The One Question Not to Ask APs

Hmmm, there are so many!  But Forbes brings it down to just one, and since it's Forbes, you can probably guess which one:

Without overstating the obvious, modern parenthood is expensive. The escalating costs of lessons of every description, enrichment classes, summer camp and orthodontia round out an unending list of ‘essentials’ that are endlessly discussed over skim lattes at Starbucks and on playgrounds all over the country.

In this era of ‘TMI,’ it seems everything related to child rearing is fodder for conversation. Everything, it seems, is open for discussion except how much it costs to have the child. Unless, of course, that child is adopted.

* * *

When my daughter was still a baby, I recited a truncated version of that story whenever I was asked about Madeline’s “real parents.” Over the years, I’ve been asked questions that have struck me as odd; some have been downright ridiculous (“Does she only like Chinese food?” inquired a neighbor when she saw my baby daughter for the first time). Now that Madeline is in elementary school and is all ears whenever anyone talks to me in front of her, I’m less likely to give ad hoc lectures on adopting from China.

There is one question that when asked by someone, however well-meaning they may be, stops me in my tracks.

“How much did she cost?”

I was dumbfounded the first time someone actually uttered those words and thankfully, it doesn’t happen often. But now, when it does, there’s usually a first grader in the vicinity that I need to protect from someone else’s cluelessness.

What Adoption Has Taught Me About Parenting

Kristen Howerton of Rage Against the Minivan has a post at Huffington Post entitled What I Learned About Motherhood by Being an Adoptive Parent.  Stikes me as a perfect theme for a blog carnival!  I'll kick it off with a few ideas here, and ask anyone else who blogs on the topic to put a link to your post in the comments. I think the topic is broad enough for everyone to write about -- birth parents, adoptees and adoptive parents. Please spread the word, and see if we can get some interesting posts going!

Boy, I could write forever on this topic, but I'm going to limit myself to three points -- things I would NEVER have known if I had come to parenting in any other way.

Biology matters.  No, not in the way some outside of adoption think, that somehow one can't love a child who is not yours biologically (don't know why people insist on linking love and biology -- we're all familiar with loving those not related to us, or we'd all be marrying our cousins!).  But nonetheless, biology matters. 

We hear all the time in adoption that biology does not make one a parent -- it's the parent who takes care of a child who gets to be the "real" parent.  I reject that notion, taking the position that my children each have two mothers -- their birth mothers and I are all REAL parents. Biology DOES make one a parent, despite protestations to the contrary, so my kids came to me already having parents. They have parents whom they do not know at all, but they still love them, miss them and wish to know them.  Zoe felt that loss as a toddler -- one of her first spontaneous mentions of her birth mother was as a 3-year-old when she informed us that on her birthday, her birth mother would put a candle on her cake and sing her happy birthday.

My kids' birth parents are part of their lives, even though absent.  Because of that, they are part of my life, too. 

Biology makes a difference to my children.  No, they don't love me any less because we aren't biologically related, any more than I love them less for that reason.  But as a recent conversation made crystal clear, they recognize a connection to their immediate biological family and their long-ago biological ancestors, too.  They are my children, but they don't see my ancestors as their ancestors.  They want to know about that long line of Chinese ancestors going back into the mists of time, that is what is meaningful to them.

So yes, adoption has taught me that biology matters.  It's important to recognize that our children come to us with their own story, their own history, their own biology.  Ignoring that does not serve us well.

Race matters.  Parenting children of color is different.  If my children were white like me, I guess I could go through life believeing we're living in a color-blind world where racism is simply the ignorant actions of a few misguided people.  If my children were white like me, we could bask in our white privilege, ignoring systemic racism.  If my children wre white like me, we could prove our color-blindness by never, never, ever mentioning race.  Parenting children of color doesn't give me that luxury.  And since my race is different from my children's race, they really can't learn from observing my reaction to personally-experienced racism.  So we have to talk explicitly about race and racism, and we have to do it a lot. 

Race matters, because a healthy racial identity is important, and something harder for children of color to acquire by osmosis when living in a white family.  We have act intentionally to bring Asian role models into their lives, to incorporate lived experiences common to Asians in America, to create a positive yet realistic picture of their homeland.  That explains weekly Chinese School and living half a year in China and countless other daily interations.

Transracial adoption has taught me that race matters.  It's important to explore our own ideas of race, and to prepare our children for living as people of color when they are away from us, no longer protected by our umbrella of white privilege.

The truth matters.  The thing that drives me the most crazy about adoption is the secrets and the lies.  Trust is so fundamental to the parent-child relationship, and nothing can be more corrosive to trust than secrets and lies. 

As Maya put it, she thinks parents are sort of afraid to tell their kids because they think maybe their kids won't love them if they find out. It's silly to think that, Maya says, because you have two families in one, and they should be ok with that.  Yet adoptive parents still persist in ignoring the fact that their children are adopted, not wanting to mention it, not wanting to talk about it for fear of planting ideas in their kids' heads, not wanting to tell any part of the story that involves hard truths or even birth parents.

I sympathize, really I do.  I was pretty insecure before adopting, not wanting to "compete" with birth family for my children's love, which is how I once thought of it. I've confesses before that one of my greatest shames is that I chose China to adopt from because I thought that would mean we wouldn't have to deal with birth parents (little did I know!).

Who knows, if my kids looked like me, maybe I'd want to "pass" too.  We want to protect our children from all pain, and we sometimes fear that talking about adoption will cause pain. But I believe the pain comes from NOT allowing our children to talk about what's important to them, and, see above, biology and race matters to them.  I firmly believe that my relationship with my children is stronger BECAUSE we talk openly about adoption.  Without that openness, there would always be this unspoken barrier between us.

So the truth matters.  It is their truth, so our children deserve to hear it.  Not talking about adoption causes pain, it doesn't alleviate it.  Our children will love us more, not less, when we give them the gift of truth.

So what have you learned about parenting from adoption?  What lessons have you learned from adoptive parenting that you might not have learned otherwise?  Please share!

Forced Adoption Practices Still Persist in U.S.

An article at RHReality Check looks at the recent attention to the Baby Scoop Era forced adoptions, and worries that that attention creates the impression that all those problems are in the past:

I'm concerned that the conversation about forced adoption is being framed in such a way as to imply that adoption coercion is a relic from the past. I'm concerned that mothers who lost children to more recent unethical practices are discouraged from sharing their stories in order to support this conclusion. I'm concerned that women who might consider adoption now or in the future will incorrectly believe that today's agencies and facilitators are above reproach because reports say that coerced adoption ended in the seventies. While its true that contraception and abortion access have reduced the number of infants being surrendered for adoption in recent years, corruption is ever-present.

* * *

Now, instead of the secrecy and shame that surrounded the girls who went away during the Baby Scoop Era, adoption agencies promise expectant mothers unlimited contact with their children. Technically, modern facilitators are being truthful when they say that most of today's infant adoptions are open, since “open” is a blanket term used to describe any situation in which the mother has some form of contact with the adopters. This can mean anything from a few meetings during pregnancy to exchanging pictures and letters via an intermediary to a coveted lifelong relationship that includes phone calls and visits. However, many agencies promise expectant mothers that they can decide how much contact to have with their children. This is untrue. Legally, once an adoption is finalized, the adoptive parents have all the control and can cut off contact at will. And they frequently do. One mother who complained to her adoption agency that her daughter's adopters were not following through on the level of contact they promised was told that the adopters close more than 80 percent of the open adoptions that are initiated there.

