Quoted: Rebecca Walker on Capitalism and Transracial Adoption

It is beautiful that people can open their lives to human beings of any background, but I think that all of us – every human being – runs the risk of being commodified in a hypercapitalist culture. For example, I feel that as a biracial person I have more social currency now that we have a biracial president. So when we think about which bodies have currency, it’s an interesting question.

One of the writers [whose piece] didn’t make it into One Big Happy Family wrote about how the process of adopting a child from another country made her more aware of human trafficking. Ultimately, she had to question whether her child had been put up for adoption or was stolen. If we look at plunging fertility in developed nations and raging underdevelopment and poverty in others, we can see how children can become the ultimate product.

Many people don’t realize that there are more human beings in slavery today than ever before. The discussion of transracial adoptees should be part of a growing awareness about the modern slave trade, but I think the glamourization of them in popular culture often does not lend itself to a deeper dialogue.

— “All In the Family: A Q + A with author Rebecca Walker”, Bitch Magazine, Fall of 2009, interview by our own Nadra Kareem

Note: Racialicious often critiques transracial adoption practices. However, we prefer to not demonize the participants, and to respect the narratives of those most directly affected. Please keep this in mind when commenting.

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Comments

atlasien wrote:

I’m a transracial (foster care) adoptive parent.

I agree 100% that human trafficking and adoption should not be compartmentalized. There’s a growing awareness of adoption corruption (I touched on a couple stories here) and in most adoptive parent communities, the degree of denialism about adoption corruption is just staggering. It’s a major reason I participate in adoptive parent communities VERY rarely. There are some adoptive parents that are willing to address the issue, but the majority are still blind to it, and the international adoption agencies still control the narrative.

However, I would like to add one warning note… just warning against generalizations that often pop up during these debates.

- don’t assume that all transracial adoptive parents are white.

- don’t assume that all international adoptive parents are white.

- don’t assume that all international adoptions are also transracial adoptions.

- don’t assume that all intraracial adoptions might not also be transcultural adoptions.

That’s all.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 11:51 am ¶
Invasian wrote:

Excellent points atlasien.
I have noticed that non-adopted or non-adoptive POC’s tend to come at the subject very critically, and often ignorantly. I guess being a POC automatically means you are enlightened to this topic.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 12:13 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

Agreed… though white people are usually way too uncritical and way too credulous about the savior narrative the agencies push.

For example, I’ve heard some white international adoptive parents expressing amazement that people actually adopt domestically in China. Their agencies just told them “Chinese don’t adopt girls”, and they believed that.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 12:37 pm ¶
mk wrote:

Great points Atlasian – thank you (& thanks for the quote Racialicious!).

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 1:22 pm ¶
Thea wrote:

Wanted to comment on the convo and not necessarily the post itself.

Coming from a non-adoptive transracial family, I’ve realised that I often project a lot of my own issues with the stickiness of transraciality onto transracial adoptees. In other words, for a long time I felt really angry whenever I heard about white folks adopting non-white babies.

It took me a long time to recognise that it makes sense to be angry about a global system where some countries have so much less money than others, and to be angry that this disparity is often racialised, and to be angry that this disparity produces something of a baby trade in the way that Walker discusses…but it doesn’t make sense to look at adoptive families themselves and feel angry.

That may all sound kind of obvious but it was a bit of a journey for me to get here. It makes me think a lot more critically about the anger I feel around racism in general. For a long time (like many others) I repressed that anger, so that when it finally came out it went all over the place, often landing places where it shouldn’t have.

Glad that we have a space here that helps us figure out which of our anger belongs to the world (and in the world), and which of our anger is really just about us.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 1:32 pm ¶
Willow wrote:

To atlasien’s first post, I would tag on one more warning against a common assumption:

–Don’t assume all transracial adoptions are international adoptions.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 1:35 pm ¶
JC wrote:

That poor little girl in the photo – she may have escaped whatever fate held for her before the adoption, but now she will grow up realizing she will never have the white privilege her parents have. Hopefully her parents won’t force her to live in their own Asian stereotypes, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Chances are she will grow up secretly or openly hating herself. Hope she survives all that and not let race dominate her life. Odds are against her though. Sigh. I hope she will discover Asian pop culture on her own and realize that Asians are beautiful and cool without the tiniest need of being defined by whites. I hope you become a Big Bang or Jay Chou fan when you grow up, little adopted Chinese girl.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 1:52 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

I totally understand the anger and think it’s good to talk about it.

I mean, a lot of it comes from the fact that the voices of people of color are totally marginalized and ignored by the mainstream when it comes to adoption, whether we’re adopted or not.

For example, an “expert” like Elizabeth Bartholet can basically make an entire career for herself by arguing that white people make better parents to children of color than parents of color.

When you feel you have something helpful and useful to say based on your own experiences, but your opinion is totally ignored, that leads to some pretty understandable anger. I try to channel that anger into reminding other adoptive parents that the people who should be heard more on transracial adoption are a) the adoptees themselves (top priority!) b) non-adopted people who’ve had a lot of similar experiences with complicated racial identity c) families negatively affected by adoption practices d) adoptive parents of color, whose cultures may have different but overlapping concepts and practices of adoption.

Instead, the voices of authority are more like: a) adoption agency promotion materials b) white adoptive parent advocates and “experts” c) evangelical Christian adoption ministries.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 2:20 pm ¶
Ange wrote:

This situation is complicated for me because I live in one of the whitest states in the union and seeing transracial adoptions pretty commonly. Moreover, I am often asked by white adoptive parents (who are strangers to me) to be a part of lives of children I do not know because I am brown. There are often assumptions made about my own status (not adopted) because I am a brown, educated person in my state. In addition there is a continuation of the “there no decent middle class brown homes for these children” narration which totally invisiblizes my upbringing which was decidedly Huxtable and my parents tried for nearly a decade (with NO success) to adopt brown children from this country.

I’m not there in terms of keeping my angry feelings to myself, but I can always be respectful when discussing the issue.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 2:44 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

altasien and I sparred a bit on this a while back, but I feel that you have to add that the whole adoption system is sort of messed up to begin with in a lot of ways.

I mean, people wouldn’t do transnational adoptions at all if it were that much harder than adopting in-country. That is, if adopting a kid from China (or whatever country) is easier than doing it in the US, people are going to do that. You needn’t be an economist to see that.

And “easier” can mean either lower costs — which is sometimes the case — or more often, less waiting time and what many feel is a little bit of craziness from social service agencies. I understand why the hoops the social workers ask for are there. but that doesn’t make it any easier or more palatable.

And I don’t know myself if I desperately wanted a child and wasn’t willing to wait years, as sometimes happens.

To me, a lot of the adoption industry is playing on the fears and needs of people who really, really want children (I mean lets face it, you wouldn’t go through all the trouble of adopting if you didn’t want kids pretty badly).

And to intra-national adoptions– anyone who knows a bit of the history of Argentina can tell you why that can be awfully problematic as well. If more people had been adopting internationally at the time I shudder to think what would have happened.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 3:48 pm ¶
bfm wrote:

Hopefully there is some middle ground to be found between blindly accepting the (white) savior narrative and vilifying adoptive parents. Some agencies are no doubt corrupt and should be closed. The others should be held to the highest possible standards of transparency and accountability.

More broadly, global inequality should be fought like the demon it is. However, on the micro level individual children still need homes. I don’t think we can ignore that and then claim the moral high ground.

We may not be the ideal culture or color for a child born in another country, but our family has a hole in it, and my partner and I have chosen to fill it through adoption.

Is that selfish? Yes.

Would it be better if this child’s biological parents had the means/health/social status to avoid the excruciating choice that was made? Yes.

Will we reject this child because our motives are not entirely altruistic, the ethics are debatable, the agency is imperfect, and the path ahead will be difficult for everyone? No.

We leave for Ethiopia in 5 days.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 3:56 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

@Jess: what you said would be a lot more accurate if you’d substituted “healthy infant” for kid.

It’s not easy to adopt in the U.S., but it’s not harder than it is to adopt in a foreign country. And you can do it for free. I did it, I know a lot of other people who did as well.

And you can’t talk about supply and demand without talking about marketing. The international adoption agencies have really, really really great marketing. And that’s the main reason why international adoption has become the “default” among white upper-middle-class potential parents.

Also, you don’t have to cite Argentina to evoke fears of right wing death squads harvesting babies by killing their-parents… because it already happened in Guatemala.

(CNN) — The Guatemalan army stole at least 333 children and sold them for adoption in other countries during the Central American nation’s 36-year civil war, a government report has concluded.

Many of those children ended up in the United States, as well as Sweden, Italy and France, said the report’s author and lead investigator, Marco Tulio Alvarez.

In some cases, the report said, parents were killed so the children could be taken and given to government-operated agencies to be adopted abroad.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 4:46 pm ¶
Joy wrote:

I’m not sure if this is necessarily the case, but I always thought many parents adopted internationally because it was easier to get a “baby” and that most of the children available for adoption in the US are out of that baby age range.

I’m familiar with a few adoptions in the US and this was the case; also they were foster care parents who eventually adopted. Not claiming to be an expert, but that’s what I’ve noticed.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 6:22 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

To add yet ANOTHER layer to this is, as far as I understand it, the plight that many same-sex couples encounter when attempting to adopt. As Jess pointed out, for many reasons, adopting in America is fraught with difficulties. This is exacerbated for my same-sex couples, since a lot of agencies will simply refuse to work with them. As a result, many go overseas, where the process is simpler and more open (or simply less caring) about their family structure.

I am not attempting to steer this conversation away from race and towards sexual orientation, but it does demonstrate that there is not a monolithic reason for why Americans adopt transracially or transnationally. Many (most?) are probably guilty of the savior narrative, but some of these parents (even white ones) are themselves a marginalized group.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 7:45 pm ¶
em wrote:

ever since i was in high school and tutored middle school kids after school, i became interested in being a foster parent and / or adopting via older kids via that route. then i taught middle school in nyc for awhile, and became truly sickened with child protective services. there was the occasional stellar case worker and amazing foster family, but other than that, there was a lot of pain. kids who absolutely should have been removed from their homes weren’t – and if they were, it was to an even worse foster care situation. my observations there have further strengthened my conviction that if i adopt, it’ll be through the foster care route. there are a lot of kids who need good homes, and not a lot of families able / willing to provide the care. i’ve worked with kids who were white, black, and hispanic in need of stable foster care. though i’m white, i don’t have a racial, gender, or sexual orientation preference for adopting a child. especially with older kids, i think it would be much more about the child’s comfort level and mine, whether i was able to meet his/her needs, and love / trust. you know, the family stuff. i’m not sure where my familial plans fit into the transracial/cultural adoption discussion. but i always read these pieces and the comment threads with a lot of interest. then i do a lot of my own thinking.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 9:00 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

@BSK: “As a result, many go overseas, where the process is simpler and more open (or simply less caring) about their family structure.”

