Dinosaur Train: New PBS Kids Show With Adoption Themes

The girls actually slept late this holiday morning -- 8:45 a.m., believe it or not! When I wandered into the family room a few minutes later, the girls were ensconced on the couch, watching PBS. Maya tells me excitedly, "It's a new show about dinosaurs!" As I watch, I see a little cartoon T-rex calling a Pteranodon "Mom." Hmm.

Sure enough, when I went to the website, I discovered it was, indeed, a trans-species adoption:

Each of the 40 half-hour episodes features Buddy, an adorable preschool age Tyrannosaurus Rex, and his adoptive Pteranodon family as they board the Dinosaur Train and embark on whimsical voyages through prehistoric jungles, swamps, volcanoes and oceans.

The title sequence (which I missed the first time -- but it's back-to-back episode day it seems!) shows the babies hatching from their eggs, and Buddy is different. But Mrs. Pteranodon says he's part of the family even though he is different -- after all, "we're all creatures."

But the thing that amazed me is that the episode seemed to be about searching -- searching for Buddy's species. And Pteranodon mom is in on the search, saying something along the line of, "Don't worry Buddy, we'll keep looking for your species." OK, birth parents weren't mentioned, but still, it's a pretty impressive idea to see in a children's show aimed at 3-6 year olds, that an adoptee might want to know its first family (species) and that the adoptive family is OK with that!

I wasn't sure whether the girls saw the parallel to searching for birth family, but when we talked about the show later, they clearly had. They also saw that Buddy didn't feel quite like he fit into the Pteranodon family (he couldn't catch fish the way they do), and that spurred his interest in finding his species. Zoe also thought that wanting to know his species was like her wanting to learn Chinese and all about China, even if she never finds her birth family.

Adoption isn't the focus of the show; rather, they say they want to harness kids' interest in dinosaurs and trains to teach scientific method. It's a brand-new series on PBS, so I don't know how it will pan out in the long run, but so far I'd give them kudos on the adoption themes.

Happy Labor Day

I came across this post discussing the origins of Labor Day, which identified the late 1800s as the start of Labor Day, with over half of the United States recognizing Labor Day by 1894.

The time period struck a chord, and I wondered about Chinese-American workers at that time, and how they were being “honored.” I still think the best account of the Chinese in America comes from Iris Chang’s book, The Chinese in America. But not wanting to type out a whole chapter from that book, I thought I’d share Asian Nation's short history lesson:

Chinese Americans are the oldest and largest ethnic group of Asian ancestry in the United States. They have endured a long history of migration and settlement that dates back to the late 1840s, including some 60 years of legal exclusion. In the mid-l9th century, most Chinese immigrants arrived in Hawaii and the U.S. mainland as contract labor, working at first in the plantation economy in Hawaii and in the mining industry on the West Coast and later on the transcontinental railroads west of the Rocky Mountains.

But few realized their gold dreams; many found themselves instead easy targets of discrimination and exclusion. In the 1870s, white workers' frustration with economic distress, labor market uncertainty, and capitalist exploitation turned into anti-Chinese sentiment and racist attacks against the Chinese called them the "yellow peril." In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and later extended to exclude all Asian immigrants until World War II. The number of new immigrants arriving in the United States from China dwindled from 123,000 in the 1870s to 14,800 in the 1890s, and then to a historically low number of 5,000 in the 1930s.

Legal exclusion, augmented by extralegal persecution and anti-Chinese violence, effectively drove the Chinese out of the mines, farms, woolen mills, and factories on the West Coast. As a result, many Chinese laborers already in the United States lost hope of ever fulfilling their dreams and returned permanently to China. Others, who could not afford or were too ashamed to return home, gravitated toward San Francisco's Chinatown for self-protection.

Still others traveled eastward to look for alternative means of livelihood. Chinatowns in the Northeast, particularly New York, and the mid-West grew to absorb those fleeing the extreme persecution in California.

I’m sure one could write an entire thesis on who has been left out of the celebration of American workers (someone probably already has!), and it would probably start with our horrific history of slavery. But thought y’all might be interested in hearing a bit about the historical treatment of Chinese-American workers around the time we first decided to honor American workers.

"China Doll"

I suspect we've all heard it -- someone "complimenting" our child by saying she looks just like a "China doll." We've all certainly read the China-adoptive parent discussion lists where APs describe their own children as China dolls. I've always hated the expression -- it's objectifying, stereotyping, and for adult women, infantalizing. Jha'Meia at Rebellious Jezebel Blogging, reacts to the phrase as applied to photos of her:

The term “China doll” unsettles me. It unsettles me because I’ve met people who coo and squee over Asian girls because “they are so cute”. I have trouble with the term because it ties into the whole “submissive Asian” trope. It bothers me because I am Chinese, and the term “China doll”, which could characterize all Chinese women who fit a certain physical look, effectively strips us of our agency in the eyes of others, rendering us, well, dolls.

