What You Learn From Walking The Dog

Rocky woke me up at 4:00AM with that little urgent whine that let me know a walk was forthcoming. I struggled into my clothes, found the leash and we set out. The front of our house faces the northeast and the lights of Orlando and all the communities around it are to our southwest. There was a beautiful patch of sky there, with the moon surrounded by high, wispy clouds and lots of bright stars.

The humidity was down to a dull roar for a change and the temp was in the low 70's with a slight breeze. I thought about how wonderful it was to have a view of the night sky without all the neon and halogen and other lights of the ticky-tacky, plastic tourist region south of us obscuring the clarity.

I thought, then, about the fairy-tale, saccharine dog-and-pony show that surrounds the efforts to increase infant adoption. It's hard for a young mother-to-be to see the clear and natural reality when it is obscured by the manufactured bright lights of adoption mythology. The industry, social workers and their cohorts wave the image of the heroic but inept mother who cares only for her child's welfare, said welfare being, according to these spin doctors, surrender for adoption. That "heroine" label and $1.00 will get you a Whopper Junior. It tastes good at first, but doesn't last. There are a lot of adopted adults who would argue the perceived, skewed rightness of surrender.

We don't have a powerful lobby that would intercede on behalf of natural family continuity. We don't have an eager market for our message as does the adoption industry. All we have it the natural truth and you have to look away from the hype and the hooplah in order to really see it and understand it. While the industry pitches its product like a manic Billy Mays, we are trying to calmly tell the truth.

Maybe people will get tired of the noise and the bright lights and start listening.