Oh dear, I couldn’t resist commenting on a closed Ancestry DNA Facebook group especially when the story I was commenting on combined two topics I’m passionate about – adoption and atheism.
I try hard not to sprout my atheistic thoughts outside atheist groups and generally I don’t mix atheism with adoption but I couldn’t hold back this time, and it goes like this….
A well meaning Christian woman posted a link to a story she felt very touched by. Check it out here before you read on, just so you understand what ticked me off – Chloe – A Story of Infertility, Adoption, and God’s Love
The positive comments flooded in from “Beautiful, can’t stop crying” to “Made me cry. Her story is my story…” and my all time fav “God is great”. I just wanted to throw up, instead I provided my perspective via a comment:
I’m sorry this story makes me slightly nauseous for a number of reasons:
Firstly they seem to be incapable of realising they alone had all these thoughts.
Secondly, through some genetic makeup issue they couldn’t have kids so adoption was their last and only option.
Thirdly they are borrowing someone else’s baby to bring up and they will never be the birth parents and saying otherwise doesn’t make it true even if their ‘god’ tells them so – did he send his message by text or a tweet? They didn’t say.
Forth and by no means last, that poor baby had to go through a separation from the moment she was born and now has to learn to adapt into unfamiliar territory.
And lastly, the baby will be expected to conform to an unrelated and genetically different family and their religious beliefs otherwise she could face her second abandonment.
So let’s go through this at a high level:
- A kid who talks to God – I prayed to God as a little girl and as much as I waited for a response or some measure that my prayers were met, they weren’t. Christians will say that God wasn’t in my heart even back then so of course my prayers weren’t met – to which I say ‘bollocks’.
- A kid has a premonition about having a little girl – I remember dressing my cat up as a little girl because I didn’t like little boys.
- Both of them coming up with the name Chloe – this is amazing – NOT. Chloe was one of the most popular girl names in the 90s when the parents in this story were kids. My name was popular in the early 60s and there were 4 girls in my class with my name for the duration of my schooling.
- After 4 years she was struggling with God’s goodness – let’s just pretend for a second there’s a God. God’s an arsehole for not allowing her to have a baby since it appears to be one of her main goals in life.
- And of course claiming it all a miracle! Let’s be clear, there is NO evidence that miracles happen – NONE! However, a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances do, these are known as ‘coincidences’.
The only other time I couldn’t keep thoughts to myself was after a birth family member thanked the ‘Lord’ that I was found. I couldn’t hold back my thoughts and told her, nicely, that I thought the ‘Lord’ was an fucking arsehole as he watched me search for over 35 years and let me solve the mystery AFTER BOTH BIRTH PARENTS WERE DEAD!
Oh yeah, thank the fucking Lord!
They did take my remarks very well and told me that at the end of my birth mother’s life she too had doubts about ‘God’. I love her for saying that!