I took a hard look at that set of pictures. I also thought back to other times I wore similar makeup. I generally avoid heavy makeup for this reason: looking like a China
doll. But even as I was avoiding the “China Doll” look, I neglected to ask what the hell, exactly, a “China doll” looks like.

Then I realized, no matter what makeup I wear, I will always look like a “China doll” to someone. I can’t help that – I’m Chinese! I can’t dictate that everyone think of me as a normal human being – there’s no way I can police that. I can’t help it that some people don’t think women should be wearing such striking makeup to begin with. I can’t help it that people stereotype Asians.

Like many other things, the term “China doll” refers to a construct, an idea of what something should be like. A China doll will look like what the viewer wants her to look like. She can range from simply being an Asian woman, to being a fetishly hyper-sexualized submissive. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this is a stereotype, and one damaging to Asian women.

So how do you respond when someone tells you your child is a China doll? Have you explained the phrase to your child? How does your child feel about it? Any suggested responses for parents to make to people who are probably just being kind, but may need a little education? Any suggested responses for children to make when told they're a little China doll?

Love, Abandonment Style

A must-read, an absolutely beautifully written post about love and the effects of abandonment, from an adult Korean adoptee, at the Land of the Not-So-Calm:

Sometimes, at 3 am, I can’t help but wonder how I can know what love is, what love means, what it means to love and be loved… because the first act of “love” that I ever knew was to be placed at the side of a road, outside tall black iron gates and brick walls, never (?) to see my family again.

How can I trust that people will say what they mean, that they will do what they say, that their definition of love is the same as mine? I wonder if we are calling different
things by the same name, if “love” suddenly means “dirt” and “lily” suddenly means “ocean” and oh yes, ocean, that’s what will separate us, because I never want to see you again… because I love you, don’t you get it?

How can I look people in the eye when I am used to seeing their backs? And yet, what choice do I have?

Read it and try not to weep.

Unicef Report: Child Trafficking in E & SE Asia

The latest Unicef report, Reversing the Trend : Child Trafficking in East and Southeast Asia, focuses on China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. Most of the report focuses on trafficking for child labor and sexual exploitation, but there are also mentions of trafficking for child brides and for adoption. I’ve tried to include every relevant mention of adoption in this summary. There is very little about international adoption, and the report carefully distinguishes between illegal adoption and legal adoption. Nonetheless, the report notes that children can and have been trafficked into legal adoptions.

The report notes: “The demand for adoption, whether operating within or outside legal and regulated processes, has fuelled the abduction and sale of children, particularly infants.” (p. 27) After mentioning the high-profile case of adoption corruption in Cambodia in 2003, the report notes that trafficking to meet the demand for adoption is growing in the area. “Existing reports and the country assessments for China and VietNam also indicate that babies are being trafficked both to and within China for adoption, given the patriarchal lineage and inheritance system. (In another place in the report (p. 29), it is noted that one well-known route of trafficking in Southeast Asia is boys trafficked from Vietnam to China for illegal adoption).” (p. 36) Still, in China, “internal trafficking is more of a problem than its cross-border form. . . . Trafficking occurs in every province in China,with most victims trafficked to the provinces of Guangdong, Shanxi, Fujian, Henan, Sichuan,Guangxi, and Jiangsu.” (p. 31)(Note: this is all forms of child trafficking, not just for the purpose of adoption.)

One of the problems faced in combating child trafficking, says the report, is the wide spectrum of interpretations of child trafficking across the region:

On one end are those who believe that all forms of child exploitation (including
commercial sexual exploitation and the worst forms of child labour) amount to
child trafficking; at the other extreme are those who reject that trafficking even exists. Within this range are those with more nuanced perspectives, For this group, not all commercial sexual exploitation is trafficking, nor have all children in worst forms of child labour been trafficked. . . . Consensus breaks down on ’grey areas’ such as: Can older adolescents consent to prostitution if there are ’good’ working conditions? Is illegal adoption into loving families exploitative? Do lower thresholds of ’exploitation’ need to be met for children? Is cross-border street begging by children, orchestrated by their parents for family survival, a form of exploitation or trafficking? (p. 23)

Despite the increase in child trafficking in the region, the report notes some progress: “There is growing recognition of broader legal frameworks in the fight against trafficking. For example, Viet Nam’s guiding policy framework, the 2004–2010 National Plan of Action Against the Crime of Trafficking in Children and Women, calls for strengthening legal frameworks in the areas of criminal law, administrative law, marriage, child adoption involving foreigners, tourism, the export of labour, exit-entry management and community reintegration of victims.” (p. 43)

Still, the report notes that there is much to be done. With regard to adoption, the report notes there should be stronger justice institutions to regulate adoption, including regulation and monitoring of adoption agencies, and holding offenders accountable. (p. 80). The report suggests that all forms of exploitation of children should be criminalized, including illegal adoption. (p. 85) Unicef would also like to see countries in the region “address harmful social and cultural attitudes and beliefs by targeting traditional practices, ethnic and gender discrimination, stigmatization, lack of accountability, impunity, the perception of children as commodities, and rampant consumerism. Attitudes and beliefs that stimulate the demand for child trafficking and exploitation should be addressed through sustained education, particularly regarding sexual activity with children, child marriage, involvement of children in armed conflict, and illegal adoption. The report also calls on countries to “advance protective social norms that bolster children’s resilience and foster healthy and safe family and community environments for children, such as respect for children’s participation, positive perceptions of domestic adoption and foster care,” intolerance of child exploitation. (p. 86)

The report is well worth reading; there is much of interest that I have not included here. The report focuses a lot on the demand side of the equation, resisting the idea that the poverty of victims is the cause of trafficking. Poverty may be a condition precedent, but it is not a cause.

