I’ve been resisting talking about the Madonna adoption story—not because I don’t have strong opinions, but because it didn’t seem to have a lot to do with unplanned pregnancy, the focus of this blog.

Now I see a tie.

According to this story, the boy’s father, Johane Banda, has spoken out, saying he never intended for his son to be permanently taken away and raised “as if” he belonged to another family:

Sure, this is Malawi we're talking about, and circumstances there are a little different. But even in domestic adoption, it is very common for expectant parents not to fully understand what they are getting into when they begin investigating the possibility of surrendering their child. They may “know” what adoption is, and what the losses will be, but not learn for sure how easy it is to get sucked into an irrevocable action until the deed is done and it’s too late. And sometimes people are not even informed about that much.

Sometimes, too, the expectant parents and their needs get lost in all the hubbub over a potential adoption. With all the excitement about the baby and the hopeful parents, the first parents tend to be ignored:

Banda said people did not give him a chance to explain his position better because the media was only interested in knowing about David and Madonna.

That’s another thing that’s true whether it’s this international adoption gone wrong or a U.S. domestic adoption that doesn’t need to happen: in the rush to make a baby (any baby) available to waiting adoptive parents, it might not be the right baby…one that truly needs a home. In this case, Madonna got matched with a baby who already had a family. You have to wonder why she was not matched with the many available orphans. I feel for her, and for David, because now we may have a case where the adoption is disrupted, due to simple incompetence on the part of adoption workers who didn’t bother to check to make sure the child really needed a home.

Sad, but familiar. Back in the U.S., many men and women are talked into surrendering when they are actually quite ready and capable to parent. Take a minute and ask yourself: why does this happen, exactly? Who benefits from this practice?

Some adoption workers are ethical and will do everything they can to ensure that expectant parents understand their options and don’t surrender needlessly. But others are highly unethical and will railroad an adoption—any adoption—through, regardless of whether it truly needs to happen.

To me, it sounds like the Malawian officials fall into the second category.

Banda told Reuters he signed papers he could not understand, but government officials assured him that the agreement was similar to what he had with the orphanage -- to nurture and educate the boy but not take him away for good.

"I cannot read and write so I relied on what the (government) officials told me that the papers said Madonna would look after the child the way the orphanage planned to educate him and then he comes back to me," Banda said.

Asked if he had any copies of the agreements he signed with Madonna, Banda said: "I am still waiting to get my copies."

This kind of thing isn’t limited to Malawi. Half-truths or outright lies, sales jobs, strong-arm pressure, and irregular or missing paperwork—these are all things I’ve seen happen in contemporary U.S. domestic adoption.

Some will say that this poor man has no rights because he placed his child in an orphanage, but to my mind that is a very uninformed and judgmental point of view. Not all children are in orphanages (or available for adoption) because the family doesn’t want them. Often it’s because the first family was backed into a corner and didn’t have a better solution:

Banda said he gave the boy to the orphanage mainly for medical care and breast-feeding after the boy's mother died of malaria days after giving birth to him. “We sent this child to an orphanage because at one month we could not look after him, we did not have a health center nearby and the orphanage was the ideal place for him," he said.

Lacking money and support, what other options did this man have? Why was no one concerned about building a better system in Malawi, so that families in crisis could stay together? (It goes back to the blogger Paragraphein's important post on how a good solution can be the enemy of the best solution.)

I could write for about twenty posts on this one topic, but I’ll try to limit myself. I’ll end with what I find very sad, this quote from Johane Banda.

Though it's unclear how much say he would have had one way or the other, Banda indicated he didn't understand the full consequences of his actions, saying, "I am just realizing now the meaning of adoption."

I hear you, Johane. Sometimes it takes a while for the full meaning to become clear.