Another Halloween Costume

OK, I picked at Halloween costumes in this post, so now you can pick at Maya's! I think she looks cute as a button in this picture from the kindergarten Halloween party, but I'll get you started --

-- how can you venerate piracy in light of what's happening off the coast of Somalia these days?

-- a sword? Do you customarily promote violence and warfare?

-- don't you know the history of piracy and consequent depravity in the U.S.?

There. Now do your worst! (Actually, this is all just a badly-disguised excuse to put up a cute picture!)

What would you ask Jesus?

We spent a looooong time in the car yesterday. We visited a new Pumpkin Patch (new to us) since the girls were out of school, and it turned out to be much further from home than any of us expected. We went with a friend of Zoe's who is also adopted from China. On the way home, somehow or other the girls got onto the subject of what they would ask Jesus if they met him on the street. The conversation went on and on and on -- what does Heaven look like, what does God look like, who is the Holy Spirit, are the sidewalks in heaven really paved with gold, are you (Jesus) married in Heaven and do you have children????

At one point, one of the girls said she'd ask if Jesus knows when she'll die. I said that of course Jesus would know the answer to that, but he might not want to share it. "But Jesus can't tell a lie," another girl responded (maybe Maya? Hard to keep track with three little voices coming from the back!). I'm trying to explain the difference between lying and not telling, and Zoe pipes up, "Yeah, sometimes Maya and I don't want people to know we're adopted, so we just don't tell them. But we don't say we're NOT adopted."

Well, that turned the topic to adoption, and I asked, "Would you have any questions for Jesus about adoption?" [I asked about adoption generally, not necessarily quesitons about their adoptions, and there'd already been comments from more than one girl that Jesus had children because we're his children and it's like he adopted us.] Well, the floodgates opened! Our little friend shot her hand up in the air and laid out her list without a moment's hesitation:

"I'd ask Jesus who my birth parents are and if they are still alive. I'd ask why they couldn't keep me and do they have any other kids. I kind of have a temper (she does?! She's a complete sweetheart!), so I'd ask Jesus if I had a temper when I was a baby."

And then Zoe interrupted with her list of questions:

"I'd ask what do my birth parents look like, and are they in Heaven. And were they too poor to keep me, or did they have too many kids (our friend was sure it was because they had too many children). And how could they stay up so late as 3:00 a.m. since that's when I was born (yeah, like a lot of people have a hard time staying awake during labor!) and did I cry a lot as a baby, like when I came out?"

Hmm, I was a little concerned about the temper/crying thing, juxtaposed with questions about their birth parents, because I was wondering if maybe they were both thinking that they'd been "bad babies," and that's why their birth parents didn't keep them. I said, "You know, the reasons birth parents can't keep their babies are big grown-up reasons. Babies can't do anything wrong to make their parents decide not to parent them." The girls both recognized that language -- our friend said, "That's in an adoption book I have at home!" And Zoe said, "Yeah, my life book says that -- babies can't do anything wrong, they're just goo-goo ga-ga babies!" I was pleased to see that both girls felt so confident on the issue.

It was interesting how both girls had in mind what they'd ask Jesus about their adoptions; they've already identified the crux of the matter, all those questions we adoptive parents have to answer, "I don't know." The things they so clearly want to know.

So there's another tool for adoption talk -- what would you ask someone all-seeing, all-knowing?

Bad Halloween Costumes 2009

At Angry Asian Man, a few Asian-themed costumes I'm sure you won't be buying this year, including the one pictured above: "Yes, your teenage daughter can dress up like a Suzie Wong-like prostitute, complete with Oriental fan. "

Be sure to check out the others listed there, and at the Awl, Your Halloween Costume: A Bigot.

What is a bully?

Remember the "Chinese eyes" incident at Zoe's school, and my unhappiness with the approach the school took? The parents of the three girls teased this way really wanted the school to take a more educative approach to include all the kids in the class. The school approached it as a problem with the boys doing the teasing, rather than as a systemic problem.

No surprise, punishing just those three boys didn't stop the teasing. And a new twist, kids have been doing the oh-so-charming schoolyard rhyme:

Chinese (do eye-pulling gesture)
Japanese (touch your waist)
Dirty knees (think that's why Zoe is sensitive about her knees?)
Look at these (hands cupped at chest level)

After a parent (thanks, Lisa!) called the new teasing to the counselor's attention, the school has come around to our way of thinking.

Yesterday, Zoe's teacher read the class a story about bullying -- Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully (that probably wouldn't have been my first choice, since the resolution to the bullying was to invite the bully to play, which turned him nice). She then said that there was a problem at the school with bullying. Zoe said students in the class were looking at each other in real surprise, and she just sat there nodding -- she knew. Her teacher also gave the class homework, to answer three questions about bullying. Here are Zoe's answers:

1. What is a bully?

A bully is someone who hurts someone else and themselves by teasing them, making fun of them, by leaving out of playing, and hitting and pushing.

2. Who does a bully hurt?

A bully hurts someone who doesn't look like them and they hurt themselves because no one wants to be friends with a bully.

3. What do you do when you see someone being bullied?

I would go tell a grownup like a teacher or a counselor. I would also tell them to stop!

Seems like a good start. I wonder if the homework sparked as much discussion in other students' homes as it did in ours?!

Eyes Wide Open: Reactions

Wow, the interest in the article about the white father who required his adopted Asian daughter to undergo medically unnecessary surgery to "Westernize" her eyes has brought lots of reactions -- universally horrified reactions, I'm pleased to say.

On Twitter, for example, lots of re-tweets to get the word out, prefaced by lots of "WTF?" and "OMG" comments:

WTF...?? RT @ulb: OMG @adoptiontalk Surgery to Westernize the eyes of an adoptedAsian child: http://twurl.nl/moynka #adoption #race #racism

On Facebook, someone (I have no idea who, but I do know that Wendy also posted it, and I am appreciative!) posted it last night and brought in over 100 hits in one hour.

And these two bloggers have posted their reactions (and be sure to read the interesting comments at their blogs):

At American Family, an important point -- that we make choices for our children every day that can cut them off from their identity as effectively as a scalpel can:

We all know those parents who say “I am not going to make my child learn Chinese now, when they are old enough they can make that decision on their own;” or “She can move to a city/neighborhood with more Asians when she grows up if that is important to her;” or any of the 10,o00 variations on that theme, how is that really so very different?

Let’s not kid ourselves here, choosing to learn Chinese/travel to China/participate in Asian American activities/be a member of the Asian American community when your parents have never prioritized your Chineseness might feel like you are making an obvious choice to reject your parents’ culture/parenting/community etc. It might be too hard or too late or too awkward to comfortably make that decision by the time you are an adult.

As a matter of fact, who can say how late is too late? My kids arealready thinking about this stuff now at ages 3 and 6.

It isn’t just a scalpel that can do that kind of damage to our children’s identity. The choices we make as parents — as WHITE parents who adopted Children of Color — that are impacting our child’s ability to make their own choices about his or her identity. Every minute of every day.

And from an adult adoptee at Pound Puppy Legacy, after noting a feeling of hope that even adoptive parents are talking about this case with horror, an understandibly angry reaction in An Eye-Opening Look at the Power of an AP:

When I was a sophomore in high school, my Amother told me my birthday gift was going to take care of a problem. In my case, my "problem" was my nose. According to my Amother, it was too big... too ethnic. It had to be fixed. I had to be fixed. If I got fixed, more people would like me. If I got my face fixed, everything would be perfect.