Sisters Forever

Zoe drew this sweet picture at school today -- she and Maya hugging, with the names of cities in China we've visited around them, Maya's orphanage, Mother's Love, noted and illustrated with a heart within which Zoe and Maya are hugging, the tag "China Girls" in the top right corner, and the title "Sisters Forever."

Sisters Forever -- interesting in light of the Ancestry and Adoption discussion.

How the Media Gets It Wrong

New blog, catchily titled, Adopt-a-Tude, with a strong first post on how the media gets adoption wrong:

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.

Radio Links

From NPR's Tell Me More, 'Oriental': Rugs, Not People:

It's an adjective that used to describe rugs, not people. That's the message New York Gov. David Paterson turned into law this week when he signed a bill that bans state documents from using the term "oriental" when referring to people of Asian or Pacific heritage. Jeff Yang, an Asian Pop columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, discusses the history of the loaded term and why so many Asian-Americans find it offensive.

Also from Tell Me More, Daniel Liu Redefines The Male Supermodel:

Daniel Liu comes across as the typical guy next door — unless you happen to live next door to a supermodel who walks the fashion runways of New York. At age 26, Liu is already a rising star among models, and one of the few Asian-American males making headlines in the industry. Liu talks about his budding career. [That's his picture up there, of course!]

From NPR's The Takeaway, Dissolving an Adoption:

It’s Monday, when we talk about family issues on The Takeaway. Takeaway contributor Lisa Belkin, who writes the parenting blog Motherlode for The New York Times, is here to talk with us about what happens when parents make the decision to dissolve an adoption.

We also talk wtih Anita Tedaldi about this painful process. Tedaldi wrote an essay for Motherlode about her very personal experience of terminating an adoption. She had adopted a baby from an undisclosed country and after months of raising the baby, decided that she and her husband were not equipped to take care of him.

Ancestry and Adoption

OK, this is going to be a disjointed and tentative post, since I'm still trying to think through this issue. I'm also stymied on the research front, not finding much information about attitudes and feelings, not able to track down things I think I've read before.

On another list I'm on, an adoptive parent said he was talking to his wife about looking up his ancestry on Ancestry.com, and his 11-year-old adopted-from-China daughter asked, "Do I have ancestors?" Another adoptive parents answered that after assuring her children that they did have ancestors in China, even though they were unknown, she told her kids that her (the mom's) ancestry was their ancestry.

That "not knowing" thing would make the whole issue of ancestry difficult for adoptees, I'd think. How could it not? And I'm not sure that the adoptive parents' ancestry makes an adequate substitute. I wish I could find the source, but I remember reading somewhere that adoptees often don't feel deep connections to more distant family members, that of course they love and feel connected to parents and close relatives, but distant relatives feel. . . . distant. If so, then what exactly does the adoptive parents' ancestry mean to an adoptee?

And I'm wondering about general views about adoption and "ancestry." Merriam-Webster defines ancestry as: "line of descent: lineage; especially: honorable, noble, or aristocratic descent." I've blogged before that the Daughters of the American Revolution organization won't allow adoptees admission based on their adoptive parents' lineage. Do you think that comports with the general public's understanding of adoption and "ancestry?"

Say Abraham Lincoln is somewhere on my family tree (I first used George Washington as an example, until a good friend gave me a little history lesson, that George and Martha didn't have children, only Martha did from a previous marriage!) -- would people say about my adopted kids, "They're related to Abe Lincoln"?

And perhaps more importantly, how will my kids see themselves -- as relatives of Abe Lincoln, or not? (No, Abe Lincoln is not really in my family tree; in reality, the "honorable, noble or aristocratic descent" which I could pass on to my kids would involve an ancestor who abandoned his wife and children to get out of the state and avoid debtor prison, a cattle rustler, and a moonshiner!)

When I look at Ancestry.com, and search for "adoptee," I find articles for adoptees seeking birth parent information, as I expected (See here and here.). I suppose if adoptees are researching their adoptive parents' ancestry, they don't need special articles at Ancestry.com.

In the comment to a blog post about geneology research, an adoptee said, "When you’re adopted, those sites are not much help for anything except a bruised id. . . ." I can sure see how that would be the case. I'm assuming that adoptee was talking about the problem of not having birth family information. And I didn't find the blogger's response particularly satisfying:

No reason why you can’t do your adopted family’s genealogy. That’s what my aunt
does. She loves genealogy so she works on the same genealogy I do (when she isn’t frustrated by it).

