Adoption is not for dirty highways
Everytime I hear the word ‘adopt’ used in reference to anything other than a human child I get wild-eyed crazy and totally furious. How am I supposed to explain to my kids what a wonderful thing adoption is when it can also apply to filthy highways or zoo animals?
I like animals. I like them a lot. I’ve had many pets. But when you chose to bring one home and make it a part of your family you are not adopting it. You are getting a pet. A great thing for sure, but it doesn’t compare to bringing a child into your family.
Why is this such a hard thing to understand? We no longer use other words inappropriately, and I am making it my mission to make this the next one on the list.
We were at the zoo yesterday, the San Francisco Zoo, and as much as I love it, I will never really “bond” with it until the rename their ‘adopt an animal’ program. It just fundamentally offends me. I love zebras as much as the next guy, but how the FUCK am I going to explain this to Mike when he’s old enough to read??
Yes dear, adoption is great. You should feel great about yourself and the way we built our family. Oh yeah, and people also adopt fucked up stretches of road and wildebeasts. Yeah, adoption is special. You know it.
Charming
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:36 am
My trigger word is blessed. If I here one more person used that word, I think I’ll scream! How about grateful, lucky, etc.?
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:58 am
My word is starving - as in “Let’s go eat. I’m starving!”. You are not starving, you might be hungry - really hungry, even - but, you are NOT starving.
Melanie
http://ntycnboricua.blogspot.com
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:43 am
I hear you, sister! I think people overuse words like adoption with animals to anthropomorphize them … which is weird and annoying.
I like your site… thanks for visiting mine.
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:53 am
I never thought of it that way… I am now.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Kelly, Melanie — see, we all have word issues! And thanks for giving me more words to think about before I use them.
Crank Mama — I think you’re absolutely right. And thanks for the nice words!
Jessica — thank you ;)
November 14th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
As an adoptee, I can’t believe I never considered that before. But yeah…it is slightly offensive to be in the same league as a dirty highway.
November 14th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Izzy — hey, maybe it’s just me. It does really bug me, though. At this point I’m just thankful that Mike can’t read yet. It buys me some time for this issue.
November 16th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
[...] Mel at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters wrote a post today that talked about an old post of mine. In it I was complaining about how people throw around the word ‘adoption’ and the problems that causes me when explaining adoption to my kids. [...]
May 8th, 2007 at 8:03 am
I never thought of this before - you have opened my eyes, lady!
May 8th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Thanks for mentioning this!!!
May 19th, 2007 at 11:23 am
hear! hear!
May 30th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Thank you so much for participating in our Adoption BlogPost Roundup. I’ve added you to the blogroll.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:24 am
The Adoption BlogPost RoundUp round-up is up!
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:35 pm
You are so right! GOD! Trying to raise normal kids here, do ya’ll mind?!? Thanks.
Jamie
June 26th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Oh, man…can I please use this post on my own blog? I’ll link back to you. Amen sister.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I personally beleive it is one of the way that ‘happy adoption’ language gets thrown about.
Pretty much in th same vein as how every agency and a great majority of professionals use “birthmother” for a woman even considering adoption and before she has signed relinquishment papers…making us all get use to improper use of terminology.
Annoys the crude out of me and is coersive to boot.