Birth Father Speaks on Broken Promises

In my post about promises that induce birth parents to relinquish their children, I mentioned that one of the most frequent false promise in domestic adoption today is the promise of openness. This video is part 1 of 5 where a birth father speaks emotionally and honestly about the unmet promises of open adoption:



Click here to access the other 4 videos.

China's Zhuang Minority Risks Losing Cultural Distinctiveness

From ChannelNewsAsia, dateline Nanning, Guangxi Province (my childrens' home province), a short but interesting article about the Zhuang minority in China:

Like other minorities, the Zhuangs have benefited from government assistance over the years. The Guangxi province, where nine in ten ethnic Zhuangs now live, was declared a Zhuang autonomous region in 1958.

In China, ethnic minorities are entitled to certain benefits which are not available to the predominant Han majority. For instance, they can have more than one child in
spite of China's strict one-child policy and they also receive special benefits when entering colleges.

Even so, given the dominance of the Han Chinese, ethnic Zhuangs say they often have to explain their culture to the Hans. Another problem that they face is losing their cultural distinctiveness, due to the adoption of the Han language and greater assimilation with the Han Chinese.

"Given modern day progress, many things will have to change. We still maintain many non-tangible cultural characteristics, so we've not become completely assimilated with the Hans," said Gan.

One of the counterweights to assimilation was noted in a New York Times article published almost 20 years ago, but still true today:

[O]ne reason for the relative contentment [of ethnic minorities] seems to be the preferential treatment given to members of minority groups. Typically, ethnic minorities are allowed to marry earlier than members of the Han ethnic majority,
and, most important, to have more children. Their children can also get into universities with lower examination scores than are required of Han students, and model members of minorities are chosen to fill prominent Government posts. The Governor of Yunnan Province, for example, is a member of the Naxi minority.

Because of the affirmative action policy, some families that in the past had tried to assimilate into the Han majority are now applying for declarations that they are members of a minority, and not Han, so that their children will have a better chance of getting into the universities.

Our guide in Guangxi Province when we returned in 2007 told us about the interest in being from a minority group these days, in order to get that all-so-important college admission. He said that lots of people were tracing their roots, hoping to find a family member from a minority group so that they could apply for designation as a minority. Reminded me a bit of some Americans' attempts to get tribal membership just as college applications are due. . . .

[The ChannelNewsAsia article also mentions the famous Zhuang legend of Liu Sanjie. We got to attend Impressions: The Story of Liu Sanjie in Guangxi Province in 2007. Quite a show!]

One of my perennial questions is whether Zoe and/or Maya might be Zhuang. The official story in China would be no, since the one child policy doesn't apply to the Zhuang minority group. But that answer presupposes that the only reason children are available for adoption in China is because they are over-quota children, and we know that's not true. I know of lots of kids adopted from Guangxi Province who have been identified as Zhuang or from some other minority group by Chinese people in the know. I get mixed reactions from people I ask about the girls, so I'm not sure.

I've long been fascinated by the various minority groups in China; click here for one of my favorite websites about the ethnic minorities in China. There's a page for each group.

Survey Says . . .

Finally! The results of the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents have been published, and there are lots of interesting data. The survey compares results according to types of adoption -- from foster care, from private domestic, and from international -- and to the population as a whole. A limitation of the survey is that it is based on self-reporting by adoptive parents, with no independent verification of the things reported.

A few of what the report identifies as the key findings:

* Most adopted children (85 percent) are in excellent or very good health. At the same time, the parents of 26 percent of adopted children report that their child experiences moderate or severe consequences of any of 16 possible medical or psychological conditions. Adopted children are more likely than children in the general population to have health insurance (95 compared with 91 percent) and to have had insurance continuously over the previous 12 months (91 compared with 85 percent). The incidence of special health care needs is about twice as high in the population of adopted children as it is among the general population of U.S. children (39 compared with 19 percent).

* The majority of adopted children also fare well according to measures of social and emotional well-being. For example, only a small minority of adopted children have ever been diagnosed with disorders such as attachment disorder, depression, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADD/ADHD), or behavior or conduct disorder. Furthermore, 88 percent of adopted children ages 6 and older exhibit positive social behaviors. However, compared to the general population of children, adopted children are more likely to have ever been diagnosed with—and to have moderate or severe symptoms of—depression, ADD/ADHD, or behavior/conduct disorder.

* The majority of adopted children have enriching experiences in their families, and they are more likely to have some of these positive experiences than children in the general population. For example, they are more likely to be read to every day as young children (68 compared with 48 percent in the general population), sung to or told stories every day as young children (73 compared with 59 percent), or to participate in extracurricular activities as school-age children (85 compared with 81 percent). However, a minority of adopted children have parents who report parental aggravation (for example, feeling the child was difficult to care for, or feeling angry with the child). Parental aggravation is more common among parents of adopted children than among parents in the general U.S. population (11 compared with 6 percent).