* * *

There's no need to argue whether or not adoption has changed in the past thirty years. It has. The problem can be summed up with the old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Not only are modern adoption practices coercive as were their predecessors, but we have to contend with the War on Women that currently threatens to take women's rights back to the '50s. As conservative legislators rush to deny funding to Planned Parenthood, limit access to contraception, and prevent abortion by any possible means, the shadow of a second Baby Scoop Era is looming over America. Will we learn from the past, or will we repeat it?

The article talks about reframing relinquishment as "making an adoption plan," adoptive parents in the birthing room, "Dear Birthmother" letters promising the moon, talk of "loving choice," etc., as more subtly coercive tactics today.  Go read the whole thing.

U.S. Won't Return Guatemalan Girl to Her Mother

Remember the case of a Guatemalan girl, kidnapped from her mother in Guatemala, and ultimately adopted by an American Family -- a Guatemalan court ordered her returned to her family?  I blogged about the case here and here and here.  Well, sadly but not surprisingly, the U.S. has notified Guatemala that it has no intention of returning the girl:

The U.S. government has told Guatemala it won't return a girl adopted in 2008 after being snatched from her Guatemalan mother, because the two countries had not signed the Hague Abduction Convention at the time of the kidnapping, a Guatemalan official said Monday.

Foreign Relations Ministry spokeswoman Celeste Alvarado quoted a diplomatic cable from the U.S. State Department as saying the two countries formally ratified the convention on Jan. 1, 2008, more than a year after toddler Anyeli Hernandez Rodriguez was abducted in November 2006.

Alvarado said the U.S. note cites Hague Convention articles indicating it isn't required to return the child if there was no treaty in force at the time.

The girl was adopted by a Missouri couple, and a Guatemalan judge ordered last year that the girl be returned.

* * *

A leading Guatemalan activist in the case disagreed with the State Department's position, arguing that the U.S. government is obligated under international treaties to return victims of human trafficking or irregular adoptions that have occurred within the past five years.

The girl left the country on Dec. 9, 2008, according to court records, and that date and not her abduction date should be taken into account, said Claudia Hernandez, assistant director of the Survivors Foundation, a human rights group that filed the court case for the child's biological mother, Loyda Rodriguez.

I find the reasoning bizarre -- why would the date of the abduction be the determinative date?  The adoption -- the creation of a legal status -- occurred almost a full year AFTER ratification of the Hague Convention by the U.S. and Guatemala.  Thus, the legality of the adoption should be determined under the Hague Convention. 

In Praise of Single Mothers

Given that last week was the @#%$ Butterfly Ball, also known as the father/daughter dance at my girls' school, with the usual I-don't-have-a-daddy sadness to follow, despite attendance with daddy-surrogates, I was happy to see this article in the Atlantic written by the daughter of a single mom:

A lot has been said about single mothers. Most of it has been less than flattering.

In a notable nugget Senator Rick Santorum said at a town hall meeting, "We are seeing the fabric of this country fall apart, and it's falling apart because of single moms." Not long after that, in a public appearance in Erie, Pennsylvania, he accused single mothers of "simply breeding more criminals." This past fall, he argued that single mothers voted Democrat because their lives were so hard and urged Republicans to "build two parent families" in order to "eliminate that desire for government."

This Mother's Day I confess that I am very proud to be from what some would call a broken home. Not because it was easy watching a young woman struggle to be a mother on her own after ending a violent marriage, but precisely because it was so very hard. And "hard" seems to be a word we now avoid, disparage, and devalue in our insta-everything culture.

In other words, the very values that Senator Santorum and so many others say these solo moms undermine are just the values I learned from mine -- and the community of women like her I grew up with outside Washington, D.C. What did we learn from these women who worked one or more miserably paid jobs while battling domestic turbulence, hunting for child support, hustling to pay rent, and forcing us to do our homework all on their own?

Everything.

Thanks, I needed that.

Happy Mother's Day!

My Mother's Day was spent watching my children in their ballet recital -- twice!  They were in both the 2:00 show and the 6:00 show, and of course, they were AWESOME!  It wasn't a very relaxing Mother's Day, but it was a fun one.  I was one of the backstage chaperone moms for the 2:00 performance, so I only so bits of that performance.  I got to watch the 6:00 one from start to finish, and really enjoyed it.  The ballet was Hansel & Gretel, and Zoe was an angel in Act I and a villager in Act II.  Maya was a red bird in Act I.  During the 2:00 performance, Maya had a wardrobe malfunction -- her "wings" came untied.  But she handled it like a pro -- just kept on dancing!





I was blessed with a wonderful show, many hugs and kisses, cards and surprises today. For all mothers who got to see and hold their children close, I hope your Mother's Day was full of joy. For all mothers who missed their children today, I hope you find peace.

China: Sister Acts

From China Daily, a story about nuns taking care of special needs orphans:

Shi Junfang may appear similar to most young, Chinese single women in her 30s. She is hard working, loves chatting and telling jokes and exudes charm with a quick smile. Yet, her character is remarkable since she has devoted her life as a Catholic nun caring for disabled orphans in Biancun Village, a rural community in Central China's Hubei province.

She works with 17 other sisters of the St.Theresa of the Child Jesus order. They live at the Liming orphanage, which houses 130 of their charges.

Shi, known here as Sister Maria, must use all her energy to protect them from harm. The youngsters get proper education, eat nutritious meals and play in the courtyard on a regular schedule to promote and maintain healthy lifestyles.

The children suffer from debilitating illnesses and disabilities and need constant medical care. But most of all, Sister Maria says, the children have a right to happiness and it's her job as director to ensure smooth operations.

She must show a positive attitude to maintain a harmonious living environment. This is no easy task.

"Those children need a lot and in my profession, I must never show my frustrations with them," she says. "At times, I'm emotionally excited to help these children and at other times, I feel like I can only give them so little."

She appears full of confidence. However, when she visited the orphanage for the first time in 1996, she expressed reluctance to work full-time there. She described the conditions as "primitive and smelly."

Afterwards, she prayed for the children and realized that she must "serve them." She wanted to improve the sanitary conditions, raise donations and provide better medical treatment for them. As a young girl, she had grown up near the orphanage.

Mothers Share a Special Bond After Open Adoption

Most interesting thing about this story for me -- the caption under the photo of adoptive mom and birth mom with photo of child: "Michaela Stanberry (left)[adoptive mom] and Sara Smoak [birth mom] pose next to a portrait of their son, Mathis, at Stanberry's home."  Their son.  Wow.  Read more here.

Inside the Celebrity Adoption Trend

In the midst of this celebrity-adoption story, I was surprised to find some cautionary words:

While a family with means adopting a child from an orphanage in a poor country might seem, on the surface, like the best thing for the child, not everyone agrees. Some adult adoptees from foreign countries who were brought to America in the '60s, '70s, and '80s have banded together, creating a grassroots movement over concerns that their birth parents were coerced into giving them up for adoption.

"There are a lot of people in the international adoptee community who really have some strong negative feelings about transracial and international adoption," says Johnson [described elsewhere in the article as "Deborah Johnson, a Minneapolis-based, adoption-focused social worker"], who herself was adopted from Korea as a child. "They're sitting back and being a little more cynical about it and are kind of voicing that concern. It's even more evident when you have [adoptive parents] who are super wealthy, super rich. Even on a subtle level, if you're a poor villager in Guatemala and some rich famous celebrity swoops in and says, 'I can give your child a better life,' it's pretty easy to be dazzled by that."