That’s a myth. There’s no major “sending” country in the world that has the slightest degree of tolerance for gay or lesbian adoption. See this HRC resource page for backup. The only way gay or lesbian couples ever adopted internationally is that one member of the couple would pretend to be heterosexual and single and the other member would pretend like they didn’t even exist. Then they had to carry the lie out convincingly. Some countries caught on to this, and banned single adoption entirely in order to make sure any gays or lesbians wouldn’t slip through.

Domestic adoption is much more welcoming of gay and lesbian couples than international adoption. In my foster care training course, 1/3 of the couples were gay and lesbian, and they were openly welcomed and there was a special support group for “non-traditional families”. And this is Georgia, which isn’t that progressive. Aside from the Florida and Arkansas (boo!), single gay adoption by one partner is legal in every state and joint adoption by both partners is legal in some.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 9:33 pm ¶
jen wrote:

@JC: Since I just read the issue of People discussing the adoption in the image. The child is Korean and the mother (Katherine Heigl) wanted to adopt a Korean child because her sister was adopted from Korea. Just a little background info.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 9:42 pm ¶
Invasian wrote:

Ya know, some mothers giving their child up for adoption have requested that they end up in the States, since they feel they will get the best opportunities there.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 10:57 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

atlasien-

Thanks for the info. I was clearly mistaken and basing my comments on what was apparently more anecdotal information.

My sense was, that while the law may say one thing, most domestic adoption agencies preferred to work with hetero married couples. This worked against both same-sex couples and single individuals alike, eliminating the option you described that might have previously been available overseas (gay couple posing as single hetero and non-existent other). This misconception may have also been predicated on a notion that overseas agencies were inherently more shady. Or, that there were more options for “shady” agencies overseas. And that these agencies were more interesting in exporting kids for money than actually promoting any agenda vis a vis “ideal” family structures.

If my misconception is indeed entirely that (as in, wrong), then I’d be curious to hear what your thoughts are on how this came to be, as I know I’m not the only person who believes this.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 11:03 pm ¶
TN wrote:

I have also read that the child adopted by Katherine Heigl and her partner is apparently “special needs”. If this is true, then it is not just an issue of transracial/cultural adoption but also about children with disabilities awaiting adoption.

Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 11:49 pm ¶
Sarah wrote:

TN, Nancy Leigh was born with a hole in her heart that required surgery (I believe) and possibly more medical care than the average child. In this case I’m glad that she went to a family that has the monetary resources to deal with possible future medical issues, even if some aspects of transnational and transcultural adoptions are less than savory (not that a Korean family wouldn’t have been able to care for her medical needs just as well…just expressing that it seems like a good fit overall).

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:45 am ¶
shermari wrote:

Is it true across the board that adoption in the US is harder than overseas? I only have one close couple that adopted and they were matched with a baby in a matter of weeks after applying. This is a Black couple and the baby was Black. I also met a White couple who adopted a Black baby. They said that they were matched with their baby THREE WEEKS after they applied.

I’m wondering if the difficulty only exists when one wants a healthy White baby.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:46 am ¶
m. wrote:

I have noticed that the dominant narrative in conversations about transracial adoption is a non-Native one, and it always seems to pertain to white people adopting Asian/American, Black or African children, so I felt the need to comment no matter how useless or ignored it may be.

My opinion when it comes to outsiders adopting Native children is an extremely unpopular one, in that it is 100% wrong in my eyes. To me, at this point, it does not matter if the adoptive “parents” are white or not, as it is an incredibly messed up power dynamic to begin with given the history of forced assimilation of Native people in this country. This is one case of transracial (could also be considered ‘transnational’) adoption where I really do think that people should feel free and be allowed to critique (and therefore “demonize”, I guess) without abandon or apology, because outsiders “opening their lives” to Indigenous children is anything BUT “beautiful”: it’s cultural genocide. There’s a reason why the ICWA exists. (Yet, unfortunately and to no surprise, people are still getting away with it…)
One can take a look at Australia, and see that this same tactic (abduction and adoption) was used to assimilate Aboriginal children – usually mixed ones. The settlers there believed that they could offer them a “better life” by taking and breaking them, because residential schools were obviously not enough. In Hawai’i, children were adopted into people’s homes through a process called ‘hanai’ (which means “to feed”). Now, with occupation comes legal adoptions, which favors everyone but Indigenous peoples and enables these “parents” to completely uproot children from their communities, stripping them of their familial ties/culture, and therefore identity.

Some of us “ignorant” POCs’ anger is 100% justifiable. Then again, I don’t think everyone really pays enough attention to ALL people of color in the first place to see that a transracial adoption can, indeed, be 100% UNjustifiable.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 3:01 am ¶
Whitney wrote:

@JC #7

My parents’ (white) friends adopted a baby girl from China, and she was found in a dumpster, with a note pinned to her from her mother saying that she could no longer be cared for. They’re going to do all they can to teach her about her culture, but incidentally, they don’t know her actual ethnicity and the orphanage didn’t either, so they can only assume that she’s Chinese. If she hadn’t been adopted, she very well may have died, considering she was malnourished and unloved. She’s still underweight and working on getting her to gain some weight.

Now that she’s three, she’s honestly one of the smartest kids I’ve ever met as well as one of the most loving. There’s only so much her parents can do regarding her culture, and I honestly think that beats living in an orphanage or being dead. It will be difficult for her growing up and being different than her parents, and no, she won’t grow up with her parents’ white privilege, but she will grow up with the privilege of having a home and a family.

I also have to note that what you described in your comment also can apply to adopted children in general, and not necessarily is limited to transracial or international adoption.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 3:06 am ¶
Jess wrote:

Perhaps the difference is whether you want to adopt, as altasien pointed out, a healthy infant.

Altasien, you are going through the foster care system. I submit that is a somewhat different animal.

I mean, you say “well, it was easy for me” and yet I know a few adoptive couples who tried for years to adopt a baby and finally went overseas because they gave up trying to do it here in the US. After spending a rather large amount of time and money.

So perhaps the issue is that if you want an infant the equation changes drastically, no?

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 6:55 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

@Jess: “So perhaps the issue is that if you want an infant the equation changes drastically, no?”

No. It’s not just “an infant”. It’s a healthy white infant (so well-known it even has its own sarcastic abbreviation, HWI). Or barring that, a near-healthy near-infant with no strings attached… no need for messy contact with biological family. If you go to adoptive parent forums where they’re speaking honestly, a huge reason that people choose international is the “no strings attached” part. This is not true for every international adoptive family, but it’s true for a large portion.

It is quite possible (also free) to adopt infants through fostering. Foster parents need to be prepared to work towards biological reunification instead of adoption, and if that fails, then they can adopt.

@M: I totally agree with ICWA and agree that some people love to complain about ICWA… I’ve heard it, and it’s very ugly. However, I know ICWA does have some leeway and based on cases I know, I don’t think that leeway is always unjustified. Sometimes, but not always. For example, perhaps the two parents in a family are not Native, but they have Native blood relatives and close ties to a Native community. Or a parent does have Native ancestry but finds it hard to prove… for example, if they were adopted.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 8:51 am ¶
Zahra wrote:

@BSK

I would add that if a same-sex couple marries within the US, they eliminate their chances of an overseas adoption. This is one reason (there are other, more compelling ones) why the widespread elimination of domestic partnership rights by employers after Massachusetts legalized marriage equality was problematic. I know a young couple who wanted to adopt a child from Columbia (one partner & her brother had been adopted from the same orphanage), but getting married scotched it. I think most same-sex couples who adopt do so domestically, but I don’t have the stats (and they don’t get the media coverage).

In MA now, if one member of a married female couple gives birth, “paternity is assumed” and her partner’s name also appears on the birth certificate. But that partner has no legal parental rights unless she completes a second-parent adoption (most commonly used for step-parents), which costs $20,000. Obviously this comes on top of sperm and other medical costs.

That said, I still have the impression (not 100% sure) that it is cheaper for a female couple to get pregnant and adopt their own child than it is to adopt a different child. (I could be wrong.) There is a lot that is wrong with this setup. But I worry a bit about castigating same-sex couples for having biological children when different-sex parents get a pass for making the same decision.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 11:13 am ¶
Jae Ran wrote:

I’m an adult transracial and transnational adoptee, and also a social worker who has in the past worked in the field of adoptions on behalf of both adoptive parents and children in the U.S. foster care system. I am currently enrolled in a doctoral program and working on research on a variety of child welfare and adoption topics.

Adoption is very complex. Anyone can tell you a story of how a transracial/transnational/domestic adoption was easy or hard or bad or great or discriminatory or non-discriminatory, highly regulated or not regulated at all. All of the above would be true in some cases.

There are the “best interests” of the individual child to consider, the needs and desires of a prospective parent who wants to adopt for whatever reasons, and then there are the circumstances that cause the need for the adoption in the first place.

I really, really dislike hearing the argument that Whitney above made, “There’s only so much her parents can do regarding her culture, and I honestly think that beats living in an orphanage or being dead.”

The problem with that statement, as much as it might be true, is that it completely individualizes the systematic and institutional and political problems that can and do occur with transracial and transnational adoptions. One little girl being “saved” from the dumpster does not make it okay that hundreds of others were illegally kidnapped or coerced from their parents.

The problems surrounding the commodification of adoptions and the “healthy white infant” shortage that leads prospective adoptive parents to adopt transracially or head to other countries are nothing new. Marketing children for adoption are as old as the Orphan Train movement from the 1870’s to 1920’s. You can do an internet search and find posters for those children. Removing poor immigrant children and placing them with “Americans” during the orphan train movement was just the beginning. As m stated, the removal of Native children to colonize them has also been going on in this country and in others since the 1800s.

We just can’t justify transracial and transnational adoptions just because a few children ended up with a “better” life. I mean, who is to say that the child found in the dumpster couldn’t have been adopted by a Chinese family? Why couldn’t Katherine Heigl’s daughter be adopted by a Korean family? There are Chinese families and Korean families who also want to adopt. The solution does not always have to be that they get sent to white families in western countries. We need to look at why transnational adoption ends up being the go-to solution.

In the case of Korea, did you know that adoption agencies make more money in “fees” if the child is adopted internationally than if the child is adopted domestically?

these are the things we need to have our eyes opened to.

I do not believe that transracial and transnational adoptions are inherently wrong, but I do think we need to think about it in broader rather than simplistic terms.

On a last note (sorry for the length of this comment), I would suggest people who are interested to read works by Dorothy Roberts (Shattered Bonds), Rickie Solinger, Laura Briggs, Sara Dorow and Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption (self-plug) where several adult transracially and transnationally adoptees critique the traditional adoption narratives.

http://www.southendpress.org/2005/items/87646

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 11:28 am ¶
Michelle @ Bridge Co wrote:

The ease or difficulty to adopt in the United States versus international depends on the type of adoption one is pursuing, the amount of money one wishes to spend, the race of the child (more on this in a minute), the professionals employed, the diligence the adopter pursues, the ” choosiabilty” of the adopter, and luck. Not necessarily in that order. (There are some other factors too.)

