The Folly of Pursuing the Perfect Child

By Christine Kukka email Christine Christine Kukka is co-founder of Maine Families with Children from Asia www.mefca.org

Several years ago, when I was just starting the China adoption process, a friend asked “Can you be sure the child will be healthy?”

“Oh yes”, I assured her. “They say all the children put up for adoption are healthy, and you get a medical report”. For all we had gone through to try to create a baby, surely fate could play no more tricks on me. I would have this reassuring medical report that would give me a small sense of control over an adoption process that left me feeling wildly out of control.

Despite her clean bill of health in China, my daughter has hepatitis B.

Today, I am profoundly thankful that three years ago the medical evaluation failed to pick up those minuscule viral agents in her body. If offered a child with hepatitis B, I might never have adopted her, never have known her, never have loved her. My loss would have been unspeakable. I think about this sometimes when a prospective parent asks me in great detail about the chance that his or her future child from China might have hepatitis. I think about it when I hear someone has turned down a referral from China because the child lacked a finger, or had a cleft palate.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with wanting a healthy child. But set aside some quiet time to think carefully about what your hopes and expectations are. Clearly, you must have plenty of financial, emotional, and physical resources to raise a child with a severe disability. Some of us have it and some don’t.

But now venture into a gray area. Consider a child with a missing finger or eye, or one who experienced malnutrition or lack of stimulation that may cause long-term development delays or lower IQ scores. Think of a child who has hepatitis, which can remain asymptomatic for years and against which Asians seem to be quite resilient.

What is acceptable and what isn’t, and why?

As a prospective parent, I folded up like a cheap lawn chair under this scrutiny simply because I didn’t want to experience the pain of watching my child endure ridicule, special challenges, and problems. As a parent-in-waiting, I wanted a near-perfect-as-I-could-manage-it parenthood experience, and my future parenthood world required a perfect child, at least at the starting gate.

But the world is full of surprises and sharp corners: they are what give us humility, strength, and appreciation of those fleeting moments of sunlight and happiness. In parenting, whether by birth or adoption, joy is often just a few small steps from sorrow.

Despite our desire for a smooth and easy path in life, all of us must be our children’s advocates, warriors, and role models when the going gets tough in the neighborhood, at the day care center, or in school. Those skirmishes can be over cultural, racial, or educational issues, and- no doubt about it- those challenges become more frequent when your child has a health, learning, or emotional issue. But all children, I've learned, come with problems as well as great joy.

When I adopted, I wanted a child whom I could fill up with love and who would hopefully love me and need me as much as I needed her. I got what a wanted and more. I learned love becomes all the more powerful when there is no pretense of perfection and no guarantees- just blind love for the child fate has given you.