Though most adoptive parents follow every rule and take every precaution when adopting from outside of the country, it can be impossible to know a child's background for sure, insists Johnson. "American agencies will say, 'Well, we don't know what goes on in the intake process into orphanages. Yes, it's legitimate from the time they're into their U.S. adoption, but who knows how those kids wind up in the orphanage and what those birth parents are told about all of that."

Update on Investigation of the Makeni Children

E.J. Graff did a series in Slate about the Makeni Children, those children from Sierra Leone whose parents claimed they had never consented to their adoptions by American families.  She writes this update at Slate:

While I was reporting the story, Sierra Leone President Ernest Koroma appointed an official commission to look into the families’ charges. By all accounts, the group painstakingly heard testimony from anyone even remotely connected with the case: birth families, HANCI officials, police, and many more. Kim Kargbo, an American missionary who lives half-time in Sierra Leone and had helped bring together some of the Makeni children with their birth families, and who had testified in front of the commission, told me that she felt that the commissioners listened carefully and fairly and were genuinely concerned about the welfare of the children and the facts of the case.

The families had high hopes for the commission’s findings. As a skeptical journalist, I had my doubts that the three appointees would do any serious digging. But then, to my surprise, last month the commission released its findings and concluded that the “so-called adoptions” were fraudulent. In the commission’s words, the biological families “cannot be said to have genuinely consented” to the adoptions, as they did not understand the concept of giving up their children forever; had never signed any agreement to relinquish their children; and were never informed that their children would be sent to the United States. Further, the commission concluded, HANCI had failed to inform either the parents or the Sierra Leone court system that those children would be sent to live with American citizens permanently. The commission instructed the nation’s police to reopen a criminal investigation, using all the sworn testimony filed with the commission, “with a view to preferring criminal charges” against the wrongdoers within six weeks. The wrongdoers weren’t named, but the commission did order that HANCI be shut down and its books audited at HANCI’s own expense.

Finally, the commission advised Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Social Welfare to make contact with the United States government in order to help the birth families make contact with their long-lost children. The families say they do not expect those children to come back permanently—but they are desperate to see and talk with them again, and to find out how those children are.

Motherhood for an Adoptee a Priceless Bond

A must-read for this Mother's Day weekend, a Korean adoptee writes movingly about adoption and motherhood and her son's birth.  ALL of it is worth sharing, but I'm only giving you a snippet so you'll go read the whole thing:

With my son's arrival came something magical: a blood relative I could hold on to.

Family, I know, is not about genes. When you are born in Asia and raised by white Midwesterners and have nine cousins with blue eyes and fair skin, you learn that families can be cobbled together.

But adoptees must believe in the power of biology. What else ties us to our mothers, our fathers, who left us decades ago? Shared biology allows us to tell ourselves that someone out there still longs for us, still weeps for us, still dreams we will figure out how to get home. We yearn for these shadowy figures and the answers only they can reveal.

At the heart of it, though, is the simplest of things. It would be nice to know someone who looks like you.

Those first months as a mother, I searched for my own features in my son's face. We shared deep brown eyes and inky hair, but no distinctive characteristics. "He looks Asian," said a friend, "but he doesn't look like you." I snapped hundreds of photos, but had none of my own to compare them with.

Then a few weeks before my first Mother's Day, while cleaning out my desk, I happened upon a forgotten black-and-white image: Perched on her foster mother's lap is a girl wearing a cap and a checkered wool outfit, just days away from settling in another land, another language.

Chubby-cheeked and full-lipped, she looks timid and bewildered. I knew that look.

I laughed, then cried, then cried some more.

The face is vaguely my son's. And in that moment, I understood that in him are echoes of my birth mother, my birth father.

In all these years, I have never searched for them, believing it would prove fruitless. Yet somehow they have found their way here.

My boy doesn't look like me. He looks like us.

Wow. Just wow.  Zoe is my wondering girl when it comes to adoption, so I always wonder what biological motherhood might mean to her.  Right now, she's convinced she'll adopt, since both the sex part and the labor part sounds completely gross to her, but I wonder if she'll stick to that (oh, I know the sex-is-gross part is going to get jettisoned, I'm not THAT naive!).

Romney on Gay Adoption

I try to avoid politics, but can't here, where it's squarely about adoption! From ABC News:

Mitt Romney has consistently opposed same-sex marriage, but he again expressed support for gay adoption on Thursday, calling it “fine” and noting that it’s legal in his home state of Massachusetts. But he also stated his preference for every child to have a mother and a father.

“I believe marriage has been defined the same way for literally thousands of years by virtually every civilization in history and that marriage is literally by its definition a relationship between a man and a woman,” he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “And that if two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship and even want to adopt a child, in my state individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children. In my view that’s something that people have the right to do, but to call that marriage is, in my view, a departure of the real meaning of that word.”

Romney has made statements in the past in support of gay adoption, something social conservatives oppose. He has been consistent in supporting it, but has called for an exemption for religious institutions that have adoption services.

Another Adoptee Faces Deportation

Joining Joao Herbert, Matthew Sherer, John Gaul, Tara Ammons Cohen, Tatiana Mitrohina, Jennifer Haynes, Seo, and many, many more, and those unnamed and unknown, that long list of international adoptees facing deportation because of the failure of their parents to secure their American citizenship is Kairi Shepherd:

Kairi Shepherd was an orphan living in India when a Utah woman adopted her in 1982 — a seemingly good turn of luck for the 3-month-old, which included her obtaining legal permanent resident status in the United States.

But when she was 8, her adoptive mother died of cancer. When she was 17, she was arrested and convicted of felony check forgery to fuel a drug habit. Now 30, she is facing likely deportation after a 10th Circuit Court ruling Tuesday that upheld the federal government’s right to remove her from the country.

Judge Scott Matheson, in a 23-page decision, wrote the court simply didn’t have jurisdiction over determining Shepherd’s legal status.

Instead, Matheson denied her petition based on a series of technical procedures, including a failure to file a second appeal through the Board of Immigration Appeals as well as Shepherd’s attempt to get her petition reviewed prematurely.

Shepherd’s lawyer, Alan Smith, said he was disappointed the court didn’t tackle a "mistake" made by the federal government that allowed an immigration judge to uphold his client’s legal status after she provided a birth certificate, legal adoption papers and the argument she qualified for citizenship under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000.

The next day, however, government lawyers discovered she missed qualifying for the Child Citizenship Act by a few months and appealed the immigration judge’s ruling.

The government was successful.

* * *

According to her sister, when her mother died, she was passed between older siblings. At 17, she was introduced to meth by a co-worker. On top of that, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She served several months in jail and was placed on probation.

"Yes, she made mistakes. And she should be held accountable. But she has been," her sister Kristi Tafoya said at the time. "Why aren’t adopted children protected?"

International Adoptions Plummet

Nothing really new in this story, including the obligatory quote from Elizabeth Bartholet who has never seen an adoption restriction she approves of, but it does talk about stats from countries other than the U.S., which is different:

The number of international adoptions has plummeted to its lowest point in 15 years, a steep decline attributed largely to crackdowns against baby-selling, a sputtering world economy and efforts by countries to place more children with domestic families.

Globally, the number of orphans being adopted by foreign parents dropped from a high of 45,000 in 2004 to an estimated 25,000 last year, according to annual statistics compiled by Peter Selman, an expert on international adoptions at Britain's Newcastle University.

