a son has lost a father

I came across an article from a local news source yesterday.  I usually just read the headlines posted on the station homepage but I clicked through to read the whole story.  Unfortunately, it was about a man getting killed in a freak motorcycle accident.  You will see why I am writing about this in my blog by reading the quote below.

"Owen was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the car, 27-year-old Michael Walton did not have any injuries. Police are still investigating. He leaves behind a wife and an adopted seven year old son."

                                                                                                                    by Casey J. Bortnick as it appears on RNews website

A seven year old son has lost his father.  This is all that matters here.  Why must he be identified as adopted?  Are the writers of this article trying to paint this person's death as more tragic by depicting the deceased as an even better person than average?  Is the son's life supposed to be read as more unfortunate because he has lost 2 fathers?  Does it matter?  This boy is a son, period. He need not be differentiated or singled out.  The way this child came into the family should not matter and certainly has no bearing on this story.  If you haven't guessed, this bugs me. 

Let's imagine a similar story... 38 year old mother killed by a bus was pronounced dead at the scene.  She leaves behind a husband and a 4 year old daughter that was born after 48 hours of grueling labor. 

I think adoption should be celebrated and viewed as a natural way to join a family but it does not need to define or differentiate a child every time they are introduced and certainly not on a public website.  Thoughts?

Comments

[Heather]

I agree! It constantly irks me when Tom Cruise's older children and always branded with the "adopted" label.

[jennifer]

I agree as well. I have never understood why the "adoption" part of talking about children in the media needs to be made known. It seems it is often times noted when a child has done something wrong as if that is a way to explain the background story as to why the child might have chosen to go down the wrong path. This goes hand in hand with the adopted child and "one of their own." As in they adopted two children and then had one of their own. Or how people still will ask me if we are going to try to have any of our own. I don't get it... So sad for the family you are referring to in your post.