I never imagined I would have beef with a monkey from the Tokyo zoo. 

My problem isn’t with poor Panchi-kun (Punch). The Japanese macaque captured the hearts of social media in late February as he and his stuffed IKEA toy inspired reaction videos, funny parodies and for many, the joy of a transformational story.

However, as an adult adoptee, I found Punch’s saga less than cute, primarily due to how the public reacted to it. While we were all abuzz with the warm-and-fuzzy feelings Punch gave us, he endured the immense and often ignored harm of maternal separation.

That ain’t cute. It’s tragic.

Our collective reaction to Punch reveals how deeply we have normalized harmful propaganda about adoption. Specifically, followers of Jesus have promoted adoption as both a social “win-win” and an illustration of the gospel.

Yet Punch’s story is a great illustration of how Christians often approach adoption in ways that harm vulnerable families, adopted children, and the overlooked adult adoptees in our churches.

Adoption Preys Upon Vulnerable Families

Punch was born and abandoned by his mother in July of 2025. News outlets reported the abandonment happened for “reasons unknown.” (This is also a common explanation human adoptees are offered about our own maternal relinquishment.) Maya Yang from The Guardian, citing research from Alison Behie, mentions age, health, experience, and environmental stress as possible factors for Punch’s maternal rejection.

In comparison, human mothers often cite their own environmental stressors—such as a lack of financial resources or paltry social support—as reasons for relinquishing parental rights.

The difference between the catalysts for primate versus human relinquishment is that, for humans, social support can mitigate the environmental stressors at play. But instead of prioritizing these on a governmental, grassroots, or faith-community level, we have opted to remove children from their families of origin in exchange for financial provision and permanency. 

Behie’s detached, matter-of-fact assessment of the primate mother rejecting Punch may be appropriate for scholarly interest in animal behavior. However, it also ironically mimics the way society paints relinquishing human mothers—cold, self-focused, and unable to make any sensible parental choices aside from relinquishment.

We use first mothers as a convenient scapegoat in adoption stories, either forgetting them altogether or portraying them as a necessary villain. Our adoption narrative dehumanizes first mothers, simultaneously demonizing them for having “abandoned” their children while also characterizing this “abandonment” as loving when it suits our narrative.

Though Christians often portray adoption as a picture of the gospel, the roots of modern adoption are far from Biblical. Georgia Tann, the “mother” of modern adoption, used her connections with corrupt politicians in early-1900s Memphis to legislate trafficking and falsification of vital records. This aided her in victimizing impoverished families by selling their children into wealthier homes, which sometimes included those of celebrities. Others in Tann’s “care” experienced abuse and, in some instances, were murdered.

Because of Tann’s influence, the practice of falsifying birth certificates—re-issuing a second certificate listing adoptive parents in place of natural parents—is still the norm. Meanwhile, original birth certificates are nullified and kept concealed by law, even for adult adoptees. My birth certificate is literally stamped “VOID” in large red letters.

We have also continued Georgia Tann’s legacy of preying upon vulnerable families for profit. Before her era of exploitation, adoptions cost around $7 and happened rarely. Under Tann’s influence, adoption rose in incidence nationwide and became a more lucrative endeavor than ever before.

Today, adoption is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Most of the profit is spent on advertising to women experiencing unexpected pregnancies, encouraging them to relinquish their child. It’s a classic supply-and-demand issue. In recent research,  first mothers overwhelmingly report coercive behavior related to socioeconomic status and parenting capacity that led to their decision to relinquish.

Despite the billions spent on adoption each year, there is little to no post-relinquishment support offered to first families or adoptees. This treats relinquishment and adoption as an insignificant “fun fact” about a child’s past rather than a lifelong contract with serious consequences.

Biblical Proof Texts

There are two ways Christians often use the Bible to justify the modern practice of adoption. Both reflect low levels of biblical literacy and lead to poor Christian practice.

First, the word “adoption” is used just five times in the New Testament, all in the epistles—the letters Paul and other apostles wrote to churches and individual believers. According to theologian Dr. Erin Heim’s research applying metaphor theory to these passages, Paul consistently uses Greco-Roman adoption as a metaphor to convey unique, complex truths about God, not to discuss adoption.

Adoption isn’t a literal, prescriptive command given by God through Paul. Still, churches use it to perpetuate needless family separation in the name of “saving orphans.” The fact that the families relinquishing children are often those with disadvantaged socioeconomic standing reveals astonishing partiality and exploitation of people experiencing poverty. This is a prosperity “gospel” practice, not the good news of Jesus Christ.

The other adoption proof-text is James 1:27, the famous “orphans and widows” verse. However, the phrase translated “orphans and widows” in this passage applies to women and children as a dyad. This means James 1:27 is a call to care for vulnerable families as a unit.

When we bastardize that verse to justify adoption, we are participating in exploitation rather than the loving, supportive community envisioned by James. A more fitting mechanism for fulfilling what James is calling us to is for churches to support family preservation, ensuring mothers in crisis can parent their children with community support.

Adoption Silences Adoptive Children

The public’s reaction to Punch mirrors how we collectively treat adoptees as the beneficiaries of the adoption “fairy tale.”

