Parenting & Family Quote by Mary Landrieu

Landrieu’s line is a tidy piece of moral jujitsu: she takes a catastrophe defined by water and debris and uses it to argue against another kind of erasure - the bureaucratic, well-meaning impulse to treat orphaned or displaced kids as a temporary humanitarian problem rather than people with long futures. The tsunami becomes more than a disaster; it’s a metaphor for how quickly urgency can wash away standards, safeguards, and long-term responsibility.

The specific intent is policy-facing. She’s warning lawmakers and agencies not to let the scale of suffering justify shortcuts in child welfare, especially around adoption and long-term placement. In the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, there was a rush of international sympathy and a parallel rush to “save” children, sometimes through fast-tracked adoptions that ignored family tracing, local systems, or the reality that many children labeled “orphans” still had relatives. Landrieu is planting a flag: compassion isn’t compassion if it’s impatient.

The subtext is also a critique of disaster voyeurism and the savior narrative. “Allowed ourselves to believe” points the finger inward - at Western audiences and institutions tempted by a comforting story: tragedy happened, we intervened, the end. By insisting on “loving” and “permanent,” she rejects the idea that emergency shelter, donations, or symbolic rescue can substitute for the mundane, hard work of rebuilding family stability. It’s a plea for restraint framed as urgency, and that’s why it lands.