There have been many responses to the adoption of Baby David Banda, few enough of them laced with any kind of humour. There has been the kneejerk response, which posits that because Madonna is a rich celebrity, she couldn't possibly have the interests of a child at heart, couldn't possibly be acting out of love or be motivated by anything but greed or a need for instant gratification. Sees child, buys child, brings child home.

There's been the 'too-cool-forschool' response, which refuses to engage with the story because celebrities are so yesterday and we don't need to be reading about them in our newspapers.

And then there's the 'moral/ Christian/religious' response, which holds fast to the traditional model of the family and whose proponents try to impose that model everywhere they go, on whomever they meet.

They're all around us.

Last week's opinion poll in this newspaper indicating high public support for civil partnerships for gay people was acclaimed by a number of groups as a sign that Ireland is becoming increasingly tolerant. Such optimism was undermined, I thought, by the answer to the accompanying question which indicated a huge resistance to these same gay people being allowed to adopt children. The only interpretation that you could put on those answers was that, while we are happy enough to allow gay people to consort with each other, and receive some benefits, they should really keep to themselves and are not at all to be trusted with children.

The belief in the traditional family unit . . . mother, father and children . . .

as the best way forward for society still survives, even as the tradition, and the evidence for its importance, weakens. There are few more dangerous places for a child to be than the family home. Most of the children murdered in this country in the last five years, for example, were killed by a parent. Only the most blindly idealistic could walk around Ireland, look at the number of dysfunctional, warring parents psychologically damaging their children and honestly suggest that, in all cases, the traditional model is the best, or the only, way to go.

But the argument continues to be made, whether it be about the lesbian couple on last weekend's Late Late Show or about Madonna's adoption. In that latter case, years of prejudice about the correctness of the nuclear family have been imposed on a basket-case continent which has never been able to sustain such a family unit.

It's like trying to impose democracy on Iraq. It can't be done because the traditions and structures that might allow it to grow and develop don't exist and never existed.

Madonna didn't go into Africa and steal a child away from a Mommy and Daddy and brothers and sisters who loved him and cherished him and could provide him with a future. That isn't the way it works in most of Africa.

More than four million children under the age of five die there every year from illnesses that would be regarded as easily treatable in Ireland. Over a quarter of a million women die giving birth.

One of those was David Banda's mother, who died a few years ago shortly after having a baby. Two of David's siblings have died of malaria. Had he remained in Malawi, his life expectancy would have been about 38. Like 40 million other African children, he might never have gone to school.

It has ever been the case in Africa, and Africa has always coped in its own unique way. "The canny African parent identifies which member of the extended family or network of friends has done best, then piggybacks on their success by sending them a child to raise, " says Michela Wrong, a former Reuters correspondent in Africa and an author of a number of books on the continent. "The richer the chosen patron, the more likely this de facto adoption is likely to succeedf It's not that Africans love their children any less than westerners.

But this is the pragmatic and sensible thing to do, and the best way of boosting an offspring's chances of survival."

Wrong argues that virtually every urban, middle-class African family she's met has at some point "had one, if not several, extra 'brothers' and 'sisters' parked in their household, sometimes for decades at a time. The family finds itself paying for school and university fees, even weddings.

The family members may resent the extra burdenf but they know it's their duty."

Madonna has taken on the role of the family member who has "done best", albeit in circumstances which are not ideal.

She is not a family member, for a start, and is of such celebrity that David will scarcely be able to live his life in wholly anonymous and normal circumstances.

But it is equally true that Madonna has done a very good job of protecting her other children from publicity and as far as it is possible to gauge these things, she seems to be a good and loving parent. David will return to Africa regularly to see his father Yohane, so will never be ignorant of his African roots. Barring accidents, he will live to be a lot older than 38 and will get the education, the start in life and the chances to thrive that would have been denied him in Malawi.

You might well argue that he should get all this in Malawi, and you would be entirely right. But while that country, and the African continent generally, sorts itself out, are we to block all families there from seeking a better life for their children?

Barring evidence that David was bought (of which there has not been a shred so far) or that rules were bent or broken, there is no reason to oppose this adoption.

Yohane Banda wants the best for his son. So should we.