In short, it is usually easier to adopt in the United States, and definitely now post Hague, but international adoption offered more certainty and less emotional roller coaster than domestic adoption. International also offered adoptive parents the presumption they would never have to deal with birth family of the child. ( Which is also a fallacy as more international adoptions are now open also. But in the numbers game, adoptive parents are more likely in an international adoption than a domestic adoption to not have to deal directly with the birth family of their child. But as I tell all my clients – DNA and the internet and alnguage conversion programs on the internet will allow anything in the near future.)

Most adoptions in the United States are of children born in the United States. The media would lead you to believe children are only available overseas but that is not true. In fact, there are kids born in the United States adopted overseas. ( I have clients from all over the world but mostly Germany and Canada coming here to adopt babies.) Furthermore, the media leads you to believe that these children from overseas can only have a better live in the the U.S. As stated above that is complicated as one needs to define better life- more education, more money, more food, connection with biological family, connection with biological culture, having to deal with racism, etc….

I strongly suggest take the media with a grain of salt when reading about adoption. Try adoptive families magazine or adoption today for a more accurate view of adoption ( both on the web).

People adopt becuase they want to be parents. There are other reasons- the rescue mission ,for example- but the one common thread is people want to be parents. Some are better parents than others but ultimately wanting to be parents is the single dominating reason they want to adopt.

Also, transracial adoption occurs numerically more in domestic adoption than international. (There is about 5x more domestic adoptions than international each year.) But a higher percentage in international.

And finally, since this is about race and adoption, I must emphasize that race is a huge factor in how much and how fast one can adopt a healthy baby in the US. Call around to 8 agencies who work with baby adoptions, especially in the South (but also up North) and ask how long it will take, and how much it will cost to adopt and be specific about the race of the baby you want and you will quickly discover the race of the baby makes a huge difference.

My 2 abbreviated cents as an adoption attorney.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 12:38 pm ¶
Michelle @ Bridge Co wrote:

And PS Rebecca Walker when she broke up with her partner (who had adopted and parented with her Rebecca’s biological child) said some things about adoption that should make anything she says about adoption suspect.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 12:40 pm ¶
Julie wrote:

Re: Zahra’s comment

If there is anyone who really paid $20,000 for an uncontested step-parent adoption, they are an idiot. The price is closer to $1200 and even less if, as is usual, no homestudy is required. There is so much misinformation floating around the adoption world that I hate to see even more added.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:00 pm ¶
moth wrote:

@M — Love your comment, but I would extend your argument to other transracial/national/cultural adoptions — not just ones involving indigenous peoples. Not only is domestic adoption a better option, so are SOS villages. Just decades ago the credo of many villages in African countries was, “There’s no such thing as an orphan.” Communities can care for their own if their efforts aren’t undermined. If people were truly interested in what’s best for kids they could take the money they spend on the adoption industry and support communities and families raising their own kids.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:05 pm ¶
Mei-Ling wrote:

“If she hadn’t been adopted, she very well may have died, considering she was malnourished and unloved.”

This narrows it down to a black & white personal view.

I was born as a very sick little girl. My a-parents told me I might have died if my treatment hadn’t been paid for. My ‘birthparents’ did not have the money.

Well, all is good and well if my adoptive parents can pay right?

The question I’m asking now is: why DON’T the ‘birthparents’ have the money? What is preventing social programs to help them?

This is not black and white, folks.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:14 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

Is it true across the board that adoption in the US is harder than overseas?

I’m not sure. A friend of mine adopted a little boy from Ethiopia. I know that she’d looked into adopting a child from foster care in the US, but I’m not sure why that didn’t work out. And it wasn’t an issue of wanting a healthy infant — the boy that she adopted was about 5 or 6 and had a medical condition that required surgery and long-term treatment.

One of my mother’s cousins and his wife adopted three little girls, all different races, back in the seventies. He once got a call from their elementary school telling him that he had to come to the principal’s office immediately to pick up his daughters, because they had been sent to the principal because they were “encouraging racial hatred” or something like that. When he got there, he found out that what had actually happened was that two of his daughters had gotten into a fight with each other on the playground. As far as he could tell, nothing racial was said by either of them, but the administrators somehow decided that a fight between a black kid and an Asian kid must be racial.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:14 pm ¶
Jae Ran wrote:

I would say that read Adoption Today and Adoptive Families also with a grain of salt. Also, read what adult adoptees have to say, and first parents/birth parents. Don’t just rely on the articles, magazines and blogs written by and for adoptive parents by agencies and adoption attorneys.

As for Rebecca Walker’s comments about adoption, I agree with Michelle, she has said some things about adoption that I found quite offensive personally. But then, I find that a lot of what Walker writes is meant to be provocative.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 1:47 pm ¶
kdgdingani wrote:

what is “biological culture”?

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 2:12 pm ¶
Melanie wrote:

I guess what I’m wondering through this discussion is what are the options then for orphans living in any country, including the US? As a person who simply wants to be a parent and is completely not interested in doing so biologically, how can I work towards justice and transparency in the US (where I live) and in other countries where orphans/orphanages/adoption is concerned? I know that adopting transracially/internationally comes with a steep price for the child, does that mean I don’t do that but instead work with an NGO that is in country or work toward policy change? Is that the suggestion that folks who are opposed to transracial/international adoption would posit? I am not asking this to be sarcastic, but am genuinely interested in what POCs and/or those against transracial adoption feel is the best way to serve children, any children who are orphans. As a perspective AP, I read a lot of criticism of adoption but very rarely does anyone move or point to a solution. Maybe there isn’t one?

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶
9jah wrote:

Despite all of the obvious cultural pitfalls an adoptee may face in life, I hazard the guess that in many cases this is secondary to the traumas the child may have otherwise faced. And I don’t think simply belonging to the same race as a person makes me arbiter of what may be in that child’s best interest.

In light of this, perhaps expunging the system of corrupted elements is more beneficial than eliminating altogether.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 4:34 pm ¶
mk wrote:

@m., I completely agree with you. Out of curiosity, have you ever read The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver? Very popular book with an adoption narrative that didn”t even question the ethics, politics, history, pain, etc of a white mother adopting a Cherokee child (though Kingsolver sort of tried to correct for this in a sequel, fwiw)?

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 5:13 pm ¶
Ed wrote:

@Melanie, I am a white, upper middle class, American adoptive father of two Korean boys, brothers adopted six months apart as infants.

While I could never think about not being my son’s father for obvious reasons, what I understand now and what I understood when we adopted are as far apart as my children are from their birth family.

The time to try to understand these issues is BEFORE you adopt. There is no simple, definitive source of information, but there is at least more perspective readily available than there were when I walked into it in 2001. Not that long ago.

And even after absorbing all of this for a while you still find yourself adopting internationally, please allow yourself to be changed by it. I have met so many white adoptive parents that even after many years refuse to see things any differently than the rationalization that led them to adopt in the first place.

This neither serves the best interests of their children nor themselves. Everyone ends up losing more than they already did going in.

I don’t regret my sons. But I accept that I should not have been their father. If you can live with such a thing, go for it.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 5:57 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

@Melanie: I think the answers to your questions are actually pretty easy.

First, though, there are very few true orphans with no living relatives at all. So the use of the word “orphan” is problematic because the majority of children available for adoption domestically or internationally have at least one living parent.

That being said, here are some answers:

- The options for children in crisis are: living with parents, living with extended family, living in a group home or orphanage, living in foster care, some sort of guardianship arrangement, independent living with supports, informal or formal adoption. Or a combination of any of these. Adoption is sometimes the best solution, but most of the time, it’s not. And one thing I learned in the last few years that surprised me… although foster care is generally better than being in a group home, being in a good group home is much better than bad/inconsistent foster care.

Things you can do in this country:
- Get educated about issues in domestic adoption/foster care here in the U.S.
- Actively work to dispel myths about domestic adoption/foster care here in the U.S.
- Volunteer as a CASA
- Volunteer at a group home as a mentor
- Become a foster parent (a good one, not one of the bad ones)
- Become a social worker (a good one, not one of the bad ones)
- Advocate for specific, targeted, effective reform in the system.

For international adoption:
- don’t adopt internationally unless you have strong ties to that country (e.g. your ancestors are from there, your relatives are from there, or you can speak the language)
- don’t adopt from any country where you can’t keep easily keep the child in contact with many people closer to their culture of origin.
- if you adopt internationally, work to establish contact with your child’s biological family.
- educate yourself, work to dispel myths and also try to combat the silencing of adoptees and others in mainstream media
- take adoption corruption seriously
- support homegrown organizations working for social change in the country; don’t assume that foreign-led organizations and foreign charity leaders understand the whole picture.

Overall, putting charity and adoption hand-in-hand is dangerous. It can be insulting to adoptees… adoptees should ideally be wanted; they should neither be a living penance, nor a prize for winning a moral contest.

If you want to work for an NGO, work for an NGO. If you want to adopt, adopt… and acknowledge and try to deal with the ethical issues involved.

One foster care adoption blogger I follow once wrote “You can only save a child once. After that, it’s called parenting.”

I love that quote, because I actually don’t think it’s possible to take the salvation narrative entirely out of adoption. In fact, if the adoption wasn’t about “saving” in some way — if the child would have been better off without adoption anyway — then that’s really, really unethical. But the salvation narrative should be limited and contextualized; it shouldn’t drown out the child’s own story, or the story of their original family (which is usually more about tragedy than salvation).

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 6:26 pm ¶
usha wrote:

I just want to bring up another, really icky, facet that I haven’t seen touched upon.

I live in a very rich, very white place (where I have even seen WET NURSES, but that creepy is something else altogether).
Some people here see adoptions from Asia and Africa as a trendy, ’status-y’ thing, like the crazy plastic surgery, the right art or pilates instructor. I am not presuming to make the claim that these people don’t love their adoptive children (they do love themselves and still make weird, complicated surgical choices), but everyone in these circles knows what these children ‘cost’. And that does seem to at least figure into the decision to expand the family by adoption.
It isn’t just a racial or cultural decision; eastern European children are less popular, apparently because their foreign origin isn’t so immediately obvious.
Which, by itself, is repulsive enough, but ALSO prevalent among the very rich is the idea that foreign children are ’superior’ to the children that are available for adoption here.

I know that it is not all adoptive parents, but from what I’ve seen and heard, this mindset isn’t uncommon here or in similar sorts of areas.

I’m sorry if anyone is sickened or hurt by this observation; I feel a little dirty even mentioning it, but it is a part of the conversation.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 7:00 pm ¶
stutefish wrote:

@em -

I’m not an expert, but I think what a lot of the narrative around foster care adoption ignores is that the issues around termination of parental rights is hugely messy. Many states won’t do it unless they have an adoptive family lined up, and few adoptive families are willing to allow themselves to emotionally “adopt” a child only to find out that they must wait through months or even years of uncertainty before it becomes possible, if it becomes possible at all. And that’s for the kids who have adoption established as their “goal” – many in the foster system are still working toward a goal of reunification.

With infant adoption, if the parents change their minds, you usually don’t even meet the baby. Some states have a post-adoption “window” in which the adoption can be reversed – California’s is, I believe, six months, and my family lost one baby this way. But it is usually (AFAIK) less extensive than the process for termination of parental rights.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 7:20 pm ¶
Melanie wrote:

@atlasien
Thank you for that. It was more along the lines of what I have been looking for in my months spent researching and blog reading.

That quote is amazing and I’m glad that you touched on the salvation narrative. I recognize that adoption itself is a selfish act and I abhor the adoptive parent as savior mentality, although I agree with you that it exists to some extent (even in me) regardless of how I feel about it.

I used the term orphan and probably should have put quotes around it because I know that most children are not “true” orphans, whatever definition that has attached to it (as opposed to false, I guess).

It was with a smile that I read your “easy” list. For many people, especially transracial APs, I think that list would be insurmountable.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 9:04 pm ¶
Ed wrote:

@atlasien, I agree with everything you say. I wouldn’t have five years ago.

I was in foster care myself for several years and two of my biological siblings were adopted to other families. And I ended up in a less than functional family that I fled at 15. And on top of that my wife is a social worker and RN and in both careers deals mainly with children.

So I thought I had it figured out. Adoption as the permanent commitment to a child had to be better than the options I experienced were. I lived with very decent foster families, but it never felt like home.

I also grew up in very diverse circumstances, and that led me to believe that race didn’t have to dominate the lines between people.

But what I have learned as an adoptive parent is that adoption is NOT an ideal solution. There are too many cases of it falling short to be classified thus.

Believe me when I say I am doing everything possible to overcome the choice we made by being the theoretical parent that adoption is alleged to provide. But I’ll be lucky to achieve even a small part of that.

I wish prospective adoptive parents would think about this long and hard. Adoption has to be as much about what you are willing to accept and to sacrifice as it is about the joy of parenting children.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 9:20 pm ¶
Sarah wrote:

Re: Rebecca Walker’s comments on adoption

I don’t have the exact quote on hand (am too lazy to google it), but from what I remember it was something along the lines of “I would do anything for my adopted child within reason, but would do anything for my biological child without question.” I don’t think exploring the different feelings one has for adopted vs. biological children should disqualify one from every publicly discussing adoption again.

I speak as someone who would not consider adoption because I PERSONALLY do not feel I could be as good a parent to an adopted child as to a biogenetic one. Every time I bring up my views on what is right for ME to any of the adopted parents I know, they get offended, often very vocally so, as if I’m attempting to de-legitimize their family. I’ve actually lost friends over this.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 9:31 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

@stutefish: “few adoptive families are willing to allow themselves to emotionally “adopt” a child only to find out that they must wait through months or even years of uncertainty before it becomes possible, if it becomes possible at all.”

You’re not using any standard definition of “few”.

There are 2.5 times as many foster care adoptive parents than there are international!

In 2007, there were 51,000 children adopted from foster care in the United States. Source here. There were 19,613 international adoptions into the United States during the same year. Source here.

Figures on private domestic adoptions aren’t as available because the numbers aren’t tracked. But according to this data, in 2001, 39% were foster care, 15% were international and 45% were all other… which includes a really mixed bag of kinship, stepparent, tribal, plus “stranger” private adoption.

This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that there are more foster care adoptions every year than international AND private stranger domestic combined.

Yet, there are widespread myths (many showing up in this thread) that foster care adoption is impossibly difficult, that the state won’t let white people adopt, that the state won’t let gay people adopt, that all the kids in foster care are horrendously damaged and will burn down your house and kill your dog, that you can’t adopt an infant from foster care, that foster parents are somehow uncaring and inhuman because “I could never let a child go”, and so on…

Foster care adoption isn’t easy… but if it’s so difficult, then why are so many people doing it?

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 9:39 pm ¶
Freakzeek wrote:

@mk-

I thought the beantrees by Kingslover dealt with T deals with the issue of Native American parental rights Fantastically. the Story was never really about the White mother adopting the cherokee, alot of the novel dealt with woman & their place in society

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 9:55 pm ¶
mk wrote:

@Freakzeek – and the women & their place in society bits of The Bean Trees were really interesting, I thought. But that doesn’t take away the fact that one can read that book and come away without thinking critically about whether or not the best thing for the child in question was to be adopted in the way the book portrays. These issues are explored a bit more in the sequel, though it still really doesn’t go as far as I’d like. The sequel seems to me to end at a point that I feel is calculated to make me as a white person feel reassured–yes, mistakes were made in the adoption in question, but it was all for the best–and adoptions like this are all for the best. Well, you know? The stuff m. describes above is not “for the best.” At all. Ever. And there’s no way around that, and especially given how much I love some of Kingsolver’s later stuff, the adoption narrative in The Bean Trees really disappoints me.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 10:08 pm ¶
Ed wrote:

@Sarah, I have never met adoptive parents that can talk that openly about adoption. And for years we sought out and spent a lot of time with them. Any question whatsoever about adoption or the many issues around transcultural/racial/national adoption always brings shock and anger.

I know they exist. I just haven’t met any. This says to me that there is something very wrong here.

I don’t find what you say offensive. I understand it. I have had adoptive parents ask me if hey, do I ever doubt my feelings for them? And while I certainly doubt the institution that am taking part in I have not experienced that sort of doubt. I don’t have biological children.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 10:51 pm ¶
m. wrote:

@atlasien:
I see what you’re saying. Again, though, it all depends on what these peoples’ ‘connection’ to the community really is. We all know that not only comprehension of culture but a healthy identity is made possible via the family unit, so if an adoptive parent’s ‘connection’ involves living in or near Indian country and attending powwows, with a vague notion of what being a member of any nation is…no. Plus, if a Native child is taken away from their family and does not know what nation s/he comes from, no outsiders can raise them correctly. I guess the only case in which someone with no tribal affiliation or ties could adopt and do an okay job is if they lived within the child’s community, were active members in some way or another year-round and were in constant contact/had visitation with that child’s relatives. That way the culture is absorbed through interaction rather than commodification and the child’s best interests are not only “kept in mind” but right there – they can be with their family and amongst their people, not just the adoptive parents.

@moth:
I love your comment as well, and though I only commented on the adoption of Indigenous children in mine (that’s really where most of my knowledge lies), I agree! (’Just decades ago the credo of many villages in African countries was, “There’s no such thing as an orphan.”’ – I am all about that.)
“Communities can care for their own if their efforts aren’t undermined. If people were truly interested in what’s best for kids they could take the money they spend on the adoption industry and support communities and families raising their own kids.” YES, YES, YES. You nailed it.

@mk:
Yeah; have you read ‘Pigs In Heaven’, as well? I remember that there was some ridiculous plot line involving the main character’s mother getting hooked up with a Cherokee guy…because that’ll solve all the problems, right? And then they were talking about the possibility of some Cherokee in their bloodline qualifying them for enrollment, and so on. I thought it was all a bit much.

Posted 01 Oct 2009 at 11:13 pm ¶
Whitney wrote:

@Jae:

I was really referring specifically to her case since it was more extreme than most you hear about. A friend of mine from high school’s parents adopted two sisters from Russia and they had a similar situation, their parents had died and were living in an orphanage. I totally agree, it is problematic to make that kind of a statement but every single case of adoption should be considered on the individual level. Everyone seems to believe that once a child is placed in a home, their situation greatly improves and that isn’t always the case, sometimes adoptive parents are abusive, or you’re right, some children are illegally taken and that is definitely something that needs to be considered when discussion transnational adoption (even domestic adoption, even).

I honestly don’t know what the adoption situation in China is like. That would be something interesting to find out is how many Chinese citizens adopt children of their own country. Of course it’s ideal but it’s not always possible.

Maybe it would have been better for her to have been adopted by a Chinese family but I don’t think it’s as simple as that, and it will be difficult for her growing up being raised by white parents, but then again, it can be difficult for any adopted child, even if it was a domestic adoption and the child shares the same ethnicity as the adoptive parents.

@Mei-Ling:

I don’t know what the situation with Lucy (the adopted girl from China)’s mother was. But I think I can only imagine that because she was abandoned, she couldn’t afford to be a mother. And it isn’t just limited to other countries, it happens in the United States every day. I don’t know what the social programs are like in China, or even if she wanted to be a mother.

Sometimes it’s not about not being able to afford medical treatments, a lot of the time children are abandoned simply because they’re not wanted.

Posted 02 Oct 2009 at 12:22 am ¶
Liz wrote:

The Katherine Heigel story defintiely has a savior narrative. In many different media sources she includes the fact that the child is also special needs. Not to pull rank in the special needs world, but a medical condition that can be corrected with surgery is far different from a condition like cerebral palsy, spino bifida, autism, etc. that are lifelong circumstances that bar a child from leading a typical life. She probably should have said that her adopted daughter has health issues that require costly medical intervention. But that would not serve the “great white hope” story arc.

I know that her sister is also a Korean adoptee. It would be interesting to hear her talk about what she has learned from that experience and how it will affect her parenting of her transracial/transnational child.

Posted 02 Oct 2009 at 12:43 am ¶
Snarky's Machine wrote:

“Yet, there are widespread myths (many showing up in this thread) that foster care adoption is impossibly difficult, that the state won’t let white people adopt, that the state won’t let gay people adopt, that all the kids in foster care are horrendously damaged and will burn down your house and kill your dog, that you can’t adopt an infant from foster care, that foster parents are somehow uncaring and inhuman because “I could never let a child go”, and so on…”

From my experience doing advocacy work around this issue, it’s a lot easier to become a foster parent than it is to adopt a child from the foster care system. From what I have seen it’s really difficult for parents to completely lose all parental rights even in cases of severe abuse/neglect. I am not saying this is the case everywhere, but with some of the families I have worked with (both foster families and parents of children in foster care) it’s extremely messy and complicated process.

Posted 02 Oct 2009 at 3:37 am ¶
JC wrote:

@jen: thanks for the background. It’s amazing that you can still adopt from South Korea – it is one of the richest country in Asia today, and there are not evil one-child only policy there. Well if she’s Korean, then being a Big Bang fan is only natural. Finding Korean pop culture will be one of the most beneficial thing for her youth – if she grow up with White mainstream culture only, sigh, good luck to her.

@Zahra: I’m not saying not adopting is a better choice, rather, that it’s the lessor of the two evils. There’s very little you can do to to help her – she will have to be come strong herself. The biggest evil here is the Chinese govt which allow this to happen.

I hope to see a world that interracial adoption is an extreme rarity and where white people are no longer so privileged that the children they adopt will no longer suffer because of the color of their skin and the racism of the society of their adopted white parents.

Posted 02 Oct 2009 at 2:50 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

I think it’s perfectly legit to critique transracial or transnational adoption practices. But I agree with your note about not demonizing the participants. I think some comments above, such as those of JC and Melanie (”I recognize that adoption itself is a selfish act”), go too far in the latter direction.

If adoption is a selfish act, then natural childbirth and many other things we do that aren’t necessary to keep us alive are, as well. That’s a fairly meaningless statement.

If “selfish” is mean to indicate “not thinking about others’ well being,” then nobody has the right to place themselves inside adoptive parents’ heads.

My sisters are adopted from Korea (my parents are white, Jewish). Neither were orphans (as far as we know), but both were abandoned — one left at the orphanage without records of who left her, and the other escaped from an abusive situation.

It is not a purely altruistic act to seek to add to a family when a parent has multiple miscarriages after a first child, of course. But we shouldn’t assume that parents are unable to do appropriate diligence to understand the credibility of an agency and circumstances through which children one wishes to adopt came to be at that agency.

It would be unrealistic to pretend that any parent can control for the complexities of differences of culture and race. It would also be unrealistic to pretend that drastically underweight children with figurative and literal scars and very little exposure to life outside the orphanage are in a healthy cultural environment, either.

One comment above said this isn’t about the individual story and one needs to think about the larger context of adoption abuses. I disagree with the former and agree with the latter. For each parent seeking to adopt, it is about the individual story. If one makes a decision which does not deprive an indigent but deserving family of their right to be a family, does not remove a child from relatives who but for finances would be there for that child, and which brings the child and parents a better joint life, then nobody else gets to say that’s not all that needs to go into that equation. The industry’s problems, like world peace, are relevant as well — but they aren’t to be laid on the lap of the adoptive parent.

Posted 02 Oct 2009 at 5:41 pm ¶
Carrie wrote:

Wow, I’m feeling so sad and overwhelmed by all the comments I’ve just read. So sad to read all the negativity there is about international adoption. There are certainly issues that need to be addressed in the world of adoption, there certainly is corruption, and IA may not be the best solution, but for some families and some children it is a solution.

So here it is from the horses mouth. I am a white adoptive mother of two. I adopted internationally because:
–I wanted children
–Both my parents and my husband are all adopted
–I was not interested in having biological children
–I felt that there were to0 many children on the planet that needed homes. This wasn’t a “savior” issue, just a matter of practicality.
–I did not want to share my child with a birth family. My husband felt especially strongly about this. He has never had contact with his birth family and has never wanted to.
–I researched foster to adopt, but was not willing to take the risk of bonding with a child only to have the child reunited with their birth family.
–I was appalled at the cost of domestic adoptions and even more apalled that children of color were more “economical”.

Both my children are true orphans. My daughter was abandoned and lived in an orphanage for most of the first year of her life. I supposed she could have lived out her days in relative comfort and safety in that orphanage, but why, when I had a home, a family to provide for her. My son’s father was killed in the conflict in Goma, DRC, his mother died of tuberculosis while trying to escape from the war. The “village” that perhaps should have cared for him after losing his parents instead made plans to bury him alive with his mother because he was malnurished and suffering from malaria. Thankfully an aid worker intervened and now our son is alive, healthy, thriving in our home. Maybe their stories are not the norm, but I can say without any guilt that my children are better off for having been adopted.

Posted 02 Oct 2009 at 10:55 pm ¶
Kristen wrote:

I’m also very dismayed reading through all these comments. For a group of people seemingly interested in making our world a better place, there is a shocking lack of empathy here for children of color who are spending their childhood in an orphanage or group home. I would really encourage anyone who has a strong bias against transracial adoption to visit an orphanage in India, or China, or Haiti. Or go visit a local group home, for that matter.

There are some great orphanages out there run by good people, but many of them are places where children do not receive basic nurturing from an adult. That is NO WAY for a child to grow up.

Yes, there is horrible corruption in adoption. That is no reason to discard the entire practice. Yes, a child may lose some cultural identity being adopted to another culture. But a child growing up without parents loses their chance at having intimate connections throughout life. Reactive Attachment Disorder is a VERY REAL disorder. As a therapist and as an adoptive mom, I can attest to what a life sentence this is.

Let’s all have our eyes wide open to the issues. Yes, read books by adults who were adopted transracially. Learn about that impact, and be moved to action. But then, do some research about attachment disorder, and the effects of institutionalization.

Get angry on the behalf of these children, and do something useful.

And to the nasty comments about adoption being selfish – pullleeaase. Not every adoptive family is a desperate infertile couple looking for a cheap baby. Your stereotypes are tired and insulting.

Posted 03 Oct 2009 at 2:58 am ¶
pololly wrote:

All of the people critiquing international adoption critique it on a structural level. All of the people defending it defend it on an individual level.

Does this remind anyone of anything?

POC/Anti-racist: Racism is an institutional/structural reality in society

White person/racist: Not true! I don’t hate black peple! I’ve never said anything racist.

This hardly bodes well for the children.

Posted 03 Oct 2009 at 4:16 am ¶
mk wrote:

@Pololly – yeah – exactly I don’t think anyone here is saying children are better off in an “orphanage.” People are just asking what it is about the structure of our world (as distinguished from what it is about particular individuals and families and their circumstances) that makes children end up in this kind of situation.

I’m not knocking international adoption on the individual level. I have some very dear friends whose kids (my age now) were adopted internationally. I’ve seen it work, and result in loving wonderful families. But I think we absolutely have to consider the a global structure of inequality that is at the roots.

Posted 03 Oct 2009 at 3:53 pm ¶
A.mom wrote:

@Ed
I am an adoptive parent (caucasian) of a Latino child and I am willing to dig into and talk about issues of cross cultural adoption, of racism, of the corruption that is rife in the system. I try to discuss it with other adoptive parents, and usually at least people listen. And I am still working out what I need to do now that the deed is done.

@ the thread. When we were adopting I honestly thought that I had done the right research, the right reading, talked to the right people. If I knew then what I know now would we have adopted internationally? Never.

But here I am, the mother of an internationally adopted 3 year old who deserves the best that I can give him. Will he be loved? Absolutely? Is that enough? No. I have an enormous job ahead of me and I am going to do my best.

Posted 03 Oct 2009 at 5:07 pm ¶
Mei-Ling wrote:

@ Kristen:

“For a group of people seemingly interested in making our world a better place, there is a shocking lack of empathy here for children of color who are spending their childhood in an orphanage or group home.”

I believe the idea is to examine what caused them to END UP in orphanages – not to condemn the orphanages themselves.

Posted 03 Oct 2009 at 9:31 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:

@ octogalore: “It would be unrealistic to pretend that any parent can control for the complexities of differences of culture and race. It would also be unrealistic to pretend that drastically underweight children with figurative and literal scars and very little exposure to life outside the orphanage are in a healthy cultural environment, either.” Yes. I agree completely. This is a very complex issue. I don’t always know where I stand on the issue of transracial adoption. On one hand, I hate when people assume that race means nothing when it comes to parenting. I hate the assumption that a child is better off with a wealthy (white) family in the US than with extended family (possibly supported with resources). But on the other hand, we have to work within the existing constraints.

The reality is, some parents don’t want to/can’t afford to parent and their governments don’t/may never provide them with the supports they need to do so (if that is indeed what they want). Working with those existing constraints, I cannot say that a child would be worse off in an adoptive family than in his or her native country. Hey, I worked in an orphanage. A very good one with very loving caregivers. The problem is: the loving caregivers are young, inexperienced, and we all left eventually. And when I think of the children that will not be adopted (b/c of health issues like HIV or CP) I feel sad for what they will likely struggle against in their future. Poverty, a lack of supportive adults with the resources to serve as a safety net, ignorance about the world outside of their institution, etc. When I think about the children adopted–I wonder how they will feel when they grow up and realize they are the only Black child in their Dutch, German, Austrian, Canadian schools…but I never question whether they will have enough to eat. And I never wonder if they will grow up to eventually have the privilege to learn about the complexities of their adoption and to question (be angry with) their parents. On one hand, the very ability to be able to put forth energy into this questioning and even anger is a direct result of not having to put forth their energies on other issues (shelter, safety, food). On the other hand, is that fair to them to have to deal with these issues? Its not. Adoption is very sad and its not fair. But IMHO I do think that there are situations in which it is the best possible solution for an individual child. And when it comes to adoption, you really do have to think in terms of individuals. Institutionally, adoption is problematic, but when you personally have held one or two or 40 family-less children in your arms, you can’t really ignore their unique person-hood. Let me tell you, I wish all of those kids could have their biological parents. But they don’t. And I wouldn’t be honest if I were to say that they would be just as well served by a guardianship situation, a foster home, or even (in many of these cases) extended family care. One one hand, race is so important to every day experience. On the other hand, so is shelter, food, education. And the reality is, if they had family in a position to care for them (even with support) that’s where they would be–because there were quite a few children that went to extended families. Often, the families were unable to care for them as babies, but were willing to care for older children. That makes me really sad that that is the best possible solution for a child: to be the “burden”. But, they will have the great advantage of being in their home country and growing up with their family connections intact. I wonder how they will feel when they grow up about that? I guess they will feel glad that despite the hardships they were able to know and be loved by their family. I guess I know a few people in that situation and all of them love their family, despite persistent abuse and neglect. So, I guess that biological connection Walker talks about goes both ways. Maybe its really hard to reject biological connections, and when they are torn without your consent that is always going to be a terrible wound. The more I think about it, the more adoption makes me sad.

Posted 04 Oct 2009 at 12:00 am ¶
malinda wrote:

@Ed & A.mom
There’s a pretty active blogging community of adoptive parents who are digging into the tough issues of transracial/transnational adoption. I know a lot of APs are pretty much in denial, but I’m happy to say that not all are.

I’ve linked many of those blogs at my blog. Feel free to stop by or to contact me by email and I can point you toward some fellow travelers.

Posted 04 Oct 2009 at 1:25 am ¶
octogalore wrote:

@Montclair Mommy –thanks!

@pololly: Disagree. The people defending adoption in individual instances and those critiquing it on a structural level aren’t contradicting one another.

The three comments directly preceding yours (one of which was mine), in fact, were doing both. The point being made that in the rush on the part of some commenters (note — *not* on the part of the OP which appropriately made the distinction) to make global negative statements about all adoptive parents, much nuance was being lost. And giving individual examples is a good way to illustrate that nuance.

Further, your making some kind of analogy from an adoptive parent of a child without other means of having a family –that is, no relatives rich *or* poor who want the child — to “white person/racist” is offensive. Have you seen an Asian person (not mixed race) with light brown hair before? My sister had light brown hair before she was adopted. Rice twice a day with not much else will do that. It’s black now. She was 7 and weighed under 40 pounds and no, there was no poor mom or dad in the picture who wanted to be there for her, only they didn’t have the money to do it. I’m the first one to say our parents are far from perfect, but I don’t think the life she was looking at was, either.

Her adoptive parents aren’t asking for anti-racist brownie points, but you are hardly the right person to judge whether the case against them, or other adoptive parents, is closed (”This hardly bodes well for the children”). Of course, like any other parent, adoptive or not, they are not saints, but are doing something for themselves as all parents do — bringing home a child to love.

Critique the system, by all means. But leave the armchair diagnoses of individuals off the table.

Posted 04 Oct 2009 at 11:30 pm ¶
Ed wrote:

@Kristen, but what makes these children our problem to solve?

So far as I can tell, adoption is too often a failure and I believe even abusive in that it promises much more than the parents can deliver. We need more people to be thinking about that before they decide to take on this responsibility.

I couldn’t be more attached to, committed to and responsible to my adopted children, but I can see the points of failure in myself. And we can all read how adoptees feel about their experiences. First up: listen to them. Accept what they are saying.

Just as an anecdote I met a young Korean man working in a local tire shop. He was adopted from Korean into a large family of mostly adopted children. At this point is obvious he didn’t receive very much support going into a adulthood and has virtually no one backing him up now. Once he realized I was open to hearing the truth, he made it clear that he felt lost.

Did his adoptive parents do him a big favor? The net result of his childhood is the loss of any blood relatives and his culture. A foster home/orphanage upbringing would have to work hard to do worse. And I don’t mean money here, I mean being there. Helping him have confidence in himself. Not leaving him lost.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 2:58 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

@octogalore: I don’t see global condemnations of adoptive parents much on this thread. Where I do see those, as an adoptive parent, I simply don’t bother to participate in the conversation.

You’re really, really exaggerating the amount of criticism of adoptive parents. In real life, I have NEVER encountered the slightest bit of criticism in real life for adopting. Neither has my husband, who is white.

In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed by the amount of praise we’ve received. When people really pile it on, I get the implication that my son is some kind of burden we’re heroically shouldering, and I don’t like that.

Adoptive parents frequently exist in a bubble of warm adoption feelings, and encountering the slightest criticism of institutional practices, usually online for the first time, often shocks them much way more than it should.

I’m not saying it’s easy. I had a hard time during the adoption matching process, we had a few very negative encounters with some social workers, and I also believe I was discriminated against because of my race. It was extremely stressful and I sympathize with the problems of other adoptive parents… especially with the problems of people dealing with the foster care system, because that’s what I’m familiar with. However, I don’t believe that MY problems mean that the problems of other people, such as adoptees or families of origin, should not be aired. But that kind of logical progression is one I often see advanced.

I don’t believe that adoptive parents are fragile flowers to be protected from criticism. The warm bubble is even detrimental to some adoptive parents, since the adoptive parents that frequently need the most help — lower-income parents who have adopted sibling groups (frequently of relatives) and are struggling with special needs issues — don’t get heard as much because they fit into the standard savior narratives.

Also, people going into full on defense mode, like you seem to be doing, should step back and take some perspective. I certainly don’t agree with true extremist anti-adoption sentiment… but the people advancing that position are a tiny, tiny, tiny group of people. I have never encountered any in real life, probably never will, and even if I did, they would be too socially constrained to do anything other than sigh deeply or give me a single dirty look. Blowing them up as some sort of universal threat to adoption is totally unrealistic.

I believe in adoption reform. To get to reform, you have to go through criticism, and point out what’s bad, or what doesn’t work.

Health care reform is a good analogy. We wouldn’t need health care if we never got sick! But since it’s necessary, we have to figure out how to do it the best way possible, and make sure it first serves the needs of human beings rather than the needs of institutions (like insurance companies). Similarly, we wouldn’t need adoption if families and communities always raised children safely. But we do… so it should be done so that it serves EVERYONE, not just adoption agencies, bureaucrats and the most privileged and moneyed tier of adoptive parents.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 10:25 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

Oops, sentence above should read “don’t get heard as much because they don’tt fit into the standard savior narratives.”

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 10:36 am ¶
octogalore wrote:

“Blowing them up as some sort of universal threat to adoption is totally unrealistic.”

Agree. That’s why I’m not doing that. My comment above was addressed to pololly, and my #56 gave specific examples of the comments I took issue with. I said numerous times that I felt the OP’s critique of adoption practices was fair.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 12:10 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

Further — if you have specific examples of an exaggeration in my comment, please bring them on. I had some pretty targeted analyses of where I felt pololly’s and other comments were unfair, while also being very careful to state that I felt critiques for the purposes of reforming the practices overall *were* fair. I’d appreciate if you could take the same care in discussing my comments, rather than saying things like “You’re really, really exaggerating the amount of criticism of adoptive parents” which doesn’t correspond to anything I actually said.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 12:14 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

@octogalore. Fine. In detail, I think you’re overreacting because I don’t see anything in either JC, Melanie or Pololly’s comments that I took as an attack on all adoptive parents. I didn’t see anything I disagreed with, myself.

For example, I certainly agree that adoption IS a selfish act. And so is having a biological child. Or getting married. Being selfish — that is, thinking about yourself and and your own needs — is neither a Randian positive nor a self-flagellating negative. It’s a neutral place to start.

The next step is thinking about satisfying your own needs impacts other people.

However, the win-win narrative of adoption (and international adoption in particular) is so strong that adoption is often presented as being a LESS selfish act than having your own biological children. For example, women pursuing infertility treatments are often accused of being “selfish” because they should “just adopt”. When adoption is held to be uniquely unselfish, that’s a way of insulating it from discussions of supply and demand and marketing and so on. So fighting against that and saying it’s selfish is a move that works to break those compartmentalizing barriers.

I also don’t see anything wrong with JC’s comment. Korea is a rich country and it’s ridiculous that they’re still adopting out children. Japan stopped doing it a while back. They were in a similarly dire postwar situation. My father was a war orphan in Japan… he was adopted by another Japanese family. I also know of other war orphans, and/or Amerasians, who ended up adopted to the U.S. from Japan, but Japan never practiced international adoption on anything near the scale that Korea does. International adoption of Japanese children still exists today on a very small scale, and is mostly restricted to those of Japanese descent.

The Japan versus Korea situation really shows that situations in sending countries can change dramatically. But the image of these countries stays trapped in amber by the dominant international adoption narrative. “Those people don’t know how to take care of their own.” They’re judged forever as inferior… any child automatically would have a better life in the United States. I’ve seen so many cases of this. People with ideas that the Chinese “don’t believe in adoption because of Confucianism”, or that they don’t value the lives of girls, or that all Russians are miserable child-abusing alcoholics, and so on.

Pololly’s “hardly bodes well” references horror stories in transracial adoption. Of which there are many. Children raised to believe that racism didn’t exist on an institutional level… that all the difficulties they faced growing up as children of color just didn’t exist. This is a hell of way to be raised and it creates lasting psychological damage. I know, because I’ve had a taste of it as a “transracial non-adoptee” (Thea Lim also refers to it). But transracial adoptees raised in white “colorblind” families get the full brunt of it.

So if someone happens to believe that racism is an individual-level negative, but refuses to discuss it on an institutional level, I think there’s a clear intersection with people who believe adoption is an individual-level positive but refuse to discuss it on the institutional level. I don’t see what’s offensive about that. I’ve seen plenty of examples of people in that intersection.

You referenced in #65 the adoptee could not have been raised any other way… Jae Ran already addressed that, as it’s a statement that pops up a lot. my first problem with that statement is, how do you know for sure? Many Korean adoptees have returned to Korea and initiated searches only to discover gross inaccuracies and lies when it comes to their adoption records. For example, a mother who did want to raise her child but with relatives that kidnapped the child and forced the abandonment. In international adoption especially, there is NO WAY to say with absolute 100% certainty that “life would have been worse”. It’s impossible NOT to make what-if scenarios about your life and the lives of loved ones… I do it myself… but we shouldn’t enshrine these scenarios as some kind of sacred fact that justifies other kinds of loss in adoption. For example, my father would almost certainly have died if he hadn’t been adopted. But then again, if his own father had survived WWII, then he might have had an easier and happier life than if he HAD been adopted. Or he might have been run over by a train when he was a teenager. No one really knows…

You said in #56 that adoptive parents should be trusted to do appropriate diligence about agencies. And that as long as they do that diligence, nobody else gets to say what goes into the individual story. That’s the part I most disagree with and I have to say it sounds really naive. True diligence is almost impossible in international adoptions. It’s highly unregulated and filled with shady operators. Parents often don’t understand the legal systems of the other country, they don’t speak the language and they are TOTALLY dependent on what the agency tells them. A lot of cases of adoption corruption have been exposed because 1) parents adopt an older child 2) once in the United States, and after they learn English, the child reveals that they really have living relatives that wanted them and the story the agency/orphanage told was a complete fiction 3) the parents have enough integrity to believe them, contact the family and go public with the case. These are parents that I assume were highly ethical to begin with… they did as much diligence as they could. But it wasn’t enough.

In my own adoption, I talk to my son’s foster mom and biological maternal grandmother every week on the phone. We share language, and a lot of culture. We get along great. My son’s life has been extensively documented and recorded and we have access to those records. And there are still weird mysteries surrounding how my son came into foster care that I don’t think are ever going to be resolved… there are stories that conflict, and relatives bending the truth as they try to present themselves in the best light. When you have this kind of situation in another country, the mysteries can become much deeper. Part of adoption reform means trying to show people that they are NOT certain, that the current standards of diligence are NOT enough, and that we should combat this by demanding open records, transparency and accountability.

You’re also saying two things that seem contradictory in #56: 1) that responsibility for reform shouldn’t entirely be in the lap of the adoptive parents, which I definitely agree with 2) that parents who adopt after doing full diligence (which is impossible anyway) should not have their motivations questioned. And I totally disagree with that. Motivations factor into demand/supply, which factors into the institutional practice. To get to reform you do have to discuss individual and institutional issues at the same time. A good example of this is the 2005 Evan B. Donaldson report, LISTENING TO PARENTS: OPENING BARRIERS TO THE ADOPTION OF CHILDREN FROM FOSTER CARE, which surveys individual motivations within an institutional framework. Adoptive parents, adoption workers and the general public all have responsibilities when it comes to reform, and I don’t think anyone should be let off the hook.

Personally, I’m happy to have discussion on all levels. I’ve got ideas about where the institution sucks, and ideas about how to make it better. I’ve heard plenty of happy stories and I’ve heard plenty of horror stories, too.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 1:56 pm ¶
Mei-Ling wrote:

“If one makes a decision which does not deprive an indigent but deserving family of their right to be a family, does not remove a child from relatives who but for finances would be there for that child, and which brings the child and parents a better joint life, then nobody else gets to say that’s not all that needs to go into that equation.”

If it’s just a matter of finances and the biological parents are legally known (and yes, WANT to raise and love their child), wouldn’t it better for the money to be handed from the agencies TO the biological parents rather than in the political process called adoption?

If not, why not? Is it because an adoptive parent deserves to be a parent more based on economic and social background?

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

Atlasien: thanks and I’ll respond more at length.

Mei-ling: you misunderstand what I wrote. I said “does NOT remove a child from relatives who but for finances would be there for that child.” So I am agreeing that if it’s just a matter of finances, there are better ways.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 4:19 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

Atlasien: possibly, we are interpreting their comments differently.

I didn’t make any statements about adoption being less selfish, and in fact made clear I was drawing an equivalence and saying all means of parenting are in part selfish.

If you feel JC’s comment, saying “Chances are she will grow up secretly or openly hating herself” about an adopted Korean child whose parents and circumstances she doesn’t know, was a fair comment, we clearly are coming at this differently and may be at an impasse. I don’t think anyone outside the situation can speculate that “chances are” anyone will hate herself.

I also disagree that “Pololly’s “hardly bodes well” references horror stories in transracial adoption.” One has to stretch pretty far to take that interpretation, I think.

Pololly saying that folks defending individual instances of adoption – note, those folks were NOT defending the institution wholesale – were “white/racists” whose parenting didn’t “bode well” isn’t referencing horror stories but making a more general comment. Nobody here appears to be refusing to discuss racism at an institutional level. The claim being made, by me and others, is that it cannot be posited at an individual level by a stranger. Of course, its absence cannot be either. But nobody’s asking for anyone to do that.

“You referenced in #65 the adoptee could not have been raised any other way… Jae Ran already addressed that, as it’s a statement that pops up a lot. my first problem with that statement is, how do you know for sure? … No one really knows.”

I know because my sister’s mom abused her and gave her up and her father committed suicide. And I know that because she told me both of those things. And she knew both of those things because she was there for both the beatings and the suicide. The two other relatives in the picture she ran away from for reasons I’ll spare you. Any further questions?

“You’re also saying two things that seem contradictory in #56: 1) that responsibility for reform shouldn’t entirely be in the lap of the adoptive parents, which I definitely agree with 2) that parents who adopt after doing full diligence (which is impossible anyway) should not have their motivations questioned.”

Again, a mischaracterization. I said “But we shouldn’t assume that parents are unable to do appropriate diligence to understand the credibility of an agency and circumstances through which children one wishes to adopt came to be at that agency.” Not assuming a negative isn’t the same as assuming a positive.

I do feel that two things should coexist. One, that agencies and parents together should work towards reform of the process of determining existence of birth relatives and fraud involved in the process. Two, that individual parents who do their utmost to investigate this, within the confines of a system they cannot control, and make what appears to be a decision that is favorable to all, should not be psychoanalyzed by outsiders. This doesn’t mean they have the right to positive assumptions that they’re completely anti-racist or have completely pure motives. Just that no outsider has the right to impute negative ones.

I am happy to have discussions at all levels as well, and at a policy level, I think we probably agree on more issues than not.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 4:39 pm ¶
pololly wrote:

Octogalore

I’ve just come back to your comment and reading through the extended debate, I disagree with you more than ever.

Your comments (56) specifically flagged some things I really disagreed with.

1. If “selfish” is mean to indicate “not thinking about others’ well being,” then nobody has the right to place themselves inside adoptive parents’ heads.

This whole idea of racism being an ‘intent’ issue and placing an unfair standard for race issues to be discussed. I can never ‘be sure’ what is in anyone’s heads, so does that mean race issues can never be discussed? Never be critiqued? It’s not about people’s intent or even individuals nec, it’s about structures and cultures.

2. For each parent seeking to adopt, it is about the individual story… The industry’s problems, like world peace, are relevant as well — but they aren’t to be laid on the lap of the adoptive parent.

Essentially structural racism or inequality isn’t the fault of the adoptive parent so… they can do what they like? It can’t be discussed?

Everything else you have said can be boiled down to the sentence ’she’d be worse off in an orphanage’. Well, that’s not an adequate response and I’m disappointed that you think it is. The adoptive parents on this thread who commented in 54,55 and 56 basically made the same argument. It’s better than dying in an orphanage. Well, no one said it wasn’t. Does that mean that critique of structural race issues is off the table?

You and the other parents just RESPONDED TO A STRUCTURAL DISCUSSION BY BEING OFFENDED PERSONALLY. That is the definition of majority privilege, white privilege, deaf adder stopping up it’s ears.

Here’s an example which is a bit crude and I’m sorry if you find it offensive but I think it is a good analogy. Many children are dying in an orphanage in poorer countries. Death and starvation is worse than anything. Now lets say they are adopted by a child molester. Well, since being molested isn’t as bad as being dead, I guess morally child molestation is ok and beyond critique. Because according to some extreme arbitrary standard (death), it’s better. That is what you are saying. That nothing you do or any adoptive parent does is really worthy of discussion or criticism because it’s all better than being dead/40 pounds underweight or whatever. You probably think this is an extreme response to what you said but the principle is spot on. Your response was to continue reiterating the poverty of children in difficult situations. And I think this is a poor response. We _know_ there is extreme poverty – but how does this close down any critique of IA? Extreme defensiveness that you ‘personally haven’t done anything wrong’ or that ‘it’s about the individuals not the system’ or that ‘it’s you or death’ are not helpful and are certainly not going to comfort your adoptive child in the millions of micro aggressions and frustrations that will inform his/her child and adulthood.

And lastly, there is this idea that adoptive parents should be given the benefit of the doubt continously and no negative motives imputed. I have to ask – why? It’s not that people should be demonised but this is exactly reflective of broader conversations about race. Setting aside your privilege means being aware of it and being willing to actually tolerate and deal with some suspicion, rather than feel like, although the entire world has (and continues to) treated people differently for hundreds of years, everyone should somehow reset to neutral for you. Isn’t being a real ally/genuinely anti-racist about understanding that this isn’t going to happen 100% all the time and being ok with that rather than trying to tell POC to control their anger?

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 5:54 pm ¶
pololly wrote:

PS – I’ve got a couple of (close) friends who were IA and I’ve emailed them about the thread to see if they will comment. I don’t know if they will (very raw topic for them) but I think they may be pretty blunt if they do. This has been a pretty polite thread overall, but I actually think part of it may be almost a deference/privilege thing. We’re almost at tone arguments here – is that a good thing?

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 6:00 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

MOD NOTE

Okay, things are getting a little heated. Some notes –

1. My initial mod note was basically a polite way to say we have anti-racist adoptive parents, TRAs with good experiences and TRAs with negative experiences all reading this blog. That’s why I said to let those more directly affected speak.

2. I am putting up another post on adoption that goes along these lines, but goes deeper and harder. Be prepared for that.

3. Please, no savior complexes. We’ve already deleted a couple of posts who have accused people of 1st world privilege – and while that exists, we will not tolerate that being leveled as a way to silence TRAs about their experiences.

4. Also, no need to fall on the cross for TRAs as well. Like all groups, they are not a monolith, and there are enough folks here who can speak for themselves. They might not be choosing to participate, but they are reading.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 6:55 pm ¶
Mei-Ling wrote:

I’ve always wondered why the argument boils down to “Well s/he would have been worse off in the orphanage.”

That makes it so very black & white.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 7:50 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:

@Mei Ling: “If it’s just a matter of finances and the biological parents are legally known (and yes, WANT to raise and love their child), wouldn’t it better for the money to be handed from the agencies TO the biological parents rather than in the political process called adoption?” I totally get what you’re saying. And I think it is a d*mn shame that here in the US we don’t have more long term, therapeutic, economic, etc. family support so that children can be kept with their biological family members. BUT, when does it cross the line and become me, as a privileged (white) US citizen, telling someone who is saying they don’t want to parent “Yes, you do. Believe me, you do. Here, I’ll give you some money and some therapy and a place to live and then it’ll be great. Just take the baby back.” I mean, on one hand that would often be a good scenario from a child’s point of view (I’m only saying this b/c its been my experience that children often would rather live with their parents, given the choice). But, on the other hand, if a mother has given up (like literally said “Please take her. I don’t want her. I can’t take care of her.”) her child, who are we as outsiders to her experience to force them to parent? Parenting is MUCH more than economic status, I agree. Money doesn’t make a better parent. But it goes both ways. Giving money or support (of whatever type) to a parent or relative does not always mean that they are going to WANT to parent the child. Parenting is a lifelong commitment and its a big deal. It takes more than money and I wouldn’t want to force it on anyone. Now I have personally experienced situations in which it was clear that money/housing was the ONLY reason why the mom was giving up her daughter. Thank God that she was able to get support and get her back. That is truly the best case scenario. But I am not willing to assume that the decision to continue to parent is as simple as having the resources.

@ atlasien: “However, the win-win narrative of adoption (and international adoption in particular) is so strong that adoption is often presented as being a LESS selfish act than having your own biological children. For example, women pursuing infertility treatments are often accused of being “selfish” because they should “just adopt”.” That is so true. Its really infuriating. I also see a lot of the “Well, I adopted from the US via foster care because there are SO many needy kids in our OWN country” implying that international adoptions are more selfish/more problematic than transracial adoptions in the U.S. I think that both are problematic for different reasons and both are born out of the same sadness. I don’t like the hint of competition in the comparison. As if its more of a “sacrifice” to do foster care to adopt in the U.S. or something…it rubs me the wrong way. If I could resolve these issues, I would love to adopt. My mother and her brothers and sisters were (intra-racially) adopted here and their experiences were very positive. But I’m not sure I could ever be okay with feeling like I’ve taken a child from his/her mother. It hurts to even think that. And my husband and I couldn’t intra-racially adopt b/c we’re an interracial couple…so which race of child is the “right” one for us to adopt? None, I guess?

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 8:13 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:

@ Mei Ling: I re-read what you wrote and I realized that you were responding to a comment that presupposed that it was just finances and the person really did want to parent. Doh. I’m obviously tired and stupid. But, the rest of what I said stands in general. I don’t want to see people (women, in particular) being pressured to parent.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 8:26 pm ¶
Gigi wrote:

As a latina adoptive parent of multiple asian children, I, too, am disheartened by some of the assumptions made and applied to all of us who are ALREADY in this boat! I don’t really care what you think about me, as a person or as a parent, but can I ask that you stop judging my children? There’s noting more annoying than POC rejecting my kids because of me … I’m learning and trying and on the brink of making life-changing decisions and it would be easier for my children if they felt accepted by you! The white community will accept/reject according to their whim and so yes, I reach for the asian community, hoping to have role models for my kids (because I now realize that I, though non-white, cannot fit the bill), but it might be more meaningful if you save the judgment for the system, the countries, the white privilege, and even me, if you so choose – spare my children your looks and shame! If you think they are part of the modern slave trade, then you should be welcoming them into freedom, not casting your judgment on them…that’s what I get alot of and it’s infuriating!

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 8:57 pm ¶
jstele wrote:

Atlasien,

Japan has largely stopped international adoption, true. But not because there has been an increase in domestic adoptions. The reason that children are not adopted out is to keep the family connection and the stigma of having one’s child adopted. So many children are kept in orphanages rather than adopted. I remember reading an article about this.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 9:16 pm ¶
Mei-Ling wrote:

“I realized that you were responding to a comment that presupposed that it was just finances and the person really did want to parent.”