* Overall, 87 percent of adopted children have parents who said they would “definitely” make the same decision to adopt their child, knowing everything then that they now know about their child. In addition, more than nine out of ten adopted children ages 5 and older have parents who perceived their child’s feelings towards the adoption as “positive” or “mostly positive.”

* Overall, four out of ten adopted children are in transracial adoptions—that is, their parents reported that both adoptive parents are (or the single adoptive parent is) of a different race, culture, or ethnicity than their child. The majority of adopted children have non-Hispanic white parents but are not themselves non-Hispanic white. Transracial adoptions are most common for children whose families adopted internationally.

There wasn't anything terribly surprising in the results, but then I've only managed to skim the report. I'll take a closer look and blog about anything that strikes me as time permits. Post your reactions in the comments, please!

"They Will Return To You"

In American adoption law, it is a fundamental principle that coercion makes consent to an adoption involuntary and therefor ineffective. And coercion isn't exclusively about force or payments, it can be about false promises, too. Perhaps one of the most common false promise in domestic adoption these days is the promise of open adoption. It tends to be a false promise because open adoption is not enforceable in most states, and in the states where open adoption agreements are enforceable, certain technical steps have to be followed to make it so. Not surprisingly, birth mothers aren't always given adequate legal advice to understand what steps are necessary to make the agreement enforceable.

If it is so hard domestically, can you imagine how false promises might affect consent in international adoption, where there is no shared language, no shared culture, often no shared understanding of what adoption is?

In a 2004 article in the Journal of Law and Family Studies, Jini Roby highlights the problem of different cultural understandings of adoption:

The beautiful young woman was wiping tears from her cheeks as she struggled to tell her story. She paused many times, often overcome with sorrow, and frequently searching for the right English words. I waited for her, knowing that attentive and empathic silence on my part was not uncomfortable for her in context of her culture. She looked to be in her early twenties, but she had already given birth to three children and relinquished the older two.

At her home in Majuro, Marshall Islands, a small Pacific country with a population
of just over 50,000, she had been solicited to bring her children to the U.S. to place them with an adoptive family. When she and her husband divorced, she had been left without means to support the children. A local adoption ‘facilitator’ (child finder) had visited her, and urged adoption. To make things easier, she would travel to the U.S. with her children and relinquish them on U.S. soil; thus the adoptive family would avoid the complicated process of international adoptions and she would have a trip to the U.S. She was promised on-going help and continuing contact with her children, which did not strike her as anything unusual. Had she known that adoption meant something entirelydifferent in the Western world from her own knowledge of adoption, she may not have considered it an option. In fact, the notion that a mother can sign away her relationship with her children had never been a concept in her culture. . . . [I]n the Marshallese culture adoption only bridged two families together to bring up children.

That lack of understanding of what adoption meant also appeared in Madonna's adoption of her son David Banda from Malawi:

Mr Banda [the birth father], who is illiterate, said he had no idea what the High Court adoption papers he signed had meant and he was "just realising" what the procedure entailed.

He said: "I was never told that adoption means that David will no longer be my son... If I was told this, I would not have allowed theadoption.

"I want more clarification on the adoption. I would prefer that David goes back to the orphanage where I can see him any time I want, rather than send him away for good."

Mr Banda, 32, said he thought Madonna would just "educate and take care of our son."

But he still thanked Madonna for rescuing David "from poverty and disease."

"We pray for the good Lord to keep blessing her for her benevolence," he told Associated Press news agency.

Mr Banda's cousin, Wiseman Zimba, told AP: "Our understanding as family is that David is still part and parcel of our clan. After the good woman nurtures and educates him, he will return back."

False promises of continuing contact and return were at the center of the Samoan adoption scandals that led to criminal convictions for adoption agency personnel:

Samoan families accuse Utah-based adoption agency Focus on Children of tricking them into giving up their children for permanent adoptions. Similar tactics were described in interviews with six Samoan families, all but one members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Recruiters exploited their religious faith and dreams for their children, they said, selling adoption as a "program" that would send youngsters to live with an American Mormon family and get a good education before returning home at 18.

Same story in Ethiopia:

Parents are often unaware of what they're doing when they offer their children for adoption. They're led to believe they'll hear from their children regularly and their children will be well educated and eventually bring the family wealth.

But in reality, the parents and families never hear from their children and receive little information about where their children have gone. We filmed a room full of grieving mothers who gave their children for adoption after agencies promised they'd be given regular updates.

And as Brian Stuy recently reported, the same promises are made in China, when there is hardly a chance that birth families and children could be reunited:

While much is spoken about the financial payments involved in many orphanage programs, a lessor-known program involves no money, but a simple promise: That a
child will be provided a rich family to raise it, that the child will be given a great education, resulting in a successful life. This promise, often combined with promises of a "returning child", is a very strong incentive for any loving parent, but especially a parent that views such "blessings" as impossible to provide themselves.

