What’s one phrase you can hear from potential adoptive parents that may serve as a giant red flag?

“I could never do that.”

(Sometimes this is prefaced by a softener, such as “I admire what you are doing…I could never do that.”) But still it’s a warning sign. Why?

If the hopeful parents don’t have the ability to picture themselves in a place of great pain, facing a terrible decision and struggling to determine what’s best, then they aren’t terribly imaginative or empathetic people, and you probably don’t want to place your child with them.

Adoption is emotionally complex. It needs people who are comfortable with ambiguities and subtleties, and who realize that it's tough realities that cause babies to be available for adoption. Instead of holding you apart as some other species, they should be able to relate to you, and see that you are a human being just like them, only facing a hard situation. Good adoptive parents can easily see how, given different circumstances, they might have ended up exactly where you are now. They should be able to think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

If they believe that they themselves could never get unexpectedly pregnant, that means they’ll hold themselves superior to you, and you don’t want ‘em.

If they say they would never make the choice to give up their baby, it means they don’t respect the decision, and you don’t want ’em.

Now, keep in mind that "I could never do that" is often well-intentioned. Sometimes people who say this are just trying to express that they can’t imagine the pain you must be in. Until you got pregnant, you probably never imagined you could place your child for adoption, either. It’s not something any of us think about.

Try questioning them as to what they mean by the statement. Are they truly unable to put themselves in your shoes? If so, you’ll probably never have a good relationship with them.

The best adoptive parents will try to understand what you are going through. They will have the ability to empathize with fear, and loss, and grief. They certainly don’t need to wallow in these emotions with you, but they do need to have a little curiosity about the other side of the fence.

So if the potential parents say something like, “I could never do what you are doing,” consider it a possible clue to a deeper issue. Find out exactly what they mean, and if their answers don’t satisfy, consider choosing other parents.