The not-so-perfect children

As I read about the Duggar family who have 18 kids of their own, I cannot help but think, "why not adopt some kids?" Why have 18 of your own kids (or 10, or 14...) why not adopt? There are so many kids in the foster care system here in the US, as well as kids in orphanages all over the world who need families, why is it necessary to keep having more of your own kids? Oh wait, they don't want to adopt because what if they got a kid with emotional or behavioral problems. What if they got a kid with a disability, or they didn't discover that they had a hearing problem until a year later? What if the kid they adopted had RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) or ADHD?

Then their perfect model of a family would be completely blown. I truly doubt the capability of this mother or 18 since she has no special-needs children. Her kids are perfect, they all play the violin from age 4 onwards. Of course she can have more and more and more of those types of kids. But what about what the Bible says about caring for orphans? In the Bible, God says "be fruitful and multiply" once, but God says multiple times, in the Old Testament Law and in the New Testament to care for orphans. The easy thing is to multiply, anyone can have 18 kids, but to take in an orphan, most of the time with some sort of special need (be it emotional, behavioral, or physical) is a bit harder, so God has to tell us quite a few times. Or we might turn a blind eye.

I think of how difficult it was at times to take care of the kids I nannied for, mainly the youngest who had just been adopted when I started working for this family, and I wonder how other families would have coped with that. How would the Duggars be able to homeschool 18 kids if they had a 3 year old who had no communication skills besides screaming, biting, pinching, and kicking? What would they do with a kid who wouldn't sit down and couldn't hear you if you told him to do so? And didn't know what the word "sit" meant? How would they cope?

I think Americans in churches need to re-think how they view families. The "perfect" family of angelically dressed and behaved children may not be what God has called us to do. He has called us to look after the orphans and widows. Maybe that means adopting a kid that is a different race from us or one who is hard to take care of. I admire the parents of the kids I nannied for so much. They knew that God calls us to look after the orphans, and they are doing just that.