The Stigma Of Adoption - by Belinda Chiazor

My longtime friend recently gave birth, and I was ecstatic for her because she has a son who I still insist will be my future son-in-law, and has now welcomed a daughter. As our African society can be harsh on women who only give birth to one gender – yes, girls – my excitement stemmed from the fact that she had achieved balance in her family with a boy and a beautiful baby girl. So I congratulated her, truly happy for her, reminiscing on how far she had come. She thanked me, then made a cute, funny, yet thought-provoking remark. She jokingly said she was passing the ‘baton’ to me. Now I’m two whole years older than her; with no husband, let alone kids in sight, and as it’s natural with us Africans – even when disguised as a joke – for friends and family to wonder whether everything is okay with you, if you’re a woman in your thirties to forties looking like you don’t have any plans to settle down.  As if I’m the one who will marry myself.  In response to her baton statement, I told her she shouldn't pass any baton to me biko, because I was even considering adoption. This elicited a shocked response from her. Next thing; she asked if my mum knew this was my intention. Now we’ve come to the crux of the matter.Why in this life, is adoption still such a controversial thing here in Africa, despite all the advocacy, as well as the number of people seeking to raise children; because they either cannot have any of their own due to health issues, or they just would rather adopt?! I understand that many people who want children prefer to have theirs, and there's nothing quite like the personal experience of birthing your own child. Well, so I hear. However, there are countless children who could benefit from a warm, loving home, and I don't see why not?!Ugh! When it comes to liberalism, tolerance, open-mindedness, and overall progressiveness, it feels like Africa is light years behind. The rest of the world just whizzed past us while we were busy doing 30 BG versus Wizzy Fc, and dancing to Alanta and Shoki that year, it seems. Because the stigma attached to the subject of adoption, along with many other topics more progressive societies are unbothered about, is unreal! Every Eke market day on Nigerian social media, you'll see people arguing over these conversations, which 9 out of 10 times if you think about it, don't even directly concern the Isi Akis involved. A statistic I found on Cafo.org goes thus - “UNICEF estimates that there are 150 million orphaned children worldwide, with 17.6 million double orphans, who have lost both parents." Imagine those figures?! Vilifying the idea of adoption is basically saying NO to the families without children who would love to hear the sound of baby laughter, and the patter of toddler feet. You’re basically telling them they don’t deserve kids, because they didn’t come from their own loins.If they choose to adopt, who are we to tell them they’re wrong? And how does their decision affect the price of Garri in my local neighborhood market or yours? Honestly, who do us all these things for this country?

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