I consider her as much family as great-great-great-grandfather Bubba, whom I never met. It’s not about biology. It’s about connections. I think of it as social networking with your dead relatives. Deadbook, anyone? Ba ding!

Hmm, is geneology not about biology? One adoptive parent opined that given infidelity, uncertainty, secret adoptions, and the like, most of our "ancestry" is a biological mystery, unless tested by DNA. But the "just research your adoptive parents' geneology" seems awfully dismissive.

So chime in, help me figure this out. Can anyone identify my missing source? Does anyone know of adult adoptees who've written about this? Does transracial and/or international adoption complicate this (do you see an adult adoptee from China saying, "I'm related to Abraham Lincoln!")? Please, comment!

"Let's Play Adoption"

From Adoptive Families Magazine archives, "Let's Play Adoption:"

I smiled and listened closely as I overheard my daughter, Lillianna, and her friend, Rachael, playing with their dolls the other day. Lilli said, "Let's play orphanage." There was no hesitation. Rachael picked up the theme in a heartbeat and said, "I'll be a mom coming to take my baby home." And thus began an hour of play between these two adopted seven-year-olds and their dolls.

We adoptive parents have made it a practice to talk to our children about their adoption story. We retell it, discuss it from time to time, and add facts and information when it seems appropriate. There may also be times when it does not seem right to talk or encourage our children to talk about adoption, as well as times when the pressures of parenting cause us to forget about keeping up the discussion.

We find that younger children ask questions about their adoption story. As they grow older, we know they continue to think about adoption-related issues. But, ironically, as their thinking becomes more concrete, they tend to ask fewer questions and engage less in discussion about adoption.

But, as Lillianna and Rachael teach us, there is another way for adopted children to work out their feelings about adoption, and that is through play. Playing is comfortable, natural, and more fun than talking. And, lucky and fun for us, we can be a big part of it.

* * *

Play by the Rules

*Do not be afraid to bring up adoption in the context of play. It can help children process their feelings, get comfortable talking, and bring youcloser to them as you share this fun and private time.

*If your child has not wanted to discuss adoption in the past, playing might be the way to get him or her to open up. Play also encourages creativity, helps develop a sense of trust and reduces anxiety. Play can set up a healing stage where your child's buried feelings of sadness or anger can be expressed, explored, and explained.

*Stop the play and/or consult a professional if your child exhibits excessive anger, worry, sadness, fears, aggressive behavior, or new separation anxiety.

Definitely some good ideas here. The article doesn't use any examples of using play to talk about birth parents and abandonment, but of course ANY and ALL adoption issues can be addressed in play. Click here for a post about role-playing abandonment and being found with my kids.

One caveat about the last point in the article -- stopping and/or consulting a professional if your child exhibits excessive anger, worry, sadness, etc. Focus on the word "excessive," please! It is perfectly normal for children to express anger, worry, sadness, and fear when discussing hard issues. Don't stop just because your child is showing her feelings -- expressing emotions is a good thing!

And for general -- and terrific -- advice about using play to become closer to your children and to discuss hard issues, see Playful Parenting, recommended by my friend Lisa.

Gay Adoption and International Comity

In 2004, I wrote a law review article about international adoption and international comity, which is the requirement that governments recognize the legal acts of other governments. That’s why my parents married in France under French law are considered married in America under American law. And that’s why my children, adopted in China under Chinese law are considered my children in America under American law. But there's an "out" in international comity -- a government need not recognize judicial acts that are "repugnant" to the law and public policy of that government.

At the time I wrote the article, no countries in international adoption were allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt. I hypothesized what would happen if a country allowed adoption by gay couples (gay and lesbian couples usually have one member of the couple adopt the child as a single person, then the other parent seeks a domestic “second-parent” adoption.) Now, Uruguay is poised to approve adoption by gay and lesbian couples -- their Senate has passed a bill, now the House has passed a bill, it goes back to the Senate to be reconciled, and the President has agreed to sign it).

So here’s what I wrote in 2004:

Consider the following hypothetical:

Brad Davis enters a committed, long-term relationship with Christopher Martin, and they decide to adopt a child. The country of Gayswana has recently opened its doors to adoption by gay couples. Brad and Christopher adopt Maya, carefully following all the laws and regulations of Gayswana. They then return to the state of Utopia, where they have resided together for five years. After parenting Maya for five years, Brad and Christopher seek to enroll her in public school. The school questions Maya's Gayswana birth certificate and looks askance at the foreign adoption decree. So, Brad and Christopher decide to go to state court in Utopia and seek a state court decree recognizing the Gayswana adoption decree.

Should Utopia recognize the judicial decree of adoption from Gayswana, or is it repugnant to the law and policy of the state? Incidentally, Utopia adoption statutes recite bluntly, “No person eligible to adopt under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual.” [Incidentally, that's the Florida statute].

If Utopia were to follow the ruling in Tsilidis, where a state statute limiting adult adoption to married couples justified invalidating an adult adoption by a single man in Greece, Maya's adoption from Gayswana would be repugnant to the laws and policy of the state. In fact, it would appear to be a stronger argument that the adoption was repugnant where the statute explicitly prohibited the adoption under Utopia law. Perhaps the Utopian court would take more seriously the language of Justice Cardozo: a foreign decree is not repugnant and will be recognized unless doing so “would violate some fundamental principle of justice, some prevalent conception of good morals, some deep-rooted tradition of the common wealth.”

Thus, the action to recognize the foreign adoption decree places the court of Utopia squarely in the middle of the debate about gay and lesbian families. Is it moral? Is it in the best interest of children? “Courts today generally use the two-parent, biological family as the template against which to measure, and to conform, other families.” Naturally, the “biological family” model requires one male parent and one female parent. If the court uses this model, Maya's family doesn't “fit.”

But unlike Tsilidis, which involved the adopted son's right of inheritance from the adoptive father's estate after his death, Maya's family is intact. And unlike Tsilidis, Maya is not an adult--she is a 6-year-old child. Is it in her best interest for the court to refuse recognition of the foreign decree of adoption? Professor Cahn argues that the law's use of the nuclear family paradigm fails to take account of the “settled expectations of those living within [so-called alternative] families.” She notes that early adoption law “cabined by the traditional significance of blood relationships,” nonetheless “struggled to accord respect to functioning parent-child relationships with settled expectations.”

Having named the state Utopia, one can hope that the court will recognize the foreign decree of adoption that created Maya's family. If it failed to do so, what would the court do with Maya? Should Maya be removed from the home of the only parents she has known to be placed with a married, heterosexual couple? Does the family have to return to Gayswana to be recognized as a family? Will the court refuse to recognize the decree, but otherwise refrain from interfering with the family?

There may be support for the last option--at least one court has distinguished between the status of adoption and the incidents of adoption, refusing to allow inheritance but stating that their refusal did not depend on the status of the adoption. So, this last option seems the best of many bad options if a court refuses to recognize a foreign decree of adoption. But consider all the rights and duties of parents, discussed previously--all the incidents of adoption. Who can consent to surgery or other medical treatment for Maya? Who is responsible for providing financial support? From whom can Maya inherit, receive Social Security benefits, insurance death benefits? Who can enroll her in school? Who can be punished for failing to enroll her in school? Without judicial recognition as parents, neither Brad nor Christopher can act as Maya's parents. What is clearly called for is a child-centered approach to judicial recognition of foreign decrees of adoption.

So, we can expect my hypothetical to come true in a courtroom near you. Now, you might think that the fact that the U.S. has now fully adopted the Hague Convention Respecting Intercountry Adoption would take care of this. After all, Article 23 says: "An adoption certified by the competent authority of the State of the adoption as having been made in accordance with the Convention shall be recognized by operation of law in the other Contracting States." So, the various states of the United States would have to recognize a gay adoption finalized in Uruguay, right?

Not so fast! Article 24 says, "The recognition of an adoption may be refused in a Contracting State only if the adoption is manifestly contrary to its public policy, taking into account the best interests of the child." That seems to codify the repugnance exception from international comity. So the issue will be ripe for litigation, I think. I hope any state would follow my suggestion of a child-centered resolution, which mirrors the Hague requirement to take into account the best interests of the child.

[Sorry, the article is not available online, unless registered for Westlaw, LexisNexis, or Hein, but here’s the cite: International Adoption and International Comity: When is Adoption “Repugnant”?, 10 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 381 (2004).]

"Chinese Eyes" Again

We went out for ice cream after dinner tonight, and triggered by the almonds in her Rocky Road ice cream, Zoe said, "At lunch the other day, three boys were doing this (the infamous eye-pulling gesture) and saying 'Chinese eyes! Chinese eyes!' at me."

There was a similar episode at school last year, different boys, and not directed at Zoe, but just done in front of her. She handled it well, but was naturally upset. Tonight she was pretty matter-of-fact about it (I'm not sure if that's an improvement, actually).

I asked what she did, and boy, was I proud of her response: "I said, 'Hey, guys, those aren't Chinese eyes, these (pointing at her own eyes) are Chinese eyes!'" Said, by the way, in the same tone she uses when she thinks I'm an idiot! For once, I was quite impressed with her smart mouth!

We brainstormed over ice cream about what to do about it, and talked about the school rules about teasing and bullying. Zoe hadn't thought of it as bullying, and couldn't really define what bullying was, just that bullying wasn't allowed. She knows from school to tell a grown-up about bullying, but that isn't much help when she doesn't know what bullying is. Seems a flaw in the school's anti-bullying curriculum.

Zoe is still thinking about whether she wants me to tell her teacher about the episode, though she agrees I can tell the teacher of the fault in the anti-bullying program. I've given her until parent-teacher conference in September to decide whether to share about the Chinese-eyes teasing, and with names or without them. Zoe handled it so well I don't feel the need to intervene immediately, but if it happens again, all bets are off.

