OP-ED: All Penn Alumni Should Put Their Kids up for Adoption

Often, I hear my peers share their plans to raise large, happy families with their loving future spouses. I find this to be deeply troubling.

Many Penn students will wax poetic about the importance of breaking down structural privilege and creating a society where all kids can grow up free of the burden of inequalities beyond their control. But few are willing to put their own children on the front lines.

I’ll say it again: Penn graduates raising their own children is an inherently selfish decision.

Many believe that the bond between parent and child is sacred and foundational to our society. However, this sort of myopic, me-first viewpoint endangers the very bedrock of equality and justice. 

By raising our own children, we unwittingly transmit our resources, cultural capital, and, yes, privilege to them. While we’re nurturing our offspring on a diet of organic peas, Bach naptime music, and mint condition pop-up books, struggling parents a few blocks away in West Philadelphia can barely afford their children stable housing.

Do you think structural inequality is solved with remedial science classes and summer program scholarships? Of course not. The moment we swaddle our newborns in cotton instead of curtain cloth, the indelible brand of affluence has been etched on their fate.

We must strike at the heart of this problem. To raise our own children spits in the face of centuries of social progress. We must all pledge to put our babies up for randomized adoption, so that their life trajectory is not merely derivative of our own success. Only then can we truly stand against societal inequality.

After all, how can we claim to be invested in bettering the lives of the downtrodden if we do not vest our most prized capital, our children, in them?