Some adoption advocates argue the decrease is also linked to a set of strict international guidelines known as the Hague Adoption Convention. Devised to ensure transparency and child protection following a rash of baby-selling and kidnapping scandals, critics say the guidelines have also been used by leading adopting nations, such as the U.S., as a pretext for freezing adoptions altogether from some countries that are out of compliance.

"It should have been a real step forward, but it's been used in a way that's made it a force for shutting down countries," Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard Law professor who promotes international adoptions. "That affects thousands of children every year."

She says places where international adoptions are stopped may ultimately see more children stuck in orphanages or on the street where they could fall prey to sex traffickers. "I question whether it's ever true where adoption is all about buying and selling and kidnapping," Bartholet says.

* * *

Other countries that have seen large drops in the adoption of foreign babies include Spain and France, which fell 48 percent and 14 percent, respectively, from 2004 to 2010. Canada remained the same and Italy actually saw a 21 percent increase during that period, according to Selman, who analyzed data from 23 countries that are primary receivers of adopted orphans.

One other way this article is different -- it talks about the demand side as well as the supply side in international adoption. The article notes two factors affecting the demand side: the global economic slowdown causing fewer adoptive parents able to afford the fees; and "[a]dvances in fertility technology and the increasing number of couples turning to surrogacy."

Utah Adoption Council President Resigns Over Birth Fathers' Rights

From KSL TV in Utah:

The president of the Utah Adoption Council resigned Thursday amid controversy over claims the council is working to undermine the rights of birth fathers.

Wes Hutchins was to serve another year as president of the Utah Adoption Council (UAC) — a group consisting of adoption agencies, adoption attorneys, families, and birth mothers and fathers. Instead, he's founded a new nonprofit organization he says will work in the best interests of all parties in adoptions.

There was certainly friction in Thursday's council meeting, as some representing adoption agencies accused Hutchins of having his own agenda. In turn, he pointed fingers at them for not acting ethically in administering adoptions.

"I'm an adoption attorney. I've done over 1,080 adoptions, (and) finalized six adoptions on Friday of last week alone," Hutchins said, following the meeting. "I'm a big proponent of adoptions, but I firmly believe they need to be done legally, constitutionally and ethically."

* * *

"That's one of the changes that we need to make: that fraud is no longer accepted as a method of taking a child from one home, destroying a family, and placing (the child) in another home to create another family," he said.

That opinion conflicts with others who sit on the UAC.

"Wes has had a different vision of what's best for children in the state of Utah," said attorney David Hardy, also a former president of the UAC.

Hardy, whose clients include adoption agencies and adoptive parents, said Hutchins isn't as focused on what's best for the child.

* * *

"There's been a very choreographed effort to sweep birth fathers and others under the rug," Hutchins said.

And some of those birth fathers were present and vocal.

"I do have a voice, and it needs to be heard," said Jake Strickland, a father currently fighting for custody of his child.

"There's two sides to every story," added Bobby Nevares, a man in the same situation as Strickland, "but they didn't want to hear the father's side."

Hutchins said the council didn't really want to hear his side either and accused him of having an agenda.

"If you want to call that ‘an agenda,' then absolutely, call it an agenda. And that agenda is to see that we have a balanced approach in Utah to how we're doing adoptions," Hutchins said.

I've posted before about the unfriendly approach Utah law takes to birth fathers -- see here and here and here and here and here and here and . . . I think I'll be writing about Utah and birth fathers for a long, long time yet.

Top 10 Asian Children's Books Around Food

At JadeLuckClub, an top ten list, introduced as follows:

The pleasures of eating and how food brings people together. This is a concept that is very strong in countries with a strong food culture: the French, the Italians, and of course, pretty much all Asian countries!

The themes in all these picture books and chapter books ring true. Ethnic food that bonds a family into our culture can also isolate them. Our Asian ethnic food is “weird” or “stinky.” In rejecting our food, we feel rejected or at least, on the periphery, longing for “American” food to be like everyone else.

But then that miracle happens, when our food is accepted, enjoyed and even requested. Our complicated relationship food, it turns out, is not so different from any other nationality obsessed with food. And the result is similar — food as pleasure. Family bonded around the dining room table. And meal after delicious meal to build memories around.

We've enjoyed a number of the books on the list, but our all-time favorite is Apple Pie 4th of July.

The Avengers Make Fun of Adoption

This movie isn't on our watch list -- my girls deem it too scary!  But now I have another reason not to see it. At 73adoptee, Triona asks an important question:  why is it ok to make adoptees the butt of the joke:

So there I am, forgetting my woes, laughing at the gang and drooling over Chris Hemsworth, when we get this lovely little tidbit. Thor is trying to explain to the others that Loki is his brother and his responsibility.

Black Widow points out, "He killed 80 people in 2 days."

Thor explains, "He's adopted."

Cue entire theater laughing.... except for me.

* * *

What bothered me is that this is a prime example of how adoptees are one of the last fair sources of discriminatory humor.

* * *

"He's adopted." Why is this joke acceptable? Why did the audience laugh? Why didn't they rise up in HULK SMASH anger like I wanted to and scream, "Hey! That's not funny!"

Go read the whole thing -- Triona makes a lot of good points.

"We'll eat you up. We love you so."

Image from My Green Vermont

I saw the report of Maurice Sendak's death this morning, and was immediately thrust back in time to when Maya joined our family, and I was adjusting to parenting two kids instead of one.  In many ways, we had it better than most -- Zoe and Maya got along really well from the beginning, happily sharing toys and food and baths and beds. 

The only thing they wouldn't share was ME!  If Maya was sitting on my lap, then Zoe had to sit there, too.  And if Zoe joined Maya on my lap, Maya would try to push her off! I was still in the middle of my semester, trying to make it through to summer when I could have time off with newly-adopted Maya and adjusting-to-sisterhood Zoe.  So I felt like a three-sided wishbone, tugged between Maya and Zoe and work.

Zoe was firmly in a Where the Wild Things Are phase, and she wanted me to read it over and over and over. . . .  Maya liked it too, and if Zoe wasn't asking me to read it, Maya was thrusting it at me to read.  And every time I got to the lines,“Please don't go. We'll eat you up. We love you so,” I really felt like their neediness, their normal-in-the-circumstances, clingy, crazy-making, wild-thing neediness, was going to eat me up until there was nothing left of me.

So there.  Everyone else's Maurice Sendak reminiscences today are about the joys of parenting or the innocence of childhood.  Mine is about being destroyed by motherhood. Sometimes truth isn't pretty!

Of course, as Zoe and Maya and I became more accustomed to being a family of three, the feelings of being eaten to death changed.  I was able to focus more on the "We love you so" part instead of the "We'll eat you up" part.  And now, I love it when they pull out this old favorite, snuggle on my lap, and let me read to them.

Would you adopt Chardonnay or Chrystal?

This is a truly awful story in the Mail (UK), but not awful for the reason the author seems to think -- she writes about how terrible it is that birth parents give their children names that adoptive parents don't like, and social workers won't allow the name to be changed, and SO THE ADOPTIVE PARENTS DON'T ADOPT!  The author blames the birth parents and the social workers, but gives the adoptive parents a complete pass -- OF COURSE, an adoptive parent won't want to adopt a child named Chardonnay or Chrystal!  Really?!  Here's a sample of the completely horrible, snobbish position of this writer, who says she worked for two years approving adoptions in her county:

Sitting on a Winnie The Pooh blanket, a baby girl waves her chubby arms with joy as she attempts to stack up some wooden bricks, chuckling each time they fall down.

At less than a year, she would be the perfect child for any couple unable to have a baby of their own. You would also assume her time on the adoption register would be short.

