Scott Simon

“They will grow up knowing that they should be only proud about being adopted. I will consider it a parental failure if our daughters ever try to use it as some kind of excuse.”

“Despite the reams of paperwork, obstacles worthy of a horse show, and a wait that can rival an elephant's gestation, adoption feels no different on the inside.”

“Adoption is rewarding. But the process, as we have already detailed in some particulars, can be expensive, exhausting, and hard to sustain on a dream, much less a whim.”

“It's not the cost (although that pinches), or the time (though that grinds). After a while, it's the sheer galling indignity of being asked to prove, pay, and prove all over again that you're a worthy parent. Any true parent will tell you that that is impossible to prove in advance.”

“Fifteen-year-old girls produce children with sixteen-year-old boys in the backseat of cars and in the stairwells of apartment buildings. Why can't two loving adults who have contemplated parenthood and are prepared to offer love, patience, and devotion come up with enough chromosomal matter to stick together and create a child?”

“Race, blood, lineage, and nationality don't matter; they're just the way that small minds keep score. All that matters about blood is that it's warm and that it beats through a loving heart.”

“And I don't even have to include Joseph adoption Jesus to make that point, though it is irresistible to add that Joseph and Mary had to go through a lot fewer interviews than my wife and I did. Well, maybe one major one.”

“So: this is where we are going to become parents. You walk into the building as a couple, and leave a few minutes later as a family. You walk in recollecting long romantic dinners, nights at the theater, and care-free vacations. You leave worrying about where to get diapers, milk, and Cheerios.”

“There are times when the adoption process is exhausting and painful and makes you want to scream. But, I am told, so does childbirth.”

“Camille died a few days later. Our daughter's hearts bear the first real cracks they have had to endure since we came into each other's lives. Our girls had a lot of laughs to give Camille in the years ahead; she had a lot of love for them. But I think that some lives are like diamonds. They pack a lot of light and brilliance into a small space.”

“Parenthood is shit, snot, slime, fear, tears, spit, and spills. It’s as intense as combat, which is to say hours of tedium relieved by moments of alarm and flashes of joy to remind you that you’re alive. It is intensely practical and profoundly square, even if you’re not. It’s feeding, wiping, and picking up.”

“A THOUSAND WORDSMy stepfather Ralph Newman was a merry and remarkable man, a former minor league second baseman who broke his nose on a double play ball and wound up opening the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop in Chicago. He was also president of the Chicago Public Library. Ralph used to huff about that phrase, A picture is worth a thousand words and ask, "Does anyone really stop to figure out what you could do with a thousand words?"And, rather in the way that my daughters and I trade, try out, and create stories with each other, my stepfather and I spread out a napkin and came up with this:One picture is worth a thousand words? You give me a thousand words and I can give you:the Lord's Prayer, the Twenty-third Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the last graphs of Martin Luther King's speech to the March on Washington, and the final entry of Anne Frank's diary.You give me a thousand words, and I don't think I'd trade you for any picture on earth.”