How cruel these promises are -- those making them have to know that they will not be carried out. If we can't guarantee that the promises will be fulfilled in domestic adoption, we certainly know that there's no chance of fulfillment across oceans and miles and language differences and cultural disconnects. It's hard to imagine consent being voluntary in the face of these false promises and cultural misunderstandings.

A Touch of China Christmas Tree

We joined the millions of Americans who put up their Christmas trees over the Thanksgiving holiday. I've always had an eclectic Christmas tree -- can't seem to manage the one theme/one color type! We have ballet ornaments, Santas, snowmen, princesses, bells, angels, nativities, and many, many tacky and handmade ornaments. We have a few ornaments that are not exactly adoption-specific, but are meaningful in some way for adoptive families -- including a new one we bought at Hallmark this year called "Forever Family."

We also have lots of ornaments with the spirit of China. We've collected them over the years from a variety of sources, and not all of them were actually made to be Christmas ornaments. The girls get a real kick out of putting the Chinese ornaments on the tree, sometimes squabbling over who gets to put on what. I'm now trying to get two of any such ornaments to cut down on the fighting and so the girls can each have their own ornaments to take to their own homes when the time comes for them to put up a family Christmas tree with a touch of China in it.

Zoe loves this one since she was born in the Year of the Dragon -- World Market purchase.

Old man, complete with beard, but not at all Santa-like -- something a friend gave us (thanks, Lavelle!).

These lanterns came with a string of lights, but I just clip the lanterns onto bulbs on our pre-lit tree -- works like a charm. I can't remember where I got these, but it was sometime around Chinese New Year years ago.

I gave this to Zoe for her birthday. I thought she might want to use it as a backpack charm, but she wanted it on the Christmas tree!

We bought quite a few of these little dolls in ethnic minority costumes when we were in China in 2007. They're originally key chains, but we put them on the tree.

OK, I admit to being perverse enough to like the fact that we have a Buddha ornament on our Christmas tree! From World Market, one of the ornaments I got Zoe for her birthday.

Zoe made this at Chinese School (or was it China Camp? Culture Camp? I can't remember!).

I love this qi pao ornament -- a gift from my sister (thanks, Kim!) I think it was actually Kohl's that carried this ornament, together with the lantern ornament at the bottom (thanks again, Kim!).

I like that this panda looks like it's eating from our tree, rather than eating bamboo! Another World Market purchase.

Do you have something on your tree to commemorate your child's heritage? Adoption? Any ideas for ways to honor birth parents?

New Book: Why China Gave Me Two Daughters

Here's an article in a Dutch newspaper, brought to you in English courtesy of Google Translate (which explains the choppy read), about a journalist who traveled to China in 2008 & 2009 to trace his adopted daughters' roots and then wrote a book about it called Why China Gave Me Two Daughters:

Wedding-editor Martijn Roessingh adopted two Chinese girls. In 2001 Linde from the northern province of Shaanxi, and in 2004 from Guang Dong Jiang. Now they are nine and six years old, they start asking questions about their background.

The official records of the children tell little and also that information is not always true. Therefore he travels late 2008 and early 2009 to China to see if he could trace their backgrounds. His book "Why China gave me two daughters" on the population policies of China and its quest appears today.

[The photo above illustrated the article, and it says its a poster in China glorifying the One Child Policy.]

If anyone has a link to this story originally in English, I'd appreciate it if you'd give me the link.

And good timing for having found this article -- at American Family, there's a thoughtful post today on that family's thought processes in deciding to search for birth parents in China. If you want to read my take on searching in China and the few steps I've taken, see here and here and here.

Adoption Apparel Translator

A funny, snarky post at Racialicious, originally published at iBastard, "translating" some of the slogans popular on clothing for adopted kids:

I was adopted in what has come to be called the Baby Scoop Era, the period between the end of World War II and Roe v. Wade when girls were girls, boys were boys, sex education was lacking and little white babies were plentiful. Adoption could be–and often was–kept secret back then, though thankfully my own adoptive parents did not try to pull such a selfish and nasty stunt. However, in any case it certainly was never advertised.

So it’s odd now to see adoptive parents dressing up their adopted children in clothes that proclaim the child’s adoptee status with messages like “I grew in Mommy’s heart!” or the appalling “Mommy’s Lil’ Guatling” (seriously, wtf?). Not that they should be ashamed, of course (there’s already enough bullshit shame in adoption), but when people go out of their way to say something, there’s usually more to it than the literal message. There’s a metamessage (the message behind the message itself) or subtext of some kind.

Discourse on adoption is just loaded with metamessages and subtext, so we here at International Bastard Machines have been working on new translation technology to sniff ‘em out. Today we are proud to announce the first test run of our Adoption Apparel Translator, a device that parses adoption slogans on baby clothes and teases out the subtle messages adoptive parents are really trying to send.

