ADOPTION: SINNERS AND SAINTS

In the United States, the high percentage of serial killers who are adopted is vastly out of proportion with the number of adopted children in the population, and it’s the same for people who kill their parents. Researchers find many connections between adoption, anti-social behaviour, violence and the large numbers of adopted people (both children and adults) who need therapy and counselling. Details are available on the AmFOR website, so I refrain from giving examples here. (Oh well, Ian Brady [the Moors Murderer] for one, then, although his adoption was not official.)

I had thought that the rages, the hatred, and the isolation that I felt during my adolescent years were standard teenage “stuff ”, but now I am beginning to realise that they were adoption-related. They always seemed so way over the top.

As a Buddhist, I know the story of how the Buddha’s mother died quite suddenly when he was a tiny baby, and how he was brought up by his mother’s sister. Why did he become such a great man in spite of his traumatic loss? I wondered how many other great religious leaders had suffered early loss and what was the difference between them and the disturbed and violent victims we occasionally come across.



ABRAHAM: Some traditions claim that his father died before his birth and that he was raised by an uncle whom he called father. Another legend claims that he was kept in a cave on his own as a baby because his mother was afraid the tyrant king Nimrod would kill him if he was found.



When MOSES was a baby his mother set him adrift on the Nile in a little basket, in order to save his life. But he was later found, and adopted by the Pharoah’s family.




CONFUCIUS was only three years old when his father died.

The father of the Prophet MUHAMMED (pbuh) died before he was born and he was at first raised by his grandfather and his mother. Then his mother died when he was only six, and his grandfather when he was eight. After that he was placed in the care of an uncle.



JESUS never knew his natural father although he was accepted as a son by his mother’s husband Joseph.



The BUDDHA’s mother died suddenly about a week after he was born, and he was reared by her sister – who was also his father’s second wife.

There is a legend that MAHAVIRA, founder of the Jain religion, was conceived in the womb of Devananda and then divinely transferred to the womb of Trishala. It seems that this might have been a way of explaining that Trishala was his stepmother or adoptive mother.



KRISHNA, one of the manifestations of God in the Hindu religion, was smuggled away (with his brother) for fear of their being killed by a wicked king, and they were reared by a goatherd and his wife (Nanda and Yasoda).

The BAB, instrumental in founding the Ba’hai faith, lost his father when he was nine, and his care fell to a maternal uncle.

Many other great religious figures also seem to have survived some trauma of their early years, although not necessarily the loss or separation from a parent.

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Could it be that an early loss, but where one continues in the care of one’s natural family, can lead to a kind of benign alienation that results in charismatic leadership qualities, concern for one’s neighbours, and eventually the development of love and compassion for the whole of humanity. But a devastating loss that involves early, complete and lasting separation from one’s natural family, and where nothing is known about one’s origins, can potentially lead to the sort of isolation that breeds hatred, rage, violence and even murder.

The conclusions to be drawn are fairly obvious: adoption should be outlawed except in the most extreme circumstances. Where it is necessary, then "open adoption" remains the only civilised possibility.

Muslim cultures have always followed this ideal: the Qur'an gives specific rules about the legal relationship between a child and his/her adoptive family.  The child retains his or her family name (surname), the biological family is never hidden and ties to the child are never severed, and the Qur'an specifically reminds adoptive parents that they are not the child's biological parents.