November 24, 2004

• We are just about to adopt our second baby girl from China. I'm astonished that anyone has anything bad to say about adopting. It's a blessing for the child, the parents and society as a whole. Sure there are a few drawbacks particularly with the domestic process and not every story is 100% a happy ending, but whatever fault you can find in it is dwarved by the good results. Adoption is by far by the greatest thing that has ever happened in my and my wife's lives. I also second the plug for the Lost Daughters of China"
• No heroes here either. We wanted a baby, we tried the usual methods, and they didn't work out. So, you know, we're doing this as much for purely selfish reasons as any others. What role does the State play in adoption into the US? We went through an agency (well, you have to), but there were certain things the State (being the ultimate arbiter of these things) wanted to certify for itself, meaning we had social workers scrutinising our relationship, our house and garden, and our circumstances in some detail and then writing a big fat governmental report on us. Somehow I have trouble imagining Angelina Jolie going through this.
• (off preview) Hey, Kamus, that's great!
• Congrats to Wolof and Invoke too! I'm sure you won't regret this and the journey to China itself is just the amazing icing on the cake. And ...um..OK... Here are some pictures of my daughter, Celeste who was adopted in 2002 from Changsha, Hunan Province. She was left on the street when she was 4 days old. You can see that this subject makes it very difficult to maintain my chosen Mofi persona of cynical hipster.
• She's lovely.
• Wow, she's gorgeous. I must say I am somewhat surprised to find several China adopters in a relatively small community. We must have good taste.
• Invoke, thanks for the book suggestions. Celeste is beautiful, Kamus.
• You guys are awesome.
• Celeste is enchanting, kamus!
• I can only assume the people who want adoption banned because of the problems caused thereby think that being aborted or raised in a household that hates their existence are preferable options. Neither of these seem like especially compelling options to me. I'd rather be alive and raised by parents who wanted me, personally.
• Wow, how cool that there are so many adoptive parents here at our monkey clubhouse. I adopted two boys in 1987. They are brothers and American. Neither were babies. Their mother had run off with the carnival and their dad was a drunk. I never regretted adopting my two boys. They are special. T.J., the youngest was developmentally disabled, but he was a ray of sunshine. He progressed way beyond what the doctors told me he would. He was nothing but a bundle of love. I lost him to a house fire in 1993. His brother Josh is grown and a hardworking young man, who I am proud of. People who oppose adoption, are beyond my comprehension. Adoption is a blessing for all involved in my opinion. Those of you who go overseas to adopt, I salute you too.
• i recently wrote about the anti-adoption movement. i was surprised it had never been covered in the mainstream press before, it's been around for a long time.
• I wrote a piece about adoptions from China for a development journal here a while back. I remember one of the organisations we covered, Families with Children from China, seemed to be doing a good job of supporting parents, the children and some initiatives back in China. Here in China there's naturally been some concern about this too. Local fostering and adoption services are developing rapidly, especially in the bigger metropolises, more families are now willing and able to provide homes, so perhaps in the near future the number of Chinese children available for adoption will drop significantly.
• Nice article, SideDish. It really is a complex issue. I even support a number of the "anti" viewpoints. I am against the sealing of records. I think that it would be better if people were not forced into abandonment or relinquishing. I think birthparents should know the whole picture, including legal rights and options. In a "just world", adoption would probably be a mere trickle, rather than a flood. I don't like the term "Adoption Industry", which implies organized groups that support the status quo out of lust for profit. I do think there are unethical adoption practices, especially the baby-selling practices encouraged by the laws in places like Guatemala and Brazil. However, the agency we used is of the highest ethical standard, from everything I've ever seen, experienced or heard. There are many other agencies with equally high standards, all of which do not deserve the smear earned by the baby-sellers. For proof of that, I point to what Abiezer_Coppe said. If the numbers of Chinese orphans available for international adoption falls radically due to increased/improved orphanage and fosterage availability, then it will in large part be due to the efforts and money put forth by Holt and agencies like Holt. They'll have succeeded in their stated goal. Also, for what it is worth, I happen to know that each adoption facilitated by Holt costs them more money than they charge. Not a real money-maker. Profit simply is not their primary motive as an organization. BTW, my child is currently in foster care! I am so happy about that. It means that someone somewhere is donating $25/month to pay the expenses for that (usually much better) situation. When we have her back in the States, we can and will request the name of that person and will write a letter of appreciation.
• That's all lovely. I have a question tho. It seems to me that the trend is for white people to adopt asian children...is this coincidental or are there actual statistics behind it? do they look cuter than the rest of the other children of the world? (cos there's plenty of children to be adopted) is it "bad taste" to adopt any other race? are there not enough children in America?