As I said last time, I am so glad we've been pro-active about the possibility of racial teasing and negative adoption comments and the like. (We've role-played these kinds of situations several times.) I think that really helped Zoe feel empowered to handle this on her own -- which, of course, is when these incidents will happen, when she's not with me, but on her own.

Maya came up with the best response for future use -- she pushed in, rather than pulling out, the corners of her eyes and said, "English eyes! English eyes!" I almost choked on my ice cream!

Terminating an Adoption: Will the Real Anita Tedaldi Please Stand Up?

That NYT blog piece by Anita Tedaldi about her disrupted adoption? Well, she wrote this article, We Can't Trade In Our Children or Husbands, in January 2008:

Hard to believe, but a Dutch couple returned their adopted Korean daughter after seven years. [I blogged about this case here]. The parents adopted the little girl from South Korea when she was 4 months old. Reports of how the situation unfolded were contradictory but it appears that thegirl was given over to the care of the Social Welfare Department in Hong Kong, where the man is a diplomat, because they could no longer care for her. The couple explained that the girl was emotionally unresponsive and all attempts at therapy failed.

As an adoptive parent, really as just a parent, I can't justify this couple's behavior under any circumstance. I don't think these people are monsters, though the result of their action is monstrous because they chose to follow their selfish and unloving side instead of choosing to tough it out and love their daughter no matter what. Sadly, the impact on this child will be devastating.

Perhaps they had good intentions when they adopted, most likely they did, but something went wrong along the way. These parents were probably unprepared to deal with some difficult aspects of adoption. It's easy to imagine only the best of a new family member, just as we do with our biological children. No one envisions mediocrity, let alone problems. I have imagined perfect things in the past only to discover the road to family or marital bliss requires lots of hard work and an effort to practice unconditional love.

* * *

From personal experience I can say that adoption can be challenging. But so can a biological child who has issues, or problems in marriage, or work-related difficulties. When our adopted son Matteo started having health issues we had to consult several specialist and it was hard for him to be around his sisters, it became challenging. This doesn't mean that my husband or I ever had any second thoughts about adopting Matteo, or that we considered him any different than our biological children.

So is Matteo a pseudonym? In the NYT article she uses the initial D., and in a comment she posted to that article, she called him David (BTW, in that comment, she also said she had 3 children at the time she adopted D., and then had 2 more after D.'s adoption). Is this the same child? If so, then in January 2008 she had no second thoughts, and in August 2009, she tells us about the disruption like it happened a while ago. Pretty quick to go from couldn't-imagine to done-deal.

Sheesh, who IS this woman?! Or does this simply represent her right to change her mind? She also says in the NYT piece that she didn't know where the idea to return D. came from when it popped into her head -- ya think Jade's story might have had something to do with it?! She acts in that article like she'd never even heard of disruption before . Those who are praising her honesty in writing that blog post, regardless of opinions about the disruption, might want to think again. . . .

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

I CANNOT believe it! Military.com has scrubbed it's site to take down the article by Anita Tedaldi that I linked to above! You click on it now, you get a generic page about columnists, not even an ERROR 404 message, nothing to show the article previously existed there. If you do a search of the site for Tedaldi's name, you find two other articles by her, but not this one. In fact, the search page shows the two results, but at the top it says "Results 1-2 of about 3 [about 3?!]." And at the bottom it says, "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 2 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included." But when you click to get the omitted results, nothing else comes up!

WTF??? I'm a military brat, my dad was career Air Force. I'm appalled by this. Any guesses why they scrubbed it clean? I can't tell you how happy I am that I snipped this portion of the article before it was made to vanish.

"A little Beyonce"

I got my hair cut the other day, and a little girl was also having her hair done. She was African-American, a real cutie, around 4 years old. We were on opposite sides of the salon and were flirting with each other in the mirrors. She was there with her white mother, and it turns out she was adopted.

A couple of things struck me. First, the little girl was having her hair ironed straight, and her mom kept saying to her, "Don't you just love it when your hair is straight?" Hmmmm.

Second thing, the (white) stylist working on her hair kept telling her she looked "just like a little Beyonce!" Then came the stereotypical comments, "I bet you're a great dancer, just like Beyonce, right?" And when the little girl finally climbed out of the chair, "Show me a little dance!" No comment from mom.

Nothing to complain about here, right? Who could complain when her child is compared to Beyonce -- after all, Beyonce is gorgeous!

But that little scenario illustrated for me how stereotypes are reinforced, how limitations on what and who you should be are determined and conveyed based on your race. How insidious these reinforcements are. How pervasive these racial microaggressions are. When it starts when you're 4 years old -- before you're 4 years old -- how do you resist? And when it comes from your own family, how do you survive with a positive racial identity intact?

Update: Harper Scruggs is Home

I blogged before about the story of Harper, whose adoptive parents left her in China when she could not get a visa to enter the U.S. because of new TB rules. She's home now, and here's a link to the Washington Post's story about the homecoming.