But instead of a loving home and the prospect of a good start in life, it’s highly likely she will languish in the care system for some time to come.

The reason? Well, unfortunately she’s called Chardonnay — as opposed to, say, Charlotte — and for this reason she will struggle to be placed.

* * *

The reality is that most children up for adoption, even babies, come from dire backgrounds, where it’s highly likely Dad has been in prison and Mum was addicted to heaven knows what illegal substances and working as a prostitute.

And while some adopted children will go on to have behavioural problems because of their poor start in life, there are still many successful adoptions that take place.

But, unfortunately, the names of these blameless children make their less-than-middle-class backgrounds all too obvious. And most prospective parents don’t want to adopt children who are named after someone’s favourite celebrity or tipple.

For some reason there is currently a fashion, among those whose children are forcibly removed, for calling little girls after drinks — hence two recent babies called Chardonnay and Champagne. There is also a tendency to name girls after jewels, though often misspelt: Rubie, Emmarald, Jayde, Chrystal.

And there are those birth parents who think, why ruin your child’s future with just one dreadful name when you can wallop them straight into the gutter of life with two? So we on the adoption board who are trying to place these children in loving homes are confronted with Gemma-Mai, Courtney-Mai, Alexia-Mai, Lily-Mai, Shania-Rae and so on, names which will mark them out for their whole lives as members of a peculiarly British underclass.

Simply put, the children’s names do not fit with the social demographic of the people coming forward to give them homes.

You might think a simple, and obvious, solution would be for adoptive parents to change the child’s name. After all, under-twos are still young enough to adapt to a new identity and will have no memory of their birth name.

But in the past few years it has become standard practice for social workers to recommend that the birth name be retained, a suggestion which is then rubber-stamped by the judge at adoption hearings.

Changing the name is something adoptive parents almost always want to do, especially if they already have birth children of their own. Naturally you want a new child to blend in with your existing family — but will Chardonnay ever fit in with Henry, James and William? No.

In [one] case, the social workers said that changing the name would be ‘a loss of the child’s family identity’. The proud family identity, presumably, which turned out three generations of career criminals.

It might sound flippant, but I honestly think there would be many more adoptive parents if they were allowed to change the baby’s name.

* * *

It is my view that adoptive parents should have the right to change the first name of a child if they want to, really awful background details should be toned down and dreadful birth parents should forfeit their parental rights entirely.

The Americans say that any American child has the right to grow up and be President. So, who knows, with a few more common sense rules in the adoption system, little Chardonnay might one day grow up to be Prime Minister. Sadly, as things stand, it’s highly unlikely.

This article seems to illustrate every class-based prejudice in the world, and then claims it to be appropriate to have that bias!  The name thing seems to be just the tip of the iceberg  -- can adoption work when adoptive parents and adoption workers have such contempt for the "low-class" birth parents?!

Admittedly, I gave my kids new first names while keeping their Chinese names as middle names. But would I have turned down the referral if I was told I couldn't change their names? No way!!!  Is it a good reason not to adopt, that the child's name doesn't fit the high-class name of the adoptive parents other children?!  No way!!!

A Day For Forgotten Moms of Korean Adoptees

From the Wall Street Journal:

May is a month of quasi-holidays in South Korea. Saturday was Children’s Day and Tuesday is Parents Day. Teachers’ Day is coming up and so is Couples’ Day.

Amid this month of days that promote Korean ideals of family life, the government in 2006 designated May 11 as Adoption Day. The idea was to raise awareness of – and promote adoption by — Korean families.

A less-talked-about element behind Adoption Day is the hope by government officials to reduce South Korea’s reliance on international couples to adopt children from Korean orphanages.

But even less talked about than that goal is the fact that most children put up for adoption are the product of relationships between men and women who don’t marry. And the shame over that is heaped most heavily on the woman carrying the baby.

That’s why, for the second year in a row, several groups that promote the rights and welfare of single moms (unwed, divorced, widowed, you name it) have banded together to declare that Adoption Day also be recognized as Single Mothers’ Day.

They hope to raise awareness that the problems that lead women to give up their babies for adoption could be solved if the government and society in general provided more support to them.

* * *

At the core of the adoption debate is that South Korean policymakers are focused on the symptoms of the issue (for instance, a still-high rate international adoptions) rather than its causes (the welfare of the families putting children up for adoption).

“The international community agrees that the best thing is for a child to be raised by his or her own family, then the second thing is domestic adoption and the third thing is international adoption,” Ms. [Jane Jeong] Trenka says. “Korea is playing around with number 2 and number 3, while we’re asking that they look at number 1.”

“If we know that, of the documented adoptions, that 92% involve single parents, then there’s a pattern here,” she added. “Since we agree that the best thing to do is be raised by mom, why don’t we do that?”

If you're interested in supporting Single Mothers' Day in Korea, click here for more information.

Finding Your Roots, Ancestry & Blank Pages

I just watched PBS' Finding Your Roots with my kids. I wasn't planning to, but they came in on the Ellis Island segment, and Maya wanted to see that part since they studied Ellis Island this year. Then they became mesmerized by the rest of it.

Interesting reactions from them, about ancestry and birth parents and knowing and telling kids about adoption. They're helping me write this post, I'm mostly just taking dictation!

Zoe thought the show was cool because people got to learn about their ancestry and where they came from.  Like Margaret Cho who thought her family came from Korea, but it turns out her genetic roots are actually in China.  Zoe wondered if the show ever did adopted people, and I explained the difficulty in doing so, when original birth certificates are hidden away so that adopted people can't know the names of their birth parents.  Makes for a short search.  Zoe also wondered if a DNA test could show her relatives, and I explained that you need someone else's DNA for comparison to find out if someone is your relative.  She immediately pointed at Maya, saying she thought it would be cool if they were not just adopted-related, but were birth-related.  I asked if it would make a difference -- would she love Maya more or less?  Zoe said no, but it would be cool.

Maya thought it's nice that the grown-ups on the show get to know a little more about their ancestors that they had no idea about.  People don't really know a lot about what's happened to their families, she said, but she would like to know what happened to her biological family.  She said she'd like to know about her actually from-birth ancestors, not about my ancestors.  It wouldn't be the same thing, she thought, for adopted kids to just learn about the adopted parents' ancestors. Zoe thought you could learn about your adoptive parents' ancestry, but it wouldn't help you like learning about your OWN ancestry.

I mentioned a lot of grown-ups, including me, don't know much about our ancestry.  They both thought they felt different about it because they're adopted.  Zoe thought since adopted people don't even know their birth parents, it makes you want to know more about where you came from.  [Indeed.]   She said if you knew the names of your birth parents then you could learn about them, and learn more about your ancestry that way.  Maya thinks it's important that adopted kids know they were adopted, so they know they had another family. But she thinks parents are sort of afraid to tell their kids because they think maybe their kids won't love them if they find out. It's silly to think that, Maya says, because you have two families in one, and they should be ok with that.  Zoe thinks knowing more is always better than not knowing.

Maya said she didn't know even one little thing about her birth parents.  But Zoe said she knew a few things, like they existed.  And if you're from a different country, you know that's their heritage (or at least you think you know! (see Margaret Cho)).  Maya said we can know some things about them because maybe they like the same things we do, like music and dance.  Zoe thought you also know a little about what they look like based on what you look like, like black hair, Chinese eyes, tan skin. 

Maya had the best quote of the night:  "Not knowing about your ancestors leaves you on a blank page and you wonder what kinds of cultures you come from and why your ancestors did what they did and why they liked what they liked."