• There are a couple responses, Warrior. First, the domestic/international question is really quite large. Many of us feel that domestic adoption is messed up so badly in so many ways that it isn't a route we want to pursue. Once you choose to go international, your choices are limited in various ways. You don't want to support the often corrupt local-lawyer facilitated adoptions in Central/South America? Too close to baby-buying? Then it is difficult to go with those countries. That is a broad brush, but there have been a lot of problems with those countries, which is why many agencies simply will not work with them at this time. I think you can work with them if you strongly desire it, but the effort is significant, and as you point out there are children all over which need to be adopted. Most African countries do not have programs set up yet. Holt is working in Somalia to set up a program, but it is years away from being open. Haiti is working on rebuilding all the orphanages after the storms, and its program is therefore also delayed. We originally planned to go with Haiti, but didn't want to wait forever for the potential opening of the doors for that program. After cutting out the potentially corrupt programs, and the ones not ready yet, you have: Eastern Europe Vietnam (was closed for a while, may be reopened now) Ecuador (just reopened after reorganization) China Mongolia (very very small program. 60/year or so) India Korea Thailand Philippines Most of those are asian countries, and you may not notice the adopted kids which are Russian/Ukranian anyway (since they are white), so the demographics *look* heavily tilted to asia. We are far more interested in Chinese culture than Eastern European culture, and Ecuador wasn't opened when we were picking the country so the choice was easy for us. You have to pick the country at the start of the process. The work done for the "paperchase" (which is huge) is not very portable country-to-country. There are about 8000 Chinese children adopted out of country every year. That's for the whole world, I think the U.S. makes up the majority of those adoptions. Those are the only stats I know off the top of my head.
• One issue I could foresee with adoption is that it's often a choice made - especially domestic adoption - because of pressures from parents/other people to have kids. Family friends of mine adopted a daughter after following her mother through the pregnancy. Turned out they wanted a baby, not a child, and CERTAINLY not (as she is today) an adolescent. The girl is vibrant and beautiful, but they stopped liking her or paying much attention to her at age 2. And yep, that happens with "real" parents too. But I think it's led to more psychological trauma for their daughter because her parents have said to my family (in FRONT of the daughter!) that "oh, we really weren't meant to have kids, that's all" whenever she does anything remotely not-good and they can't handle it. So she feels (as some other adopted kids I know feel) like her parents would have been much happier with her if she'd been their biochild. Still, almost any home (barring the blatantly abusive, which hers is not outside the snarky comments) is better than no home. I just wonder if in some cases we wouldn't be better off ditching the foster system and giving a LOT of funding toward making a good, loving, caring orphanage type system. The stories of sexual & physical abuse in foster homes, psych issues, untrained foster parent issues make me think that kids would be better off with loving, trained professionals than people who try to make a quick buck fostering kids on the side. In short: adoption yay. Foster homes boooooo (and of course, that's overbroad, I know there are plenty of good foster parents. But the bad ones are so horrific as to cancel out the good ones and then some).
• musingmelpomene - But good foster homes can really help kids, where as even the best orphanages will permanently damage young children. Being institutionalised at an early age has detrimental effects on development - young children need a caregiver who can touch and cuddle them, and close supervision. When they don't get it, they don't develop properly. Good foster parents do this - they can help a child recover from neglect or abuse. (I have seen this happen). Even mediocre foster parents are better than an institution - and there have been plenty of severely abusive institutions as well. (They dominated the news a few years ago in Canada - residential schools and orphanages with sex and abuse scandals.)
• We had a post from way back about institutionalisation - they've done experiments on young monkeys, and without mothers they just sit and rock themselves - children in instutional settings at a very young age do that.
• Yes, but we shouldn't be so desperate for foster care that we put kids in questionable situations. Sure, they may be damaged from institutionalization. But I guarantee you a kid is more scarred from abuse and being unloved.
• Warrior- I can't answer for anyone else but we chose China because: 1) they have huge numbers of orphans, a tiny fraction of which become adopted. I saw/heard a statistic that 2 million baby girls per year are abandoned/killed at birth. I'm not sure how reliable the number is but it's shockingly large. 2) We were interested in a baby of any color but we were told by our agency that in the US, adopting a brown/black child can lead to problems for the child in school/society and is generally a tougher challenge overall. 3)My uncle married a Chinese wife so we are already a multicultural family with ties to China 4) after doing research similar to invoke's we came to the following conclusions: Eastern European adoptions are rife with corruption and kids damaged by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a condition that sometimes does not become apparent until 5 or 6, we were too old to adopt from Korea and India, we had similar concerns as invoke over South American adoptions and China has the best reputation for quality of orphanages, low corruption and healthy children. I suppose if we were real saints we could have adopted a special needs child but the adoption process is challenging enough and especially for folks like us who are at the upper limit on age. And oh yeah you're right, the Chinese kids are cute as hell!
