As I research for the chapter on older child adoption that I’m including in the book I’m writing, I’ve been reading Our Own: Adopting and Parenting the Older Child, by Trish Maskew.

Maskew recommends that prospective adoptive parents carefully examine their motives for adopting. She brings up two very good questions:

Are you adopting to rescue a needy or hurt child?
Are you adopting to have the child you never had?

If you’re adopting for purely altruistic reasons, you might want to reconsider. “The fantasy ‘rescued waif’ will soon become the reality of a flesh-and-blood child complete with personality, behavioral habits, and emotional issues,” she writes.

In fact, “no child can be perfect enough to fulfill your expectation of ‘grateful orphan.’

Maskew writes:

It is hard for some to believe that children who have endured abuse, famine, abandonment, or institutionalization will ever be ungrateful. But the life the child is living, is, at least, familiar. Even children who live in abusive or neglectful homes consider them ‘home,’ and few would ever choose to leave. To the child, adoption is not rescue, it is change—and change is scary.

You shouldn’t adopt for purely selfish reasons, either. While everyone has selfish reasons for wanting to become parents, pure selfishness can backfire. “If you adopt to have the child you never had, then you may be expecting your child to live up to the fantasy of a perfect child,” Maskew writes.

A child should not function as a stopgap to fill the emptiness in your life. Nor should you adopt to impress others with how wonderful you are. Instead, you should strive for a balance of selfish and altruistic goals in adoption.

So why should you adopt? For the same reason people want to give birth: because you want to parent a child.