Is Blood Thicker than Water?

Abstract

Adoption is one of those subjects about which social workers hold some strong views. I have met social workers who ‘do not agree’ with adoption because they think it is ‘too final, too risky’, or they have come across an adoptive family with problems or met an adopted youngster from an unhappy placement. Others may point to the socially contrived nature of adoption and assert that this is bound, of necessity, to cause all kinds of relationship and identity problems for children and parenting dilemmas for adults. These opinions are rarely based on what research has to tell us about the subject and more frequently reflect a mixture of personal values, anxiety, ignorance, and sometimes fear about making that final decision to substitute social relationships for biological ties. Such feelings and attitudes become even more powerful when we talk about placing children with special needs and when this further involves termination of parental contact or dispensation of parents’ agreement.

To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince