October 13, 2006
BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist
Opening shot
Children should be raised by both parents, of course, brought up in loving, culturally sensitive environments, in the communities in which they were born.
They should also have a pony, because keeping a pony is a lot of fun and teaches responsibility. Two ponies, actually, a matched set, so the first pony can rest while the other . . .
Sorry. The second sentiment is fanciful I admit, reflecting an idealized world. But so is the first. Most kids don't have ponies and many don't live with both parents. Millions upon millions don't even have one.
Thus a pox on critics of Madonna, such as the shrill she-beast Andrea Peyser at the New York Post, who called the star's adoption of an African toddler a "freakish slave auction."
Don't get me wrong -- I can sneer at Madonna's endless reign as a pop queen as well as the next guy. I just don't see how not thinking much of "Papa, Don't Preach" translates into ridiculing the idea of international adoption because it deviates from some notion of how things would be in a perfect world.
The world as it is needs more adoptive parents, not fewer. Anybody who wants to care for a stranger's child should get a medal, and those who question them -- bureaucrats with more local pride than human pity, advocates looking to score a point on the endless racial tug-of-war, news harpies who will say anything that catches attention -- should be ashamed of themselves.
I remember when Anne and Ed Burke were being beaten up by a few Chicago activists exercised that they had dared to adopt a black child damaged by his mother's crack cocaine use. Their critics had no idea what they were talking about -- didn't realize that the Burkes had previously adopted three children -- yet cooked up all kinds of baseless accusations and preened in the spotlight, until they got bored and went away.
But the Burkes didn't get bored -- they remain as they always were, loving parents to the boy, quietly, behind the scenes.
You can never accuse Madonna of being quiet. But to damn her for outrageousness out of one corner of your mouth and then damn her for embracing motherhood out of the other is both hypocritical and wrong. Even stars get to have a private life, whether we like it or not. And nobody adopts a child as a PR gimmick, and accusing someone of doing so says more about the accuser than anyone else.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
