Hey -- take a quick look at just a few of the people who profoundly affected the world...and who started out as adopted kids raised by a gracious, loving family:George Washington Carver; Eleanor Roosevelt; Crazy Horse; Edward Albee; Ingrid Bergman; Jean Jacques Rousseau; Leo Tolstoy; John J. Audubon; Malcolm X; Edgar Allen Poe; Nat King Cole; Marilyn Monroe; Eric Dickerson; Gerald Ford; Aristotle; Daunte Culpepper; Buffy Sainte-Marie; Newt Gingrich; Steven Paul Jobs (co-founder of Apple Computers); Alexander the Great; Art Linkletter; Sen. Robert Byrd; Debbi Harry; James Michener; Tom Monaghan (founder of Domino's Pizza, owner of Detroit Tigers); Langston Hughes; Michael Reagan; Bo Diddley; Lee Majors; Nancy Reagan; Faith Hill; Bill Clinton; Mark Twain; Halle Berry; Dave Thomas; John Lennon; Shari Belafonte-Harper; Faith Daniels; Jesse Jackson; John Hancock; Richard Burton; and Nelson Mandela.
That's right; that's just a few. There are thousands more who are alive, kicking and making their various marks on society (all immensely significant) because of the loving actions of birth parents who kindly relinquished them to adoptive families. Congratulations to everybody involved!
And you say you're interested in just who some of those better known adoptive parents might be? I thought you might. So try out this list:
President Ronald Reagan & Jane Wyman; Babe Ruth; Jerry Lewis; Sen. John McCain; Willie Mays; Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland; Bob Hope; Michael Landon; Walt Disney; Ben Stein; Ed McMahon; Roy Rogers & Dale Evans; Michelle Pfeiffer; George Burns & Gracie Allen; Dan Marino; Harpo Marx; Julie Andrews; Lloyd Bentsen; Hedy Lamarr; Erma Bombeck; Karl Wallenda; Kate Jackson; Kirby Puckett; Eve Arden; Oscar de la Renta; Peter Falk; Bette Davis; Estelle Parsons; Henry Fonda; Magic Johnson; Judy Woodruff; Ted Danson (he is adopted himself); Burt Reynolds & Loni Anderson; Diane Keaton; Angelina Jolie; Pearl Bailey; Jo Beth Williams; George Lucas; Teri Garr; Calista Flockhart; and Patti LaBelle.
Want more? How about Stephen Spielberg; John DeLorean; Lou Gosselt, Jr.; Art Buchwald; Linda Ronstadt; Kurt Vonnegut; Valerie Harper; Nicole Kidman; Woody Allen; Jamie Lee Curtis; Sen. Jesse Helms; Al Roker; John Denver; Donna Mills; Patty Duke; Paul Newman; Cecil B. De Mille; Kris Kristofferson; Helen Hayes; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Sharon Stone; Sen. Gordon Humphrey; Mia Farrow; Marie Osmond; Connie Chung; Joan Fontaine; Sally Jessy Raphael; Carroll O'Connor; Parker Stevenson; Gloria Swanson; Robert Urich; Alexander the Great; Josephine Baker; Meg Ryan; Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson; Kirk Cameron; Steven Curtis Chapman; and, again, an awful lot more.
Adoption? It is frequently the very best option, the most loving choice that young parents can make. It is a wonderful, hopeful investment not only for a child's life and a family's warmth and security...but for the flowering of an entire culture.
