tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post1878846080457152365..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Orphans and TribalismAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-43493587172863664162012-06-20T10:46:41.003-04:002012-06-20T10:46:41.003-04:00I guess in the U.S. a strong countervailing cultur...I guess in the U.S. a strong countervailing cultural assumption is the self-made man: you want to hire that guy, because he's shown that he can thrive without much of a support system. He's not a trust-fund baby. He's survived a trial by fire.<br /><br />My grandfather was orphaned pretty young. There were no close relatives to take him in. Apparently he moved from farm to farm as a kind of hired hand, even in his very early teens. I have no romantic story to tell of how he overcome the early hardship. He did manage to become productive and raise educated children, but I believe he was a hard, bitter man. One of his sons was an out-and-out sociopath. He was so estranged from his daughter (my mother) that he didn't attend her funeral. We never had any contact with him; he died when I was too young even to wonder why we hadn't met him.<br /><br />A good friend in San Antonio publishes a blog at http://thisreminds.me, which often focuses on the Russian girl they adopted 6-7 years ago, when she was 5 years old. (They already had three older girls of their own.) Her stories, and yours, AVI, about your Romanians, make it clear to me how adoption is supposed to work: a healthy family takes in children whose family have been stripped away, and it's a miracle for both. It's such a different story from the depressing parade of stepparents drifting from one family to the next as they divorce and remarry. It's not good to be a stepchild or adopted child in a family that's not passionately devoted to you.<br /><br />You've mentioned the importance of your family culture. It seems to be the same with my friend in San Antonio. Orphaned kids needn't lack that important social network as long as there are adoptive parents like you and her.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-16864623566603382812012-06-20T10:18:17.731-04:002012-06-20T10:18:17.731-04:00Views of adoption in various times and cultures ar...Views of adoption in various times and cultures are interesting. Although the Old Testament doesn't mention it (that I recall, it's clear that by the time of the New Testament Paul expected his audience to be familiar (and comfortable?) with the idea. Was that due to Roman influence, where it seems to have been pretty common, or independently developed? I haven't looked that far into it. The "doomed to scrape by until Someone stepped in" probably had a lot more emotional impact on Paul's audience than on modern readers, something I hadn't thought of until your post.<br /><br />Japan also seems to have practiced adoption as a common thing, at least based on historical anime. I don't remamber stories about adoption from any of the other Asian nations of the area, which given a strong similarity between the various cultures makes it particularly interesting.<br /><br />If any of the other commenters know more, I'd love to be able to fill in some of the many gaps in my knowledge.Kittennoreply@blogger.com