International Adoption: your thoughts

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kendall on February 8, 2010 at 2:40pm

I second this wholeheartedly.

Permalink Reply by Lisa on February 9, 2010 at 5:05pm

And also because they want babies. It's hard to get babies from your own country, unless they are disabled. It's very sad, but so many people only want "perfect" able-bodied children.

Permalink Reply by Heather on February 8, 2010 at 3:10pm

That phrase doesn't change my mind one bit. I still believe if a child with no family can be adopted, it should be. Doesn't matter where it is adopted from. I think a loving home is worth the damage uprooting a child from their home country can do. Plus, it doesn't take into account that the children from Haiti will go to families adopting in other foreign countries also. Not just America.

Also, adopting from your own is a wonderful option, but adopting from American vs. anouther country is more expensive and difficult. I do want to adopt when I get older, but I can't sit here and promise it will be from America because of the red tape that one has to go through.

Permalink Reply by Sarah on February 9, 2010 at 3:55pm

While there are certainly a whole host of negative issues that can go along with internatational adoption, the recent adoption fiasco in Haiti being an example of the worst kinds of attitudes and practices, I think it's pretty harsh to assume that anyone who can't afford to adopt from their own country is somehow using the orphan they might be able to adopt from another country.

Permalink Reply by Kayla Aimee on February 9, 2010 at 7:12pm

Um, no. For one thing, domestic adoptions can be just as expensive as international adoptions. And international adoptions often have far more red tape. And aren't just using them for what? If you adopt a child, any child, I am assuming it is because you love it.

Permalink Reply by cooper on February 9, 2010 at 4:44pm

I am against international adoption. If you can't have children, and you can't get them in your own country, or aren't wiling to take a defective child, a troubled child, and older child ( god knows there are thousands of them), or so on and so forth, you should not go scouring the earth for the children of others, or of the "the other" to be more honest.

We should help others with their ability to take care of their children and make good lives for themselves, we should adopt from our own country.

If you want to adopt a whole Haitian family and bring them home with you to support until they can safely go home go for it though..

Permalink Reply by Jeney on February 9, 2010 at 5:59pm

I do agree with those of you who think international adoption shouldn't be allowed when children in our own country suffer so much... but to an extent.

I have a cousin in Colorado and when her and her life partner decided to adopt a child ten years ago, they were told no because they were a lesbian couple. That is why they adopted an orphaned girl from Mexico, Isabella (we call her Isa). Seeing how much being told "no" by our country hurt them - simply because of their sexual preference - helped to form this opinion on international adoption.

The adoption laws have changed since then and my cousin has since had another child, a little boy, via a sperm donor.

And those two kids couldn't be more of a blessing to our family.

Permalink Reply by Harper and Beatrix on February 9, 2010 at 6:44pm

i am really curious what would happen if a large number of haitian children were available (for lack of a better word) to be adopted in the US. there are a lot of families here who would be proud to adopt an asian or south american child who would not welcome a black child into their home in the same way. it's awful, it's sad, but it is a fact.

i sometimes fear that adopted babies are trendy the same way clothes and vacation spots are. turcs and cacos is so last year-- this year safaris are in. chanel is always a safe bet, tori burch is still fine if you live in the suburbs, and in a pinch you can always pop into a banana republic. china has been trendy long enough to become a safe bet, russia makes things difficult enough it is sure to remain exclusive, and guatemala offers a good deal.

this issue makes me emotional on so many levels. on one hand i want all children to grow up loved and safe and in the best environment possible. but i hate to see us reaching a point where children are treated almost as a commodity. sometimes it seems that instead of doing anything to reduce the number of orphans, china is exporting them. and even though an adopted child might never notice a lack, it seems sad and artificial to take a child away from a culture, place, and heritage where she was placed. it seems farcical to me, though, that the parents of internationally adopted children often feel the need to latch on to elements of the culture of the place where the child came from. dressing him up and teaching him a few words in "his language" and going out to Korean barbecue doesn't make this more right. (it sometimes calls to mind french satire from the eighteenth and nineteenth century where comical foreigners were dropped into current french culture.) if anything i think the issue of skin color and ethnicity should be ignored (though never denied). adopted children should be treated the same way biological children are or would have been.

i'm getting long; i get really passionate about this. i have two baby cousins who were adopted domestically when they were two and four, and i could not not love them any more than i do, no matter where they came from. i loved them the minute i saw them, and even under a very tough set of circumstances, they've never felt like anything but my own family. i have a positive bias toward something that is very often a difficult situation.

~b

Permalink Reply by Kayla Aimee on February 9, 2010 at 7:07pm

"it seems sad and artificial to take a child away from a culture, place, and heritage where she was placed"

What about in the case of my favorite little girl, who was left in a box on the front steps of a government building in a foreign country, and then placed in an overcrowded, orphanage? It seems sad to me that she should be denied her current life, with loving parents, simply because some people think she should be left there because it's her natural culture.

I do agree that there is a certain trendiness to international adoption these days, but I don't think that's a good enough reason discredit it.

Permalink Reply by Harper and Beatrix on February 10, 2010 at 8:51pm

i know. and that's why i am so conflicted and get so emotional about this. my little cousins came from 10 miles away from their parents, but that doesn't mean that i would love them any less if they came from china or malawi or outer space.

i also don't mean to imply that anyone is being colonialist or condescending on purpose. i believe that most adoptions are made because would-be parents are looking for children to love and that there are children out there who need these parents.

i think my main point is that there are children who are much closer to home who are overlooked because of other circumstances beyond their control. maybe they are six months or four years old or their mothers don't know what color they will turn out to be before they are born.

~b

Permalink Reply by Bayleigh on February 10, 2010 at 8:24pm

Families have to go through ALOT to get their babies, both foreign and domestically. I don't think most of these families do it because it's trendy, and I don't think that there are as many adoptions made without love as so many of you seem to. I think they feel a calling for a certain baby in a certain place, and they are answering that call. So often these families sacrifice SO much to bring their babies home- financially and emotionally.

I agree that our foster care system is less than ideal, but it is no where near the conditions found in many of the orphanages in other countries.

All of the children I know who were adopted both internationally and domestically are very loved and thankful that their forever families brought them home.

Permalink Reply by cooper on February 10, 2010 at 10:20pm

I think the key here for me is "families go through a lot"... to get what they want.

What I usually envision is an American family who "wants" what they want and will go to any lengths to get it. There have been significant ramifications to international adoptions, some of them made very public, over the last few years. This information is readily available.

There are many kids, usually older, in this country living in atrocious situations in need of a good home, but it is much more rare to see them adopted. I don't think it is always wrong to adopt internationally but it is seldom altruistically motivated and we should at least admit to that and admit that there is little justification for what has happened over the years as the baby market boomed to cater to spoiled Americans (though it appears that the "baby business's progression may be slowing down).

The people of Haiti need help to build a society where they can keep and take care of the kids they have, we'd be better helping them to that end, though there will be adoptions and not all of them will be objectionable. I don't seem the humanity in adopting children with parents, the cost of international adoptions could probably take care of a family of 4 in an underdeveloped nations for quite a number of years money can also be spent on keeping national with national families for a cost.

Of course a child with no parents and no one really wanting him or here living in dire conditions, and in need of medical care, and so on and so forth, is a different story.

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