Adoption - good or bad?

Much has been said about Madonna's adoption of a boy from Malawi. Deborah Coddington has written a column in today's Herald on Sunday entitled, Celebrity adoptions are acts of vain peacocks. Having no access to the column I will have to assume she is at least partially negative towards this event.

But here is a defence from James Bartholomew. Obviously the arguments about inter-country adoptions may differ from domestic adoptions but I agree with most of what he says except I was under the impression adopted children, based on social outcomes and achievement, generally form an intermediate group ie they fall between those raised by single parents and those raised by two biological parents.

Bartholomew says adopted children do even better than children from 2 biological parent families. My reading tells me they form an intermediate group between those raised in two biological parent families and those raised in single parent families because they tend to experience a more difficult adolescence. But there is research to back his claim and there is research, produced in NZ, to back mine. There is no research that says, in general, children from single parents homes do best.

Throw in extreme poverty, risk of disease and an orphanage-upbringing, in the case of David Banda I would have thought it abundantly apparent that his interests would be better served by this adoption. Watching TV yesterday it appears his father also believes that.