Consider the Kid

I am starting to have some serious doubts about adoption lately. Maybe I’m just getting jaded because I hear a lot of stupid stuff that happens, but I’m starting to feel that the rotten apples are really spoiling the whole bunch, and I’m not sure I want to be apart of it.

When I first began thinking about international adoption long before my job, it just seemed like a good decision for myself and the global community at large: There were kids out there who didn’t have families due to a variety of reasons (poverty, for example), and I thought I could help save the world by giving a child a home. It all seemed so good-natured and and in the best interest of everyone involved. My god, how absolutely naive of me.

Now, after working in the adoption field for a number of years, and being closer to the process, I see all of adoption’s dirty laundry. I have encountered numerous families that just make me cringe because of how they view adoption–especially in the China program which up until recently hasn’t been very restrictive. I can’t stand families who have 4 boys and want to adopt because the mother always imagined raising a daughter, but had these boys instead. Or the couple in their mid-fifties who stated they were open to an older child on all their paperwork, yet when their referral arrived and was for a 5 year-old, they suddenly were very upset about this and considered her “damaged goods” (my words, not theirs) because attachment would not be as simple as if she were 12 months. Furthermore, I have known families nearing 50 who become so desparate for a child that although they have their preference for a white infant AYAP, will accept an Asian child nearing 2 because they want a kid so bad.
In their desparacity, they totally ignore issues of transracial parenting because “what’s important is that they are now a family.”

And then there’s the ever-more prevalent attitude that gets me of families who want to adopt from China because they want a girl. They have no connection to the country, culture, language–nothing. They take their kid out to the Chinese buffet on special occasions as a way to show them their “Chinese-ness.” This is just such bull-shit, and I just don’t know if I want to be apart of this community by adopting my own child.

I know what I need to realize, and its just hard to do right now. What I need to remind myself is that I am only seeing these families for a relatively short period of time while they are waiting for the addition of a new family member. I really think you can see the worst of people during this time. I’m sure these families change by leaps and bounds after they are placed with the child, and quite frankly I don’t see how they couldn’t change. But I never see this side of it. I don’t see the families years after placement to see how things are going, how the parents are sharing in the adoption journey with their child.

I think in general I am just at a low with my job right now, but that’s ok. Everything has its rhythms, and this is part of mine.

When will some of these families realize that these are little, young PEOPLE they are fawning over–not puppies. The families with 4 boys should be happy and thankful that they have had such a blessed family at all. And fifty-year olds should not want to have nor be placed with an infant. Such a concept should not even be fathomed.

Someone was kind enough to just share this article with me, and I thought it was a great “reality check” so to speak for those who presume that because they are requesting to adopt a “healthy” child, s/he will not have any major medical concerns.

This article is written by Dr. Dana Johnson, who established this nation’s first international adoption clinic.

http://www.med.umn.edu/peds/iac/preadoption.html

Damn rumors making my work more difficult. There’s been a lot of chatter about Chinese children with special needs being referred in the non-special needs program once they have had corrective surgery. Apparently these children have had corrections done such as extra digits that have been removed or minor heart repairs. But the one condition that seems to have everyone’s undies in a bunch is a cleft-affected child who has had the cleft repaired.

The most frustrating part to me about all this gossip is how families waiting for the referral of a NSN referral are talking about it. They are being horribly insensitive. It seems to me that they keep cloaking their desires for a child without any medical issues as what is “the best interest of the child.” Their argument goes that a family referred one of these “repaired” children is not prepared to parent such a child, and therefore the CCAA is not acting in the best interest of the child.

Does anyone else see how stupid this argument is? It makes me so frustrated that I can hardly put together a cohesive retort.

First of all, I think these families need to realize there is no guarantee that ANY child will be completely “healthy.” Perhaps that’s part of the pipe dream of some China families since one reason families pick China is because there is no family history to the child, and as far as doctor’s reports can tell the child is healthy. This information alone does not ensure that a child is defect-free. This idea ties into one of my former posts about families wanting to “order” their kids just the way they want them. Sorry, but even for families who have their own children they cannot do this. Even in my own family, my brother and his wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl who nearly a year later was diagnosed with a serious heart defect. Does this then mean that because they didn’t prepare for a child with such a condition that it is not in this child’s best interest to remain in this family? Of course not. Nothing in life is perfect. There are going to be surprises and bumps along the way. It all depends on how you want to look at it.

Secondly, I think that all this talk about a few instances where children like this have been referred has brought out all the dirty laundry and scary stories people have heard about families adopting a child that they thought was healthy (whether after having corrective surgery or just not having any issues documented in the original referral). This, in turn, frightens everyone else because now they think that this sort of thing happens a lot more frequently than it actually does, and that they may be next. Then, suddenly its doomsday in China-adoption-town, with the China adoption program quickly going to hell in a hand basket.

