Adopted citizens and dialogue between love and compassion

A couple had two children. One was their biologically born child. The second child they adopted came from a remote country. Both children often argued that I was most loved by my parents.

The biological child reasons that parents love him the most because he was conceived and born in the family. He argued that he has more rights and deserves to claim and own the best. The adopted child, while trying to prove that he is the most favourite of the parents, said: “Your biological birth can not undervalue my importance in the family. You are a child of chance. You were just born in the family. I am here not by chance but by choice. Parents had chosen me and adopted me among hundreds of other children. And I take pride in being a chosen and selected child of my adoptive parents. You come out of their love and I represent their compassion. Love is nothing without compassion and kindness.”

Without weighing the argument and counterargument of both children in the above allegory, we see a clear message that both children (biological and adopted) take pride in the love of their parents. Their apparent and perceived “differences” can not change their bonds with their parents. It is common in the family to have differences of perceptions on matters which interests us. Yes, it is a blessing to have biological parents. It involves all-natural love and family benefits by birth. Similarly, it is a great privilege to have adoptive parents who come up with their compassion to make choices, commitments and responsibilities. Most importantly their compassion provides a second chance to adopted children.

An Indian little boy, Saroo, was lost at age 5 and it happened that he was adopted by an Australian couple, raised in Australian manners, educated and become a successful businessman. After 25 years he found his mother through the Google earth app spending three years searching his small village in 1.2 billion populated country. The way that adoption changed his personality, his ways and his future are worthy to understand. How could Saroo become an entirely different person from his brothers and sisters and his whole clan? How could he receive higher education and become a successful businessman? How could the adoption change him from a street bagger to a donor?

The simple answer is, Saroo has adapted the language, manners and etiquette, and lifestyle of his adoptive parents. He accepted the opportunities offered by his new family and shared the social values of other members of society in his new position. Saroo’s positive attitude and serving nature earned him acceptance and recognition in the new country, Australia. His steadfast love remained alive for more than two decades for his mother and brothers and sisters. Finally, an extensive search on Google Earth united him with his biological family.

Families and couples usually adopt children. They become legal parents of their adopted children. Countries and nations adopt adults and whole families and become their legal “homes and shelters”. In political language, these adults and families are called refugees, immigrants and sometimes aliens. But the best alternative term can be “adopted citizens”. 

Adopted children do not need to change their skin, eyes and hair colours to comply with the appearance of their new parents but it is expected and always happens that the adopted children adapt language, attitudes, social ethics and etiquettes of their adoptive parents. This change will help them fuse and blend with the family. When the time comes or any need arises, these children serve their “parents” with profound gratitude.

Compared to adopted children who, without taking too much time, try to change in their new environment and learn the language and good manners more rapidly. But adults (“adopted citizens”) would take considerable time to conform and adjust to their new position in the new environment of their new host society. In this situation, ripe age is not the issue, but the mentality would be. If the mind has been programmed to a particular social ethic and the environment, it can provoke challenges to merge and blend with other cultural groups in society. 

The minds of children are free from distrust and insecurity, but the minds of adults are made up of their experiences which they often learn from unpleasant circumstances.

An adopted child moves towards new parents and to a new family with little resistance, but with all his or her being. But an adult moves through various episodes in a new environment with many fears and self-initiated insecurities. Mindset and mentality prefer to stay stuck in their “comfort zone”, in other words, stay in the “past”. Thus, in spite of being physically present in a new country, the state of mind struggles to accept and conform to “now and here” and long for the familiar things and known things of the past.

With apologies for any coincidences, for example, a conservative family, consisting of parents and teenage girls and boys, moves to a top-ranking country, like Finland, from a country with very limited human rights, gender equality and the fundamental freedom to all citizens. Such a flight journey can take a maximum of sixteen hours to land at Helsinki airport but there would be two hundred year gaps to grasp the perception of equality of men and women, rights of personal decision making and personal freedom. Back home, a man simply means father, husband, son or brother. Males were allowed to make decisions on behalf of female members of the family… Women depended on men to choose a university career, marry someone, go shopping or even drive a car.

The sixteen hours flight journey brings the physical bodies to the new society and new country but centuries-long programmed mind and mentality cannot make a long jump to land two hundred years ahead of time to accept the great change.

After arriving in a free and advanced society conservative men feel miserable being deprived of their rights of manhood. And if girls and women try to avail their basic rights they will earn a reputation of being a rebellious or spoiled brats.

So in this struggle, where one wants to avail economic and educational opportunities but sometimes feeds his desires to exercise his authority, they prefer to live in isolation and segregation. It is often seen that these types of people try to build and maintain their own well-guarded small patriarchal society within the open and free societies. To remain intact in segregation, these individuals use race, colour, culture, creed and lifestyle as tools to widen the gap. Some native people, who do not understand the real reason, will unknowingly support segregation by distancing themselves rather than trying to take initiatives to merge and mingle with “people from foreign backgrounds”. They feel that multiculturalism will not win the day.

American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington has foreseen this conflict between two extremes. In his well-known book “The Clash of Socialization” has expressed concerns that in the future, wars would be between different religions and cultures, not between countries. Huntington writes: “This is not about advocating the opportunity for conflicts among civilizations. It is a question of formulating a descriptive hypothesis concerning the future.”

I understand that for those natives who are openly expressing their concern about the future, it is their sole responsibility to make solid plans to get involved and provide awareness to disapprove the rumours of hate and discrimination for the sake and dignity of Finland.

Those “foreign background people” who have been maliciously made to feel like “children of a lesser god” for the vested interests of some individuals must take personal measures to show that they love Finland, Finns, its etiquettes and resources.

They must take courage to say that they are chosen and selected among hundreds of others people to become “ adopted citizens” of their new parent… Finland.