On Being Called a Saint

Hi everyone!

I hope this week has been good to you. I’ve got some news and perhaps a disgruntlement or two to share…

We recently welcomed a two-year-old into our home, whom we’ll call “Baby Green” for the sake of anonymity in this post. The name isn’t ours, but it fits. At Thando House, the rescue shelter where Baby Green stayed, children are given colour names for protection. It’s an odd yet poetic system, and besides, green suggests growth, renewal, and new beginnings. Or so I’ve heard.

The moment my wife and I shared the news on social media, messages began flooding in: heartfelt, kind, and deeply emotional. People have been generous with words, and I am truly grateful for it. Genuinely, I am!

But then there are the others…

The ones that sound like they’re written for a feel-good Facebook post. The “What an incredible thing you’ve done” and “You two are such good people,” referring to my wife and me. These are well-meant, I’m certain, but they carry a quiet undertone of moral elevation that I just can’t stomach.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but beneath those words lies the belief that what we’ve done is extraordinary, saintly, even. As if choosing to care for a child in need of love is some rare act reserved for esoteric people with particularly shiny consciences.

The reality is, it’s not.

I’ve never really seen myself as the “saviour” type, despite being somewhat indoctrinated to have that exact view. When it comes to kindness, I don’t think I need to be perched on a pedestal I never asked for, with an audience watching, for it to matter. Welcoming Baby Green into our family wasn’t an act of charity; it was an act of authenticity, a decision that felt aligned with who I want to be in the world and how I wish to show up. I took the time to reflect, wrestled with the realities as well as the responsibilities of this decision, and I had hard conversations with my wife before choosing what felt right.

Fostering had never been part of the plan. In fact, I had an inner checklist of things I thought I needed before becoming a parent: financial security, business stability, and some perfectly measured sense of readiness. I now know, of course, life doesn’t consult our spreadsheets, bank accounts or assessments before unfolding.

So here we are: two parents, two two-year-olds, a house full of laughter, chaos, and toys exploding in every direction. It’s beautiful and utterly exhausting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s not all rose-tinted glasses, though. There have been tough days as he’s learned our routines and found his place in our family, but he’s happy and healthy, and that’s more than we could ever ask for. We have changed him a lot, but guess what…

…He’s changed us.

Baby Green has a radiant smile that lights up an entire room, a soft heart that looks out for our daughter, and a spirit powered by pure curiosity. A curiosity even more pronounced than my own. He’s rough around the edges, as little boys often are, but with a gentleness that melts you when you least expect it. He’s brave and fiercely independent, insisting on carrying his own school bag to daycare. He’ll announce with determined certainty, “No, Mama, no help me!” before eating on his own, and somehow inviting every surface within reach to join the meal. He eats with abandon, sings without restraint, and runs as if the world could never catch him. Our little Joy Boy!

The fullness with which he lives has shifted something in us. His courage has rubbed off on our daughter; his energy has reshaped our days. The background he comes from is less important to us than the story he’s writing now, and we love seeing who he’s becoming.

The issue with the messages

Behind most of the well-intended well-wishes lingers a quiet discomfort akin to a societal urge to turn kindness into spectacle. Goodness, though, shouldn’t need an audience. It should move quietly and freely, like air.

Okay, maybe I’m not opposed to the message itself, but to what’s behind it. Psychologists call the duality I am conflicted by, the Halo effect. It can be described as that unconscious bias that makes one good act seem like proof of a wholly good person. For example, if someone comes across as being likeable and confident, it is assumed they are also intelligent. It’s flattering, but also flattening. Life isn’t that simple, truly it’s not. We’re all way more complicated than the light people cast on us.

Perhaps that’s why I struggle to hear the saintliness being ascribed to me. When someone calls me good, a part of me bristles, not out of false modesty, but because it doesn’t feel true in full. I am aware of my flaws, my impatience and my limits. I also know it is abundant, so when praise paints too perfect a picture, it rubs against the grain of who I know myself to be. This “rubbing of grain” is what psychologists call tension, and the tension is called cognitive dissonance, the gap between how others see you and how you see yourself. (Also, dude, “rubbing of grain”? What a weird way to put it, Euey!)

Maybe what I’m really learning is that goodness doesn’t have to be dramatic to be genuine. One good act doesn’t make me a saint any more than one mistake makes me a villain. That kind of all-or-nothing thinking, the urge to canonise someone for getting it right or condemn them for getting it wrong, misses the truth. The truth is real life happens somewhere in between, in the messy, beautiful, ordinary moments where love quietly does its work.

So no! We’re not saints. We’re just two people trying to live honestly, to choose kindness even when it costs something, and to raise two little humans who’ll hopefully learn to do the same. If that means opening our home and hearts to someone small and full of light who is called Baby Green, then that’s simply us being who we are.

In a world where kindness is treated like a rare commodity, the aim isn’t to do great things, but to let compassion move easily, instinctively, without performance or reward. Be kind, not because it’s noticed, but because it is who you are.

Euan