[Indeed.]

"I Found My Biological Parents and Wish I Hadn't"

From the New York Times Magazine, a rumination on adoption and reunion:

I was young, maybe 4, when I learned where babies came from. I was sitting on a leopard-print couch in my mom’s bachelorette apartment, and her friend decided on a whim to read to me that seminal ’70s book on the nitty-gritty of conception, “Where Did I Come From?” I remember experiencing a gag reflex and wanting to plug my ears and sing lalalalalalala.

“Ewww, that is so gross,” I said.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“No, it’s really, really gross,” I said and held my ground for the next decade.

When I was 6, I learned where I came from, which was one step removed from the usual circumstances. I was adopted. The adoption talk was less nauseating but equally perplexing. My mother, who has a penchant for tangents, got sidetracked by a lengthy explanation of black-market adoptions before reassuring me that that was not how I’d been acquired.

There was the time before I knew and the time after I knew, but I’m unaware of there being any significant emotional shift. If I’d been given the choice of meeting my biological parents or getting a nice dossier on them, I would have chosen the latter. I was never obsessed with being adopted. I was simply curious about my biological parents.

I didn’t feel a strong bond with the parents who raised me, and I had anything but a happy childhood. My mother was overly sensitive; my father, ascetic. I was neither. I felt as if I were living with complete strangers. I suspect that my parents felt the same way. They had always been unnaturally suspicious of me, going so far as to check my arm for needle marks before I’d ever gone to a party or gotten drunk. But knowing that I was adopted untethered me from some of that unhappiness. I was alone but happily so. I was free to make up any story I wanted about where I came from.

The piece also talks about her limited contact with her birth parents as an adult, so go read the whole thing.  I was mostly interested in what she shared about her childhood adoption talks and emotions, including what sounds like a god-awful adoption talk at age 6 (!).

India Supreme Court Asked to Suspend IA

From FirstPost.India, under the headline, Baby Business?:

Pune based NGOs ‘Sakhi’ and ‘Advait Foundation’ had moved the apex court saying that inter- country adoption has turned into a lucrative business, as adoption agencies are giving undue preference to prospective adoptive parents in foreign countries over Indian couples in need of children.

The petition has sought a detailed investigation into the procurement of children through extortion, blackmail, threats and through bribery of government officials. It also asks the court to look into what it is calling the inhuman condition of children in various agencies.

“At present there are 5000 Indian families on the waiting list for adopting a child, whereas 600- 800 children are annually sent abroad by way of inter- country adoption from India. It is significant to note that though we have a population of 110 crore, we send these children abroad keeping our families without babies to nurture,” said Anjali Pawar of Sakhi.

The petition also alleges that many “missing” children reach adoption agencies from where they are shipped out to foreign destinations. “The CBI should probe the link between missing children and children going in inter- country adoption”, they said.

Outrage Over Agency's Bankruptcy

As I was reading this article, I kept thinking, "Why do people doubt that adoption is a business? These parents are outraged when the goods they ordered aren't delivered:"

"Cheats, crook, liars,” is how Elyse Goldshein describes the agency. She and her husband were looking to adopt in 2009. They signed a contract with ASA and paid a $13,000 up front fee. In their application, they specified they did not want to deal with birth mothers who tested positive for drugs. Elyse Goldshein says she was assured by ASA that there were plenty of babies available.

The first call from ASA with a possible match was met with disappointment when the Goldsheins learned she was drug addicted. They reluctantly accepted the match. Weeks later, they say they were informed the mother tried to commit suicide. That’s when they dropped the match and asked for another birth mother, this time telling their case worker they no longer wanted to deal with mothers testing positive for drug use. The Goldshiens say that’s when their case worker told them their expectations were unrealistic, and that sort of demand would result in a long wait for a baby.

"They lied,” said Elyse Goldshein, “but there's really no way to prove that they were lying to us and all there was is that signed contract, and all of our money."

E.J. Graff: Don't Adopt From Ethiopia

E.J. Graff weighs in on the recent WSJ story about the boom in Ethiopian adoption, which focused on the adoption of Melesech, a little girl:

While Melesech's life is materially better, her adoption has not helped those left behind. Her birth family is still, quite literally, dirt poor. So is her country. Other parents are still at risk for dying of malaria, dysentery, and other preventable and treatable illnesses. What Ethiopians really need is a government that is not strangling its development, and forms of aid that actually reach and help individual families. Failing that, is it right to spirit some of their children away?

Here's the rule of thumb: If you can get a healthy infant or toddler within a year, don't adopt from that country. Adopt, instead, from American foster care, or from countries that send abroad very few children, and when they do, the children who are available are older, or disabled, or come in sibling groups, or otherwise have had trouble finding new local homes. Or if you're adopting for humanitarian reasons, donate that money an organization that helps children stay with their families, or brings clean water and mosquito nets and medicines to their villages.

It's far more rewarding to love an individual child than to give to anonymous foreigners. I know; I'm parenting an adopted child. But no one wants to be complicit, even unknowingly, in defrauding a father out of his daughter.

Review: A Brand New Life

A reader, who sometimes comments as Chinazhoumom, contacted me after watching this movie, about a Korean orphanage, with her daughter.  I asked her if she'd do a review, and she has! Her daughter has also added a few thoughts.  Enjoy!

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

Review: A Brand New Life

by Carol Mackoul

It started as a regular night. My 7.5 year old and I were watching tv. Looking for something on “On demand”…

Up pops a commercial for this movie A BrandNew Life...to which my daughter says mom can we watch this.

Of course the fibers of mama bear (wanting to always protect and shelter my daughter pop up)....but we are not that house. I believe that knowledge is power. And with the knowledge you can decide how to move forward.

So we had a discussion about what this would be about and that it could or could not be similar to orphanage life in china. (one note my daughter may have only been 14 months old when she came home but she told me , when looking at a picture of the orphanage room...exactly which crib she slept in...(as was later verified by the nanny when we visited her orphanage when she was 4.

I digress but only to point out that our children remember much more than given credit for.

PLEASE NOTE SPOILER ALERT…items from the movie will be mentioned…go watch it…then come back and continue reading…

Although you have an idea of where the film will take you in your minutes that you spend together…you are not sure how you will get there.  I have to say that the story and movie were well done.  I felt that they did not glamorize “orphan” status nor did they “lay it on too thick”.  They showed a window into a slice of her childhood.  Is it better than most, I can’t judge that…is it worse…again that is something that I will never know.

Smiling…that is how you first see Jinhee.  She is happy…so very happy…just as a child should be.  Not a care in the world.  She enjoys the wind in her hair…like flying away and soaring above all the worries of life.

Laughing at the thought of new clothes…made to feel special…loved by her daddy.  Cared for, tucked in bed…staying warm…staying safe…

Until, that day….the day that changes her life’s course forever…gone is her father…to never return…gone is all that she knows and holds dear.  Gone are the bike rides feeling on top of the world. Gone is the family where she knew “who” she was…to a place…a place we cannot imagine…a place without a mama to tuck you in and kiss your cheek…and to love you no matter what.

Thrust into the first “brand new life”.  Learning the rules, learning to live life in a different place and time. Learning to adjust to life in an orphanage.  She truly believes that her father will return for her and even asked the director of the orphanage to check as she knows her address.

He is never coming back.

I felt that the same “ray” I see in so many of the children adopted from China was seen in Jinhee in the film.  Down deep there is a will to survive.  I see it in coping mechanisms portrayed by one of the girls in the movie.  Her character is the “perfect little girl”.  Speaking English to the adoptive parents touring the facility, smiling, saying she wants a family and to become a doctor.

