Parenting is Forever: Through Sickness and Health, for Better and Worse

Bravo! Well Said!

Excerpts from a father of troubled teens from foster care writes:

The main lesson to remember is that parenting—however it comes about– is a lifelong commitment on the part of the parent, not the child. Whether your child ever reciprocates, thanks you, or tells you that she loves you is beside the point. Adoption is not about us parents; it’s about meeting children’s needs....Wounded adoptees deserve no less —whether as young dependents or in adulthood. And they can’t ever hope to recover from trauma if we break the solemn promise we made to them when we became a family.....

Hansen’s actions have exposed a few of the flaws that many of us have long viewed as an unethical international adoption industry. This is an industry that rakes in billions of dollars as it continues to damage children and exploit birth mothers....International adoption is supported by the racism and classism that prevent many prospective parents from considering adopting American kids from foster care closer to home. Then, after charging families as much as $20,000 or more per child, this industry does very little to educate parents about the challenges they should expect and prepare to confront during the parenting journey....

The worst of it is that the adoption industry focuses primarily on the desires of parents, not the needs of children and their original families....

in order to secure the future of adoption, we need to open our eyes and see adoption for what it really is. If, as a parent, you reach a point of disillusionment and feel that you want to reject something, instead of throwing your kid away, how about rejecting the fantasy we all have been encouraged to believe?

Standing ovation! John Raible is an outspoken and nationally-known adult adoptee, Professor Raible has appeared on television talk shows such as the Joan Rivers Show and Sally Jesse Raphael, and has been interviewed by numerous media outfits, including Essence Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and BBC Radio’s World Service.

Read the entire piece here.

NJ Convolutes Adoptee and Birth Mother Rights

Aheaern: Battle to open adoption records

This NJ OpEd is full of false assumptions about what mothers who relinquish want and don't want and further distorts and intertwines issues of equal access to a birth certificate with access to medical records because of the way NJCare has presented the issue.

Unbelievably, this editorial additionally makes the argument that adoptive parents deserve the right to keep the adoption a secret from their adopted child into his adulthood!

Whether you live in or near of NJ, please tell the public that mothers are OK with all parties having their right to birth certificates on which they are named and by-and-large are OK meeting their kids...but not OK with having their private, HIPAA protected, medical information released.

PLEASE WRITE!

My reply:

NJ has convoluted a very simple human rights issue that PA is getting right. All persons have an equal civil right to their original, true birth certificate. Adoptees are currently denied this right all others take for granted. They likewise have a right to their pediatric hospital records. No right of adults is dependent on the approval of their parents - adoptive or natural - and neither should this be. Ahearn, the ACLU nor any others have any right to make false assumptions about what others want or don't want and have no right to expect laws to protect secrets and lies. What we do expect is respect for our confidential medical and social history. The two issues are separate. Adopted citizens deserve to be equal to non-adopted. No less and no more.

3 Cinematic Approaches to Adoption, Race, Separation, Loss, Pain, Grieving, Reunification and Resilience

Three adoption films.
(last updated 5/8/10)

Adopted: The Film

Do not miss an opportunity to view this intensely moving documentary by Barb Lee follows Jennifer, a 32-year-old Korean born adoptee as she deals with issues she has kept from the view of others all of her life: the painful side of being interracially adopted, interwoven with following a couple from their decision to adopt through bringing home their baby girl from China.

As its description states, it "reveals the grit rather than the glamour of transracial adoption" as Jennifer tries with all her might and her love to get the validation she longs from from her parents before they die. Though Jenn is the main character of the film the pain her questions cause her parents - as they cope with their imminent deaths - is likewise palpable.

Both Jennifer's parents - of "another generation" - and the couple in the process of adopting, pride themselves on not seeing color or race, though the younger couple is more aware of integrating and respecting the interracial aspect of their family. And therein lies the source of Jenn's pain. She wants her journey to know her heredity and genetic roots as a family issue. Her mother in father are able or willing to. Her father tells her it is her journey and clearly does not understand why she cannot be happy and needs to focus on being Korean.

Jennifer says: "Families adopt. Adoptees adapt....the adoption is celebration and the abandonment is ignored." She says "adoptees are chameleons because they don't want to be abandoned again." Her struggle was compelling and moved me to tears.

John Raible says: "The film captures beautifully what I refer to as the paradox of adoption, that is, adoption as both a blessing and a curse. I realize that it is not easy for many parents to accept this realization. Yet allowing adoption narratives (such as this film) into our hearts and consciousness gives us a chance to sit with difficult knowledge and to experience the world as many adoptees experience it."

The film is for sale for $59.99 for individual purchase OR, you can rent it on NETFLIX. The filmmakers have a companion pice entitled "We Can Do Better" which is clearly the goal of "Adopted: the film."

It is only by removing our rose-colored glasses and viewing adoption in its "gritty" truth and with the hindsight of those who have lived it that we can learn how to improve how we can help those who have experiences the grief and loss of separation live happier lives. The goal is to reduce the pain that love alone cannot heal.

Resilience

I would also like to call your attention to a film I have not see, but look forward to: Resilience is documentary by Tammy Chu. It is a story of loss, separation and building broken ties following the journey of a Korean birthmother and her "American" son as they attempt to build a relationship after thirty years.

“If given the choice, I would never give up my child…losing my child is something I will not get over for as long as I live.” - Myung-Ja Noh, Birth Mother


Living on the FAULT LINE: Where race and family meet

I had the pleasure of meeting Jeff Farber, the award-winning film maker recently at the ACONE adoption conference. The film approaches race in America by looking intimately into the lives of seven interracial families who are foster, adoptive or prospective adopters. Jeff, who has focused his 25 year career in film-making on stories involving situations where societal norms create inequality and injustices. Reviewed here.

