If you want to get an interesting take on the Madonna adoption mess, take a look at a recent essay on Salon.com by Mary Kane, a freelance writer who is an acquaintance of mine.
I am so tired of hearing otherwise smart people--like Joy Behar and Meredith Viera--make snarky comments about why Madonna didn't just give her would-be adoptive son's father some money to raise his son. Although I, like many people, question Madonna's motives for adopting, I find this particular criticism deeply offensive and loved Kane's response to it. She writes:

"Already, I cringe when I hear people saying that Madonna, or any prospective adoptive parent, should give away a lump sum of money to a child's relatives instead of adopting him. Does anyone walk up to a pregnant couple and suggest they take the thousands of dollars they'll spend on the baby during his lifetime and hand it to Save the Children instead?"

I couldn't have said it better. Of course, Madonna may be partly to blame for holding herself up as a saintly humanitarian for adopting this child, rather than as a mother who wants to parent another child, who needs a family.




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