I see it in the main character Jinhee.  Her will kicks in and she realizes that if she continues down the path she is headed, she too may age out and be “placed” with a family as a servant, as one of the older girls was in the film.

I feel like this a great film to view especially if you are adopting an older child.  All children that become part of your family thru adoption have a past, whether they were placed in your arms at birth or as an older child or teenager.  Their life story was written on the sands in the wind before you (their parent) ever came into the picture.  I feel that it is our responsibility to help them weather the changing tides.  As our children get older and understand more about what may have brought them to our arms…we are there to wipe away the tears, and support them as they develop.  Will we have the answers, no.  Will we be able to take away the pain, not always. But maybe, just maybe we can provide them with tools to grow and develop into the best person that they can be.  And to understand that although they were dealt a hand of cards…they are in control and can choose to trade the hand they had for a brand new life.

Watch this film. 

Watch it without your child.  Absorb the tale and realize that this, although Korea, is not the same as most of our children from China (in that a parent took them to the director).  The end result was that they found themselves in an orphanage and eventually left it for A Brand New Life.

Watch it with your child.  Why? It may be a great tool to open discussion if needed. 

You decide what is best for your family. Every child is different.

Will you cry…you bet.  But will you see our children in the eyes looking back at you from the screen? I did.  I was reminded that so many children wait for a family…and governments take too long to find them homes. While they pass bills and change rules…the children grow up…and if not to A Brand New Life, where will they wind up?

The movie will touch you.  It is based on a lady’s real life.  She was adopted by a Canadian couple many years ago…. 

Let me know what you think…even if you don’t agree with me.

#####

Written by my daughter 7.5 yrs old. (I asked her to write whatever she wanted about the movie-this was written a couple of weeks after watching…

I think that Jinhee’s clothes are cute because one has little flowers straps and lots of white ruffles.  Jinhee’s life was a lot like mine! The main difference is when Jinhee was abandoned she must have been five or six.  I was only one. Jinhee’s best friend was Sookee, they are both Korean from Korea, very near China.  Jinhee was always following Sookee around just like when I was young.

Temperament: Do You and Your Child(ren) "Fit"?

Back in 2009, I attended a parenting session at Chinese Heritage Camp that dealt with the challenges of building emotional connections in adoptive families.  I described it as "a mish-mosh of attachment issues, post-institutionalized behaviors, brain chemistry, and temperament."  The speaker shared the chart above, and asked us to mark ourselves and our children.  Guess what?  My children and I do not fit!

I thought about that session when I saw this AP story today:

It's a concept that parents may not be familiar with, but experts say it can explain a lot about family conflicts: Is your child's temperament a good "fit" with yours?

For example, a stubborn child who's a chip off the old block might have a lot of showdowns with an equally stubborn mom or dad. But contrasting temperaments don't necessarily assure good results: A determined child might overwhelm an overly flexible parent.

Many personality traits like these are inborn, but "temperaments can also be colored by the environment in which children are raised," said child psychologist Brian Daly, who teaches at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

That means parents who take a step back to consider their child's personality traits may be able to tailor their childrearing style to deal more effectively with problems.

* * *

One finding from their research was that a good "fit" between children and parents results when adult expectations, values and demands are in accord with a child's natural capacities and behaviors. Their last book, published in 1999, was called "Goodness of Fit." (Thomas died in 2003, Chess died in 2007.)

But their theory was not just a way of letting parents off the hook by blaming kids for personality traits they could not control. The takeaway for parents was that conflicts resulting from a poor fit between parent and child might be ameliorated if childrearing practices could be changed. The theory has withstood the test of time, with psychologists and other experts who work with children and parents still using some of these concepts today.

* * *

Another thing to keep in mind when a child's personality presents challenges, Fogel said: "This is the temperament she was born with; this is how she acts, this is how you act. You try to find a way to make things better but there's no magic answer, there's no formula."

That, she added, is "the hard part."

International Adoption: The American Dream?

That's the title of an lengthy article in the St. Petersburg Times, addressing adoption in and from Russia, though it's a a bit opaque in figuring the connection between the headline and the main point (if any!) of the article:

When American Denise Wesolowski found out that she could not have her own biological children, she was upset, but years after learning the news, she said she was “glad it worked out that way.”

“That’s because now we have our Anna!” Wesolowski told The St. Petersburg Times.

Back in 1993, Wesolowski and her husband turned to Russia to adopt a child.

* * *

According to official statistics from Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science, during the past 12 years, more than 45,000 Russian children have been adopted by Americans. Thousands more have been adopted by Spanish, Italian, German, French and other families. Taking into account the uncontrolled statistics of foreign adoption in the 1990s, the figures then will have been two or three times higher, experts say.

In recent years, Russia, along with China and Ethiopia, has become one of the top countries from which Americans adopt children.

However, Russia is now becoming a trickier option for foreigners wishing to adopt, as Russian authorities are trying to significantly decrease the number of Russian children adopted and taken abroad for a number of reasons.

In March of this year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for the minimization of foreign adoption in Russia.

* * *

However, Svetlana Agapitova, the children’s ombudsman for St. Petersburg, said that the Russian authorities do not intend to completely freeze foreign adoption.

“The idea is to create a situation in which only accredited and reliable adoption agencies can set up and manage adoptions,” said Agapitova. “They would monitor the adopted child’s life and well-being. There are currently many agencies that don’t have the required status. That is why Russia is now working on certain agreements with other countries regarding the matter,” she explained.

Agapitova said it is impossible for Russia to ban foreign adoption.

“First of all, there is no line of Russian adoptive parents waiting to adopt that would allow for all Russian orphans to find a home,” said Marina Levina, president of the St. Petersburg Roditelsky Most (Parents’ Bridge) charity organization.

* * *

A few years ago, the Wesolowskis decided to try and get in touch with Anna’s Russian family. Lidia, Anna’s birth mother, was very happy to finally learn what happened to her child. Back in the 1990s Lidia, who already had three older children, gave Anna up for foreign adoption when she realized that she wouldn’t be able to provide her newborn daughter, who was deaf, with proper medical care.

* * *

“I truly hope that the Russian authorities keep adoptions open to Americans,” Wesolowski said.

“The help that Anna got from living in the United States was a true miracle. What would her life be like if she had never been adopted?” Wesolowski asked. “She would live with her parents in their apartment and have no access to the hearing world. She would not have learned to speak or lip-read or even be able to go to school. By hearing the success stories of the children adopted from Russia, how could they not want children to have a better way of life?” she said.

I suppose that last part is the "American Dream" part of the article.

I find it's' pretty typical for adoptive parents to play these kinds of "what if" scenarios, imagining that their children would have died, or suffered, or had a terrible life, if they had not adopted them.  Maybe it's true, BUT WE DON'T KNOW! We can NEVER know.  And the more we play that "what if" game, the more we start thinking of ourselves as saviors.  And the more we're asking our children to be grateful. . . .

What's a bit strange about this particular "what if" story is that the adoptive parent is imagining what would have happened if the child had never been placed for adoption; usually it's a "what if" they had languished forever in an orphanage. Here, the adoptive parent speculates on how terrible the child's life would have been if she had remained with her biological parents.