As my stupid luck would have it, the plastic surgeon she chose for me was old (close to death/retirement) and not that great. As a result of that surgery, I have these annoying nodules I'd like to have removed, but won't because it's not anything I can afford to do... and quite honestly, I wouldn't want a plastic surgeons nose, anyway. My annoying nodules give me "character"... a quality many seem to like, once they get to know me. [Anyone see the irony in that statement?]

I shared the link to my blog post with the colleague (who, btw, is not a member of the adoption triad) who first told me about the article, and this is what she had to say:

I read the comments and appreciate the concerns raised by the adoptive parents. This article was one of several originally published in the Hastings Center Report about parents consenting to medically unnecessary cosmetic procedures for their children. Some countries are considering banning such surgeries in persons under 18. While I think the westernizing of children’s eyes is particularly repugnant, the whole idea of parents seeking out cosmetic surgery to make their children “better” than “normal” bothers me greatly.

I'm pleased that there are others who want to keep the conversation going. This issue is, of course, larger than this child and larger than unnecessary surgery, as appalling as that is. It's about the importance of identity, and what adoptive parents can and should do -- and should not do -- to foster positive racial identity in their children. And it's about adoption generally, and the absolute NEED for adoptive parents to unconditionally love and accept their children EXACTLY AS THEY ARE.

Canada Queries China On Adoption Scandals

From the Calgary Herald:

The Canadian government has expressed formal concerns to China about claims that Chinese babies are being kidnapped and sold to orphanages for adoption in Canada and other western countries [as reported by Chinese newspapers and the L.A. Times], Canwest News Service has learned.

Canadian Embassy staff in Beijing have asked the chief of the China Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) — the state agency that oversees China's international adoption program — to investigate.

"Chinese authorities are looking into this question," says Janet Nearing, the director of adoption services for the government of Nova Scotia, who says federal officials in Ottawa informed her that embassy staff have held meetings on the subject with Chinese officials.

"(CCAA's) director general has assured the embassy staff that the agency is looking into this matter," says Nearing. "He added that no children adopted by Canadians were (illegally obtained). I don't know what his source of information would be, but
that's the information we were given."

* * *

Reports of corruption in China's international adoption program first surfaced in 2005, but China said it was an isolated incident. New allegations this year prompted one Canadian parent — a mother in Nova Scotia who adopted a Chinese baby in 2006 — to go public this fall with fears that her daughter may not have been a legitimate orphan.

* * *

Nearing, who oversees all adoptions in Nova Scotia including those from overseas, calls this year's allegations "very troubling," and says they prompted her to ask Ottawa to look into the matter.

* * *

In the past, China has not responded kindly to questions about alleged corruption within its state-run adoption system.

When the Dutch government raised similar concerns in 2008, China warned the Dutch that ongoing questions would result in trade retaliation against Holland, according to government documents obtained by the Dutch adoption agency, World Children.

* * *

Nearing says Ottawa and other governments are virtually powerless to verify what Chinese authorities might tell them, calling the foreign-adoption program a matter of "trust" between countries.

She also says she has no way of telling parents who have adopted from China whether their child was abducted, trafficked, or legally obtained.

Despite such problems, Nearing says Canada should wait for more information before imposing a possible moratorium on adoptions from China.

Eyes Wide Open: Surgery to Westernize the Eyes of an Asian Child

One of my colleagues told me about this article -- she teaches it in Bioethics. It is a horrific must-read:

The speaker was a proud father. To illustrate his comments about a piece of art that celebrated the wonders of modern medicine (and which he had just donated to a local hospital), he told a story about his adopted Asian daughter. He described her as a beautiful, happy child in whom he took much delight. Her life, he told the audience, had been improved dramatically by the miracle of modern medicine. When she joined her new Caucasian family, her eyes, like those of many people of Asian descent, lacked a fold in the upper eyelid, and that lack was problematic—in his view—because it made her eyes small and sleepy and caused them to shut completely when she smiled. A plastic surgeon himself, he knew she did not need to endure this hardship, so he arranged for her to have surgery to reshape her eyes. The procedure, he explained, was minimally invasive and maximally effective. His beautiful daughter now has big round eyes that stay open and shine even when she smiles.

* * *

[T]wo things separate this case from the run-of-the-mill medical case. First, no medical, psychological, or physical impairment triggered the need for a parental decision; the father chose the surgery based on his aesthetic preference. Second, the intervention itself permanently altered a feature that is to some people an integral aspect of identity. These points make a moral difference. Most parental decisions to treat a child medically or surgically are a response to a physical or psychological impairment, illness, or injury in the child. In those cases, some need of the child triggers the decision to intervene, and the parent is the best person to sort through the medically appropriate choices for the child. But when a parent modifies features of a child that have nothing to do with physical impairment but can be integral to identity, and bases that decision on his own needs or aesthetic preferences, he asserts physical control over the child's body in the same way that he might assert control over a piece of property that he can modify to his specifications.

* * *

The nature of the surgery makes the case especially troubling. For some people, the shape of the eye is an integral part of ethnicity, a component of identity. A change to it may, therefore, go deeper than the removal of a mole or the pinning of a child's ears. In choosing the surgery, the father took from his daughter the ability to make her own choice about her identity. His exercise of parental autonomy thus limited his daughter's potential autonomy in a critical way; it took away her right to make a decision central to her identity as an adult, a right that is, like others, central to an open future.

* * *

The fact that the father was a new adoptive parent makes his decision feel particularly egregious. Perhaps because adoption already involves an exchange, worries about ownership seem closer to the surface. As a result, the adoptive parent seems to have a stronger obligation to accept the child's individuality, especially if the adoption is cross-cultural or cross-racial.

A friend of mine tells of her mother's reaction to her adoption of a child from China -- out of the blue, her mother leans over and says in a confiding tone, "You know, you can get her eyes fixed." Her response -- "Her eyes aren't broken. There's nothing to fix." Good answer!

But this father? I don't have words strong enough to describe him. How horrific for his child. Not only has he made the choice to strip her of her identity, he's made an affirmative statement that her perfectly normal Asian features are broken, and need to be fixed. Yes, as the article notes, some Asian parents have this surgery performed on their Asian children, but the meaning is completely different when a white parent has his daughter's Asian eyes "fixed."

Cute Kid Pix

Vote For Keeping It Real

I've mentioned before that Dawn's blog, this woman's work, is in the running for a Best Adoption Blog award from the Bump. It's down to Dawn and one other blog.

If you're all for keeping it real when talking about adoption, you MUST vote for this woman's work. If you prefer a steady diet of rainbows and unicorns, red threads and ladybugs, vote for someone else. Here's why Dawn wants to win:

» Because I’m tired of the same old cultural ideas about adoption getting play ALL THE DANG TIME.

» Because adoption may be a miracle for the adoptive parents but it’s a whole lot more complicated for our kids, for our kids’ first parents and for the communities/ countries that lose those kids.

» Because if I won the $1000 grand prize I’d donate it to Ethica, who “advocates for national and international improvement of adoption practices, offering support, education and advocacy to all persons affected by adoption.” (per their mission statement)

Now isn't that a refreshing campaign platform?! It's classic Dawn. Dawn is open -- open-minded, open-hearted -- and blogs openly and honestly about the ups and downs of an open, transracial adoption. She is open about her mistakes, about her emotions, about her opinions. She does not shy away from the hard issues in adoption, but shares the happy times, too. She gets what so many don't get -- that adoption is more complicated than the win-win narrative that society sells.