I hadn't seen the "Imported from China" one before, but have long had a strong dislike for the "Made in China, Loved in America" slogan, beloved of many adoptive parents (click here to read a whole slew of them defending the shirt). In a previous post about the book titled, Made in China, I described the slogan thus: "very high yuck factor in terms of objectification/ commodification, with the added assumption that no one loved these girls in China." At least the "Imported from China" slogan only objectifies and commodifies . . . . Sigh.

I Am Thankful, Kids Edition

Zoe: I am thankful for . . .

. . . my birth parents

. . . my forever mom

. . . God & Jesus

. . . scientists

. . . heroes in our community

Maya: I am thankful for. . .

. . . my whole family

. . . my life

. . . Jesus

. . . lots of food

. . . the Earth

I Am Thankful, Adoption Edition

I am thankful . . .

. . . for the adoptive families who have come before us, who have been honest about their successes and their mistakes, so we can learn.

. . . for the adult adoptees who share their pain and their joy, so we can learn. I know your lives are not lived so that we can learn, but I’m grateful for what you share.

. . . for brave birth mothers -- braving scorn and stigma to write about their experiences -- whose honesty about the pain and loss in adoption has opened my eyes to a part of adoption I wanted to ignore, but cannot, for the sake of my children.

. . . for my extended family – parents, sister & brother and their families, aunts, uncles, cousins, all of whom have embraced my children as their own.

. . . for my girls: my smart, intense, passionate Zoe; my smart, peace-making, empathetic Maya, who have changed my life in ways I could never have imagined when I began this journey.

. . . for my faithful blog readers, who share this life-long journey called adoption.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

RainBabies

Tonight the girls and I watched a Scholastic DVD that included the story "Rainbabies." I like the Scholastic DVDs because they follow the books so exactly, and have DVDs of many of our favorites. "Rainbabies" was new to us, though. The Publisher's Weekly blurb describes the book like this: "a childless couple finds a dozen tiny rainbabies in the grass after a moonshower, takes them home and tenderly cares for them until the babies' real mother arrives to claim her offspring and reward the devoted husband and wife." But I didn't know any of this when we watched it . . . .

Sure enough, the childless couple takes care of the babies, protecting them from all dangers. A youth comes and offers them a valuable jewel if they will give him the babies for a wealthy childless noblewoman, but they refuse. The youth suddenly transforms into Mother Moonshower, who tells the couple she's come for the babies. She says they can't grow and thrive with the couple. She's brought them a human baby to care for instead. They happily allow her to take the rainbabies, mesmerized by their beautiful new baby.

After the story ended, Zoe said in a quizzical voice, "That's was kind of an adoption story. . . ."
I asked her how it was like adoption, and she said the Moonshower lady was like the birth mother. I agreed, and asked what she thought of her coming back for the babies. She shrugged and ducked her head, seemingly uncomfortable with the storyline.

I said, "I bet you know what I would do in that situation," and Maya piped up from the bathroom (!), "You're our mom forever! You wouldn't give us away!" Zoe jumped in immediately, "That's right!" I said that was exactly right, and that I would never give them away. When I became their mom, I said, I promised to love them and take care of them forever, and forever means forever. We talked more about the fact that adoption is permanent, amongst hugs and cuddles, because that was what Zoe and Maya needed to hear about. The storyline obviously touched on the fear of abandonment that many adoptees feel.

[We didn't talk about the part where Mother Moonshower says that the babies can't grow and thrive in the care of the adoptive parents. That could be a really deep and interesting discussion about what it takes for kids to grow and thrive, how removing a child from its home country/culture can make things difficult, etc., but that would work with kids older than mine, I think.]

I finally asked Zoe directly, "What would you want me to do if your birth parents found us?" Zoe said she wouldn't want to go with them, and climbed in my lap for another hug. I wasn't terribly surprised -- despite her interest in knowing about her birth parents, they're much more accessible as imaginary figures than as real people. Soon, though, she found her equalibrium and said more bravely, "I'd want to go with them for about a year, and then come back and stay with you forever." I asked her what she'd do for that year, and she said, "Get to know them and explore China!" I said I thought that was a good plan, that it was completely normal for her to want to know her birth parents, and wanting that didn't make our family any less permanent.

I never mind when books or movies raise adoption issues for us to discuss -- much better to discuss them than bury them. But I much prefer to be prepared ahead of time, and this one came out of left field! Though it was a good discussion, I'm not sure I'd recommend this book or video for young adopted kids. It sets up an impossible dichotomy -- either an adversarial relationship between birth parents and adoptive parents who want the same child, or an easy abandonment of the child by the adoptive parents who are offered something better, a different child.

Interesting, Irritating, Idiotic

Links to three recent articles, all of which are interesting for a variety of reasons, at least one of which is irritating for at least one reason, and one of which is idiotic just for idiocy's sake! In no particular order:

From Peggy Drexler at Huffington Post, Adopting a New Attitude:

They used to tell adopted children that they were special because they'd been chosen. I've told my adopted child that I don't believe that. Neither adoption nor birth conveys status to a child. What makes any child special is the love developed in the act of caring for -- and being cared for by -- someone. It's not the process of adoption, but the process of living together that matters, that establishes a special bond with mother and child, or with child and anyone else who adopts a mothering role.

