Parents Love Bio Kids Best, According to Rebecca Walker

Thanks, as always, for the link, CrankMama. There is no doubt I love my daughter, who happens to be adopted, as much as I would love a child born to me biologically.

The problem I have with Walker's comments (and I have not yet read the book), are this -- if her book was quoted correctly in news accounts, her book suggests that it is the truth for all families, that one can't love a non-bio child as much as a bio child. I know she has since commented that she was only talking about her personal experience, but that's not what the book reviews say her book says (and I am assuming the fact checkers got it right).

We just don't need any more hurtful comments out there suggesting, in any way, that families formed in any way other than biologically are somehow lesser ... I know mine isn't.

re: Parents Love Bio Kids Best, According to Rebecca Walker

mum — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:10:27 GMT

It's absurd when people try to quantify and compare their feelings of love to another person's. Even more so in Walker's case, her proof that biological kids are more loved is based off of her feelings towards the child of her friend/roommate/partner? I'm guessing that she never wanted the parental reponsibility of those kids. I've read a lot of annoying things from this writer, but this is maybe the most insensitive and offensive.

I do not have adoptive children of my own. However, I do have a foster sister. My parents took in my best friend during highschool They never formalized adoption because she was already 16 and emancipated from her own parents. She and her son are absolutely a part of our family. My siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins all love and accept them as family, as much as the rest of us. Its hard to even imagine life before she became my other sister.

When her abusive marriage fell apart, she moved back to the family home. My parents helped raise their grandchild and they helped my sister with her legal fees (since she was now out of a job, having fled across the state from an extremely abusive situation). They have set up a trust fund for their grandson and given him so much love.

One of the things that my sister's abusive Ex used to do was to say that adoptive families don't matter and don't feel as much love. He continues to try (unsuccesfully) to keep us out of his son's life and to tell him that his only real family is Dad's family (that is, that Mom's adoptive parents aren't his real grandparents).

So, long post, but I do take comments like Walker's personally. My sister has struggled with enough in her life without some insensitive person trying to make her feel like she is less loved by her family just because she is 'adopted". I love her just as much as my bio siblings and I know that my bio siblings, parents, grandparents, husband and son all feel the same.

My husband and I are seriously considering adopting a child. The thought of an adoptive child makes me just as giddy as the thought of having another biological child.