What do you with a baby you are ill-equipped to raise? Depends who you ask. Pro-life – you suck it up and raise the baby the best you can, even though it might be a disastrous situation with horrible consequences. Pro-choice – you likely nip it in the bud and try to not let it happen again. But why does pro-choice refer to abortion, isn’t there another option that we are forgetting? Whatever happened to adoption?
The Bell Curve prodded my mind through statistics of American life. By slicing the data in various ways, the book examined the significance of inheritance and environment on intelligence and success of a child. As you may expect, both genes and upbringing factor in producing a kickass adult. One particular takeaway has been stuck in my brain – children adopted from a poor home environment to a better off home increase their likelihood of being successful.
This is particularly poignant as the world focuses on the life of Steve Jobs – an adopted child who turned out to change the world. What would the world be like if he wasn’t adopted and instead raised by his biological parents? What is the unreached potential of kids that are raised in ill-equipped households, without the option to escape to a better home?
Even worse, if Steve Jobs were born 50 years later, would he have made it past the first trimester? Responsible adoption (making sure the child finds a home rather than an orphanage) is not nearly as common today as it was 40+ years ago.
Why isn’t adoption considered as an option anymore? Does it have to do with the increase in abortion (check out these interesting statistics)? Is it because abortion has become an easier procedure? Is it because of the increasing cultural acceptance of abortion?
Does our culture say adoption is less honorable than abortion? If not, is the fact that your child is out there as a constant reminder of your failure to provide? Does the fact that our world is more connected play into it? No longer can you put a child up for adoption and not expect to hear from them ever again.
Do all the Annie, Oliver Twist, and other orphanages in media change our thinking? How about the horror stories reported on the news of adopted or step-fathers abusing their children? Is the movie Juno going to result in more adoptions in the last few years?
Is this a problem that needs fixing or just the way things are? Is changing the culture to dishonor abortion and praise those parents that adopt the answer? Is building out an improved adoption infrastructural the answer? Do you have the answer?
Speaking of Steve Jobs, I won’t do a tribute like every other blog, but I did want to share my favorite story:
When engineers working on the very first iPod completed the prototype, they presented their work to Steve Jobs for his approval. Jobs played with the device, scrutinized it, weighed it in his hands, and promptly rejected it. It was too big.
The engineers explained that they had to reinvent inventing to create the iPod, and that it was simply impossible to make it any smaller. Jobs was quiet for a moment. Finally he stood, walked over to an aquarium, and dropped the iPod in the tank. After it touched bottom, bubbles floated to the top.
“Those are air bubbles,” he snapped. “That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller.”
Photo: Gonzalo Merat
An even tougher question is “What do you do with a baby if society decides you are ill-equiped to raise him or her?” Should society be making those decisions? Just because you were able to get pregnant doesn’t mean you are capable of intelligently deciding the fate of a fetus or making a decision about raising a child in an environment which is not conducive to a successful life (as you pointed out in The Bell Curve).