So please vote for Dawn. And you can hit refresh, and vote again and again and again (the Bump says it's ok to do so!). Please pass the word -- time is running out! We have until 11:59pm EST Monday to vote for keeping it real.

Due Process in Adoption? Hardly.

That's the conclusion of William H. Mild III, who served for 23 years as a deputy attorney general within the New Jersey Division of Law representing the Division of Youth and Family Services (sorry, you'll just have to indulge my geeky lawyer side for a moment!):

Adoption is generally perceived as a positive thing — hope, love and new beginnings. We prefer not to dwell on the negatives that usually precede an adoption — anguish, anger and severing of family ties. . . . [T]his piece will focus on the [domestic] adoption process arising out of non-agency placements with potential adoptive parents who are not part of the child’s original family, commonly referred to as private placements or private adoptions.

* * *

It seems to me that a significant number of New Jersey adoptions, particularly private adoptions, are on shaky legal ground. A court’s termination of parental rights based primarily upon the Notice of Intention to Place and the report of the approved agency is considerably weaker than the “clear and convincing evidence” required to pass constitutional muster.

Birthparents should not have been expected to navigate these labyrinthine statutes without independent counsel. Without counsel, birthparents have virtually no way of knowing the long-term effect of their relinquishment and the post-adoption sealing of the court’s file, including the child’s original birth certificate.

The child is an indispensable party and requires independent counsel to protect his or her own fundamental rights and interests — including adult rights and interests — from being needlessly compromised.

Due process in adoption? Hardly.

His concerns about New Jersey adoptions would apply to the other 49 states, since they all use essentially the same process. Click here to read more. (hat tip to ulb on twitter for the link -- follow for more great stuff!)

"A Real Chinese Kid"

I've posted this video before, but since obsessive watching of it apparently makes one sound like a "real Chinese kid" when singing it, I thought I'd post it again!

My girls do watch it obsessively, and will perform "Ni Wa Wa" at the drop of a hat. So I wasn't surprised when Zoe started singing it in the car when we were giving our Chinese tutor a ride home.

One of the things the tutor was helping us with was picking out some Tang poems for Zoe to recite at the Chinese School speech contest. She nixed on Zoe had picked, and picked another because "everyone will know this one!"

And then when she heard Zoe singing "Ni Wa Wa," she exclaimed, "She must sing this for the speech contest -- she sounds just like a real Chinese kid!"

It reminded me of this video snippet, which I've also posted before:

Zoe, of course, was thrilled to sound like a "real Chinese kid." She loved every opportunity she had in China to distance herself from me so that she would be seen as a "real" Chinese girl. I never really had the heart to tell her that people in China knew immediately by the way she was dressed, how her hair was long and loose, and her behavior that she was overseas Chinese, even if they didn't figure her as adopted.

But hey, Miss Lucy says she sounds like a real Chinese kid -- she's happy. Never mind the multiple layers there . . . .

Louisiana is NOT for Lovers

Every time I see a "Virginia is for Lovers" bumper sticker, I think of Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled an bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. That decision was madeover 40 years ago.

Apparently, one Justice of the Peace in Louisiana didn't get the memo:

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. . . . Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children."

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell said. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."

One can easily infer his opinion of transracial adoption, don't you think?!

Of course, the JP's actions are completely unconstitutional, and the ACLU is requesting the Louisiana Judiciary Commission to remove him.

Racial Insults: "I'm Used To It"

At ballet on Wednesday, a little girl asked Zoe why her skin was brown, told her it looked dirty, like it was covered with mud, called her "Blackie," and accused her of "sneaking around" the ballet studio. Zoe didn't say anything in response, and none of her friends in the dressing room stood up for her.

It's all so ugly, it even hurts to type it. I can only imagine how much it hurt Zoe to hear it. She was upset, but even worse, when I offered sympathy, she tried to make me feel better, saying, "I'm used to it." She's used to it, not because anyone has said that about her skin before, but because of the "Chinese eyes" incidents. How awful to be 8 years old and used to racial teasing and racial insults.

When kids make comments about race I don't automatically assume they've learned racism from their racist parents. But this one? The "mud" reference makes me think of white supremacists who call all non-whites "mud people." Am I overreacting? Maybe. But the "sneaking around" comment also seems too . . . I don't know the right word -- sophisticated?advanced? for a 6-year-old insulting an Asian-American.

Sneaky, sly, devious -- this part of the Asian-American stereotype exists, even with the prevalence of the "model minority" myths. But would a 6-year-old see Asian-Americans as sneaky? Has she been reading news accounts of Chinese spies? Watching Fu Manchu movies? Catching up on the justifications for internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II? Somehow I doubt it. So where does it come from at this age?!

I don't know what else to say. Enough intellectualizing.

My child claims to be "used to it." It just sucks.

Interesting Reading

Here's some interesting reading from around the blogosphere:

From the MadDuchess at the Disloyal Subject of the Red Queen, You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up: the story of a Chinese girl adopted by white parents who haven't told her she's adopted.

From Dawn at this woman's work, Our Adoption Story: if you've only started reading recently, a chance to get the back story on Madison's adoption, and their move to a very open adoption. You can also click here to vote for this woman's work in the best adoption blog category at the Bump, a well-deserved award!

Two stories from the Minneapollis StarTribune on international adoption: Burned By a Baby Broker (subject obvious) & Adoption Treaty Sets Up Double Standard in U.S., about how non-Hague-accredited agencies still operate.

From Cedar, On a Little Island in the Pacific: An Adoption Blog, "Abandonment:" A Disconnect in Adoption: exploring who is defining "abandonment," when the dominant voices in adoption are not those of birth mothers.

Red Faced and Smacked Down (scroll down to Oct. 1): Learning it's not advisable to troll for birth mothers in an online support group for pregnant teens (this is something you need to learn?!).

Yoon Seon at Seumnida: If I Was Different, Would You Have Kept Me? ("I don’t think the shame surrounding my adoption will ever really go away. Even knowing that there are thousands of other adoptees out there, I still feel ashamed… small… frustrated and angry, knowing that had I been kept by my birth mother… I would have been the cause for her life being ruined.")

First Modern Day Adoption Of Chinese Child: From 1980, Chinese child adopted by American couple, Chinese judge declares the child "China's gift of friendship to America." Ick. (hat tip to kantmakm at adopttalkcanada). UPDATE: Thanks to AmericanFamily for the link to the relief bill in Congress trying to straighten out the immigration status of that Chinese child.

Angelina, Zahara's Hair, and Transracial Adoption

In Newsweek, Zahara Jolie-Pitt and the Politics of Uncombed Hair:

A few years ago when actress Angelina Jolie announced she’d be adopting a 6-month-old girl from Africa, I had mixed emotions. I’ve always thought Jolie was one of the flyest chicks in the Hollywood game, but interracial adoptions can be a tricky thing no matter how fly you are.

I’d heard the horror stories around Hollywood about the adopted black children of white movie stars becoming incredibly confused about their backgrounds. For instance, during an interview with Oprah Winfrey a few years ago; Tom Cruise said his interracial son, Conner, was not a color, so the family didn’t discuss race.

Nice sentiment, but in the real world Conner is considered black. If not Cruise, then
someone else will point that reality out to Connor with little hesitation. This is one major reason there has been such a hot national debate over interracial adoptions. The fear is that non-African-American parents won’t be able to raise black children with an understanding of who they are and what that means in mainstream society. Such an understanding is just as imperative as shelter and food if the child is to survive and thrive.