More about Ponyo

I posted before that after watching Ponyo, Maya said, “It was just like adoption!” I saw more differences than similarities to adoption, so I was curious about how Maya saw it. We talked a bit more about it this week, and here’s a pretty good recounting of our conversation, which was no where near as linear as it appears here. Maya was in a completely silly mood, and was throwing in head stands and cartwheels as we talked! But she provided the opening, so I took it!

Maya: I loved Ponyo. I want to be Ponyo!

Me: It was a good movie, wasn’t it?

Maya: Yes, yes, yes, yes! [the silly goose!]

Me: Have you thought any more about how it was like adoption?

Maya: Yes, Sosuke adopted Ponyo.

Me: Really? Do you think so?

Maya: Yes! He loved Ponyo and he promised to take care of her forever.

Me: Who did he promise that to?

Maya: You know, like you did in China – like the . . . the. . . [groping for the word]president?

Me: Do you mean the government?

Maya: Yes, yes, yes! [I didn’t see any government in the movie -- I was fishing for birth parents!]

Me: Why do you think Ponyo’s parents wanted Sosuke to adopt Ponyo?

Maya: They needed to save the world from the monster fish! They had to stay in the ocean. Ponyo wasn’t a fish anymore so couldn’t stay in the ocean with them. She wanted to be a girl and stay with Sosuke.

Me: How do you think Sosuke felt about that?

Maya: He was happy! I want to be Ponyo! I want to be a fish AND a girl! [we’re losing interest, I think].

Me: How do you think Ponyo’s mom and dad felt about Sosuke adopting Ponyo?

Maya: [long pause for a head stand] Sad. They’ll miss her, but I bet they’ll visit her. I’m a fish, fish, fish!

And as usual, when Maya’s done talking, she is D-O-N-E. I had wanted to ask her a few more questions, like what role she thought Sosuke's mom played in this adoption, but we were DONE!

I'm not sure she had focused before on Ponyo's parents as relinquishing birth parents. She was thinking of adoption from Sosuke's and Ponyo's perspectives, and pretty much disregarded any involvement from grown-ups. That doesn't surprise me msuch, since Maya professes to not being very interested in her birth parents (in contrast to Zoe who is ALL ABOUT her birth parents), and seems to want to avoid talking about them or thinking about them. I think that's why we were D-O-N-E talking when I raised the issue of Ponyo's parents. She didn't want to see that similarity to adoption. But I liked her statement, "I bet they'll visit her." She doesn't see adoption as a complete divorce from the first family, it seems. And that's a good thing!

"Terminating an Adoption"

In the unfortunately-named NYTimes parenting blog, Adventures in Parenting, another adoptive mom tells of a disrupted adoption:

Five or six months after his arrival, I knew that D. wasn’t attaching. We had expected his indifference toward my husband, who was deployed for most of this time, but our son should have been closer to his sisters and especially to me, his primary caretaker.

His social worker, his pediatrician and his neurologist all told me that he had come a long way, and that attachment issues were to be expected with adoption. But D.’s attachment problems were only half the story. I also knew that I had issues bonding with him. I was attentive, and I provided D. with a good home, but I wasn’t connecting with him on the visceral level I experienced with my biological daughters. And while it was easy, and reassuring, to talk to all these experts about D.’s issues, it was terrifying to look at my own. I had never once considered the possibility that I’d view an adopted child differently than my biological children. The realization that I didn’t feel for D. the same way I felt for my own flesh and blood shook the foundations of who I thought I was.

At least in this one, she doesn't blame the child. I'm afraid we're going to see more and more of these confessionals, now that it's more "socially acceptable" to admit to a disruption. And all statistics say that disruptions are going up; but most of the disruptions involved older child adoption, where it is perhaps to be more expected. But I'm hearing of too many cases like this one, where it's infant adoption. Sigh.

What do you think of the headline to the story, "Terminating an Adoption?" Certainly better than "re-homing." It sounds clinical, final -- deadly. Maybe that's more apt than disruption.

P.S. 8/28/09 This is what I wrote in the comments to the story on the NYT's website after reading through 155 comments praising the author for her actions:

No, we shouldn’t judge; but we also shouldn’t tolerate everything.

Many commenters have suggested that this story doesn’t have anything to do with adoption — after all, biological parents give up their children, too. But do they do so in situations like this one?

Do you really think in a situation like this one — a solidly middle class two-parent family, not inexperienced teenagers, but experienced parents to other children, with medical insurance to cover the costs of medical care for a special needs child, at least one breadwinner with a reliable income, and a special needs child who apparently is not so special-needs as to need institutional care and who can apparently function in another family, AND the child had been the biological child of those parents — you’d be throwing around terms like “brave” and “loving?” Would you call that mother the child’s “guardian angel?”

Somehow I don’t think so. What makes this situation more “socially acceptable” than similarly-situated biological parents abandoning a child is that for so many biological ties are stronger, more legitimate, more real, more lasting, than the “fragile ties” of adoption. In other words, for many of the commenters, and for Anita, whether consciously or subconsciously, adoption is less than, adoption is second best.

