My wife and I got married in 2012. I was 28 and she was 30. We were in Vietnam and were scheduled to move to Singapore a month after our wedding. Because of visa issues, my wife had to fly in and out of Singapore which made it difficult for us to have a sense of permanence and to start over. We agreed not to have a child yet until we finally settle in one place. But when we started to intentionally have a child, that’s when the problem started to kick in. We couldn’t have one.
It was okay during the first few tries. You get a little disappointed here and there, after each pregnancy test. But things got frustrating after the third, fourth, fifth time. And it doesn’t help that generally in our side of the world, there is this stigma for couples who couldn’t have a child. Having children is highly attached to your identity as a couple. In our culture, there’s always this sense of lack and shame for couples who couldn’t have but want to have a child.
We thought of trying IVF but we just couldn’t afford it. So last resort: adoption. It should be the easiest.
But it suddenly dawned on me, why would I want to adopt? That in spite of the challenges and attachment issues (which I will not discuss here) that I may not even be ready to deal with, Why am I very open to doing it? Or to push it further, why would I even want to have a child in the first place?
Some may ask, “what kind of question is that?”
I may be wrong, but to me, it’s the most important question to ask. It’s not just a question that can confirm our “sureness” of the idea of having a child. It’s a question of value. It is important to ask because anything that has no value has no importance. Anything that has no importance has no meaning. Anything that has no meaning has no reason. In this day and age, we are living in an era where you are encouraged to be whatever you want to be or do whatever you want to do. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that but at least have a reason why. You cannot just do something just because you want to and then expect that it is something that you will value. You value things that have a reason. And the converse is equally true.
I ran through some questions I have in mind: Why do I want to have a child? Is it because babies are cute? Do I want to have a child to fill that “void”? Is it the pressure to give my parents grandchildren? Is it to get away with the stigma? Is it because just by me and my wife we are incomplete?
When we were thinking of adoption, I couldn’t find enough reason as to why we would want to do that… or even a reason good enough as to why we would want to have a child in the first place. My wife and I had to reflect on that question because we are not just talking about purchasing a house or buying a property. We are talking about raising a human being.
Just to be clear, I have nothing against adoption. I’m totally all for it (which I will discuss in another post). In fact, I know several friends who adopted kids and it seems like their family is doing really well and the kids are raised under their loving care. But I also know some kids who are neglected, abandoned, uncared for, both adopted and not. I know that there could be a dozen reasons why it led to that result. But could it be that it’s a problem of meaning? Could it be that it’s a problem of reason?
Hence, my wife and I decided that we did not want to adopt. We want to make sure that we have good reasons for doing so, and not just to fill a certain void or to avoid a certain stigma. Children are not like tampons you use to plug into a hole. These are lives we are talking about. Lives that could have artworks, music, emotions, stories to tell. Lives that can live. Lives that can love.
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This post was previously published on A Parent Is Born.
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