Yikes! I'd missed that Tom Cruise quote at the time it was made, I guess. Anyone know what Oprah said to him in response? Hopefully something along the lines of "What a moron . . . ."

After a mild compliment that Jolie seemed to be doing OK as the parent of a transracially adopted child, the author chides Angelina Jolie for not "getting it" when it comes to her African-American daughter's hair:

In recent pictures it's clear Angelina Jolie hasn’t taken the time to learn or understand the long and painful history of African-American women and hair. If she had I can’t imagine she would continue to allow Zahara to look like she has in the past few months. Photos of Zahara show the 4-year-old girl sporting hair that is wild and unstyled, uncombed and dry. Basically: a “hot mess.’’

I don't want to minimize the difficulty faced by white parents of African-American children in the "hair wars." I can only imagine how it would feel to be under scrutiny for your hair choices in this way. But if the photo above, which ran with the story, is the evidence that Zahara is a "hot mess," then I'm not getting it, either! She looks cute as a button to me. And I prefer the natural look to a white parent telling her African-American child, "Don't you just love it when your hair is straight?!" (I also don't mind if the hair is ironed straight -- I just prefer the natural look to the message that there's something wrong that must be fixed in the hair she was born with).

And notice the little head to the left of Angelina -- isn't that Cambodian-born Maddox sporting platinum-blond streaks in his hair? Is that, too, a rejection of his race? It might be -- if he's told that only blond hair is pretty, or that there's something wrong with his hair when it's black.

(That train of thought reminds me of Zoe's preschool teacher, who was wonderful in all other ways but this one -- she kept trying to get Zoe to color with something other than a black crayon, because "black is such a sad color." What?! How can you look at a child with black hair and black eyes and tell her that black is a sad color?!)

And I have to confess -- among the three in the picture, Angelina Jolie looks to me to be the one most in need of a comb!

Adoption is Permanent

Getting Maya to do her Chinese School homework this evening was quite the adventure.

First, she tried to vamp me out of making her do her homework -- smiling sweetly at me, she said, "You're a nice mama who cares about our feelings!" I respond, "Yes, I care about your feelings. I'm sorry you don't feel like doing your homework, but you need to do it anyway."

Next, she tries to distract me with the continuing soap opera that is Kindergarten. It seems that C., the little boy Maya likes, got in trouble for kissing another little girl in the class (I thought Maya would be the first kindergartner to get in trouble for kissing someone, since my fast girl managed to kiss all the boys in her preschool class last year). But Maya claims to be OK with C.'s attention to another girl since, she tells me, she has an "extra man. (her exact words!)" What?! There's another little boy, K., who Maya claims is her "extra man," because she plays with him when C. doesn't want to play with her. "Extra man?!" Where does she come up with this stuff????

Finally, after the fourth time I told her she could not write her Chinese characters upside down (meaning while MAYA was upside down -- since she had her book upside down with her, the characters would have actually been rightside up!), Maya says with supreme confidence, "You would never give us away, would you?"

Where in the world did that come from? As far as I know, neither of my kids has heard about adoption disruption.

So Maya succeeds in getting out of Chinese School homework -- for a moment, at least.

"You're right," I say. "I would never give you away. Even when I'm frustrated with you, I love you. We are a family forever. That's how adoption works. Adoption is permanent."

Maya says, "Like a permanent marker?"

Me: "Just like a permanent marker, smart girl! You know how I don't want you to write on things with a permanent marker because we can't erase it? The mark stays forever, and we can't ever get rid of it. We can't erase adoption, either. It stays forever."

"Now lets get your Chinese School homework finished."

We Don't Buy Anita . . .

. . . and it seems we won't buy Anita Tedaldi's book, either. Two hundred twenty-six people voted in the poll asking whether you'd buy a book by her about her disruption experience (at the time I formulated the poll, I didn't realize her upcoming book was a parenting manual!). Over 90% of respondents said they would not buy her book, 3% said they would buy the book, and 5% answered "maybe."

No surprise, eh? If she does decide to write about her disruption experience, maybe a publisher will do a little marketing survey among adoptive parents and think twice before offering her a contract.

Wanted: Marriageable Men

No, not for me! I still don't want to get married!

But I've been reading a bit about the numerous Orphan/Adoption Ministries at churches around the country and I've been thinking (always dangerous, I know!).

The justification for the Orphan Ministry is always James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

According to the Home For Good Foundation, "caring for widows and orphans in their distress is pure and undefiled religion (Jas 1:27), but an orphan’s distress is not belonging to a family, and no matter how much we love and care for children in an orphanage - they are still orphans. Children just don’t want to be orphans - they want to belong to a family. Adoption by a Christian family brings God’s love to orphan children by living example and is the most effective way to evangelize orphan children. By having an adoption ministry, the church can preach the doctrine of adoption and the biblical mandate to love and care for orphans."

I'm impressed by this commitment to adoption as a way to evangelize orphan children. But I'm saddened that Christians aren't working to fulfill ALL of James 1:27. What about the widows? Shouldn't we help them in the same way we help orphans? If "looking after orphans" means to adopt them, then "looking after widows" obviously means to marry them!

So I think churches should start looking into having Widow/Re-Marriage Ministries. That's why we need marriageable Christian men to step forward as an act of pure and undefiled religion, prepared to marry needy widows throughout the world. This isn't like mail-order brides with all those icky overtones -- after all, we're not looking for hot and sexy young women to pair these Christian men with. Only widows need apply. Of course, men can request AYAP (as young as possible), and the wear-and-tear of years can be thought of as minor, correctable special needs (a little cosmetic surgery, and she'll look AYAP!).

Or, you could adopt an orphan because you wish to add a child to your family, not as an act of charity, and then donate your time, talent and treasure to organizations that look after orphans. And you could marry for love, not out of charity, and then donate your time, talent and treasure to organizations that look after widows.

THAT seems to me to be the religion that God accepts as pure and faultless, as the Bible says, taking care of widows and orphans, and expecting nothing (neither a child nor a wife) in return.

More scanning faces. . .

I posted Friday about my conversation with Zoe about her scanning Chinese faces, looking for her birth parents even here in America. Here's some more food for thought:

From an adoptee's perspective, a link to a previous post -- another story by Tai Dong Huai, the adult Chinese adoptee who writes fiction related to adoption (I posted her story, Backwards , last month). In Chinaman's Chance, her 13-year-old self thinks a Chinese woman her mother brought home might be her birth mother:

This is her , I think to myself. A billion-to-one shot, a near impossibility, yet here she stands. In our kitchen. As if hell just froze over.

"This is Mrs. Lim," my adoptive mom says. "Mrs. Lim, my daughter Leah."

Mrs. Lim's is as razor thin as I am. Her hair, like mine, is very dark brown, black by most light. My 13-year-old nose, uncustomarily long for an Asian girl, seems to be reflected in her middle-aged face.

* * *

I hear my mom on the front porch and I know my time with Mrs. Lim is almost through. My adoptive dad, were he here to give me advice in this situation, would probably say, "Go for it," or "Swing for the fences." So I do.

"Are you my mother?" I ask.

Mrs. Lim stares at me for a few long seconds, and I'm afraid at first that she doesn't understand. I'm sorry, I'm about to say. Stupid question. But she interrupts my thoughts as the front door opens.

"Your mother," she says, "just came in."

And thanks to Lori's link in the comments, scanning faces from a Chinese birth mother's perspective at Mortimer's Mom's blog:

This afternoon, I was at Reno-Depot (Canadian home depot, except green) with Dumpling, picking out paint for her attic playroom.

