I began a comment on Lisa's Guatemalan Blog for today that ended up growing out of that box and begging for its own, so I'm giving in and making a comment a post in its own right.

Lisa's post was a response to an article in Mother Jones by a woman who adopted from Guatemala and now wonders out loud and publicly, "Did I steal my daughter?".

Reaction to the article has been varied in the adoption community. (How's that for an understatement? Not to mention a line worth one great big "Duh!" since there is no such thing as a personal account of a view of any slice of the adoption pie that isn't immediately fought over until the last crumb has been dissected ... and beyond.)

In her blog, Lisa draws a parallel between adoption-apologetic adoptive parents and self-hating Jews ... see her post for the description ... and being Jewish and an adoptive mom, she's qualified to weigh in on both.

The comparison to that faction of Jews is good one, especially considering how fractious various sides of that issue can be.

I, too, worry about adopted children raised by hair-shirted parents who focus almost exclusively on the "loss" side of adoption without giving the "gain" side its due. It's like bio parents in perpetual penance for producing humans and over-populating the planet or forcing their replicas to go through the horrors of life on this imperfect Earth ... find your guilt and build on it.

What is a child to do but doubt the reliability of mothers and fathers who would resort to such a method of family building? When they've heard so many disparaging remarks and have been constantly exposed to prompts to misery, any idea that the turns their life path has taken, and will take, do not all lead through the muck and mud of wretched despair would be difficult to cultivate.

There is no shortage of evidence that mental health professionals are counting more and more kids with such a foundation amongst their clients as parents seek to find absolution for any consequence of just about any act before their children are old enough to point fingers and lay blame in their own exoneration efforts.

As Lisa suggests, parents into beating themselves up over their adoptions could do better 'atoning for their sins' by taking positive action that makes a difference. Many adoptive parents contribute so much to birth countries that possibly hundreds of families benefit, and will far beyond this generation.

Those truly concerned that their children may have been stolen, or those who have adopted older children and thereby learned that a family was parted that shouldn't have been have many options, and I can't help but take a suspicious stance when the only ones taken involve placing roadblocks in front of other kids who desperately need families.

As rotten a truth as it may be, most of our children come from circumstances the majority of Americans wouldn't condone as an acceptable life for a dog. Pretending that isn't so and painting some quaint picture of poor, but robust and radiantly happy rural folks being cheated out of children they treasure is almost criminally naive and unhelpful in the extreme.

I would love to see Mother Jones or any other mass media publication run an article on all that is right and good about international adoption, including that from Guatemala, rather than so blithely climb up beside everyone else chomping on this bone and trying to sink their teeth into a scrap while ignoring the rest of the poor animal.

I predict that will happen when the pendulum swings, when focus finally falls on the thousands of children jilted as adoption becomes impossible and those demanding that families stay together and children stay in birth countries no matter what and for their own good begin to understand their responsibility for innocents suffering.

In the meantime, those of us with our attention directed toward the children of the world will keep reminding people that they are what it is supposed to be about.