From Jean M. Geren's blog at Foreign Policy, A foreign policy must-have: an ambassador for children:

As a member of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary Rice, I developed an initiative that would have improved interagency coordination and created bilateral partnerships and a trust fund at UNICEF to help countries strengthen their own child protection systems. Though there was wide support including from the Secretary herself, the initiative was derailed by petty turf issues, scarce resources and resistance to new approaches -- all common bureaucratic dysfunctions. Opposition to international adoption also played a role. A USAID officer told me that he maintains a firm wall between international adoptions and any assistance he oversees for orphans to keep it from being "tainted." The problem is that the same authorities in developing countries in charge of adoptions are also in charge of other vulnerable children. The bureaucratic wall helps no one -- not the abandoned child languishing in an institution even though a family is willing to adopt him or the government official trying to stop bad adoptions and place children safely into families in her own country. It needs to come down.

From Voice of America, Children's Charity: Most 'Orphans' Do Have Living Parent:

According to research by Save the Children, over 90 percent of the children thought to be orphans in Central and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, and Ghana are not actually orphans but have at least one living parent. In Liberia, the figure is said to be 88 percent.

In a new report, the charity describes how children are treated as commodities in an industry that recruits children in order to profit from international adoption and child trafficking.

Reactions to "Find My Family?"

Before it aired, I posted about one adoptee/adoptive parent reaction to "Find My Family," ABC's reality show about adoption search and reunion. I had to teach Monday, so didn't get to see the show. Entertainment Weekly says 12.9 million people viewed the show, and called those "solid numbers." Here's a roundup of some reactions from the adoption blogosphere:

Adoptee Susan, in an entertaining post at ReadingWritingLiving, says:

As I was watching the show I kept asking (out loud) the question, “Is this exploitive? Is it bad? WHO is being exploited here?”

I decided to look up the definition of that explosive word.

Exploitive: unfairly or cynically using another person or group for profit or advantage

Well, profit and advantage, definitely. They want their ratings. But is it UNFAIR? Is
it CYNICAL? Hm. I don’t know about that.

I’ll tell you what’s UNFAIR. It’s UNFAIR that a show like this is even feasible in the FIRST place, because if ADULTS had access to their OWN birth records, it’s unlikely that these decade-long dramas would be playing out like this. It wouldn’t hold the enormous charge and people wouldn’t have to be paying agents and investigators for
fruitless searches.

* * *

That’s it, I think. For now. But my opinion is that while the show is cheesy, melodramatic and emotionally manipulative, it also showed some real truths. It was hosted by real adoptees. The people seemed stable and reasonable, for the most part. And their journey is just beginning.

At Birth Mother, First Mother Forum, Lorraine says:

Find My Family on ABC hit it out of the ball park last night with their half-hour reunion show. Yep, it milked the strong emotions that surround the reunion of first/original/birth/genetic/biological parents with their offspring. Yep, I got glassy eyed, and so did the co-host, Tim Green, who met with the birth parents, Sandy and Scott Steinpas, and told them their daughter had been found. "I've waited so long for this," says the mother, Sandy. "I was sure I would always look for my daughter."

Birth mother FauxClaud at Musings of the Lame says:

Birthmothers and Adoption TV=Not Fun
As a birthmother, I find it is like walking through a land mine; carefully place my foot down on the next step, only to find myself blown sky high, or hellish low, when they hit an emotional trigger. Still, when I read up on it on the ABC website, I didn't get that completely awful feeling. The whole mission of the show besides ratings, is to bring families back together, they claim on the website. I can get behind that..

Watching ABC's Find My Family
Channel 7; 9:30 pm: I pull myself away from the computer and sit down to watch. It has that cheesy reality show feel that Extreme Makeover Home Edition does; very dramatic and simplified. Yes, everyone is on their best behavior and say "all the right things"; the view is, at least, shining a sympathetic light on the now married birthmother and birthfather.

* * *

And that's what I want you to try to take away from this new show. I honestly hope that it does well and stays on the air because if it does, and it portrays adoption searches and reunions in a continual positive light, and it is respectful and loving, albeit in a make me cringe a bit way, then what we have is a mass media vehicle that can have the power to make middle America sympathetic to the idea of adoption reunions.

So did you see it? What was your reaction? I'd especially like to hear from adoptive parents who watched and liked the show (since the only adoptive parent reactions I've heard were pre-viewing and negative).

"Foster Kids Abroad Root-Seeking in China"

From China Daily -- yes, the headline says "foster kids" -- a story about a group of adopted Chinese children returning to visit China:

Forty-six children who were adopted by foreigners and are growing up abroad have come back to their birthplaces in China on a root-seeking trip.

