I was just clicking around on the adoption.com website, trying to think of something to write about, when I saw an ad with the words "Find the perfect family for your child." I didn't click on the link, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that the ad was directed towards pregnant women who are considering adoption.

It made me wonder: what is the perfect family?

If you are hoping to adopt and have chosen to do so privately and domestically, you probably spend a lot of time wondering this, too. Is my family perfect, at least in the eyes of someone who is looking for a placement for their future child? Or is my family at least good enough?

The hopeful adoptive families in the listings all sound really great to me. A couple, hoping to add to their family, spend their days doing rewarding work and when they're not working they have super hobbies or do wonderful volunteer work. They value family and they go to church, or once the baby comes the mom will take a leave of absence from her job and stay home. Or maybe she'll go back to work, but she'll reduce her hours or her husband will or maybe Grandma lives nearby and she'll watch the little pumpkin when Mommy or Daddy have meetings. They live in gigantic houses and they're financially secure. They take awesome vacations to the beach or the mountains every year la de da da.

I want to be part of those families! They sound wonderful! But that's what advertising is supposed to do: emphasize the positive and deemphasize the negative. If I was creating one of those profiles that's what I'd sure do. I think we all would. And we all would probably end up sounding like the perfect family if that's all we did.

Here's mine:

Active, close-knit family of four seeks little girl to complete the family unit. Mom has home-based business, Dad a sucessful businessman and artist, two older brothers (one bio, one adopted) will welcome little sister into the family fold. Financially secure. Large house. Big circle of friends and grandparents live close by. Yearly vacations to beach and mountains. Travel, education, and the arts are all highly valued in our home. Family committed to an open adoption, with yearly visits and exchange of photos and letters.

Ooooohhhh. We sound good, don't we? But reading over that really brief description I can't help but think there's so much more to us - good and bad - that a potential birth mother should know. Things like: we argue in our house, sometimes a lot; Mom can be a little uptight when it comes to children's manners and children not eating junk food; Dad says 'Knock it off!' too much; kids are a little whiny. But also: our best times have been the simple times, like when we've taken a walk in the woods or when the kids have helped Mom make muffins or helped Dad hang the Christmas lights; we love to have parties!; or sometimes we eat cake for breakfast. Do those sorts of things go in the profile, too?

For those of you who are adopting domestically, how do you deal with that? Do you feel like your profile (on-line or otherwise) really says who you are?