These days, giving birth to or acquiring children seems to be the fad in the world of celebritydom. While Madonna and Angelina Jolie collect them like Beanie Babies, rumors of Mariah Carey adopting have again come to light. Since turning 30, unmarried Mariah has constantly been asked about when she will become a mother. It's very apparent, though, that she takes motherhood more seriously than most entertainers.
In February of this year, a Latin radio show reported that she was seen visiting the Frank Gonzalez orphanage in Mexico with her lawyer. Speculation first began after Mariah’s hospitalization. At the end of 2001, the media began to report that she wanted to adopt an Afghan child. Always the culprit, a “pal” stated that after Mariah’s tough year, she decided to make some life changes which included starting a family. However, around the same time she gave a Guardian interview exclaiming, “The reports said I was in rehab, that I'd gone crazy, tried to commit suicide. I was exhausted, that's all, and thank God it happened at that point rather than down the line, with kids, where it could have been irreparable damage for a child to see their mother like that. And I know, because it happened to me as a little girl: I saw something similar ... I had to take control and be the caretaker from the time I was a little kid.” Later interviews quoted Mariah as saying, “Now I need to be – I don’t want to use the word – selfish, but if I’m gonna do The Career, I’m gonna do The Career.”
That, Mariah Carey has definitely done by gracing the public with nearly two decades of her tireless hard work in recording, touring, acting, charity, and by constantly trying to satisfy the beast that is the media. She has always commented on the celebrity baggage that a child would inherit saying that a child does not have the privilege of choosing its parents and whether or not to be born into a celebrity life. In Glamour Magazine she has stated, “I'm not obsessed with having a child, and I'm not in a rush. Maybe one day, but I would want to do it properly. Because I know that children always want what they don’t have, no matter what.” There's no doubt that Mariah takes having children as seriously as possible - a caution that more than likely stems from her own strifes as a child. She struggled with being a multiracial girl in a divorced family where she did not have a relationship with her father. As a woman, she now feels a maternal instinct to care for wayward children.
Mariah’s love for children is apparent through her endless involvement with adoption. In the early 2000’s, she participated in commercials for the New York and National Adoptive Centers, even donating all of the royalties from the single, “Thank God I Found You” to the centers. She also hosted CBS’s “A Home for the Holidays”, an annual program, which celebrates giving orphaned children a happy home through adoption.
Her 2001 soundtrack to the motion picture, “Glitter” even contains a song that Mariah seems to sing in character as an orphan:
A displaced little girl/Wept years in silence/And whispered wishes you'd materialize/She pressed on night and day/To keep on living/And tried to many ways/To keep her soul alive/Did you really care/Care enough for me…If I'm not quite good enough/Or somehow undeserving of/A mother's love/You could have had the decency/To give me up/Before you gave me life…I need to understand/Why you left me there so helplessly
Although it’s been common practice for Mariah to emotionally and financially support Mexican institutions and the orphanage had been expecting her visit, I would not say that the idea of her adopting is totally unfounded. Recently, when her label representatives are asked to confirm her desire to adopt they only say that they don’t interfere with her private life. The truth is, no one knows when Mariah will become a mother, not even Mariah herself: “It's great that people get married - and stay married - have children and a wonderful life together, but I don't know if its going to happen to me.”