The children have arrived in Beijing on their first stop, accompanied by their adoptive families from the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Their families hope the trip will help their adopted children better understand their hometowns.

* * *

[Dou Yupei, China's Vice Minister of Civil Affairs said,] "International adoption is an undertaking that brings to these children love and a bright future. We warmly welcome these children and their foreign families to come back to China. We want them to remember that no matter where they are, our best wishes are always with them. And I hope that these adoptive children will become messengers of friendship between China and the rest of the world."

"How to Say Thanksgiving in Mandarin"

Scott Simon of NPR, and adoptive father to two girls from China (his oldest is 6), has written the above-titled opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

We have come to think of Thanksgiving as a holiday for families like us: Those who know that America, whatever its sins, is a refuge in the world.

When my parents—a Jewish man and an Irish woman—married in the 1950s, they were warned, as transracial adoption families often are, that their children would
face bigotry and hostility. But today, our 6-year-old niece Juliette, a California blond, slips her arm around the shoulders of our daughters and says, "We're cousins for life, right?"

Our Chinese children sit at the Passover table and scrounge for Easter eggs. They wear "South Side Irish" green scarves around their necks on St. Patrick's Day. It's all in the family.

My wife came home one day from our daughters' Chinese culture class to announce there would be no class next week. "Because of the Jewish holidays," she explained, straight-faced. Only in America. Our girls speak French, like their mother. My wife and I join our girls to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in Mandarin. We've learned that families mixed by marriage or adoption don't shrink or starve a heritage. They nourish it with newcomers.

Reactions?

FCC Older Girls Get-Together

Sunday afternoon we got together with the FCC older child group in our area. The girls range from 6 to 11, and we've known most of them since Zoe was a baby. In fact, we traveled with one of the families! We've been in infant/toddler play groups together, but as the girls got older, some of that togetherness gave way to the busyness of days.

We're working hard on bringing the girls back together now. They need this interaction with other kids adopted from China as they get older. As Jane Brown says about organizations for adoptive families:

Typically, adoptive parents join soon after having adopted or sometimes even before the placement of a child. They/we are enthusiastic, eager to help provide leadership, and thrilled for socialization opportunities these organizations provide. However, just as typically, interest starts to wane just as the CHILDREN start to get any meaningful benefit, because we get busy with their school careers, sports participation, music or dance lessons, etc... Inaddition, our children often begin to complain about participating because that reminds them of that which they'd like to push away-- that they are adopted andthey are racially or ethnically different from us-- something that is increasingly stigmatized by their peers at school.

What we need to recognize is that while many to most of our children may strive to shed that which they cannot-- the fact that they were adopted-- we cannot afford to allow adoption, race, and ethnic differences to become the proverbial elephant in the
living room. While we certainly should not pathologize our children because they carry these differences and have more complicated identity-building processes to
navigate, we MUST recognize that our unconditional love, alone, will not suffice to provide the tools they need to construct healthy personal identity and racial-ethnic identity. Both they and we, as their parents, need the connections and support, the mirroring of others who are members of adoptive families, and the ongoing education that these organizations can and should offer.

That is different from what our children get in interactions with members of their ethnic community, since children raised with their same-race parents of color do not have to straddle two different racial-ethnic groups, plus contend with the complex feelings, questions, and issues that are an inherent part of growing up adopted. Its very beneficial to journey through this with other adopted youngsters.

But from my girls' perspectives, it's just plain fun!

More on Feminism & Adoption

At the Wellesley Centers for Women, from Ellen Herman, author of Kinship By Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States, and creator of the Adoption History Project website, a post entitled Why Adoption Makes Feminists Uncomfortable:

Feminists have long been divided over adoption, reflecting this larger dilemma.
If adoption exemplifies voluntary kinship—and it does—it stands to reason that adoption would be attractive for women, who have historically been defined and confined by their consignment to mandatory motherhood. On the other hand, if adoption is premised on gross inequalities that result in the transfer of children from poorer parents, communities, and countries to richer ones—and it is—how can feminists ever defend it as a model of family formation?

At Baby Love Child, Adoption as a modern Feminist institutional blindspot:

For Feminism to genuinely begin to grapple with its legacy of and current entwinement with adoption as an institution and the corrupt industry itself, Feminists would need to move beyond listening to adoptive mothers and begin to genuinely listen to Mothers and Bastards ourselves, all while coming to terms with the many ways by which Feminist individuals and institutions, as well as institutions supported by Feminists (NARAL, as but one of many such examples) have enabled the industry and participated personally, a tall order indeed when for decades now adoption has been sold to womyn as another “reproductive choice.”

The fact that those critical of adoption tactics and the industry remain ghettoized, never added to the pantheon of “Feminist Issues” says a very great deal about the internal blind spot modern many Feminists have perpetuated. Turning a blind eye to the conditions under which children are procured undermines the authenticity of other aspects of the modern Feminist critique.

