Not so many years ago, in Ireland, when an illegitimate baby was adopted, villagers would cluster around his new home praying for the soul of the poor little bastard stained with sin. In the West generally, adoption has widely been considered a last resort for couples unable to conceive, often after expensive attempts at IVF.
But this year, an adopted baby became the family accessory du jour: not the old kind of adoption, but elective adoption as a political and ideological fashion statement. Not only Madonna — whose swoop on a Malawi orphanage caused such a furore — but other high-profile celebrities have been busy adopting from across the world: Angelina Jolie from Cambodia and Ethiopia, Ewan McGregor from Mongolia, and Meg Ryan from China. Sharon Stone, Calista Flockhart, Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman have all adopted within America.
US overseas adoption rates skyrocketed after Angelina Jolie adopted her two, and last month she was rated “best celebrity mum in the world” in an American TV poll. Praised for bringing up her kids as “global citizens”, Jolie has said she would like both to have more babies and adopt more, thus producing, as one wry observer put it, “An achingly cool rainbow family perfect for a Benetton ad.”
As we know, motherhood is the new black, and Africa is very now — a focus for celebrity activism from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Aids ads to Bono’s debt-reduction campaign — so what better way to attract the world’s attention than for Madonna to rescue little David Banda from an assuredly bleak future?
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds, according to Socrates, and cynics note that adopting a poor black baby neatly proclaims a celebrity’s maternal, compassionate and cosmopolitan credentials in one poignant little package. Then when they get home there are staff. They make adoption seem easy when really it is fraught with expense, bureaucracy and potential disaster, those sweet babies turning into troubled teenagers who feel they don’t quite belong anywhere.
Still, an image of Brad Pitt with little Ethiopian Zahara in his arms is a far more potent symbol than cautionary tales about the pitfalls of inter-country adoption. Hats off, then, to Emma Thompson who three years ago quietly adopted Tindy, a 16-year-old refugee from Rwanda. He was alone and friendless in London and she invited him for Christmas; he slowly became part of the family. Tindy is now 20 and studying politics. “He calls me mum,” says Thompson. “I am so proud of him.”
©The Times
