Hello hello! Welcome to another episode of Against Mainstream - a series where I typically rant about the lunacies of the mainstream. But, this week I dial down on the bitchiness as I try to figure out “Why is conception, and not adoption, the choice of the mainstream?”. Enjoy!
Why isn’t adoption more common in our society? It is common amongst those with infertility issues or serious implacable genetic disorders. But why just that group? Why don’t partners who are perfectly capable of producing a healthy biological offspring opt for adoption?
Adopting a child is less taxing because you skip the laborious pregnancy period (no pun intended), and more fulfilling because adoption is intrinsically altruistic. Seems like choosing to adopt instead of conceive is a no-brainer. And yet, most people don’t choose to adopt.
I.
Choosing to conceive seems to be one of those socially conditioned defaults. Just like how most people ask their partner not to kiss other people because that’s the social convention and not because they've deliberated over the morality of it.
It is interesting to look at how we are socially conditioned into setting procreation as the default. It can be largely attributed to several social norms around kinship such as kinship inheritance laws and a “family name” that gets passed down generations. These laws are an integral part of how we function today as a society.
Eastern societies go a step beyond - with their belief in karma and how it affects their lineage (the deeds of your ancestors affect you and your deeds would affect your progeny). This is especially true in the Hindu religion wherein a lot of festivals, traditions, and religious rituals revolve around praying for the well-being of your ancestry, progeny, and your contemporary blood relations.
So we have been socially conditioned to treat biological relatedness with importance. While these norms were important in promoting social harmony and forming a cultural identity in the early years of our civilization, there is not much use for them now. Continuing to hold on to these norms subliminally makes us dismissive of adoption.
Those who do consider adoption as an option do not take it seriously enough. It is more of a passing thought and that is as far as it goes.
II.
I suspect that the primary reason people choose to conceive over adopt is that they know that a baby pushed out of their female partner’s vagina is theirs. And that an adopted child is, after all, adopted. To which I say “So what?”1.
Here is my hypothesis: The bond that is created from being with a baby from when s/he is 2 years old will eclipse the bond that would rise out of biological relatedness.
9 months of childbearing and the knowledge that it is your sperm and your ovum that has fertilized to form this baby is outweighed by the 15+ years of time you would spend caring for and nurturing the child. To think otherwise would be to say that spending decades together, having shared experiences, and overcoming struggles together have zero value.
One counterargument might be that biological parents have an incentive to be good caregivers because they have a selfish evolutionary motive to ensure that their genes are passed on to the next generation. But they are also evolutionarily predisposed to engage in altruistic behaviors. Group selection theory suggests that altruistic behaviors may evolve if they benefit the group as a whole, even if they come at a cost to the individual. And what is adopting a child if not that?
Besides, don’t we go against our evolutionary predispositions all the time? We were built to move and yet we have desk jobs. We were not built to be looking at bright screens all day and yet we do. We are built to crave sugar but we resist it to lose weight and be fit. It makes no evolutionary sense to spend resources and nurture an animal of an entirely different species and yet we adopt cute animals as pets.
Similarly, even if we are predisposed to caring more about a biologically related offspring, we can overcome that. In fact, therein lies the uniqueness of the human species. We have the ability to fight against evolutionary principles such as natural selection. We are already doing that, with the help of advancements in medicine and technology, by ensuring that people with less-than-ideal genes also have a chance to live.
Adoption does come with its own set of challenges, however.
III.
According to Bowlby’s attachment theory, our early attachment bonds influence how we view close relationships in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
The first 2 years are crucial for forming a secure parent-child attachment. So if you are adopting an infant who is 2 years or younger, you still have time to work your way towards forming a secure attachment. But if you are adopting a child older than 2 years, the relationships the child experienced with its early caregivers influence their ability to relate to their new caregivers. From this blog:
At the very root of adoption, there is a separation of a child from their nature, their genes, their heritage and culture, their mothers and fathers. That separation can cause intense feelings of loss, grief, uncertainty, neglect or abandonment, identity questioning, longing for belonging, and more.
While this pre-adoption trauma is a complication, it can be dealt with by providing consistent, nurturing, and loving experiences to the child. Apparently, children are highly flexible and adaptive at forming new templates for caregiver relationships. And consistent, nurturing, and loving experiences is something you would need to provide even to your biological offspring. So in a way, it is not any different from caring for a biological offspring.
At the margin, adoption can be more messy and complicated than conception (because of pre-adoption trauma). But largely, adoption is as good as conception and should be considered more seriously by people. Ultimately, how good of a parent you are matters more than whether the offspring is biological or non-biological.
As this Dominic Toerreto-esque Quora answer put it - “DNA makes you related, it’s not what makes you family”.
References
Attachment theory and research
Adoption and Attachment: Forming a Secure Bond With Your Adopted Child
What Makes Adoptive Parenting Different From Parenting a Biological Child?
Note that this is a man’s perspective. A woman might feel very differently about this. Perhaps “9 months of toil, torture, and the feeling of having something inside you can create a special maternal bond” is an idea that men cannot conceive of (again, no pun intended). So if you are a woman and you are reading this, I am curious to hear your thoughts. Plus, these are my thoughts today; I could end up changing my mind when I eventually become a father.