A sad sign of the divisiveness of our times... [View all]

[Versailles]

My wife and I have been trying to have children for a couple years now to no success, so we decided that rather than put our eggs in a single basket (no pun intended) we'd begin the process of adoption. Despite my frustration with the entire adoption process, including the ridiculous cost involved (this is one reason teachers and low-level government employees need pay raises!), we are excited and ready.

One of the last things we had to do was a DHEC home inspection which was scheduled for today. While in preparation for our inspection I realized that I have all our Obama paraphernalia in obvious sight. Rather than feeling proud at the support we have for our President, I was concerned. You see we live in Wing-Nut Central...also known as South Carolina. My immediate fear was that the DHEC inspector would see the campaign materials and would likely be a rabid teabagging RMoney supporter and fail our inspection out of shear political spitefulness.
Ultimately, I left our stuff up, but worried about it and made sure that everything else was spotless.

It is deeply saddening to me that such a concern should have even entered my mind. I have to even catch myself from making snap judgments of people based on their stated political alliances. I know that I would never allow it to color my work or make me treat someone different, but I can't honestly say the same for others. It scares me that we as a country have become so polarized and the lines between what is clearly right and wrong and fact and fiction have become so political. I just hope that when/if we ever do have a child that we can teach them to be stronger, smarter, and more confident than I.




By the way, we passed the inspection and should be having a sit down meeting with a caseworker soon to start narrowing down what child/children we can bring into our home and be the best parents for!