The Madonna – Angelina dichotomy
“Why is adoption okay for one star but not the other?“, Shannon LC Cate wonders on the Strollerderby blog at babble.com.
“This is something I just don’t get. Why is it that Angelina Jolie is supposed to be a saint for adopting children from poor countries while Madonna is criticized for same? All the pros and cons of international adoption aside (it has well justified groups of both supporters and detractors), it seems that when Jolie swoops into a country and adopts a child, she is considered to be, well, some kind of Madonna, whereas when, er, Madonna goes to Malawi and adopts, leaving an NGO to support the entire country’s children in her wake, she gets all kinds of push-back from the press who bother to ask international adoption critics what they think. For example, a UK charity, Save the Children spokesperson commenting on Madonna’s plan to adopt a Malawian sister for David said “You cannot literally take every poor child who may only have one parent living, or no parent living, across the world and transport them all into Kensington in London. It’s not a solution.” Well, duh, hence Madonna’s NGO.”
“I am awfully sympathetic to the view that that children should, whenever possible, stay in the countries and/or communities of their birth and be cared for by their own relatives or at least community members who share their cultural origins.”
“I chose domestic open adoption to make sure my own kids would not lose contact with their biological and cultural origins. But I’m also sympathetic to the fact that Madonna, having adopted one child from Malawi, sees the need for him to have another member of his family share his background. I’m a transracially adoptive mother of two, (rather than one) for similar reasons.”
Click here to continue reading this entry by Shannon LC Cate from the Strollerderby blog at babble.com. Thanks to BabyGeorge.