• I'm not one to cry offense very often, but that anti-adoption site did it for me. As a well-adjusted adoptee, that is the most offensive thing I can think of. My birth-person is not my mother. My mother fed me and taught me to read and took me to dozens of doctors demanding every test in the book until one smart doctor finally realized that I was deaf. I know I'm a little defensive of my mother, but to say that my family is a lie is truly hideous. My family is my family. There are no asterisks, no exceptions in my mind. And my mother (my father too, but he died many years ago) taught me to think of my birth-person as the closest thing to a saint not cannonized by the Pope. Because here was a woman willing to carry me to term (when she obviously had no desire for a child) and give me (with full knowledge that it meant forever)to a family that desperately wanted a child to love. And yes, I know that my original birth certificate was destroyed. I know that if I ever want a full medical history for myself it will be an uphill, and most likely fruitless, battle. That really matters very little to me when I was so well-loved and cared for. And still am, to this day. Sorry for the derail, seeing as how my adoption was domestic, but that just really irked me.
• I have thought about becoming a foster parent in that distant "someday" when I get a good job, a stable partner and can support a child. The person I'm with now doesn't want to have a biological child due to genetic issues, and I can handle that. It seems like foster parenting would be one good way to go, because I always hear that older children are less likely to get adopted than babies. I've also thought about adoption. I don't know that I want to ever be pregnant, but I do think I'd like to raise a kid or two. Many props to those of you who have adopted.
• I've thought about fostering when our kids are older, but I don't know if I would have the patience to cope with the issues some foster children bring with them. My sister, who is my best friend, is fostered (she's 7 weeks older than me; it's always fun to tell people that when they think we're actually blood relatives) and she had a really tough time as a kid. But she turned out pretty damn good.
• Invoke... OK, so south american countries have programs in which basically you buy the child and give money to lawyers along the way. Which is, by people's standards, wrong. And other countries don't have programs in place... Am I to think that Asian Children are for free? You say "we're far more interested in Chinese culture"...isn't culture something learned? what I'm saying is...the baby obviously doesn't come with a built in "culture package" and if it was done right, should have NO ties to Asia...which makes him/her as cultured in Asia as, ermmm, me... I praise you for your amazing good heart in adopting a child. But your answer still doesn't answer much. And Kamus...I don't think a chinese kid with white parents will have any easier time than a black one. Again, it's great heart work what you've done, but you just don't know why you did it... Objectification is wrong... and pikachu is "cute as hell" too.
• (elsbet, did you read the story i wrote? that's a tad more balanced and goes into more detail than the anti-adoption site. and as with any groups, there are "militant" and "moderate" viewpoints -- militant being, no adoption ever; the more common moderate being, current domestic adoption policies deserve a thorough review)
• Warrior, the process of adopting from China is certainly not free, but we have some confidence as to where the money is going. We approve of that use, as I've explained in previous posts. The money paid to lawyers in Guatemala often goes to maintain the awful system of exploitation. Not morally equivalent at all. The culture question is simpler. I simply disagree that "if it was done right" should mean that the child retains no ties to Asia. It is usually considered - these days - to be important to expose/educate international adoptees to their birth culture. That is a significant change from the way adoption was handled in the 70s and 80s. I've read and thought a lot on the subject, and I agree with the rationale. So, the culture thing is more a comfort level for us. It is easier to perform your responsibilities to the child when you respect and enjoy his or her birth culture. I'll stay away from the "easier for the child" argument. I don't think we have enough data on that. You say that my responses do not "answer much". Perhaps I am missing the real thrust of your question?
• Yes, SideDish, I did read it. And I'm sorry I only reacted to the anti-adoption site. Your story was, in my experience, a much more accurate (and well written!) description, but I had a viceral reaction to the more radical element. I'm not particularly enamoured of groups that guilt-trip young pregnant women into giving birth and then pressures them into giving up their child in a closed adoption, but I have also seen first hand the damage an unstable birth-mother can do to a child when they suddenly return out of guilt and regret. I love the idea of open adoption and I would like to see it implemented whenever the birth-parents desire to be involved in the childs life. I also think the only correct path is to tell the child as early as possible that they are adopted and then give them reassurance that they are loved and wanted. Trying to trick a child into believing that they are the biological child of the adoptive parents almost always results in the negative aspects listed by the anti-adoption types, because it always backfires. Children are smart. And then you end up with a very confused young person who might believe that it changes something about who they are. It just makes me so angry to hear adoptive parents called "fake" parents. Family of choice is a very serious concept with me. The people who love you are your family, and you are not in any way obligated to the people you share blood with if they are horrible people. Again, I am totally off the thread's topic, and I'm really sorry.
