and physically.
Those of them who are spiritual intensify prayers in this regard, while those who do not know their God may move from one dibia’s house to another or from one prayer house to another all in the search for a biological child. Though some may be successful others may not. Thank God for greater enlightenment where the society has come to the awareness that one can actually adopt babies from motherless babies’ homes and other infant social welfare organizations. Prior to this, the issue of childlessness has brought untold hardship, mis-understanding not just between couples but among the extended families of the couple. The
couple in question may understand that “God’s time is the best” but the relations
may not listen to such sermons thereby saddling the couple with tale of woes.
The man is not spared the everyday sermon of having married and kept a fellow man at home. His mother and other relations tell him to throw the wife out or better still keep her but marry another woman who will give him a child. The woman on the other hand is left to drink bitter water everyday of her life as regards several derogatory comments she receives every now and then. These days the story of childless couples is no longer so bad as there is an alternative to the childless situation. The couple has the option of moving to the infant social welfare homes to adopt babies who by law have full rights of parentage. This method of adoption of babies has brought a lot of relief to childless couples such avenue has helped to cushion .the emotional stress they would have been in. Some couple under proper arrangement have adopted children who nobody knows that they are not their biological children.
When a child is adopted he/she has the full rights of a biological child. Such a child is the full responsibility of the foster parents. Often times, the word “foster parent” does not even count as the child gets every care one’s biological child deserves.
I really thank God for this positive development because in times past most childless couples have found it difficult to take the initiative of adoption. They would not even want it discussed much more implemented. Their reasons are numerous. They don’t want to introduce another blood in their home. Some believe that such children may turn out to be criminals, kidnappers etc. especially when the actual identity of the child is not known. To such schools of thought they prefer to remain in their childless state till eternity rather than adopt another’s child. But to several people who have come to the full grasp of what advantage that is in adoption, most of them today are happier for that decision.
One, it gives the motherless children out there the opportunity to have a home where they will be taken care of. Again to the motherless children it is a new lease of life, because most of them have the opportunity of attaining to God’s designed destiny for their lives. Some of them who have wealthy foster parents, get the best education and the best space in the world which ordinarily their original homes would not have afforded them. At the long run the development is a welcome development as it strikes a balancing cord between the child and the foster parents as both through this medium fulfill their happiness.
It is not only childless couples who are open to adoption of children. There are couples who after giving birth to their own biological children still have the crave to adopt children. For some their case could be that they have all boys and now want a baby girl. For some others the reverse is the case. Some are as a result of the flare for taking care of children. All these and many factors lead people into adoption of other people’s children. I once had an experience of a woman who after giving birth to four grown up children has two more adopted children. When I asked her, the reason for such action she said that soon her house will be empty as the bigger children will all leave home in search of greener pastures so when such time comes, she will have company in the persons of her two adopted children. She also revealed that one of her choicest hobbies is raising children. I was glad to hear this because this is one way of giving helping hands to such children who have no one to take care of them.
However, as wonderful as this development of adoption of a child is it has its own pitfalls. Some of such pitfalls include sexual harassment from the immediate family members on the side of the adopted child. You may ask how? There have been several stories in this regard. It is a well known fact that no matter how we try to integrate the adopted child into the home and make him/her an integral part of the family, the fundamental truth is that there is no blood tie between the foster parents and this child. And so there has been situations where the man of the house, I mean the foster father of the adopted girl, has taken advantage of his foster daughter by harassing her sexually. If a foster father can take carnal knowledge of the said daughter, it can also happen between the older male biological children and their adopted sister. Also the situation can occur among the foster children. This can take place in a situation where the man of the house and his children are not disciplined. As we all know, there is nothing that is impossible under the sun.
In essence my line of argument is, if such situations can exist or do exist, it is not far from incestuous practice which is a taboo in this part of the globe. If this so, then people should tread with caution in relation to the issue of adoption.
A man who is not sexually disciplined should try to discipline himself, knowing fully well that the foster daughter is in every sense and right his biological daughter. When Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Thingsfall Apart lifted his hand against his adopted son Ikemefuna someone by the side reminded him that, that boy calls him father. Why will you take undue advantage of a child that calls you father? Think of it or why will you strip yourself naked before, the girl you have grown and lived with who calls you my brother? Also think about it.
Another pitfall is that, a child who has been living in the glory of his parents may return one day to tell you that his school mate or a neighbor just told him that the parent he has lived with all his/her life and have come to know and accept as his biological parents are not his/her biological parents, but are his/her foster parents. Such news comes like a bomb shell to both the child and the foster parents. The fire which such information generates could sometimes be more forceful than the fire brigade can quench. Most times the heat becomes too hot to cool and both parties are thrown apart, with the child battling with the challenge of his true identity and the challenge of the foster parents of trying to make him/her understand that they are there for him and will always be there. Most of the times the task becomes tougher than the “Gulder Ultimate search”.
In view of such circumstances, I pondered on which best approach to handle such situations. Shouldn’t it have been better that the revelation of the true, identity of the foster child be best conveyed to him/her by her foster parents? Or is it better to conceal it and allow the outsider to reveal such confidential matter to their child?
In view of this, I sampled opinion of people in this regard. Some agreed that it is better for the foster parents to tell the child the truth about his parentage instead of allowing an outsider to do so. While some others said it should be done when the child is of age of reason, yet others were of the opinion that the matter should be concealed from the child because if the true identity is revealed, the child may not feel relaxed again and will always yearn to know his actual parents.
Your opinion in this regard is urgently needed. Are you in support that a child’s true identity should be revealed to him/her by his/her foster parents or should the issue be left secret believing it will remain a secret?
Do send your opinion in this regard via my Email address ninanwulu@yahoo.co,
Remain blessed.
