ADOPTED CHILD, ADOPTED DOG

AGNIESZKA PORZEZIŃSKA

Speaking about ‘adoption’ in reference to animals, distorts the truth about human relationships because it deprives them of their exceptionality which results from human ability of building relations based on consciously accepted and voluntarily reciprocated love

It usually happens that substitution of meanings of particular words or other linguistic manipulations are deliberately programmed tool of social engineering which serves to a particular ideology or particular interests of a social group. However, it happens that substitution of the meaning of a particular word does not result from perversity but rather from somebody’s naivety, from fashion or from imprecisely defined sensitivity which may be moving in the first moment, but in a longer perspective it brings negative consequences and leads to suffering of particular people or whole social groups. Its example can be more and more talks about adoption in reference to animals. More and more people speak about ‘adopting’ a dog, cat or any other animal. When writing the word ‘adoption’ in the search engine, in the first place there appears information about adopting a dog, and after that, abandoned children must compete with animals. Using the term ‘adoption’ in reference to animals worries me because of two reasons. Firstly – it suggests that there is a similar relationship between people and animals adopted by them, like between parents and children adopted by them. It leads us to misunderstanding because children adoption is based on love, whereas adopting animals and caring about them results from sensitivity, a good will, but not from love. We can love only people. And only people are able to respond to love with love, consciously and willingly. I am ready to argue that these are not people who – egoists, cruel – who can love really and modestly, but these are just animals, which never leave anybody in love, despite being hurt by their owners. Only the fact that what a ‘defender’ of animals calls love, I define as the instinct of emotional relationship. Animals do not behave on the basis of their conscious or willing decision, whereas people do. It happens that somebody who ‘crossed out’ his relationships with people in order to ‘humanize’ the relationship with animals, it means that at one of the phases of his life he must have been badly hurt or is very lonely and is trying to replace this emptiness by his contacts with animals.

Speaking about ‘adoption’ in relation to animals distorts the truth about relationships among people, because it deprives them of their exceptionality which results from human ability of building relationship based on consciously accepted and willingly reciprocated love. As a result, there are more and more people among us who ‘love’ animals but do not care about people. A classical example are leftist groups which are right to express their outrage in describing cases of bullying animals, but they do not care about people’s suffering at all, especially the weakest ones who are not able to defend themselves at all. An MP Joanna Senyszyn is able to get herself tied to a doghouse with a chain, hoping for improving life conditions of dogs in the countryside, and she also thinks that ‘life windows’, that is, places where a mother can leave her newly-born baby anonymously, are needless. The MP thinks that windows for saving little dogs would be more useful. Life windows teach us sensitivity to the man, but this sensitivity in leftist groups is politically ‘incorrect’.

Using the term ‘adoption’ in reference to animals not only negates exceptionality of relationships among people, based on awareness, freedom and love. It also leads to suffering of adopted children. One does not need unusual empathy in order to feel what children feel when they hear that not only them were adopted, but also animals can be adopted. Even these children who really like animals and are very sensitive to their fate, want to be sure that there is a clearly defined difference between their position and the position of a cat or a dog. No child wants adults relationship towards this child or relationship of these adults towards an animal be defined with the same word, although I know that not all adopted children are brave to speak about it directly. This is a task for us, adults. We have a right and a duty to fight for dignity of our children. I think that also these children who are loved by their biological parents, can feel lost in this world, in which adults define the relationship towards a child in the same way as the relationship towards animals.

I would like our society not to treat adoption as an act of mercy by adults. I would like adoption not to be treated as a choice of the second chance. I would like adults to believe that adoption is the most beautiful meeting with ‘their’ child, with fulfilled nostalgia, with love which will be reciprocated, when one believes that it is exceptional, because aware and irreversible.

From editors: the issue of adoption will be continued.

AA

„Niedziela” 40/2016

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl