I love Angelina Jolie. She's the unapologetic mom of a mixed brood of adoptees and bio-kids. She's not married to her partner (yet), and she's a poster gal for humanitarian aid. She's the hottest adoptive mom around.
The problem? The media, of course, and all the heat and light journalists bring to adoption — especially international adoption — because celebrities are involved. Much as I admire Angie's chutzpah and Brad Pitt's weary saintliness, the Brangelina enterprise offers a very skewed picture of how adoptions come about and what life is like for the average adoptive family.
This is not news to anyone in the adoption community. But I'm continually amazed by the misconceptions pumped by the press.
Adoption Initiative Conference 2022
2 years ago
2 comments:
"NPR’s Talk of the Nation last April, host Neal Conan ignored the dwindling numbers."
Excerpt from the written transcript:
CONAN: Hope, thanks for your - thanks very much.
And Susan, we just have a few seconds left with you. But you look at the statistics, Americans are adopting fewer kids from overseas in the last couple of years, and the trend is downwards. How come?
Please, be sure to read the written transcript before you trash NPR. Or perhaps you should retitle you post as What This Blog Gets Wrong About NPR About The Talk Of The Nation Radio Call In Show "Why Did You Opt For An International Adoption"
September 3, 2009 11:31 PM
Antinette, thanks for your stirring defense of NPR, but you might consider whether you left your comment at the right place. I LINKED to ANOTHER blog who "criticized" NPR. Maybe you should leave your comment THERE.
And looking at the transcript, it looks like the host mentioned dwindling numbers only in the last "few seconds left." Add to that the choice to even do a show about choosing international adoption when fewer and fewer people are, and I can make a convincing case that NPR, in that show, ignored that phenomenon. But of course, I didn't write it, so I don't feel the need to defend it.
You might want to look at my blog to see how many times I've linked to NPR, too. Like the post just below the one that angered you so much. . . .
What about a substantive comment? Do you think the media, including NPR, generally get it right or get it wrong about adoption?
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