In addition to that WE DON'T KNOW part, it's pretty judgmental and condescending toward those parents, assuming that they would not do the best to take advantage of whatever resources they did have if they had decided to parent.  It's also, in most cases,  pretty ignorant toward a culture we know nothing about, and based on provincial assumptions about the superiority of our own country and culture. Is it any wonder that the phrase "ugly American" has entered language worldwide?!

Grace Lin Recommends Asian-American Books for Kids

At PBSParents, Grace Lin recommends 10 of her favorite books (not authored by her!) about/for Asian-American kids, introducing them with a glimpse into her past:

When I was in first grade, my school librarian pulled out a book to read to the class. “Today,” she said, “we’re going to read ‘The Five Chinese Brothers.’”

“Chinese!” all my classmates whispered and turned to me, “just like you!”

Even as young as I was, I burned with embarrassment, resentment and despair. The Chinese brothers were mustard yellow with weird hats and long pigtails. I watched “Little House on the Prairie” on television and my favorite food was McDonald’s french fries. Those five brothers were not Chinese just like me.

Not surprisingly, the list she gives is heavy on books that modern Asian-American kids can identify with.  The last book on the list, American Born Chinese, is one of Zoe's most recent "favorite reads."

Ten Things

There are so many little things I've been meaning to blog about, none of which seemed worthy of a whole post, or if it does seem worthy, I don't have time for! So I thought I'd try to slap up a list/mini-posts of some of them:

1.  I am so proud of Zoe -- she decided to run for Student Council!  Results released today, so I don't know if she won (about 2/3 of her class ran, so it's hard to call!), which is why I wanted to post NOW.  Because it doesn't matter if she won.  I'm just so amazed that she ran! At her age, I wouldn't have had the courage, the potential rejection would have kept me off the ballot! In her "campaign speech," limited by the rules to 90 seconds, she said she wanted to help make the school a better place, with two planks to her platform:  expanding the school's recycling program beyond paper, and enacting a bullying prevention program "because I've been bullied before and people need to learn to stand up for themselves!" Oh, and in case you're thinking she's too stuffy for words, she's also proposing Taco Tuesday and Wok Wednesday for the cafeteria menu, and Pajama Day and Crazy Hair Day as school-wide celebrations. . . .

2.  We went to see Chimpanzee the first day it was showing, and the girls loved it. The cinematography was amazing, and even more amazing is how a bunch of humans managed to get all that footage! The anthropomorphizing was very strong, of course, and it would have been interesting to see the movie without the narration to see if we would have put the same human interpretation on the animals' conduct. Afterward, talking to the girls about the adoption themes, they were very intent on pointing out how different the story was from their adoptions. Zoe first noted that Oscar, the baby chimp, got to stay with his birth mother for a long time, unlike her. And Maya pointed out that Oscar's mother died, "she didn't just leave him somewhere." Their disparate responses are so like them -- Zoe who misses her birth mother and wishes she'd stayed, and Maya who says she doesn't think about her birth mother much, but who harbors anger about abandonment.

3. For Spanish class, Maya had to research Chilean culture, and in the course of the project, I found a Pablo Neruda poem I love:

Brown and Agile Child

Brown and agile child, the sun which forms the fruit
And ripens the grain and twists the seaweed
Has made your happy body and your luminous eyes
And given your mouth the smile of water.

A black and anguished sun is entangled in the twigs
Of your black mane when you hold out your arms.
You play in the sun as in a tidal river
And it leaves two dark pools in your eyes.

Brown and agile child, nothing draws me to you,
Everything pulls away from me here in the noon.
You are the delirious youth of bee,
The drunkedness of the wave, the power of the wheat.

My somber heart seeks you always
I love your happy body, your rich, soft voice.
Dusky butterfly, sweet and sure
Like the wheatfiled, the sun, the poppy, and the water.

4. Have you watched the Anderson Cooper (CNN) special on race and children? It didn't really reveal anything I didn't know, but it was nonetheless fascinating.  It confirms what I blogged about here -- not talking about race with our children doesn't make them colorblind, it makes them convinced that their parents don't like people of other races.  Also interesting was the change between age 7, where kids thought it was ok for kids of different races to be friends, and age 13, where more of them said it wasn't ok.  Why the shift?  The experts said it was that at that age, kids are starting to get different messages about race from their parents because of their parents' concerns about interracial dating.

5.  Last week, at a restaurant, I was talking to a friend about the Anderson Cooper episode on race and children while our kids played.  As we were leaving the restaurant, I spied the special being replayed on television, stopped and pointed it out to my friend.  The kids stopped, too, and watched for a moment a segment where an African-American boy was saying that he didn't think kids with different skin could be friends.  Maya immediately turned to me and said, "That's just sad! Why does he think that?!"  We had a long talk about it on the drive home.

6.  Ballet recital is coming up, and Sunday was picture day, which means too much makeup and cool costumes and showing off at Mimi's over-60 apartment complex, where the girls are always a big hit.  That led to an after-photos photo shoot there:

The ballet this year is Hansel & Gretel; Maya is a redbird (who wickedly eats the trail of bread crumbs) and Zoe is a villager (who is obviously well-to-do given the princessy costume!).

7.  Has anyone heard anything about the Encarnacion Bail Romero trial?  That's the undocumented worker who lost her son to adoption while she was in jail.  After reversal of the case by the Missouri Supreme Court, there was a trial over the issue which started in February. I haven't found any news in the media at all since the first day of trial. No hint of the court's ruling.  Anyone out there know anything?

8.  Oh, and how about another birth-mother-as-pass-through-body story?  Edie Falco, in this People article, tells us, “The second you are handed a newborn it is yours. It doesn’t matter what body it came out of. I’ve never felt more strongly about anything in my life."  Sheesh. How dismissive and cruel to think of your children's birth mothers in this way.  And this after saying that she's going to wait a while before explaining to her 8-year-old (8-YEAR-OLD!) that not everyone is adopted: “I’m thinking I’m going to wait with that as long as I can, the fact that some of the ladies keep the babies for their own. We will get to that.”  And THAT after saying the stigma of adoption just doesn't exist the way it used to -- what exactly does she think her actions are showing her kids about the stigma of adoption?! It's so effing stigmatizing she can't even bring herself to tell her 8-year-old the truth about it! (OK, maybe I could have done a full post about this one!)

9.  Last night on the Jon Stewart show (yes, that's where I get all my news, though I'm far too old for the target demographic!), he interviewed Zach Wahls, the 20-year-old author of My Two Moms. You may remember him from this video of him addressing the Iowa House Judiciary Committee about full marriage equality. I just downloaded it to my Kindle as my Mother's Day present.  We may have only one mom in our family, but I figured I could learn a lot from this nontraditional family!

10. Remember the millionaire polo tycoon who adopted his adult fiancee so that she could share in a trust he was trying to keep away from the family whose son he'd killed in a DWI accident?  Well, in case you're curious, John Goodman was in fact convicted for that drunk driving homicide. Still doesn't answer the question about the legality of the adoption, given its non-traditional purpose, or what effect it will have in a civil law suit by the victim's parents, but still, a guilty verdict.  Yesterday was supposed to be the sentencing hearing, but it's been postponed until May 11, because a juror testified that he felt pressured into the guilty verdict, and that he wasn't convinced of the defendant's guilt. Six other jurors and two alternates said there was no pressure.  I don't think the defendant is likely to get a new trial because of the issue, but we'll have to see. That alone shouldn't do it, but it looks to me like the defense is gearing up to complain that this is proof that the trial court should have moved the trial to another location because Goodman couldn't get a fair trial in Palm Beach, and that's a more persuasive claim. Goodman faces up to 30 years in prison.