The foundation of all intercountry adoption is the same, I think. There may be more focus on adoption and adoption issues, but altruism is the foundation. So I’m a little uncomfortable being too critical, because to some degree the same things could be said about me as are being said about her - we both adopted to give a child a better life.

I can understand that urge of being in a country where there is so much suffering, falling in love with a child and wanting to take him away from all that. I get that. I have felt that urge myself while visiting third world countries and while volunteering with AIDS orphans in the US.

But I think the issue with someone like Madonna (and anyone really who has too much money) is that no one challenges her on a personal level. And when they do she can’t even sit there and acknowledge that there might be a reason why people are upset. It is all self righteous anger that everyone else is hurting the children of Africa even more by just saying that maybe international adoption wasn’t the best solution for this boy and questioning weather maybe there was a way to allow him to return to the family he had. They did not, from what I understand, place him in an orphanage because they didn’t love him but because they couldn’t feed him. There was no acknowledgement on her part of the place that money played in this adoption. I do not think that at this point returning that boy to the orphanage would be the right thing to do. I actually hope she gets to keep him since it appears that his father has chosen not to attempt to block the adoption. I hope she makes good on her promise to return to Malawi often, have an open adoption and keep this boy in contact with his existing family. But I really hope that even if she didn’t acknowledge it on Oprah, she has given the implications of her decision a little bit more thought.

But as upsetting as it must be for families who have adopted internationally through proper, legitimate, legal channels I am kind of glad this has taken some of the issues involved with intercountry adoption and blown them up on such a grand scale. On some level I feel bad for her. She really isn’t different that different from any other clueless adoptive family out there (and we know there are many) except that she has millions of dollars, a faux British accent and a national platform on Oprah instead of an Ebay fundraising sight and a ladybug infested webpage that plays midi versions of “Jesus Loves Me” incessantly.