A Different Story

Because she is unable to adequately care for the needs of her child, the little one has been taken into protective custody, and placed in the safety of my home.  That makes her the villain and me the hero.  She’s the bad mother and I’m the good one.  Right?

How did we get here, exactly?  Her story is so different from mine!

Even before I took my first breath, my story was relatively smooth and straightforward.  While she was born into a fractured and flawed family that sort of limped along, each one managing the best way they knew how, my parents were committed to staying married and raising their children together.  They taught me the meaning of “family,” setting for me an example of faithfulness, love, patience, and enduring hope.  They taught me about healthy relationships and the importance of making responsible decisions. 

Defending the Orphan

She is a well-known public figure . . .  strikingly beautiful, invariably poised and impeccably dressed.  And incredibly famous.  In fact, her name is recognized around the world, familiar in nearly every household.  Wherever she goes, she is surrounded by an entourage of personal attendants, her bodyguards protecting her from people who are trying to get a glimpse of her.

Most people in her position would have simply secluded themselves in their well-appointed, professionally decorated mansion, immune from the troubling social issues that exist.  But not this woman!  She wanted to do something, to make a difference in her world.

So she does something that was previously unheard of from someone of her social stature.  She rescues a child, a little boy who had been abandoned by his parents. It didn’t matter to her that he did not share her ethnicity, that his skin was a different color than her own.  She brought him into her home, and welcomed him as a part of her life.  She became his mother, and loved him as a son, completely and unreservedly.

The news spreads quickly . . . “Have you heard what she has done?  She saved that child!  She is truly amazing!  What an inspiration and role model she is!”

Now instead of a life of unimaginable poverty, he has everything a family of affluence could possibly lavish upon him.   Instead of being raised in an illiterate, uneducated family, he is now attending the best schools, is being taught by the finest tutors, and has access to every academic and extra-curricular opportunity he could possibly want.  His bleak future has been replaced with infinite promise. 

Everyone who hears of what she has done has similar reactions:  What an incredibly fortunate boy he is to be adopted by this generous, compassionate woman!  It’s hard to even imagine what his life would have been life if she hadn’t saved him.  And what a great example she is setting for other affluent people in our country.  Everyone has watched this very public figure adopt her son, and look how many other families are following in her footsteps.  What a hero she is!

"The Good Girl" and "The Other Mother"

There is a powerful scene in the movie Blindside, where a young man, who has been away from home for a few years, is searching for his birthmother.  The contrast between his wealthy white foster parents’ neighborhood and his former neighborhood with its loitering minorities, broken-down cars, and crowded apartment buildings is striking.  As my own family sat watching the movie in the comfort of our living room, I could sense that the scene was going to get ugly; it involved gang members, weapons, violence, and drugs.   I paused the movie and asked my children to leave the room until the scene was over.  When the story resumed, there was indeed an altercation.   During the chaos that ensued, a crib tipped over and the baby inside started crying.  I was stunned by the disparity:  here I was protecting my children from seeing that situation on a television screen, while there are children in the world who are actually living it!