There was an Asian couple also trying to select paint, and I could tell the lady wanted to talk to me but was too shy.

* * *

They did turn out to be Chinese, . . .Then he told me his wife was having a hard time because she didn't speak either languages, but also because in Montreal there are really a lot of white families with chinese girls, and it's very hard on her.

At first I thought he meant she was opposed to international adoptions or something, but the rest of their story brought me to my knees, right there in the paint department. They have a six year old daughter. But they also have a 3 year old daughter. They lived in Shanghai at the time of their 2nd daughter's birth and were unable to keep her. They had to give her to an orphanage. 6 months afterwards, their papers came to allow them to travel to Canada. After he told me this, he told his wife what he had told me and she began to weep openly, while caressing my daughter's face.

* * *

The part that was the most thought provoking to me is this: I read Lost Daughters of China, I've thought about my daughter's birth family often, but this had never occured to me before: some of these parents will emigrate. Some of them will come to Canada and the US. They are confronted with happy families caring for Chinese children and must wonder if their own daughters are here in North America, if they made it, if they have families now....

How is it that in this entire process, I have never once given the thought to these parents ever leaving China? Why did I assume they ALL stayed there? I realise that the numbers who do emigrate are low, and the chances of any reunification for ANY of the daughters of China are astronomically small, but that woman today, she is looking for her daughter in the faces of every tiny Chinese girl with white parents....

Wow! Even knowing how little chance there is that my children's birth parents will/have emigrate/d (which, by the way, I told Zoe), that encounter still gives me chills. And thanks to Lorraine's comment, we know that there is little to separate American birth mothers and Chinese birth mothers on this front (and I'm looking forward to your blog post on the topic, Lorraine!).

Stolen babies a new industry in China's villages

That's the headline in the Taiwan News for their report of the baby-confiscation incidents reported by the L.A. Times last month. There isn't much in the way of original reporting, though this paragraph seems to provide a bit more background:

The problem is rooted in China's population controls, which limit most families to one child, two if they live in the countryside and the first is a girl. Each town has a family planning office, usually staffed by loyal Communist Party cadres who have broad powers to order abortions and sterilizations. People who have additional babies can be fined up to six times their annual income -- fines euphemistically called "social service expenditures," which are an important source of revenue for local government in rural areas.

The article concludes:

Some people blame international adoption itself, saying that the money involved creates the opportunity for abuse. With China there are obviously reasons to be extra careful -- the lack of freedom for a couple to found and raise a family, and the absence of a free press that might thoroughly investigate the whole question of "abandonment" of baby girls.

Since most of those adopted overseas go to the US, it is certainly an issue for the government there to investigate and put the heat on Beijing if necessary.

In light of the sometimes-strained China-Taiwan relations, it's interesting to see the slant a Taiwanese newspaper puts on this news from China.

Scanning faces and wondering . . .

We went out for dinner last night to our favorite Chinese restaurant, and Zoe asked me, "Do you ever look at Chinese people and wonder if they're my birth parents?"

I wasn't completely surprised by the question. We hear often from adult adoptees about their scanning faces and wondering. But this is the first time Zoe had said anything that suggested she did that. I guess I would have thought of it more as something she'd do in China, but not here. Clearly, I was wrong about that.

So I responded, "It sounds like maybe you do that, look at Chinese people and wonder. . . ."

Zoe nodded, and said, "Especially if they're really Chinese. You know, like they don't really speak English."

Hmm, so she's thinking her birth family might have emigrated to America. She's said something like that before.

Well, another conversation peppered with many "I don't knows" from me. We talked a little about emigration, and why people might leave their country to go to another one, and the things that might prevent someone from doing that even if they really want to. And we talked about how hard it is for her to want to know her birth parents and to be wondering about them. And I told her that other adoptees wonder, just like she does, if people they see might be their birth parents (I wanted her to know she was normal!).

And then Zoe changed the subject: "Let's talk about ME!" she says (What have we been doing?!).

Me: "What about you?"

Zoe: "You know! How you MET me!"

Ah, yes, center-of-the-universe girl! That's what we're supposed to be talking about at our Chinese dinner -- the moment 2,920 days ago that we met each other for the first time!

2,920 Days Ago & Today

Same girl, same outfit, hard to believe!

LWB Unity Fund

Having read Cedar's post, linked here, about birth parents so desperate to provide life-saving medical treatment for their child that they relinquished her for adoption, Karen Maunu of the Love Without Boundaries blog wrote:

We have seen a number of parents in China on the verge of this desperation. We’ve also seen children who have obviously had some medical treatment as they are abandoned with surgical scars or needle marks from previous IVs. Obviously the parents tried to give the child the medical care they needed, but we have to wonder if they ran out of funds and so felt the desperation of having to leave them in the hopes they would get care.

This is the reason behind our Unity Fund, our medical treatment fund that helps poor, rural families who can’t afford medical treatment. We want families to stay together, and we love when we can “prevent an orphan” by providing the medical care needed so that the family doesn’t have to consider such a drastic decision.

If you, too, were moved by Cedar's post, and by knowing that the child relinquished in that story was our own Mei Ling, I would ask that you consider donating to LWB's Unity Fund.

The Power of Naming

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

God gave Adam dominion over all the creatures, and as evidence of that dominion, Adam was asked to name all the animals (and name Eve, too). This passage is frequently used by some religions to argue that women cannot be priests, and is often pointed to by feminists as proof of patriarchy – the pervasive culture of dominion of MAN over all creatures, including woman. Because the power of naming is dominion – control, authority, mastery.

I studied this passage from the Bible in college, both in theology classes and women studies classes (I was a member of the “Major of the Week Club” there for a while in college!). I’ve taught about the power of naming in my Women & the Law class and Feminist Jurisprudence seminar.

So what does this Biblical story have to tell us about naming in adoption? How about this? We name that which we wish to control. By naming, we assume a blank slate. We act like no identity exists until we name. Once the child is seen as a blank slate, it is easier to see the child as made for us, to have no purpose except to satisfy our needs. This is the significance of Adam naming the animals, and this is the danger in naming children born to us; it’s a bigger problem in naming children whose life began before we met.

There’s a softer side to naming as “dominion,” isn’t there? It's naming as claiming, about belonging instead of control, I think. For adoptive parents, naming the child is one of the first acts of claiming her as “your own.” Bestowing on the child a family name especially – naming her for your favorite aunt, using the traditional family name given to oldest sons – can be a mark of belonging. Sometimes not doing that seems odd (don’t you think it’s a little strange that the only children Angelina Jolie named after relatives are her biological children?!).

But the problem with naming as claiming is that it can seem like a rejection of all that came before, an erasure of the child’s pre-adoption identity and a rejection of birth culture and country, even a rejection of birth parents. For many adoptive children, that first name is the only link they have to their past, the only thing that they can claim as their own. Rejection of that first name is rejection of identity, isn't it? We're back to the blank slate, those animals we had no words for until Adam spoke their names.

Naming can also be a re-claiming. Feminist discussions of naming focus on reclaiming the power of naming, the power to define one’s own existence on one’s own terms. Giving a name to a condition or experience can make it real. Until women named the experience “sexual harassment,” for example, there was no language to talk about that icky thing your boss did to you at work and no way to claim any legal injury from it.

