Crowdfunding Adoption

At the New York Times Motherlode blog, a piece about crowdfunding (a fancy way to say fundraising) fertility treatments and adoption:

In vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) and adopting a child are expensive ventures. They’re also dreams that many people can sympathize with — when someone tells a friend, or even a stranger, “we’re trying to have a baby” or “we’re trying to adopt,” people often just want to help. Crowdfunding — putting your hopes on a Web site that allows others to donate money to their realization — is the latest way to make that possible.

“After two long hard years of trying on our own to conceive,” Kimberly Sparkman writes at her campaign on Indiegogo.com, “we were diagnosed with infertility.” Insurance, she says, doesn’t cover the procedure, and she tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who’s been through it: tests, procedures, hope, loss and none of it free.

* * *

For years, crowdfunding, in some form or another, has been common in the adoption world. As an adoptive parent, I’ve seen online auctions and other fund-raisers, and many Web sites have a “ChipIn” button that allows friends, family and readers to contribute. With I.V.F., too, it’s mostly friends and family — Adam, who with his wife Arielle created a campaign to pay for an adoption (they asked that I not use their last names, as the domestic adoption process is fragile), says that of the 100 donations they received in raising $6,935, only nine came from strangers. They did receive many donations from “Facebook friends” they hadn’t seen in years, “people we would not initially have thought to reach out to.”

* * *

Would you finance your infertility procedures, or an adoption, this way? Donate to a friend’s campaign, or to a stranger’s? (There’s a kind of seductive quality to the idea of anonymously helping someone else’s dreams come true, isn’t there — like being the genie in the lamp?) Or do you find something off-putting in raising money for so personal a cause?

I've posted before about fundraising for adoption, a topic that tends to produce strong opinions pro and con.  It seems to me, though, that they're asking the wrong question at the NYT blog -- how about asking what effect fundraising for adoption has on adopted children who were the objects of those charity campaigns?

Mother Lists 3-year-old for Adoption on Craigslist?

The story from a Fresno TV station:

Two days after launching a website to try and give away her son, Corenna Waller of Fresno pulled it down. Not because she had second thoughts, but because she says it served its purpose of getting the attention of the media and Child Protective Services to take her seriously.

At face value, you would think the webpage was one for adopting a puppy, but as you read closer you find that it's a 3-year old boy who is up for grabs.

"Yeah it's way outside the box, but I never felt I was putting my son in danger because I had no intention of him meeting anybody,” said Corenna Waller.

Corenna Waller is the 27-year old Fresno woman who created the site. The overwhelmed single mother even posted a link to it on Craigslist. Her objective? To temporarily give up her son until she could get her life on track.

She's claims to have cried for help to agencies like child protective services, but no one would listen.

"I just felt I had exhausted all my resources and I kept hitting walls when it came to finding new resources. I finally felt that if I got the word out people would take me seriously,” said Waller.

And people have. Folks who spotted the page became concerned. They notified us at CBS47 as well as social workers at C.P.S. They are now involved with this case trying to draw up an alternative game plan.

Reactions?

Race Day

 That would be Dragon Boat Race Day, of course!  One exciting change from Saturday's practice, this time the boats were decked out with their dragon heads and tails.  Zoe definitely had a ball, declaring after the third and final heat that she was ready for a fourth!  After 7 hours melting in the Texas heat, I was ready for HOME and some nice chilly air conditioning. 

Both girls also enjoyed the rest of the festival -- lion dances, dragon dances, various Asian dancers, and festival foods both familiar (funnel cake!) and exotic (Thai corn patties!).

Oh, and we're pretty sure we WON the youth division -- it helps that we were the only youth boat entered!

Dragon Boat Race -- Practice Run

Tomorrow is the DFW Dragon Boat Race & Festival, and today the FCC youth boat team practiced!  This is Zoe's first year -- she finally hit the age 11 minimum.  She was the youngest, but not the smallest.  With a whole 45 minutes of practice, I have full confidence that this team will WIN -- or at least have tons of fun!

