The ‘Adoption Option’: Please Listen to This 24-Year-Old

National Review ^ | 03/05/2018 | Kathryn Jean Lopez

[SeekAndFind]

A documentary about a young man who is grateful to his birth mother as well as to his adoptive parents.

Do you want to meet gratitude? Then David Scotton’s your man. At a time when we are taking public-policy advice from traumatized, grieving young students, consider this eternally grateful one.

David Scotton is a 24-year-old law student with a little movie with a big message. Adopted at birth, he allowed, with some hesitation and prayer, a filmmaker to follow along his journey from New Orleans to Indiana when he was 19 to meet his birth parents.

The other day at the Sheen Center in Lower Manhattan, I heard George Weigel, the John Paul II biographer, assert that people of heroic virtue are all around us. Saints, they are frequently known as — in this case, though, not canonized and in Heaven but living in our midst, often unaware that they are sources of great grace and inspiration. David Scotton’s birth mother is chief among them. And all those things about saints is true of her, if the documentary I Lived on Parker Avenue is any indication.

One of the first things she wants to do is seek forgiveness from David. For so many years this mother suffered with worry that the boy she gave birth to would be hurt by the fact that she chose to “give him up for adoption,” as the expression goes. Our language for adoption seems to suggest abandonment when, in fact, it is just about the greatest and most loving sacrifice. I think of the story, from the State of the Union some weeks ago, of the young police officer and his wife and a woman named Crystal who is suffering in the grip of addiction. But she wants better for her baby. And there is a couple who can help her realize that aspiration. As there was in the case of David.

Melissa had the added guilt that she and her boyfriend not only considered abortion when she was pregnant with David but that she went to the clinic. In I Lived on Parker Avenue she describes the dramatically painful scene she ran out from. In one of the most uplifting scenes I’ve ever watched on video, Melissa and David visit the spot where that clinic once stood. (It’s a health clinic now, and abortions are no longer performed there.) For him, it’s like the opposite of a memorial dedicated to some grave event. It was there where he was given new life, even in the womb. She should feel no guilt. She gave life and love to David and to his adoptive mom and dad.

The beauty of I Lived on Parker Avenue is that, in some respects, it isn’t primarily about abortion or even adoption, though promotion of “the adoption option” is certainly this young man’s mission. It’s about gratitude. One of the most compelling scenes of the 30-minute film occurs when David expresses in letters — personalized and everything, there are communications beyond text messages still! — what his adoptive family means to him. He wanted to assure his parents and extended family and friends that meeting his birth parents had nothing to do with finding his “true” parents and everything with saying “Thank you.”

“With only two adoptions to every 100 abortions in the United States, and with the stigmas society still unfortunately shares about adoption, it is important to get this film out there,” David tells me. “Even though I am adopted, I am no different than a biological child. Even though my parents are my ‘adoptive’ parents, they are my mom and dad. My ‘birth’ parents are exactly that: birth parents. Those distinctions are real and need to be shared.”

It’s remarkable how many people of every political point of view do want to help adoption and foster care succeed whenever possible.

Scotton continues: “This documentary shows the power of one story and the impact one decision can make. It shows how my birth mother’s decision to leave the abortion clinic and choose the adoption option gave me the gift of life, gave my parents the gift of their only son, and gave my grandparents the gift of their only grandchild.”

I Lived on Parker Avenue is produced by Joie De Vivre Media and will become available the evening of March 8 for free on the website I Lived on Parker Ave. Do yourself a favor and watch it, maybe host a discussion about it. Adoption is one of these things we can all afford to think a little more about. We can consider ways to support it. Not everyone is called to be directly involved as a birth or adoptive family, but we can help those who are called to be more directly involved in foster parenting, or in permanent homes, when unification of the natural family has become impossible or really isn’t the most flourishing option for the child. (It’s remarkable how many people of every political point of view do want to help that happen whenever possible. There’s common ground and healing to be found in this most foundational issue, which means everything to young lives.)

As Scotton puts it to me:

I hope it might at least help them see that adoption is a positive, loving option. It may be “different” from having a biological child, but the love is still there, the same way it is for a biological child. The best thing we can do to support adoption in concrete ways is to share this film and begin talking about it. Hopefully this can help de-stigmatize the adoption option, and that’s the best way to support adoption. If it’s de-stigmatized and more of a viable option for individuals or couples, maybe they’ll be more likely to choose adoption and give children just like me their forever homes.

Be more welcoming. Be more grateful. It’s live-giving. Not bad messages for these times.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.

[wbarmy]

What kind of world would it be if this kind of film got an Oscar?