Some adoptees choose to reclaim their former names – the names given by birth parents, reflective of family, the names given by orphanage workers, reflective of home country and culture. I imagine that some adoptive parents might see this as rejection – but then perhaps the adoptive parents will be able to use that reaction to identify with the adoptee’s feeling that erasing a previous name amounted to rejection of what came before. Or if they believe their naming was a claiming and not a rejection, then they can simply see the adoptee’s action as reclaiming, not rejection.

All of this philosophical rambling actually went into my process of naming my children. I understood the power of naming in a theoretical sense, but the power of naming – the real POWER of it – became real to me when I named my children. Like many adoptive parents, I tried to strike a balance.

I gave each girl an “American” first name, names given for no other reason than that I loved them – Zoe and Maya. With these names, I claimed them as my own. Zoe means life, and Maya means a divine spark. Though I claim them, I do not claim dominion; these names recognize them as individuals in their own right. Human life with a divine spark.

I also gave each girl a French name, in recognition of their French grandmother. So they are Zoe Elisabeth and Maya Noelle. Maya’s first middle name, Noelle, is because I found out on Christmas Eve that my agency had a singles slot for me so I would be able to submit an dossier to China. With French names, I claimed them as belonging to a larger family. And more than two given names are quite common in France, so more names rather than fewer is consistent with my heritage.

My children came to me with names given to them by the orphanage director, names that followed the particular naming convention of their orphanage. When I received the referral of my younger daughter, I knew immediately she came from the same orphanage as her big sister because of the naming convention. In fact, I argued with the social worker when she told me my daughter was from a different orphanage. It turns out we were both right – Maya was found and named at one orphanage, and then transferred to another!

So my girls had a shared beginning, and they shared the surname Jin, a surname selected for all children there because the orphanage was near JinTiancum, the site of a famous peasant rebellion. Jin means gold.The girls from the orphanage during a certain period – when my oldest was there – are named Jin Something Ling. Then the director changed to a new naming convention – Jin Something Li – when my youngest was there. So my daughters were Jin YiLing and Jin BingLi. (And anyone reading from their orphanage can identify the orphanage immediately by knowing these names -- ah, a larger sisterhood).

I kept YiLing and BingLi as part of their new names. I wish I’d kept Jin, too, but at the time I didn’t know I’d have a second daughter, much less that she’d be from the same orphanage. I wish they had the name connection now, not just then, but I’d already dropped it for YiLing by the time BingLi entered our lives.

I kept their Chinese names in recognition of their heritage and their country of birth. I know some think an orphanage-given name isn’t worthy of being kept, that only with a birth parent- given name is there a reason to retain it. But I believe the connection to their heritage is important, that the connection to their orphanage is worthy.

There’s another reason I kept their Chinese names – it’s so it will be easy for them if they wish to use their Chinese names exclusively. If they wish to reclaim their birth country, their heritage, their identity in that way, then I’ve at least made it quite possible for them to do so. They do use their Chinese names at times – Zoe was exclusively Jin YiLing at her kindergarten when we lived in China for five months, and they both use their Chinese names at times at Chinese School. (Zoe’s power of naming causes her to write the Chinese characters for her name in permanent marker on all sorts of things she shouldn’t!)

So my daughters are Zoe Elisabeth YiLing and Maya Noelle BingLi. Named and claimed in love and belonging. No blank slates, their heritage reclaimed in that given and retained Chinese name.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NAMES -- the topic of this month's blog carnival at Grown in My Heart. Go there to read other takes on the topic, and blog your own post about names and go there to link it. I've posted before about naming -- What's In a Name? and Naming (about "milk names" in China).

Cultural/Racial Confusion

Imagine my surprise when I got my ABA Journal in the mail. There she is, the newest Supreme Court Justice, the first Hispanic justice, the third female justice appointed to the Court. There she is, framed by a pastiche of Asian imagery, with the word Kabuki leaping out at me. Kabuki theater -- stylized Japanese dance/drama, notable for white-face makeup. Sheesh. Then-Senator Joe Biden claimed the John Roberts confirmation hearing was a kabuki dance, but I didn't see anyone pose Justice Roberts as an Asian caricature.

And this on top of the National Review cover of Sotomayor as Buddha. What? There aren't any images of wise Latinas to make fun of, so you have to expropriate an Asian image? Even when the person you're mocking isn't Asian?!

Get a clue. Justice Sonya Sotomayor is NOT Asian. What is it about her that makes magazine-cover designers think Asian? And then we can't even decide what variety of Asian we're mis-identifying her as. Kabuki? Japanese. Buddha? Indian/Chinese. No matter, she is NOT Asian!

Seems like Frank Wu got it right in his book, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, once we move off the black/white dichotomy we are clueless about race.

Gitchi Gotcha Goo Means I Love You?

(If you don't recognize my riff on the song title, click here to watch the video! )

My friend Lisa sent me the link to this post about celebrating “Gotcha Day” at International Mom’s blog:

At the risk of upsetting the adoption experts’ apple cart, I wanted to share this little tidbit. We don’t celebrate Gotcha Day, Family Day, Forever Family Day, Adoption Day, or any other day that focuses on the adoption of our children. We made this decision long before we became adoptive parents. As a family blended by birth and adoption, we felt it was not right to exclude anyone. By celebrating, we would have excluded our child by birth.

***

My family celebrates family every day, taking joy and pride in what we are – a blended group of human beings that have been brought together, through marriage, birth, and adoption and across oceans from different parts of the world. A family that deeply loves, respects, and is grateful for each member. That, we got. . . .

This post particularly resonated with Lisa since she has a bio child and an adopted child, and it was really timely for me, since Zoe’s “Gotcha Day” is Thursday.

As Lisa and I discussed the post, we discovered that we both had other problems with “Gotcha Day” – one a problem with terminology and one a problem with the celebratory ideal.

I’ve mentioned before that when she was younger, Zoe didn’t like the term “Gotcha” because it made her feel like someone would jump out at her to surprise her – “GOTCHA!” Lisa feels the word is impersonal, and she loved the comment to International Mom’s post by Pam Thomas, who said:

The term that my daughter really hates is “gotcha day”, which she finds supremely offensive. She thinks, and I completely support her, that it has seedy implications of adoptive families snatching children away from birth family, country, and culture. Others may disagree with this, but I feel like the children are the real experts about this, and many of the children I have met share my daughter’s feelings.

The deeper problem for both of us is the celebratory aspect of the day. As I shared with Lisa, when I look at pictures of my shell-shocked kids from that first meeting, it doesn’t really look like something to celebrate. Yes, at the time, I was dumb enough to think that Zoe falling asleep in my arms was a magical moment of trust instead of the desperate inability to deal it was, but now I know better. In fact, I knew better by the time I met Maya, and that scared little voice questioning, “Mama?” still echoes in my ears, because I knew she wasn’t asking about me, but about the only Mama she’d ever known, her foster mom. And then the tears came – for both of us. Even though they are the two best days of my life, how can I celebrate my daughters’ worlds turning upside down in such a traumatic way?

Lisa agrees: “But then I feel like you, my God, that day was beautiful and scary for me, scary for her but she grabbed onto me that day and never let go. I have loved that she needed me and took me in as her mother (I am not worthy) . . . but "celebrate?" It's a day for much discussion and reflection...but "celebrate??" [In deciding initially to celebrate “Gotcha Day”] I feel I submitted to what everyone else thinks is right, heck I was a rookie mom and still am in a lot of ways.”