How can one speak to the conditions of working womyn in India, for example, without ALSO acknowledging that one aspect of the work some number of Indian womyn are forced into is that of bearing children for American would-be adopters?

From the Daily Bastardette, Adoption Is a Feminist Issue:

Unfortunately organized mainstream feminist talk about adoption hasn't moved beyond the 1970s's consumerist/choice nobody-held-a-gun-to-your-head blather
that blames a specific group of de-priviledged women for their own de-priviledging--that privileged feminists have been all too happy exploit without a care to get their hooks into babies. But as Dawn pointed out, adoption IS about privilege. I would add that adoption is mainly a middle class issue as well, since today the rich and poor are seldom on the giving end of the "adoption option." (Of course, that can always change with the economy)

There is little feminist critique of adoption outside of academia, and even there it is top-heavy with adopter discourse--some of it spot-on., and I don't want to dimiss it. But, Feminist Bastard and Feminist First Mother voices are generally limited to blogs, forums, and obscure conference workshops. I don't know why.

Great stuff! Be sure to click through to read both pieces, and the interesting comments, too.

First Tweets

I was playing around on my laptop while the girls watched a video, and during a slow part they gathered around to see what I was doing. I was on Twitter, and tried to explain what it was, and that "tweets" were limited to 140 characters. I explained that I was posting tweets with #adoption, and was talking about some of the hard parts of adoption.

Not surprisingly, the girls wanted to tweet, too! And, boy, did they take seriously the idea of tweeting the hard parts of adoption:

Maya, age 6, says, "#adoption is hard because I have bad dreams and I can't stop them. Do you have bad dreams? I was adopted from China."

Zoe, age 9, says, "#adoption is hard because I want to find out about my birth parents in China.. When I grow up I'm going to find them."

Zoe's tweet didn't surprise me overmuch, but she was quite a bit more positive than usual that she could actually find her birth parents.

Maya has been having bad dreams lately, but she's never connected them to being adopted before. Mostly the dreams have been about monsters, without many specifics. Definitely something to talk more about.

The Twitter folks who follow #adoption tend to be a bit on the rainbows-and-unicorns side, so I wonder what they'll make of these 140-character windows into the other side from a child's perspective. . . .

"Find My Family" as Sensationalist Trash or Springboard for Discussion

Martha Osborne, adopted person and adoptive parent, and the founder of the Rainbow Kids website, has given some good advice in reaction to the upcoming ABC series Find My Family, a reality show about search and reunion.

She suggests that younger kids NOT watch the show (duh!), but that upper-elementary and/or middle school students would benefit from a direct approach, since they may get intrusive questions in reaction to the series, if it is widely watched:

This is a wonderful age to start letting your child know that birth families, even if we have never met them, or may never have the opportunity, are part of our families. A welcome part. Whether to search or not in the future is your child's choice and has absolutely no relation to the way your child loves you. I should know, I'm adopted. My parents (and yes, I mean my adoptive parents) are my parents and I love them in a way I could love no one else. Searching for my birth family is about me, my identity. Let your child know when they are still young that you do not feel threatened, and you may receive the gift of open-communication throughout their teens.

Discuss the media, specifically as it applies to the marketing of ideas, forming of opinions, and exploiting of people for their own profit. It may also be pertinent to discuss the entire idea of people agreeing to have the most private, personal parts of their lives, filmed and put on television for the purpose of entertainment.

Let your child know that it is okay to have mixed feelings and changing emotions about any topic, including adoption. It's not a rejection of the adoptive family to wonder about birthparents, or life in another country.

If this series becomes widely-viewed, your child will receive very intrusive and personal questions. The show is meant to cast all adoptees as longing-for-their-lost-life. Practice, roll-play, be ready.

I think she puts this discussion too late at upper-elementary. Most kids start thinking of birth parents between age 7-12 (obviously, "most" isn't all -- some reach this stage earlier, some later). Still, I think overall she makes some good suggestions. I also think the article reads a bit too dismissive of the need to search for birth parents, felt deeply by many adopted persons. Watching the show with an older child might be a good springboard for discussion.

I don't know yet whether the series will be positive in showing the centrality of birth parents to adoptees' identities, or whether it will be sensationalized and exploitative. I can't say I'm holding out much hope for a sensitive approach, given how awful most of these shows have been. But done well, it could help with open records and cast birth parents in a positive light. But how confident am I that it will be done right? Somehow, aerodynamic pigs come to mind. . . .

In her conclusion, Martha also seems doubtful that the show will get it right:

Search and reunion of adoptees and birth families is part of adoption, and always will be. All adoptive families and birth families are connected through our children, whether we accept that idea or not. Our children bind us. It is a precious, priceless connection. This show cheapens and sensationalizes what is sacred. ABC, your show is an insult, and hopefully a flop.

If you watch the show Monday, let us know what you think.

