A Capitol commitment to kids

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 24, 1997 | by Sean Paige

Congressional families who have offered compassion to children via adoption tell Insight that they have been rewarded in return with the gift of personal understanding.

Every politician kisses babies, utters pro-family platitudes and pledges his or her undying commitment to improving the welfare of America's children. But a select few put that rhetoric into action by adopting a child.

More than a dozen members of Congress have adopted children, or themselves were adopted. There's even a bipartisan adoption coalition on Capitol Hill that focuses on related issues and includes members who have adopted.

He doesn't talk about it publicly -- though doing so might make it harder for liberals to paint him as a stonehearted mossback -- but conservative Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and his wife, Dot, adopted their son Charlie after reading about his Christmas wish.

"Long before Jesse got into politics, just before Christmas, a story appeared in the newspaper about an orphanage," recounts longtime Helms friend Tom Ellis, a Raleigh, N.C., lawyer. "One of the children was at age 9 a little older than most of the others, and he said what he'd like for Christmas was a home and a mommy and daddy. Jesse and Dot read that story and said, `Let's go talk to that little boy. We ought to adopt him.'"

"At the time he could barely stand," Ellis says of Charlie, who suffered from cerebral palsy But three operations by the late Lennox Baker, a distinguished orthopedic surgeon, "made it so the boy could walk" and cemented the senator's long involvement in battling that disease.

Rep. Anne Northup, a first-term conservative Republican from Kentucky, and her husband Woody, not only adopted two children (bringing their brood to six in all), but did so at a time when biracial adoptions were relatively rare. Joshua, now in college, is black, Erin who is of mixed race, is in high school.

Through her work with Catholic Charities, Northup became aware of some children "who were really considered in the unadoptable category," largely because of racial barriers. But after giving careful thought to the difficulties such children might face in their predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood, the Northups decided to take the plunge anyway.

"It's been great," Northup tells Insight. "The advantage of adoption is that it brings a lot of diversity to a family -- which is true not because of racial diversity, but diversity of talents and diversity of interests. And I think our family has enjoyed that."

Northup says the adoptions have heightened her awareness of racial issues and "dramatically reinforced my belief that the earlier a child is adopted the better. When a child is in a family where the mom is drug-addicted, there's overwhelming abuse and no effort to get into treatment, we ought to immediately begin to terminate parental rights."

Ultimately, the political lessons one takes away from the adoption experience are eclipsed by the personal insights gained, Northup says. "It does give you great understanding and insight and you see, through the eyes of your child, what it's like to walk through life in a predominantly white neighborhood when you are African-American. And those were lessons I wouldn't know if I hadn't seen them through Joshua's eyes."

When she succumbed to cancer in 1975, Rep. Connie Morella's sister Mary died knowing that her six children would be in good hands. But the logistical and psychological challenge of merging two families (Morella already had three children) still lay ahead for the Maryland Republican and her husband, Anthony, who have taken it all in stride.

As a practical matter, Morella's home had to be transformed. "We no longer had `studies,' we had bedrooms," Morella tells Insight. "We no longer had a big rec room, we had two more bedrooms."

"We also learned to close our eyes to cobwebs. We didn't worry whether or not the plates matched or the silverware matched or about any of the other amenities," Morella recounts. And, perhaps most important of all: "We learned how to have a sense of humor."

Tasks had to be assigned and labors divided. Privacy was scarce and skirmishes sometimes broke out. Nine children had to be put through driver's education; five were in college at one time; and there were five daughters to escort down the aisle.

And what larger lessons has the experience taught? "In terms of personal philosophy, the fact that each day is special. That we must all keep our priorities in order," Morella tells Insight, "and learn to live each day and each moment fully."

The adoption of two Korean children has been a "gravity-shifting" experience for North Dakota Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy and his wife, Laurie, both in their early forties when they decided to adopt. They weighed adopting American children. But domestic adoptions can take years and, "given our age, we were interested in moving quickly," Pomeroy says. "We also were a little apprehensive about the horror stories of the occasional court case that takes the baby out of the family after placement."