Thursday, November 12, 2015

ABCs of Adoption: L is for Lucky

Using the word lucky to refer to an adoptee as lucky is very controversial and can cause some adoptive parents and adoptees to get upset.   As I have mentioned in other posts adoptees have suffered grief and loss, they may have suffered neglect and abuse at the hands of those they have trusted.  They have had instability moving from home to home often without a chance to say goodbye to friends and family or without an explanation of why.  

Does having a stable home and loving parents make somebody lucky?  Are children lucky that they have a warm bed to sleep in and don't go to sleep hungry?  These sound like rights that ever child should experience, not only the lucky ones.   For ever child that has been adopted there are still hundreds of thousands of children that have not yet found their forever homes.  Are these children the unlucky ones?  

I understand what people are attempting to convey with the comment of "Isn't he lucky."  I don't know another way of phrasing this that doesn't diminish the circumstances of the past for adoptees.  
In terms of luck, we are lucky.  We are lucky that he has come into our lives, he makes us laugh, it is amazing to watch him grow and learn.  We are lucky that we have the resources to share our love of travel with him.  And yes we are lucky that we all found one another  


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