Yep…

I’m tired of seeing adoption treated as a black and white issue when it really isn’t.

But – we’ve got such a LONG way to go until we can get people to see why it isn’t black and white.

Posted 05 Oct 2009 at 10:50 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

Pololly: your comment is responding to strawarguments that I didn’t actually make One example: “Does that mean that critique of structural race issues is off the table?” — I’ve said they ARE on the table multiple times. Another example: I never claimed I knew anything about whether anyone *except* the specific person in the example I gave would be better adopted or not adopted.

What I said (a few times): “agencies and parents together should work towards reform of the process of determining existence of birth relatives and fraud involved in the process” and “I think it’s perfectly legit to critique transracial or transnational adoption practices. But I agree with your note about not demonizing the participants.”

You: ” how does this close down any critique of IA?”

I appreciate the mod note asking for civility here, and would ask that you extend me the courtesy of responding to the actual arguments being made.

Posted 06 Oct 2009 at 12:15 am ¶
Kristen wrote:

Having a discussion about international adoption and banishing talk of orphanages is kind of like having a discussion about health care reform and asking that no one mention the uninsured . . .

Posted 06 Oct 2009 at 1:01 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:

I think this is an important question (from #75):

“Setting aside your privilege means being aware of it and being willing to actually tolerate and deal with some suspicion, rather than feel like, although the entire world has (and continues to) treated people differently for hundreds of years, everyone should somehow reset to neutral for you. Isn’t being a real ally/genuinely anti-racist about understanding that this isn’t going to happen 100% all the time and being ok with that rather than trying to tell POC to control their anger?”

Yes. Agreed.

Being aware of privilege, able to deal with suspicion, and not telling POC to control anger, are all part of being a good ally.

That’s why the OP’s discussion about ” think[ing] about which bodies have currency” and the need to critique transracial, transnational adoption practices, is one that good allies should be able to enter into without defensiveness.

However — what is the appropriate response of an ally to statements that she feels are not about raising suspicion about practices that in some cases stem from racism, colonial or racial insensitivity, but that she feel unfairly demonize without full information?

The latter statements aren’t simple analyses of systemic racism, but are (or seem to me to be) convictions without a trial of those whom we don’t have enough information to label.

And here I think a good ally does speak up. Not to tell anyone they cannot be angry (I don’t believe anyone did that above, and I agree that it is totally out of order) but to make a differentiation. And of course, others are free to disagree with that. It may not be any good. It’s just one opinion. But it’s not, to my mind, wrong to voice it.

I don’t think a good ally refuses to engage. To me, that would seem to be othering POC as people who cannot brook disagreement. Of course, it is never OK for an ally to substitute her own judgment, especially in areas she cannot really ever understand. But in areas where there is room for a variety of intelligent, differing opinions, I think it is fair for allies to respectfully agree and disagree as appropriate.

Nobody should feel the world revolves around her. And there’s definitely a time to shut up and listen. Where a post deals specifically with a POC-centric experience, it would be inappropriate for a white ally to pipe up with a comment, however well meaning, that attempts to voice an uninformed opinion. But transracial –”involving or between two or more races” — topics do appear to lend themselves to differing voices, even though as appropriate, POC are centered. In these kinds of topics, allies who disagree with certain comments but keep quiet, where they would respond to a white commenter, are not operating as allies but merely a feel-good audience. In my view, the topic and the participants deserve better, whether or not the comments I’ve made are worthwhile — it’s certainly possible they are not.

Posted 06 Oct 2009 at 2:01 pm ¶
Ruchama wrote:

I thought this was somewhat relevant: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/mom-who-gave-back-her-adopted-son/ A family with three girls, and a father in the military who was frequently away, adopted a little boy. (One article says from South America, another says from Ethiopia — I think Ethiopia is correct.) In the 18 months that he was with them, the mother gave birth to two more girls. She eventually concluded that he wasn’t bonding with her and she wasn’t bonding with him (she never really explains what this means), and, after 18 months, terminated the adoption and found another family to adopt him. The first article led to more comments than I have ever seen on a single entry on the NY Times parenting blog, and then, she went on the Today Show to talk about it.

Posted 06 Oct 2009 at 2:29 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

@jstele: I’m aware of that. The Japanese orphanages aren’t orphanages in the Dickensian sense… by all accounts they’re well-funded and the children don’t lack for anything material. But they do “graduate” with bleak prospects, especially because they don’t have family support to go to college. There are organizations in Japan that are working to increase awareness and encourage more adoption AND foster parenting. There are currently adoptive and foster families in Japan, it’s not as if they don’t exist entirely, but the ratio is skewed towards orphanages/group homes.

@Ruchama: I’m disgusted with the fawning attention that Anita Tedaldi is receiving. She could have used her time in the spotlight to advocate for support for special needs… but instead she’s using it for a narcissistic attention grab, and to promote her upcoming book. Which is about parenting advice!?!

There’s a critical discussion going on here.

@Montclair Mommy:
“But I’m not sure I could ever be okay with feeling like I’ve taken a child from his/her mother. It hurts to even think that. And my husband and I couldn’t intra-racially adopt b/c we’re an interracial couple…so which race of child is the “right” one for us to adopt? None, I guess?”

It’s just a hurt people should learn to deal with as adoptive parents.

And the answer is indeed “none”. It’s the same one I also came up with, since I’m also interracially married.

@Gigi: who are you addressing? Who exactly is rejecting your children?

Posted 06 Oct 2009 at 3:31 pm ¶
Mei-Ling wrote:

“But I’m not sure I could ever be okay with feeling like I’ve taken a child from his/her mother.”

Nobody feels like they’ve “taken a child from his/her mother” because you don’t see it directly happening.

Nobody witnesses the OCP regulations. Nobody witnesses physical abandonment (not as far as I’m aware of, anyway). Nobody witnesses social workers or child traffickers pay big bucks for agencies to sell off children overseas.

Posted 07 Oct 2009 at 12:31 pm ¶
Gigi wrote:

@atlasien, I was attempting to address all POC who look at my children, who don’t share my race or my husband’s race, and verbalize a disdain toward the child directly. It’s an automatic rejection of the child because of the parents who accompany them. As if they had a choice in the matter! I am simply trying to expose them, as much as I can in a my current environment, to another culture, a non-white one. White people, at their most rude moments, ask me why I couldn’t adopt here in the U.S. or comment on the general stereotypes of intelligence or even ask questions about “the defective one” (as they, not I, refer to my special needs asian child who does not meet the stereotype). So perhaps my real concern is where we, as parents who are now viewed as having the “ultimate commodity,” should go for support…rejection is all around. I’d like my children to feel comfortable in their skin and I don’t see that happening in either world: the white one we live in or the non-white one that rejects them because of me!

Posted 07 Oct 2009 at 9:12 pm ¶
js718 wrote:

I’m just as upset with Korea for allowing so many of its own to be sent abroad as I am about foreign countries paying for them.
AP’s and PAP’s, friends of or people who were Intl/TRA shouldn’t get defensive and take it so personally. I’m not trying to analyze each situation. But rather than defending yourself realize that intl adoption is a business to make money. Families are broken up and lost. Seems like some AP’s are so sure that their children were orphans etc, but do you have any idea how many of those files are fake? Children in Korea need to be declared abandoned before being eligible for adoption whether or not that was the actual case. And for all those AP’s who seem positive their kids are better off, turning out fine etc, let these children speak for themselves.

Posted 08 Oct 2009 at 11:51 am ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:

@Mei-Ling: I agree. Adoption is not even close to a black and white issue. It is complex on many levels. Not sure where you were coming from with the: “Nobody feels like they’ve “taken a child from his/her mother” because you don’t see it directly happening.” comment. Its not true…I know quite a few adoption parents who adopted that feel that way. And there are many cases of in country adoption where you literally take the child from its mother in the hospital. Basically, I am saying, to adopt I would have to overcome the feeling that I took a child from its mother. And that is a reason why I don’t know if I could adopt. If I chose to do so, I’d have to do some real soul searching and growing. Additionally, I would adopt in the U.S. (not against adopting overseas but my husband and I only have real connections with a few other countries and none of them do out of country adoption) and I would do an open adoption so I would (hopefully) have connection with the child’s birth family.

“Nobody witnesses physical abandonment (not as far as I’m aware of, anyway).” I’m not sure what you mean by that either. I witnesses the physical abandonment of several children when I was working at a children’s home/orphanage. I also witnessed a few parents coming back to visit their children. So there is definitely at least one orphanage in which the records and files are clear, the parents are given lots of support in the hopes that they can get custody if they want it (they often do), visits are supported with extended family, and where a child available for adoption really has no other option. Definitely a case of not all countries and orphanages are the same. Doesn’t change the need to transparency, regulation, and reform.

Posted 09 Oct 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶
s.lee wrote:

As a person who has been affected by adoption, not as an adoptee myself but as a child of a parent who was adopted transracially/transnationally, I’ve got lots of stuff going on with this comment thread.

Mostly, I just want to say that it’s really exhausting to read more from the perspectives of adoptive or foster parents (POC or white) than from adoptees themselves.

I really appreciate the comments from adoptees like Jae Ran, because those are the voices that, frankly, I’d rather hear from. Not that it’s not important to hear from adoptive parents/families, but those voices are the ones that dominate the conversation — all the time.

And on a totally other note, specifically to the comparison of adoption from Corea (and let’s point out that it’s from the ROK) vs. Japan… it really irked me to see this false comparison. The current state of adoption in Corea exists in large part because of the legacy US-Soviet led sustained-war and the resulting US-style capitalization of southern Corea. Many of the children within the first waves of adoption to the US were from the military camptowns (first created by Japanese imperialists and then the signs just switched to English for the US imperialists). We cannot forget that the adoption situation in Corea has many roots to US aggression and the resulting commercial success of baby export to the US, creating an industry that is still strong today.

Posted 11 Oct 2009 at 6:31 pm ¶
dianne wrote:

I would like to add a few notes to the “do not assume” list:

1) Do not assume that all APs are upper middle-class, even if they adopt internationally. And do not assume that upper middle-class parents have never been working class or poor.

The underlying assumption that none of us have ever struggled to survive OURSELVES can color how what we say is interpreted (I am not excusing the “salvation” myth, just pointing out something I have experienced).

2) Do not assume that neither of the APs is him or herself adopted. My husband was adopted and his feelings about how adoption can and should be done greatly influenced our decision to look out of country. If our adopted son disagrees with these feelings when he is older, the two of them will talk about it….and at least he’ll know Daddy was NOT pulling these feelings out of a bag.

I have greatly appreciated what Jae has shared here and other places. Also, these comments seem pretty balanced to me, and are all food for thought.

Posted 13 Oct 2009 at 3:20 pm ¶

Quoted: Rebecca Walker on Capitalism and Transracial Adoption

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