Furthermore, I really don’t think the CCAA in China is doing any of this maliciously. I think that they are bending their definition of a child with no known medical needs to include these children with corrected conditions because they have so many PAP applications that they are trying to match. It seems to me that the CCAA is in fact doing what it sees as the best for these children because it is matching them with families. And children with a removed extra digit or a cleft lip that was repaired maybe really are healthy after corrective surgery. I think the CCAA is really just trying to do the best they can for everyone involved in this process—finding children homes, giving families the opportunity to parent, and to keep the criticism of their agency to a minimum.

Perhaps if these stories were shared openly with families early in their adoption journey, they would not have such high expectations about the health of children coming from China. I know that even within the agency I work for we see a couple cases each year where a child referred to a family as a NSN child returns home and it is discovered here that the child has a medical concern. And the possibility of being presented with the referral of a child with a minor, corrected condition is there too. This just happens. It’s happened every year for many years because believe it or not, adoption is uncertain in more ways than just wait times. All families need to prepare themselves for the possibility that their child may be one out of the hundreds that has an issue, and how they are going to deal with that situation, should it arise, beyond making judgment calls out of fear.

At a public event last week where my agency had a presence, I had the opportunity to be witness to an interesting affair. I’ve been present at these types of events before, and usually the people visiting us are interested in adoption, or are some of our families who have already adopted and are stopping by to say hi. And, that’s how the morning had started last weekend, but this air of good feeling was soon interrupted.

You know how sometimes you can just spot trouble before it even arrives? Well, I had seen this older man walking with his partner coming right in our direction, and had thought they looked like an odd couple just the way they were interacting with one another. Thus, it was horrifying to realize that they were headed straight for us. My coworker fielded their arrival, introducing them to some of our services, and it was this announcement that started it all.

The odd man began the conversation by speaking about the 60s and a movement during that time called zero population, which had the goal of creating zero population growth. This guest continues rambling about this until we finally reach the purpose to his 5-minute rant. He began attacking us suddenly, and for his sake, I’ll sum up his argument in a much more — thoughtful, shall we say? — way. He was of the opinion that adoption is horrible because it allows people to not take responsibility for the children they create thus allowing them to “go back to partying, having more babies, and then just abandoning them.”

I didn’t know what to say, but then again 1) he wasn’t talking to me, and 2) I’m not the best at confrontation in the professional world. If it had been me, my response to such an attack would probably be chalkful of sarcasm and expletives, which isn’t exactly appropriate in the professional world. Thankfully, my coworker handled it. She just stood there smiling all the while he was barking at her. Then, when this man finally ran out of steam, she very simply and calmly replied “Well, I don’t agree with you on that sir,” and continued to smile until he walked away. It was beautiful.

This occurrence really made me think though. Because of where I work and the families I deal with, and the people I meet here online, I have yet to encounter anyone who was vehmently against adoption up until that day. It means even more if I look at my situation after my last post–I’m essentially surrounded by people who agree with me in this subject on a daily basis, and meeting this man was the first time I had heard from the other side. And, therefore, as weird as this encounter was, I’m thankful for it because I haven’t really heard an argument against adoption since starting my career in this field, and so hearing this kind of stuff has really given me a better, whole picture of the adoption issue.

I think I’ve had an epiphany about some of these clueless PAPs that I encounter.

See, I’ve been reading a lot of China forum posts and group discussions lately, and I’ve noticed a horrible trend across much of the spectrum. It seems that every time there is a topic that arises that is uncomfortable and/or a “hot” conversation, it is promptly extinguished and depending on the severity of the offense, the initiator of such a conversation might be publicly scolded, humiliated or even ostrascized.

The problem I have with this is that although some of these topics brought up by PAPs may seem insensitive, ignorant, or just downright dumb, when you think about it, really, its quite important that they are bringing up these thoughts and questions because the last thing I think anyone wants is a parent who doesn’t know what an idiot they can be and how much they have to learn. It seems counterproductive to the community to not allow people to bring up touchy issues and to work through them, doesn’t it?

It seems to me that what these forums and groups need to regulate more than these naive parents are the rude ones who take advantage of the anonymity of online personas, using it to make these novice adoptive parents want to curl up and die. Decorum in debates and discussions seems to be ever more rare in today’s society, but that doesn’t mean we should give up and forget about it. It’s bizarre though because if you look at many of these forums they have codes of conduct, which you think would protect these green PAPs from getting reemed, but it appears as though sometimes its these rules that the rude ones will site to the administrator when saying how out of line the conversation is. Such bull.

Furthermore, another hurdle to having productive conversations in these online communities is that those entering these communities often seem to not want to have to confront difficult topics or debate. Rather, they’d just like to have someone agree with them, stroke their egos, and tell them they’re right.

I know I’m probably generalizing a lot, but I’m frustrated and regardless of this my message still has a point. There’s some work to be done at least within the online China adoptive community in order to make PAPs more comfortable and knowledgeable about some of the more difficult issues surrounding adoption in order to make families stronger and adoptees more centered.