Consider the Kid

While doing some monkey work midday, I received a call from a soon-to-be dad with referral but waiting to travel. He was all charged up, but not angry. He was frantic…nervous…worried. Apparently he’s been reading about adoption all throughout the wait, but it hadn’t been until earlier this summer when he discovered a new genre of adoption literature: that of adult adoptees who are displeased with the “adoption industry.”

He stated that he had been reading a lot from this aspect over the past few months and had been thinking about it on a theoretical level, however when the photo of his referral arrived is when this issue became all so real. He now wanted reassurance that he wasn’t just feeding “the machine” of affluent families buying babies from struggling parents, and answers for some tough questions his adopted daughter may ask him some day about her journey to his family.

Perhaps it’s weird, but I was so excited to hear this from him for two reasons. First, I have been asking many of the same questions he has as of late (hence the slowness in blogging—I’ve been trying to come to terms with some personal conundrums with adoption) and was happy to not be the only one with an underlying feeling that adoption is overall a good thing but who comes up short when confronted with arguments from alone in this struggle. Secondly, he’s one of the parents that just “gets it.” He realizes the seriousness of adoption and the struggles with identity, history, and society’s perception with which adoptees have to deal.

The frustrating part however, is that he thought that by him asking these questions and having this discussion with me that I would see him as a “bad” adoptive parent. Now, I want to make this ever so clear for all those PAPs out there who feel/think the same way: Asking questions about adoption (i.e. whether its morally right, how to prepare for the questions your child will have about his/her history, how to react to people you might encounter on the street) is terrific! In fact, I wish, wish, wish more parents would ask these types of questions. By having this man ask these questions he actually did the exact opposite of what he thought he was doing: He probably thought that I was judging his commitment to this child negatively because he was questioning adoption, but in fact I felt that his motivations and commitment to this child were even stronger because he was pursuing these issues now.

I’m so proud of parents like this father to take initiative to investigate both the positive and negative aspects of adoption because it isn’t all rosey and there will be challenges to overcome as their child matures. That being said, I also know that this child entering their home will have a wonderfully supportive family to grow up in, and that makes this job worth all the while. While conversations like this are few and far between, it is my sincere hope that more of the families that I work with do have these same type of questions and find the support and

With the wait for an adoption of a child with no known medical needs from China reaching nearly two years now, many families already in the process are wanting to instead adopt a child with special needs. Sounds so great, right—and I mean, it is since these are children with medical issues who may otherwise have not found a home—but on the same hand, many of these families are adopting these kids because they are impatient and unfortunately occasionally do not prepare themselves for the adoption of an older child nor the lifelong impact these needs can have on the kids. People throughout the adoption community including not only adoption coordinators like myself, but also social workers and pediatricians, are finding the need to emphasize the importance of preparation and education to these families not only on the particular special need their child may have, but also on attachment and development of an older child. And surprise, surprise, many still do not heed this warning.

While it’s obviously still possible to parent a child without this foundation, it can make it more difficult for everyone involved. I’ve been witness to a family disrupting while still in-country because they felt their white faces had traumatized the two-and-a-half year old child to be adopted because she had tried to run away out of the room the first night they were together. Had they properly prepared themselves, they would have realized this would be a typical toddler reaction to such a situation, and thus could have dealt with it better. Furthermore, I’ve had families who have biological children and therefore feel they have all the necessary preparation from raising these children only to realize upon placement that the newly adopted child isn’t within the families’ expectations. Children are children, yes, however they fail to remember that their biological children were snatched from the environment they considered home and, without understanding why, given to adults of a different race with different smells, sounds, and food preferences. Of course an adopted child will not act as you expect, and s/he may not be developmentally on target due to neglect within the orphanage.

With so many families switching to the special needs track, I felt the need to put this info out here for any and all PAPs who are considering adopting an older child or child with special needs, and to remind you: prepare, prepare, prepare. It’s important to do this now because once your child is home you will not have the free time to do this research no matter how much you tell yourself now you’ll make time.

So, I felt I had this epiphany the other day. It was while being at some mandatory meeting about HIPAA requirements of all things. As the instructor was going over transmission of Hepatitis C, I was sitting there daydreaming about other things such as our role as an adoption agency in the greater society. That’s when it hit me.

Americans have a hunger for perfection and guarantees which seems to stem from our drive for business and free markets. And this characteristic of American culture is terrific when applied in these arenas—I mean, just take a look at how successful this country has become in the world of international business. However, this demand for perfection and guarantees can be ineffective and even detrimental in certain contexts such as adoption.

See, adoption agencies, such as the one I work for, are quite bizarre for the American to navigate. After all, at a first glance we seem like a business: we have our own bureaucracy with a defined hierarchy, there are fees to pay at certain times and loads of paperwork to complete, and we participate in media campaigns and community outreach. But, when it comes down to it, this is merely a façade that we must exude in order to play in the sand box with the big boys. See, adoption isn’t a business, and therefore shouldn’t be run like a business. In fact, if you speak with any of the social workers or adoption coordinators at my organization, we’ll all tell you that we feel that we are facilitators in assisting families to grow through adoption not baby sales representatives.

However, due to our appearance and the American culture, we often have families approaching us with the same attitude they have when buying a refrigerator, for example. They will amuse us by filling out all the paperwork needed, but they come in with an idea of what model, color, and size they want, and want to know how much will it cost, when will it be available for pick-up, and what happens if it breaks down. We fight against this sort of attitude every single day because what we realize is that people cannot have this attitude towards their family. It doesn’t work well because these are human lives that we’re dealing with not refrigerators.

Creating a family is a very personal and intimate journey that cannot be treated in the same manner as usual business transactions. It’s a process of facilitation in which all the actors are really on the family’s side (although truthfully, we’re on the child’s side more) in trying to help see the adoption come to fruition and resulting in a win-win for both family and child. I think often times families feel their adoption agency is working against them, forgetting that we do the best we can for each family hoping to adopt although sometimes there are road blocks that may make a process more difficult or implausible altogether. And its these road blocks that are in place to secure the best interest of each child which really is (or at least should be) at the heart of all of us enduring this journey.