ABSTRACT
In the pages of this journal, two areas of vital concern to individuals, families and social work practitioners are explored; infertility and adoption. Although these topics may appear to be only tangentially connected, in truth they are each related to and shaped by the powerful need and wish to build a family. The American value system has been intensely pro-family and pro-natalist. As so interestingly explored in Rita Rhodes' lead article, "Women, Motherhood, and Infertility," the social and historical content of pro-natal ism has defined women without children as unfulfilled and undervalued, and families without children as deficient. The standard view of the family as a married couple with children born to them has defined all other family forms and ways of building a family as "less than," deviant, or even "improper" or "wrong." Although we have seen some shift in this position in recent years, values change slowly, and underneath the espoused acceptance of and support for alternate family forms lie critical attitudes that form the context within which people face infertility, attempt to develop fulfilling child-free lives, or build families through adoption.