• Elsbet: per me, you're as on topic as ever.
• I think I see a little confusion in this discussion. Parents who adopt are (or were in the past) foster parents. The term has been extended, in recent years, to include people who take in children without adopting them, generally with the idea that they will get compensation from the state for caring for the kids. Many of the latter take in several children (I've seen 6 at a time, with 15 over a number of years in local reports) and I think most of them do it with love. But I've also aware of some horror stories in reference to the non-adoptive care givers.
• Elsbet - seconding Richer, you're right on topic (it was even brought up in the original post), and it is very good to hear from someone who has experience with the issue, thank you. Please do go on, if you wish to.
• first off, congrats and mad props to everyone who has or will be adopting. in regards to the "should you teach your adopted child about her/his ethnic background", i say go for it. i'm adopted as well and I have very little knowledge of my birth parents. i didn't find out until i was older that they were armenian (that's what my mom said the agency told her anyway). i wish i had known when i was younger. whenever we would have a social studies project in school on our ethnic background i just didn't feel a connection with anything from my parents' families (german, belgian and irish). don't get me wrong, i love my family dearly and they are the only people i consider my parents. but i'm so obviously not one of the aforementioned ethnicities (i've been told that i look italian, greek, hispanic, or any other swarthy ethnicity.) and it's not so much that i feel the need to know about my birth parents, but rather know about my bloodlines and the cultures relating to it. i was raised in a very american family as well. we didn't have any traditions that were carried over from the old country (unless you consider jersey city the old country). so maybe that had something to do with my lack of identification with a non-american culture.
• (i really hope some of that made sense)
• Warrior, according to our agency asian kids with white parents do a lot better than black kids with white families. I'm not quite sure why that it is, but our caseworker at the agency was adamant. I'm sure it's at least partly due to terrible racial divide between blacks and whites in this country- a situation that is not quite paralled in white-asian relations. We've also talked to families with older aged adoptee girls from China and they seem to have adjusted quite well with little or no problems in school. As far the cost to adopt from China, when you strip away administrative costs, travel, agency and government fees and so on, it boils down to a $3000 "donation" to the orphanage. I'm not sure what would happen if you declined the donation or offered them less but really, why would you want to? Our agency (which is one of the best in the US) assures us that this money is well invested back into the kids themselves. The Chinese government is remarkably corruption free when it comes to the adoption process and it does not feel at all like "buying babies" when you deal with them. They seem to care very much as to how the children are to be raised with particular emphasis on preserving the child's cultural heritage. The other costs do add up though and when it was all done it cost about $21,000 to adopt our first baby. Every penny was accounted for and reasonable IMO. The money spent is utterly trivial compared to the joy and love we have in our family now.
• Yeah, our costs are working out at about the same. *is getting a bit excited*
• Wolof and invoke-when do you guys go? Warrior:it's great heart work what you've done, but you just don't know why you did it... Objectification is wrong... and pikachu is "cute as hell" too. I told you several reasons why we did it. You want an overriding reason? Because it was the right thing to do Also, I don't know what you mean by objectification and the Pikachu remark I'll try not to interpret as nasty. BTW, we take the cultural part of it very seriously. She is surrounded by Chinese books and art, my wife's students are primarily Chinese so she interacts with Chinese kids nearly every day. We have a babysitter who speaks Mandarin exclusively to her and when she is old enough she'll attend the local Chinese school which has an excellent weekend program. She knows she's from China and she knows she's adopted and she's one of the happiest kids I know. And we're among the happiest parents I know. I'm sort of picking up a negative vibe from you concerning this subject. Do you have a particular beef with adoption that you'd like to air? Or am I being over-sensitive?
• Only "a bit" excited? Typical men.
• I'm heading out Dec 8 or 9th, depends on what the travel agent finds for me. Back on the 24th.
• I'm off on the 4th.
• "a bit" excited I'll reserve the screaming heebies for next Friday night. Saturday morning we'll be down at the airport before 7AM. Little look around Homkers, then transfer to Guangzhou in the morning. Go to hotel. Knock Knock! You want babee? Er, yes, kthx.
• Homkers?