How should adopted kids be included in family history?

That's the question for advice columnist Amy:

Dear Amy: My sister and I are the family historians.

While getting all of my other siblings' information about their children, I was asked if I would put the adopted children down as children born to the family. I said I would add them, but not as born to the couple. This has caused a real problem.

Am I right (I would add them as adopted and the year in which they entered the family unit)? I'll stand by your answer.— Family Historian

Dear Historian: I solicited opinions from several different family historians and received opinions across a wide spectrum.

You don't say exactly what sort of family history you are pulling together.

My own view is that you should include all children in your family as children in your family, no matter the circumstances of their birth.

For you to do otherwise, and to note the date of their entry into the family but not their actual birth date makes it seem that on the one hand you are denoting them as not quite "real" and on the other hand you are implying that their lives started not on the dates of their birth but on the date they entered the family.

Include all children of the family in your family tree. If you are compiling a "key" or narrative to accompany the family tree you can note adoption dates, etc.

You want to tell as complete a story as possible, but adopted children are "real" family members and your history should acknowledge this reality.

Hmm, what do you think about the advice? I'd give Amy big points for acknowledging that adopted children actually have lives before they joined their adoptive families, something that not even all adoptive parents seem to get. . . .

Artyom's Mom Ordered to Pay $1000 a Month Child Support + $100,000 in Damages and Attorney's Fees

So says a Tennessee TV station:

A judge in Tennessee has ordered that an American woman who sent her adopted son back to Russia pay more than a $100,000 in damages, child support, and legal fees.

In 2010 Torry Hansen was living in Shelbyville in April 2010 when she put her then 7-year-old adopted son back on a plane to Russia alone with a note saying she no longer wanted to care for him. The adoption agency sued, and in March, a Tennessee judge ruled she's liable for child support.

On Thursday, that same judge ordered Hansen to pay her adopted son $58,000, the adoption agency $29,000 and attorney fees of nearly $63,000 as well as $1,000 a month in child support.

Next fight -- trying to execute on the judgment!

Adoption, DNA & Secrets

At Forbes, an example of how DNA technology explodes the idea of secrecy in adoption:

But another 23andMe user got quite a surprise when she went looking for relatives on the site. She discovered a full brother. Via the Wall Street Journal:

Neil Schwartzman, a 52-year-old 23andMe customer who lives in Corte Madera, Calif., took his DNA test in 2010 to learn more about his medical background and as a last-ditch effort in a decades-long search for his birth family. An adoptee, Mr. Schwartzman received a message last spring from another 23andMe customer that said, “I think you’re my brother.”

The writer, Jolie Pearl, indeed shared the same mother and father as Mr. Schwartzman, though she hadn’t known her mother had given up a baby for adoption.
Ms. Pearl confronted her elderly mother, who confirmed the adoption, and the three eventually met in person.

via Websites Combine DNA, Social Networks – WSJ.com.

Technology has this amazing way of unearthing secrets.

Moral of the story: Stop trying to keep secrets in adoption.

"He's Adopted," Adoption Stigma & Missing Adoptee Voices in Media

The "joke" in The Avengers, that Loki's adoption explains his murder of 80 people in 2 days, has made the mainstream in a piece at the New York Times' Motherlode blog, but is only a part of the larger picture of the absence of adoptee voices in media:

As an adult adoptee and media-studies scholar, I am increasingly alarmed at the under-representation of first-person adoptee voices in American media. The process and experience of adoption has always been a popular theme explored (and exploited) in both television and film, with recent examples ranging from the critically acclaimed film “Juno,” to ABC’s 2009 series “Find My Family,” and the story of Catelynn, the birth mother in MTV’s series “16 and Pregnant.” There are countless other examples.