[CharlesOConnell]

Ignores “Abortion: A Failure to Communicate”.

[T-Bone Texan]

Sadly, we live in a world wherein the entire Oscars event should be MOABed and the rubble salted.

If every single one of those people were erased from the planet, we would benefit greatly.

[wbarmy]

If every single one of those people were erased from the planet, we would benefit greatly.

My second though to yours would be; If every single one of those people were erased, would we even notice?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Two FReepers on other threads came out against adoption because they said it makes it too easy for a woman to bring more ____ (a worse word than "brats") into the world, even damaged ones, and not bear the full weight of the lifetime consequences.

I am not going to mention these FReepers' names, and far less would I ever invite the to a thread like this.

I'm just saying some FReepers have no heart for women or children who stretch out their arms to us for help.

How can you understand heartlessness? These hard-faced people were once children themselves.

I suppose the heartless need our love, too. Maybe more than the rest.

[Albion Wilde]

bump

[Deplorable American1776]

Did this film win an Oscar? This should’ve won an Oscar. Oh well, it will win the FReeper Oscar.

[gracie1]

I have stated my issues with adoption on threads, but not for the reasons stated. Yes, there will always be women who do not wish to raise the children they bear. But for the most part (I’m speaking of newborn adoption, not in cases of legitimate abuse or neglect), pregnant women in a crises pregnancy are pressured into relinquishing their children, instead of being offered the assistance they need to help keep their child. They are not told of the life long regret and loss they may feel, the life long effects their child may experience.
I’m happy for this young man. I’m happy he had a good adoptive family. Many adoptees echo these sentiments. many adoptees, however, experience a life of not fitting in anywhere, of adoptive parents unable to bond with them, and trouble with establishing relationship bonds. Many times, when they reconnect with their family of origin, they find they don’t fit in there either. Often they experience a profound sense of loss upon if they do fit in, a life they missed out on. Yes, adoption is much better than abortion, in that life is better than death. But at what cost to each person, the mother and the child.
My other issue is the insane amount of money that is involved. 10’s of thousands of dollars for private adoptions. Paying birth mother expenses, which opens up the risk of fraud.
I hope you don’t miss construe my meaning. It is a topic that invokes strong emotions either way. When someone comes along and challenges the narrative, they get attacked. I’m not attacking anyone who disagrees with me, I just want to give a little insight.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don't at all blame you or reject you for saying what you said. Yes, there are sometimes heartaches with adoption. Heartaches on the part of the birthmother, on the part of the adopted child, on the part of the adoptive parents. But did anyone say it would always be easy?

Having your own bio children is risky and can inflict unexpected suffering.

Loving anyone, anytime, is fraught with risk. Yet, you never know. The slogan on the wall of our local Pregnancy Care Center: “Women who experience unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy.”

Which brings me to what you said about Pregnancy Center staff pressuring girls to make an abortion plan for their child. I have never seen that.

Glancing at the report that our Pregnancy Center sent with the 2017 Christmas cards: 129 clients gave birth; 2 adoptions. And I think that's about par wherever you go: there are way more women choosing to keep their babies, rather than place for adoption.

So you may have run into a center which pushes for adoption, but I don't think that's typical. Their overall goal is simple: healthy mother, healthy child.

And only a child who's BORN can show you what could be or do.

Sad sign seen at the January March for Life: "She could have been a dancer."

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oops, typo. I meant to type, "Pregnancy centers.... make an adoption plan.

It's too easy to type "abortion" when you mean "adoption."

[Bodleian_Girl]

I’m not going to give too many details, but someone I know adopted three children.

The older two were adopted from foster care and it’s basically been ten years of straight hell for everyone in the family.

Those horror stories you hear about some adopted children? They are true.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I, too, have seen very rough adoption situations up close and personal. Emotionally damaged kids from abusive settings can create chaos in a family that lasts for years.

That can happen with homegrown children, too. Your very own heart-of-hearts darling child, for instance, who is diagnosed with severe autism at age 5 or gets slammed with paranoid schizophrenia in early adulthood. Mental/emotional illness is no fun.

Foster-care/orphanage kids present special challenges, which are bigger the longer the child was stuck in the foster-care system or orphanage. Our younger adopted son, Vanya, who came to us from an orphanage in the Russian Far East (Kamchatka), has had a real struggle.

At the same time, difficult as it's been, he has hugely encouraged our growth in faith, hope, and love. The challenged muscle strengthens. The challenged heart grows. God gives His grace, which is sufficient.

[Bodleian_Girl]

Much respect for your efforts.