This is often evident in the art we consume. Parentlessness has become so popular in fictional worlds that it has become a trope. However, Punch’s story can only be satisfying to the masses if we collectively agree that adoptees’ pain is justifiable, making the story “redemptive” for the rest of us.

Punch isn’t famous because he’s adorable. He’s famous because he’s adorable and tragic. The same is true of adoptees depicted in television, film, books, and even in the news. 

The word “orphan” doesn’t apply to most adoptees in the literal sense. That doesn’t stop Hollywood writers from reaching for the “magical orphan” or “evil orphan” stereotypes. Superman is one such “magical orphan.” He is a “chosen one.” His dubious lineage was used to prove the merit of his midwestern adoptive upbringing, which made him a “good guy”.

The Marvel character Loki exemplifies the “evil orphan” stereotype. Something unnamed, yet insidious, exists in Loki’s past that makes him a misanthropic sociopath bent on the domination of the world. Ope! It’s because he’s adopted! Even his brother Thor excuses Loki’s murderous ways with this explanation in 2012’s The Avengers.

All of society’s hopes and fears are easily fulfilled by such stereotypes. But this type of writing isn’t just lazy; it’s harmful.

 When we need our fictional heroes to endure tragedy so we get the emotional payoff of seeing their pain redeemed, we will find ourselves becoming increasingly less horrified by the tragedy of real-world parentlessness.

Adoption begins in loss—the loss of first families, biological mirroring, maternal bonding, which contributes to important development and healthy attachment, and much more. When we bypass that loss to focus on the “happy” parts of the story, we force adoptees into silent erasure, disenfranchised grief, and sometimes the open hostility of non-adopted peers, should we speak up to share the truth of the experience.

Ignoring Adult Adoptees in Churches

Speaking of erasure, I invite you to consider whether you are aware of any adopted adults in your local church. If the answer is “no”, it’s unsurprising, and not your fault. I surmise that Punch will soon be forgotten, relegated to a part of internet history. His life and development are forever changed, but once he can assimilate with the rest of his troop, he will no longer garner our collective attention and sympathy.

Thanks to deeply ingrained propaganda about adoption, adoptees are also relegated to forced assimilation and anonymity when they reach adulthood. 

Adoption is viewed as a singular event in an adoptee’s life, simultaneously solving the problem of the “sinful” family of origin while also addressing the adopters’ infertility issues. Despite research proving that adoption is deeply traumatic, churches and adoptive families remain unaware of these harms. They are ill-prepared to have trauma-informed discussions with adoptees as a result.

Adoption has been found to cause disruptions in healthy attachment, struggles with identity, a higher rate of maladaptive coping behaviors, and more. Still, the institution of adoption expects adoptees to develop normally and act in a “well-adjusted,” grateful manner with severely limited social resources. 

Punch was given a similar consolation prize: his stuffed IKEA orangutan. Sure, it may have provided him with some comfort, and we certainly love watching him run around, clutching the stuffed toy, grooming it, and treating it like a real primate pal.

But the inanimate “friend” could never replace what Punch lost. For Punch, the consequences included difficulties with socialization, bullying by other monkeys in the enclosure, and the loss of the opportunity to build muscle mass by clinging to his mother’s body, as described by his zookeepers.

In the same way, adoptees lose everything in exchange for permanency and safety. I personally found it nearly impossible to form secure bonds with my adoptive parents, but I became an expert in performing appreciation and closeness.

Though I appeared happy and grateful to be adopted, and I could people-please and overachieve like a champion, inwardly I was suffering deeply. The fawn trauma response became my way to navigate my surroundings to control any further loss of relational safety.

When churches tout adoption as a gospel picture and Christian imperative, adoptees in these spaces grow up with even more reasons to hide our grief, even from ourselves. We feel ashamed of our struggles and must manage confusing narratives about love, God, belonging, family and salvation. We carry these unique perspectives into adulthood, which should be considered pastorally and in the context of the community. 

 In 2020, I began to deconstruct both faith and adoption because of how closely intertwined the two realities were in my life. I call it a “double deconstruction. The loneliness and devastation of re-evaluating faith alone can be a crushing blow, but to add a critical re-evaluation of my origin story required further loss of core beliefs and close relationships.

It was an extremely confusing time. I sought support from my local church, but was met with invalidation, at best, and shame, at worst. I know most churches wouldn’t have intended this kind of harm and ostracism. Nor do I think it was intended by the church I was in. Still, the harm occurred nonetheless, proving that ignorance can be as damaging as overtly intended injury.

When adoptees aren’t recognized as a unique group within our churches and intentionally cared for, churches will continue to perpetrate inadvertent harm.

How We Can Improve

Punch’s story teaches us that deconstructing adoption isn’t just for adoptees. The critical re-evaluation of our faith traditions and teachings should lead to a more intersectional, anti-racist, feminist, and overall humanistic faith in action. We want all humans to thrive, to be liberated, because that is what God created us for.

This requires carefully examining what actions our theology has inspired, and the consequences of those actions. Faith communities can raise leaders to recognize the truth about adoption and take action for a more informed approach to child welfare and permanency.

Just as Punch would have been better off if the circumstances leading to his maternal separation could have been mitigated, we have the opportunity to ensure positive outcomes for the least of these through support and love in our churches.