What does it feel like to be stripped of the familiar, the comfortable, the predictable? What about on a deeper level? Alone? Betrayed? Cast aside? Why does it happen? Is it out of necessity, truly. Or is it a choice someone has to make. To abandon, to leave, to go separate ways. If it is a choice, then is it selfish or selfless? Or a little of both.
Awoke at 4:00 a.m. with this on my heart. Recent circumstances have caused me to start to examine this very topic. In the case with adoption, it’s not politically correct to say a child was abandoned; because it has such a negative connotation. It is appropriate ; however, to say that the biological parent made a birth plan or adoption plan for the child they decide not to parent. But in the case with international adoption, specifically China; abandonment is a known factor. A family may be overwhelmed financially and cannot care for a child and therefore they leave the child in a location where they may be found. The bio family expects they are doing the best thing and offering the child a hope at a brighter future. Selfless? I think so, doing the better thing for a child they love, especially when raising the child themselves may create much financial hardship and familial discord. The family may experience such continual distress and dysfunction and all involved may suffer proper shelter and nutrition, and emotional support. So is it ever just a necessity or is it a choice? For example, to do something out of necessity usually means you have no other choice, it must be a certain way for all to experience the greater good.
But what if it isn’t necessary? To abandon. And it is truly a choice. Then I think this is selfish. If the choice to abandon is not born out of necessity for all parties to experience the greater good then I think it’s selfish. There it is.
Is it ever possible for the selfish choice to abandon to be a good thing, to have a good outcome? Sure, being in the care of someone who has little or no emotional attachment only prevents the person being cared for from learning to share love or be loved. A person may be controlled this way, rendered emotionally inept. They loose sense of self and become a puppet, doing what is expected of them sometimes just to survive. Or they act in a way that will bring them the least amount of discomfort. When these persons are abandoned they are given a new opportunity to trust and love. When left this way, it is no longer a selfish act; for the person being left is given the gift of freedom.
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