• Ok, since I've been invited to share :) Yes, as an adopted child I did go through a phase where I thought I was Little Orphan Annie and my wealthy and indulgent "real" parents were going to come and rescue me. But I quickly realized exactly how good I had it. My sister got stuck in this phase much, much longer, even threatening my mother with running away to find her real mom. Although, in her defense, things were difficult at the time. My father had been dying of brain cancer for a year and my mom was about to snap. But boy, oh, boy was it a wake-up call when her bio-mom did show up. Let's just say that this was not the woman my sister had imagined. As far as my outlook on the whole thing, I never saw myself as less loveable or wanted. After all, there were two people that went through a hell of a lot of trouble to get the privilege of taking care of me. I suppose normal is you and weird is everyone else, because I always thought blood related families were strange. I never could understand when school friends asked me if it was weird living with someone I wasn't releated to.
• I have an adoptive father; my bio Dad kept in contact with me until I was three, at which time I lived with my grandparents and my mother was overseas "finding herself". When my mother returned she almost immediately married someone else, who adopted me. Who'd have thought the man my mother married, my new dad, was an abusive alcoholic? Not her. But it all worked out in the end when she finally left him eight years later. I went looking for my real dad when I was fifteen because I had never acknowledged my adoptive father as mine. All my friends knew he was "only" my adopted dad. I was fatherless as far as I was concerned and I had all these ideas that I'd have a huge, loving extended family waiting for me if I just looked hard enough. I didn't find him, although I'd done a good job of tracking him down through vague clues my mother had given me. I had the right street for my grandmother, and I think I even knocked on her door but no one answered. My father finally came looking for me when I was eighteen. He's a good guy and I completely understand why he gave me over for adoption. Of course, he'll never be a real Dad to me, but I gained two sisters and a brother to add to my long list of siblings. And he's a good friend. So I guess the moral of the story is that family is what you make it. Who says you can't choose your relatives? I get to pick from a multiple-choice list!
• Are you sure there's not another beer there somewhere?
• wow, tracicle, interesting life story! one important lesson i learned researching the adoption story is, everyone reacts differently: each "biological" parent, adoptive parent, adoptive child experiences adoption in their own way. i had a boyfriend in college who was adopted and was utterly freaked out about it. he'd known since he was young but never came to grips with it. (grew up in a lovely family in suburban chicago.) when i unknowingly mentioned that he had his dad's nose, he finally told me, then added: "ask me anything you want about this now, because after this WE WILL NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN." so, as with anything else in life, there are pros and cons and each person reacts differently.
• Not to mention how many angsty teenagers wish they were adopted and that their real parents would be "so much cooler". :)
• And some of us, though not adopted might as well have been. Biological parents aren't always the best thing to happen to a person you know! My philosophy is that every idiot can birth a child, but it takes a special person to be a parent...and your parent isn't necessarily biologically related to you. Having said that, as much as i applaud those that wish to adopt, (its an option i'm considering myself in the future) i somehow can't seem to get over my hangup of $$$ exchanging hands. No matter how its justified, to me it seems like a purchase is being made. I guess that's my biggest beef with international (chinese in particular) adoptions. In parts of Africa, mission-run orphanages are overwhelmed with children and are desperatly looking for adoptive parents to take care of the children for free! Any donation is done at your discretion and no amount is ever considered too small. Sorry if i seem judgemental, it's not my intention...i just have issues with the thought of huge sums of money exchanging hands for a baby.
• ramix, reread my comment about cost.The majority of the costs involved are divided over many recipients.There are no huge sumsinvolved. Just a lot of smaller ones. It just costs that much added together, I don't imagine that it really would be all that much cheaper to go to Africa and do all the necessary legal work, travel expenses and background checking necessary for any intl. adoption. Like you, we were uncomfortable about the "baby buying" aspect of adoption until we actually did it ourselves. There are people in business to make money off this process, but in our case, between the wonderful non-profit agency we went through, the sincerity of the Chinese officials and the obvious care they displayed with respect to the orphans, I saw no evidence at all of exploitation or profiteering and we were happy to give the orphanage the requested $3000 donation. Orphans in China need parents as much as orphans in Africa or anywhere else. Such comparisons are not really useful.
• Ramix: A huge amount of money changed hands with the births of all four of my kids. I know, because we didn't have insurance with the third one, and it was touch and go whether we would be able to "buy" his way out of the hospital to bring him home. Doesn't matter which way you go, getting a kid is expensive, painful, and will probably messy before you finally get him/her home.
• Chinese babies are the new beige.
• It's the running ticker on BBC News (so it must be important): Madonna baby flies out of Malawi.