A day of discussion and reflection sounds about right to me. We don't do bells and whistles or bread or circuses for “Gotcha Day.” We watch the video, look at pictures, and try on the clothes they were wearing on the day we met as a way to record their growth (Zoe's still fits, Maya's not so much!), and then they get a small gift (I bought 18 gifts in China, one for each year until they reach adulthood). As you can see, we don't make it a sad and solemn occasion, that's not really my point. Zoe has even said that Gotcha Day is her favorite holiday.

So how do you feel about Gotcha Day or whatever you call it? How do you acknowledge it? Is it celebratory? Do you have a way to acknowledge the loss as well as the gain in Gotcha Day?

We’ve already deconstructed the must-believe adoptive parent tenets with regard to “adopt-a-whatever” programs and the naturalness of adoption this week. Let’s see what happens when we look closely at Gotcha Day . . . .

Search, Reunion & Handy Manny

Last night we watched Disney's Handy Manny Motorcycle Adventure. If you're not familiar with the show's premise, here it is in a nutshell -- Manny is a handyman who repairs stuff with the help of his talking tools. It's really designed for kids younger than mine, but for some inexplicable reason, Zoe and Maya love it. Go figure!

The show last night was an hour-long special, with Manny taking his motorcycle with sidecar full of tools to his family reunion. Pat, the hammer, wishes he had a family like Manny's, but Manny reassures him that he and the other tools are Manny's family. Pat isn't satisfied by that answer, and ends up climbing into a truck with a hammer logo on the side that he thinks looks like him (unlike all other hammers, this one has eyes, like Pat does).

When the truck takes him to a big-box hardware store, he makes his way to the hammer aisle and sings a song about needing to find someone who is like him, and says at one point that finding the hammer aisle is like finding "Planet Me." Unfortunately, he comes to realize, the hammer logo is just that, a drawing of a hammer, not a real hammer who might be a relative.

Not surprisingly, the show doesn't deal much with this theme of needing to know biological family, of needing to be with those who look like you. The whole focus was on family as those who care for each other, and that's okay. And the action was all about Manny and the other tools looking for Pat, despite all obstacles, because they're family.

And in light of the Anita Tedaldi fiasco, I'm happy with a kid's show that says family sticks together no matter what.

Rest of the Story

Remember the post from Cedar's blog, the fictionalized account from a true story about an infant placed for adoption because the parents could not afford the life-saving treatment the baby needed? I posted a reaction to it here.

Click here for the rest of the story. Find out whose story it is -- hint, hint, she's a frequent commenter here!

Is adoption natural?

Issicat has a great blog post up, about prospective adoptive parents, brain washing, and "natural" mothers:

And here is the other one that cracks me up from the PAP’s. Apparently, I’m not supposed to call the woman who gave birth to me my natural mother. I’m not supposed to call her that because it implies that adoption is unnatural.

Ummm…hmmm…errr….

I got 2 things to say about that.

1. I was raised by my aparents calling the woman who gave me life my natural mother. They didn’t have a problem with it. She doesn’t have a problem with it and most importantly I don’t have a problem with it. . . . I’ll call my mother whatever I want.

2. ADOPTION is not natural. It isn’t. A person giving their child to an agency to be given to complete strangers to raise. Not natural. PAP’s wriitng “Dear Birthmother” letters trying to pimp themselves to women in crisis pregnancy situations in the hope of obtaining said baby… not natural.

You know what is natural? Babies going home and being cared for by the mothers who carried them in their bodies. That is natural. Anything else is just a little sad.

I’m not saying I hate adoption. I don’t. I’m not saying that adoption isn’t necessary in some cases. It is.

But there is no way in hell I would ever call it natural.

And that is something that my aparents seemed to get. My sibling and I …we came from other people. There was and is no denying it. My parents did not find it natural to be raising two children with no medical history. I think they found it pretty stressful, especially when I fell extremely ill as a toddler. I think that time right there, that extremely stressful time showed them once and for all that adoption was a very unnatural situation.

* * *

Adoption natural? No it isn’t. My mom is very proadoption. She loves adoption but she’ll tell you herself, she’s not stupid. Adoption is not an easy or natural road to take.

Oh and she thinks Anita Tedaldi is a shit-head…but that is another story.

Issycat's amom, I think I love you!

The "natural" thing is another one of those "givens" in adoption language -- adoptive parents are supposed to be upset about adopt-a-whatever programs, we're supposed to say we're the real parents, not those pesky birth parents, and we're supposed to say that adoption is natural, just another way to add to your family.

I was brainwashed to believe it, weren't you? I completely bought into the "same as" narrative, that raising an adopted child was the same as raising a biological child, nothing less and certainly nothing more.

It's not the same. I won't say it's harder. But it is more complicated. And that's what prospective adoptive parents should know and accept.

For me, it was having my new child in my arms that changed me. When she became a real person to me, instead of the abstract notion of the idea of a child, that's when it all changed.

So I forgive prospective adoptive parents a little. They have room for redemption.

What bothers me are those adoptive parents, with their child in their arms, who persistently cling to the "same as" narrative, rejecting that birth parents are real, insisting their child is AMERICAN so needs no special heritage-teaching/culture-keeping, saying that race doesn't matter (easy to say when you're the majority race, impossible for their minority-race child to live), desperately repeating the mantra, "same as . . . same as . . . same as. . . ."

Standard disclaimer -- not all prospective adoptive parents or adoptive parents are like that. But we all know ones who are, I bet.

Would You Take Parenting Advice From This Woman?

Thanks to Dee, for the tip in the comments to this post, that Anita Tedaldi's new book is a parenting manual! Says HuffingtonPost:

Anita’s forthcoming book Major Moms, Keeping Your Troops in Line (Adams Media) will be out in Apr 2010.

Silly me, thinking the book would be a tell-all of her adoption disruption. Seemed reasonable, given the usual writer's advice: "write what you know." Who could have guessed she knew something about parenting. . . .

Heart's Desire

The conversation started innocuously enough. We're driving in the car and Zoe was doing her fake-British accent (don't ask!), She asked what the difference was between Great Britain and England, and I explained that Great Britain included England, Wales, and Scotland. She remarked that she thought Scotland was funny since men wore skirts.

I explained about kilts, and said that men in Scotland pretty much wore kilts only for special occasions, like in China, a girl will wear a qi pao only on special occasions, not every day. That lead to questions from Maya about what qi paos are made of (silk).

And that led Zoe to say she wished our whole house was decorated in silk. Why, I asked? The answer was something along the lines of silkworms are cool, silk is so smooth and shiny and colorful. I took the practical road and explained some of the difficulties of taking care of silk. Zoe thought maybe we should invent a washing machine just to wash silk.

And then she changed tacks. "Well, it's not really my heart's desire to have silk all over the house. I want a mirror like the one Harry Potter saw his parents in (the girls watched their first Harry Potter movie last night). I would be able to see my birth parents in that mirror, because seeing them is my heart's desire."

"Yes, sweetie, I know that's your heart's desire. I hope one day you will see them. I know it's not the same thing, but every time you look in a mirror, you can see your birth parents when you look at your face. They made you, so they are in you."

"I KNOW," says Zoe. She's behind me in the car, but I can tell she's rolling her eyes, even though I can't see her. "You're right, it's not the same. I don't know which parts of my face came from which birth parent!"

I respond, "I can tell that makes you feel frustrated. How else does it make you feel?"

Zoe ponders that and says, "It's sad, but I think I've got an idea. I can marry Harry Potter and he can show me the mirror!"

Now she's going all practical on me. . . . . and fickle, too. Earlier in the day, both she and Maya were moving to Europe so they could each find a prince to marry so they could be princesses.