Anita Tedaldi Goes Global

Lovely. Anita Tedaldi, who disrupted the adoption of her son, and publicized it on the New York Times Motherlode blog and the Today Show, has now publicized it in the Guardian, a UK paper.

It's the same as published in the New York Times, except that Matteo/D. is now Dan, and he's still from South America rather than Ethiopia. One positive -- the Guardian tries to put disruption in some context, offering some information and statistics about disruption:

The British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) estimates that one in five adoptions break down, although children who are "handed back" are usually older. The younger the child, the lower the chance of the placement breaking down. A study by the Maudsley Hospital in London found a breakdown rate of 8% after one year and 29% six years later. On average, adoptions that broke down did so 34 months after placement.

Despite the negative publicity that overseas adoption has attracted in recent years, there is no evidence that they are more likely to break down than domestic placements. Many studies have concluded that international adoption has, for the most part, been very successful, including for children who have spent their early years in institutions.

Children placed in stable, loving families, show a great capacity for catch-up – although a great deal depends on support from the wider family and adoption specialists, and the extent to which the adopters mix with other people from the country they adopted from.

The sad fact is that in many states of America, where Dan was adopted, this combination is less likely to be recognised as essential, despite the fact that overseas adoption tends to be far easier than it is here. Also undoubtedly contributing to Dan's adoption breakdown is the fact that for a minority of the most deprived children, major problems – especially in the area of attachment – do not go away, regardless of how much help, support, stability and indeed love, is provided.

Is the British paper right? Is the required support "less likely to be recognised as essential" in America? Do the Brits do it better?

As a follow-up, Tedaldi writes about the reaction to her writing about the disruption, and offers the same reason for why she wrote about the disruption:

This account first appeared on a blog several months ago. Since then my family has come under intense public scrutiny in the US, where we live. I knew there would be a lot of criticism, but my intention was to share a very personal experience. I don't mind the criticism, but I have been surprised by the degree of hatred displayed towards me and my family. Some readers have made fun of my children's looks.

There have been many positive comments, too, and I'm thankful to the many families who shared their own painful stories with me.

I do not regret writing about Dan. I shared this experience because when I saw my own shortcomings, I was humbled. We all struggle with our weaknesses, too often alone.

For what it's worth, my problem isn't that she wrote about disruption -- it's how she wrote about it. And, for what it's worth, I've never made fun of her kids, just of the fact that Tedaldi is writing a parenting manual!

Is Adoption a Feminist Issue?

Dawn from this woman's work has a great post up at Bitch, Adopt-ation: A feminist take on the state of the adoption industry:

Adoption is a feminist issue because it is a reproductive rights issue. It is an issue about the value of women as mothers and who has "earned" the right to be one. It's about how the states supports or does not support women who fall outside of the "good mother" rhetoric. It's about privilege. It's about class.

Right now the dominant voices in our cultural discussion of adoption are those like the NCFA who perpetuate stereotypes about the women who place their children and the women who receive them. It's a conversation that tries to erase the presence of the women who give birth to those children by pushing t-shirts that equate adoption with pregnancy thereby obliterating the origins of adopted people. The way we look at adoption – especially domestic infant adoption – is a manifestation of our Madonna/whore complex where birth mothers are saintly sinners – angelic enough to give away the babies they aren't good enough to keep.

We feminists need to start looking at adoption in new ways. We need to let the first mothers among us speak about their experiences past and present because their voices have been missing from our discussion. In the blogosphere we have feminist thinkers like FauxClaud, like Suz, like Jenna. They can tell us how Juno will likely feel five years from placement, ten, twenty or more.

And look at this article, Feminist lens on adoption, in the Minnesota Women's Press, by Katie Leo, an adult Korea adoptee (I stuck it in my "Favorites" months ago, and Dawn's piece made me go looking for it today):

I am part of a growing number of adult adoptees who view adoption as a feminist issue, part of a continuum of reproductive rights. This perspective extends to the right to raise one's child the same importance as the right to choose whether or not to bear one.

* * *

Over the years the social justice argument for adoption has proved increasingly problematic for many. In her article "Birth Mothers from South Korea Since the Korean War," scholar Hosu Kim states, "Although it often has been understood historically as a humanitarian effort ... I argue the practice of intercountry adoption is a radical example of global inequality played out at the site of actual woman's
bodies and often pits two women-the birth mother and the adoptive mother-against
each other in a struggle to claim a legitimate motherhood."

* * *

I believe that if the spirit of feminism creates solidarity between women across social, economic and racial barriers, feminists should work to remove the obstacles that render women around the globe so powerless, rather than using their situations as a reason to take their children from them. We should also question adoption language that carries implicit judgments of who makes a legitimate mother. Other issues to address are using children as a commodity, and racial coding of mothers and children. And we should work toward the extension of reproductive rights to include the rights of women to raise their children.

OK, let the Feminist Anonymous meeting begin. "My name is Malinda and I am a feminist." Are you? If so, reactions to these articles? If not, reactions to these articles?!