While adoption is a theme addressed in popular media, adoptee voices are rare for a number of reasons. First, the stigma surrounding adoption may make adoptees more reluctant to speak out. Although many online adoptee communities do exist, communication is often exchanged anonymously for fear of “outing” birth mothers or other family members. Second, adoptees often feel that our dissent at representations of adoption might be perceived as critical of our own life experience, an injury to the families that have loved us and raised us. However, it seems only appropriate that the media should attempt (when possible) to balance popular media with the lived experiences of adoptees.

* * *

As more and more Americans seek to build their families through domestic and international adoption, why did a joke about adoption play so well? And if it played so well here in the U.S., will it play even better in other regions in which adoption is not as socially or culturally accepted? No doubt, some will think adoptees are overreacting. But what does this mean for adoptees, and perpetuating the stigma surrounding adoptee status?

I am embarrassed that Marvel and Disney would include such a cheap one-liner in their film. But I am not embarrassed to admit that I am adopted. And I am not embarrassed to admit that I walked out of their movie. Because no real hero would so casually dismiss family.

You might also be interested in this blog post about the non-adopted reaction to adoptee/AP complaints about that line in the Avengers. I didn't get bullying reactions to what I posted, but I sure got defensive reactions!  A friend on facebook, who I don't think regularly reads my blog but loved the Avengers movie, even commented that as the uncle of adoptees, he could tell me that I was overreacting!  Always love that kind of "some of my best friends are black" explanation for why something isn't racist, so of course I was completely persuaded by this argument when it came to adoptism!

Guatemala Mom to Ask U.S. Courts to Return Kidnapped Child

ABC News reporting:

A Guatemalan mother who says her child was stolen and later turned over to a U.S. couple for adoption said Tuesday that she will go to a Missouri court seeking to get her daughter back now that the U.S. State Department has said it doesn't have jurisdiction to help return the girl.

The State Department confirmed Tuesday that it has informed Guatemala's government that it can't help return Anyeli Hernandez Rodriguez because the U.S. and Guatemala had not signed the Hague Abduction Convention at the time of the alleged kidnapping in 2006.

"We're obviously deeply concerned about allegations regarding stolen children and inter-country adoptions wherever these cases come up," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. "We consider the appropriate venue in the United States for pursuing this case is in the state courts. They're the competent organ for holding a full hearing on the merits and the best interests of the child."

* * *

In a phone conversation with The Associated Press, Rodriguez said she still has hope she will be reunited with her little girl, now 7, who she hasn't seen since she was 2.

"I'm looking for a law firm that will pursue this in the courts in the United States," she said. "Even if she can't come home, to at least be able to have contact with her."

Interesting that Missouri is where the courts are dealing with the Encarnacion Bail Romero case, where an undocumented worker from Guatemala lost her son to adoption while she was in jail for immigration violations. . . .

Native American Adoptees Seek Knowledge of Culture and Birth Mothers

At Indian Country, an article looks at a reunion between a Native American adoptee and her birth mother, who is an adoptee herself: 

 This year, for the first time in a long time, Mother’s Day didn’t bring with it the painful unknowns for Jeanne Winslow and Rachel Banks Kupcho of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Jeanne and her daughter Kupcho met for the second time last October, more than 35 years after Winslow gave her newborn up for adoption. “The day I got the call was the day I knew my life had changed forever,” says Winslow. That call on a cool October day carried the news that her daughter had found her and wanted to meet.

Their reunion was not a made-for-TV event filled with balloons and flowers. Winslow recalls that seeing her daughter for the first time in such a long time was quietly powerful, a bit like the first time she heard the drum and knew deep in her body that she was American Indian. Like Kupcho, Winslow was put up for adoption as a newborn and raised by non-Indians. Their story puts a quintessential Indian twist on the standard Mother’s Day tale of maternal perfection, and shows the inexorable pull of blood and spirit that so many Native people describe when they speak of wanting to know their culture.

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.