(But judging from Zoe's latest drawing of her birth parents, I can tell her exactly who they look like -- Yoko Ono and . . . Yoko Ono!)

If Mao Could See Us Now

NPR All Things Considered did a radio story about new slogans for the 60th anniversary celebrations in China:

"Warmly celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China!"

That's one of 50 slogans put out by the Chinese Communist Party to get people in the mood for the big celebration that started this month.

Other slogans on the list are much less straightforward, like this one:

"Adhering to and improving the system of regional autonomy by ethnic minorities, so as to consolidate and develop socialist relations among different ethnic groups based on equality, solidarity, mutual assistance and harmony."

OK, let's put a little American style into that:

Give me an A. . . give me a D. . . give me an H. . . give me an E. . . give me an R. . . give me an I. . . ah, just give up!

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, professor of history at the University of California at Irvine, and China Beat blogger, came up with a few slogans of his own for the radio story:

"From a third-world economy to the world's third economy in just 30 years."

and my favorite:

"If Mao Could See Us Now!"

Adopt a Liberal

Just saw a news report about an organization creating a prayer program, where members were to pray for liberals. Oooookay! Didn't surprise me -- I remember when Pat Robertson asked his followers to pray for the . . . um . . . "retirement" (death, anyone?!) of certain Supreme Court justices.

What did surprise me was the name of this prayer program - Adopt a Liberal! They even have a "waiting child" list of liberals you can adopt. Or you can go into it looking for a match by choosing the "Unknown Liberal (Tomb of, implied). I confess, it made me laugh from the sheer ridiculousness of it. What the heck does praying for someone have to do with adoption?!

I've never been that exercised about "Adopt-a-Whatever" programs, despite my preference that Katherine Heigl not put pictures of her newly-adopted daughter just above an "Adopt A Pet" announcement on her website! I understand why many prefer that there not be this usage, and Dawn Davenport of Creating a Family sums up the arguments well:

I don’t underestimate the power of words. Words both reflect and influence attitudes, and attitudes matter. The argument in the adoption community against
the use of the word “adoption” for highways, rubber ducks, or even pets, is that is lessens the meaning of the word. To adopt a child means forming a lifelong commitment to love, raise, and cherish this child, the same as giving birth to a child. When you adopt a highway or flower bed, there is no life long commitment or even caring, it’s all about money. With the family pet, it’s a bit trickier, but even the most ardent animal lover, like me, feels a different commitment to pets than to children. If one of my children developed an allergy to one of our cats, or if one of our dogs started to bite unprovoked, I would find another home for the pet.

She then goes on to say:

That’s the party line, and it’s true, but there is something about all this that leaves me unsettled. It’s as if our adopted children and the very institution of adoption are so fragile that using the wrong word can cause major confusion or fundamentally undermine self esteem. This simply doesn’t reflect the reality that I see. I asked this question to two adult friends who were adopted, and it isn’t their reality either.

Dawn also offers this conversation with her 13-year-old daughter (you know how much I love conversations!):

Daughter: What’s up with these adopt-a-highway signs? What exactly do they mean?

Me: [Surprised by serendipity and not one to miss an opportunity especially when it drops in my lap, I jumped right in.] Funny that you should ask since I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. How do you feel about them? Do you think they should use that word? How does that make you feel?

Daughter: [Painfully long pause while she looks at me with an expression that could politely be called quizzical, but more likely could be interpreted as “What planet did you come from?”] Huh???

At this point, I feel a bit like the parent in the old sex ed joke. The kid asks where did I come from, and the parent launches into a complete discussion of the mechanics of sex. The kid responds, “I mean was I born in Minneapolis or St. Paul?

Me: Um, what was your question again?

Daughter: Why is that girl’s name on the adopt-a-highway sign? I thought it had to be a business. [A high school student had adopted the section of the highway running by the school, and her name was on the sign.] And what were you talking about?

Me: [After briefly explaining how adopt-a-highway worked, I explained myself.] Some people think that the word “adopt” shouldn’t be used casually like for cleaning up a highway or giving money to a zoo by sponsoring an animal. They think it is offensive to people who are adopted. What do you think?

Daughter: [Clearly intrigued by the question, she pauses to think it through.] Well, until you just mentioned it, I’ve never thought about it. I hear that word all the time, and it doesn’t bother me at all. It just means to take care of the highway, and that doesn’t have anything to do with me. It’s like with our pets. We adopted them, and they are a part of our family.

Me: But I think adopting a pet is different from adopting a child. My commitment to you guys is totally different and much deeper than my commitment to our pets.

Her: Yea, but you love us both. You can love things differently. Like, you love Thai food, but you wouldn’t want to marry it. You can adopt things differently too.

Me: English is a funny language that way. Words can mean so many different things, but I do think we have to be careful with what words we use.

Her: Maybe, but this just seems silly.

What I love about this conversation is that, despite Dawn's feelings about the word usage, she doesn't direct her daughter to feel the same way, and explains objectively the views of others she doesn't necessarily agree with! Perfect "adoption talk!"

What do you think? Would you encourage your child's teacher to change the name of a project from Adopt-a-Zoo Animal to Sponsor-a-Zoo Animal? Do you equate pet adoption and child adoption when talking to your adopted child about your family pet? Have you ever written a letter complaining about that pesky "Adopt-a-Highway" sign? Have you ever spoken to your child about those pesky "Adopt-a-Whatever" programs?

Capitalism & Transracial Adoption

Hat tip to Harlow's Monkey, for this post on Racialicious, quoting from an interview with Rebecca Walker on capitalism and transracial adoption at Bitch Magazine:

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

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

The comments at Racialicious are very interesting. I was particularly struck by a comment by Atlasien, whose Upside Down Adoption blog is terrific, by the way:

I agree 100% that human trafficking and adoption should not be compartmentalized. There’s a growing awareness of adoption corruption (I touched on a couple stories here) and in most adoptive parent communities, the degree of denialism about adoption corruption is just staggering. It’s a major reason I participate in adoptive parent communities VERY rarely.

Gee, I wonder why it rang a bell?! (Don't worry, I'm getting over it! A very good friend said something that made me realize I was taking it too much to heart because I've got the @#$% flu (as do the girls) and that, combined with fatigue, is making me over-emotional).

I don't wholly agree with Rebecca Walker's opinions on adoption, but this excerpt touches on a thought-provoking subject with some intelligent comments. And it's always interesting to check out Racialicious anyway!

Anita Tedaldi on Today Show

Remember Anita Tedaldi? She wrote a New York Times piece that told only part of the story of her decision to relinquish her internationally adopted son?

Well, she told her story on the Today Show today. Also on the program, Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and he made three good points: 1) failure to bond is not just an adoption problem since it can happen with biological children, too; 2) adoption is not a "rental" where you just try it out; 3) sometimes it takes years to bond, and parents should stick it out for as long as they can.

This time, Tedaldi did mention her previous column, We Can't Trade In Our Children or Our Husbands, where she criticized another family for disrupting their adoption. She did not, however, mention that she had two more biological children in the 18 months that she was trying -- and failing -- to bond with her newly-adopted child.

P.S. There is an active comment thread at a previous post about Tedaldi. Click here to read the new comments. Most of the commenters are new to the blog, I think, being one of the 2,000 or so folks whose google search for Anita Tedaldi has brought them here! I figured regular readers weren't re-checking previous posts, so thought you'd need a heads-up to look for the new comments if you're interested.