I look forward to the next NYT guest blogger — a biological mother in this same circumstance, who gave up her child. Those will be interesting comments to read!

New Blog Gadgets

I've added a few features to the blog that will hopefully make it more user-friendly:

Labels: I've finally gotten around to labeling or tagging the subject-matter of each blog entry. You can look at the bottom of each blog post and see the subjects; if you're interested in more of the same subject, click on that label, and all the posts with the same label will come up. You can also look to the right-hand column for the list of all labels, and click to read all the posts with a particular label.

Reactions: Under each post is a mini-poll, letting you click on your immediate reaction to what you read. All the posts have the same choices, so it might not fit particularly well, but it's a chance to let me know what you think without having to comment. I hope you'll still comment, though!

Followers: OK, this has been up for a while, but I'm hearing from some folks who have SOOOOO many favorites listed that they can't always find what they want! If you become a follower, blog updates show up on your blogger homepage, so you can have all your frequently read blogs in one place by becoming followers of those blogs.

Quick Email: This one has been there for a while, but maybe you haven't known what it is -- that little envelope with an arrow at the bottom of each post. Just click on it and you can quickly and easily send the blog post by email to anyone you want. That would include forums or yahoo lists that you are on. I'd love to have more readers now that I think we've built up a really great body of information, so I'd love a little word-of-mouth advertising from you! Feel free to post a link to the blog on any list you're on, or tell them about an infuriating thing I've said that they should set me straight on, or post an excerpt from a blog post that you think might be interesting to the list members. I'd appreciate it!

Another Country, Not My Own

Thought-provoking article in the Boston Globe, by Mei-Ling Hopgood, adult adoptee from Taiwan and author of Lucky Girl:

Today, almost all parents who adopt internationally try to cultivate some kind of connection to their child’s birth land. Efforts range from throwing some ramen noodles in a salad to remodeling the interior of their homes to an Asian motif and spending thousands of dollars to send their children to language schools and heritage camps on another continent.

Parents do these things hoping to help their children adjust to the sometimes tricky duality of their existence. Yet I worry that some parents are now taking things too far: Going to extremes to idealize the native culture might be as damaging to an adoptee as ignoring it. Asian-American activists have for decades fought the idea that you are born with a culture - that if you look Asian, you must eat with chopsticks, wear different clothing, speak a different language; that you are different and thereby less American. Parents, to some extent, are asking children to conform to those expectations. And without adequate acknowledgement of the reality that actually is - their experience in America - I suspect that children might have an even harder time figuring out where they belong.

Have you REALLY told her she's adopted?

In the old days, social workers advised adoptive parents to keep the adoption a secret. The conventional wisdom today is that children need to be told they were adopted. So we adoptive parents, a bunch of eager-to-be-perfect parents!, comply. Or do we?

I hear it from so many adoptive parents -- "Of course, she knows she's adopted." But as we continue to talk, it is revealed that she doesn't know she grew in someone else's tummy. She doesn't know she lost her first family before she acquired her adoptive family. She's never heard the phrase, "birth mother" or "first mother" or "tummy lady" or "China mom."

All she knows is that she was born in China, that nannies took care of her until her forever family came and "adopted" her. You could have easily told her you "kerflummoxed" her, or "askewlated" her, or "droomextruded" her. These are just as much gobbledygook as "adopted" is, unless you REALLY define it.

And defining adoption requires TWO parts: 1) yes, the easy part for adoptive parents, that new parents made her part of their family and it is permanent; AND 2) the part that happened before adoptive parents entered the scene, the fact that she was born from and to another woman, who relinquished her.

Every child is different, and they are ready for more information at different ages. But I think it's never too early to tell them THEIR story, starting before birth -- "you grew like a flower in your birth mother's tummy until it was time for you to be born." There are lots of advantages to saying this earlier rather than later.

First, it gives us practice in saying "birth mother" or "tummy lady" or whatever words we decide to use. For some adoptive parents, especially those who suffered through infertility before adopting, it might be difficult to talk about. Starting by saying it to your child in infancy gives you the chance to mess up or choke up or tear up when it doesn't matter, and be more comfortable when your child is aware of what you're saying.

Second, it makes it a matter-of-fact thing, without baggage for anyone. Some parents seem to think they should wait to explain about birth parents until children can understand ALL aspects, including reasons for relinquishment, issues like abandonment and one child policies and social preferences for boys, and poverty and disability and war . . . . Sheesh, if you waited for all that, the child would be an adult! And if you've waited, no wonder you're scared to introduce the concept of birth parents! But by waiting, you take the risk that someone else will get to tell her. Not what you really want, is it?

Third, it gives our children the vocabulary they need to ask us more questions when they are ready. I've had adoptive parents tell me their child isn't interested at all in her birth parents, that she never asks anything about them. And then it turns out that they've never really explained adoption to include birth parents. No wonder she isn't asking any questions!

So have you REALLY told her she's adopted?