Soap Box Expedition, pardon the divergence!

Okay, I have to get on my soap box here for a minute. It's adoption related, but a bit of a rant, so read at your own risk and please don't bother to slam me because this is my story and I'm sticking to it! :) Just talk amongst yourselves while I rave for a moment!

I subscribe to a magazine called "Real Simple". I subscribed to it, trying to break away from my traditional "Southern Living" and do something new and different. I have to be honest and say that I haven't been all that into it, I miss my sweet tea embellished recipes and fall centerpieces, but anyway, live and learn. But the other day, I get a "special issue" of Real Simple in the mail called, "Real Simple Family." Looks like it might be a good one, sleep tips, healthy cookie recipes, etc. etc. until I notice the highlighted "EXCLUSIVE" on the front that says "Barrack Obama on raising his two happy girls." Okay, fine... you can do a story for a family magazing on Barrack Obama and his 2 happy girls... who were raised in a homogenous family (two parents who are married, wealthy, and look exactly like them makes them pretty "average" in my book) and how hard it must be to be "happy" when you are raised with such privilege. (Would this be a good time to mention that McCain has four kiddos?) But please, do NOT insult me by not offering the colorful story of the McCain's parenting and family stories, after all, they are a blended family (from two separate marriages, more the American norm these days) AND a multi-cultural/multi-racial family formed through ADOPTION! I can't personally believe the adoption community is not up in arms over the fact that there is so little play on the McCain's adoption. Folks, we have a chance to have an INTERNATIONALLY adopted child in the White House. I wonder when there was even last an adopted child in the White House, but I know for sure there hasn't been an internationally adopted child. Talk about gaining support. I found an article where McCain talks about the need to make the adoption process easier and more do-able for more kids to find homes (click the title of this post for a link to the article.) Where are our adoption advocates on this? Where are the masses of the adoption community (both domestic and international) lauding him and using this opportunity to get some much needed press for the need for adoption? Why aren't people out in masses showing this family as a living example of the benefits of pro-life societies? Why aren't we parading faces of kiddos in foster care and numbers of babies in world-wide orphanages in front of this major international stage?

I know, I know, it's easy for me, a staunchly pro-life white, middle class woman, to find reasons to applaud the McCains. Don't even start telling me all the stuff that makes them "the enemy." I know all the bad stuff about the embellished truths, etc. etc. My point is not VOTE FOR JOHN McCAIN... my point is, we have a huge opportunity here to exploit the situation. This is perhaps the highest profile international adoption family of our time at the moment (I know we have Madonna and Angelina, but those are hardly "mainstream" stories.) I know McCain's story isn't mainstream either, but he also didn't waltz into an orphanage and pick out the healthiest child and go home with her. His wife found two sick and possibly dying kids and gave them homes and hope. Not quite like the A-list adoption stories you'll get when you look at the celebs. Here's a child in a Bangladesh orphanage, cleft palate, and little chance at survival. Here's her orphanage-mate with a heart condition, both needing surgery, and Cindi McCain brings them home and who among us in the adoption community can't relate to how that must have felt!

Okay, so I am cancelling my subscription to Real Simple. I'm writing the letter to their editor, Kristin van Ogtrop asking her to please consider the opporunity at diversity that she overlooked in not giving equal time here. I am telling her that I am cancelling my subscription to her magazine and encouraging all my adoptive family friends to do the same. So, that's what I'm doing through this post. I am asking you to consider writing a letter to Real Simple, cancel your subscription if you have one, and let them know that we value adoptive parents and want to hear their stories. Interesting that the only real articles I could find about their adoption were from more obscure sources... there are mainstream pieces that mention the adoption, but not stories about the adoption. I think this is a great time to refer to the title verse of this site!

James 1:27 "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world."