The Worst Reaction to the Hansen Adoption Give-Back Award

Since no one has come out and unequivocally supported what Torry Hansen did - including how she did it - this blog post, so far, rates as the worst.

No GIve Backs in Adoption -- and Why Are Adoptive Families Second-Class? Ask PunditMom

An adoptive mother of a Chinese girl writes in part:
For me there are two issues in the story about Artyem Hansen-- (1) the lack of understanding and preparation that many people have about potential issues that children who have been institutionalized can present with, and (2) how the media covers adoption-related stories, in many instances implying in their choice of words and story selection that somehow parents who decide to adopt are more suspect in their desires and motivations than those who choose to (or are able to) have children the “old-fashioned” way. If that wasn't the case, would we have such an odd fascination with the celebrity adoption stories of Madonna and Angelina Jolie?

But another important issue is the way the media cover stories like this. Child abandonment and neglect unfortunately happens every day in this country, but we rarely, unless there is a death, hear about those stories. Why not?
This story is getting attention because it involves adoption -- an instance where a woman who had waited for years to have a child apparently turned her back on the one she was given. And the media love to sensationalize stories about adoptive families. I don’t have the energy to get up on this soapbox for too long again, but it’s just a fact — when children are hurt or neglected or abandoned by biological parents. But make that family an adoptive family, and that changes the whole calculus of its purported newsworthiness because people still like to stare at families like mine, both in real life and on cable news....Clearly, there is no excuse for what the Hansen family apparently did after making Artyem a part of their family. But if the media is going to focus on stories about child abandonment and neglect, let's focus on all families, not just families by adoption.

Is she kidding?

My reply/comment:

It's hard to know where to start to point out how many ways your post is off target and your priorities skewed.

Angelina Jolie is a phenom because she CAN and DOES have biological children and adopts IN EXCESS and because she is a public figure and so everything she does - gaining pound, losing a pound, fighting with Brad Pitt - all "news" while the same is not true of you and I. DUH.

The Hansen case is INTERNATIONAL news because of the shocking WAY in which she abandoned her child and that it caused international repercussions: an adoption freeze.

But far more importantly is your lack of understanding that - yes - a higher standard is expected of those who go out of their way to be parents and who take responsibility for children who have already experienced at least one abandonment. Adopters do not acquire their children by chance! they go to great lengths, is, yes DUH! It is far more shocking when one behaves like this and shirks the responsibility that have taken on then someone who has an UNPLANNED child.

If you don't get that, something is really wrong with you.

AND - BTW - when biological parents were dumping teens after Nebraska created a no-age limit Safe Haven - that too made headlines! In case you missed them, or simply forgot because it didn't involve adoption: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27643190/

The media is overly kind to adoption and adoptive parents, and to those trying to adopt...with their broken hart now that Russia has put a freeze on (again), and when it happened in Guatemala. So, really: GET OVER YOURSELF!

The Universality of Grief Experienced by Mothers who Lost Children to Adoption

Presented at Identity in Adoption: Glimpses Beneath the Masks,
New England Adoption Conference, April 17, 2010

CLICK HERE for link to this and other presentations

Russia Seeks Tighter Regulations

Adoption confusion: Russia claims freeze; US says not so

By Nataliya Vasilyeva - AP

MOSCOW — The Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that all adoptions to U.S. families had been suspended, a week after an American woman sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia on a plane by himself — but the issue remained confused, with the U.S. State Department saying there was no freeze on such adoptions.

There appeared to be uncertainty inside Russia, as well. The Education and Science Ministry, which oversees international adoptions, said it had no knowledge of an official freeze. And a spokeswoman for the Kremlin’s children’s rights ombudsman said that organization also knew nothing of a suspension.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department said Thursday that it had been assured that the adoptions had not been stopped.

“Our embassy in Moscow and officials in the department have been in contact with Russian officials to clarify this issue,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday. “We’ve been told there’s been no suspension of adoptions.”

However, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry was clear in asserting that such adoptions had been frozen.

“Further adoptions of Russian children by American citizens which are currently suspended will be possible only if such a deal is reached,” Andrei Nesterenko said in a televised briefing.

“Russia believes that only an agreement that contains effective tools for Russian and U.S. officials to monitor the living conditions of adopted Russian children will ensure that recent tragedies in the United States will not be repeated,” he said.

A U.S. delegation will visit Moscow “in the next few days” to discuss a possible bilateral adoption agreement, Nesterenko said. The State Department confirmed the visit would take place.

The boy’s return — without supervision or explanation aside from a note he carried from his adoptive mother saying he had psychological problems — incensed Russian authorities and the public.

The Tennessee woman who sent back her adopted Russian son last Thursday claimed she had been misled by his Russian orphanage about his condition.

Russians were outraged that no charges were filed against her in the United States.

“How can we prosecute a person who abused the rights of a Russian child abroad?” the children’s rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, said in a televised interview Wednesday. “If there was an adoption treaty in place, we would have legal means to protect Russian children abroad.

Some 3,000 U.S. applications for adopting Russian children are now pending, according to the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, which represents many U.S. agencies engaged in international adoption.

But the numbers have declined sharply in recent years — with only 1,586 U.S. adoptions from Russia last year, compared with more than 5,800 in 2004.

Russia itself has been a big factor in the drop-off, adoption experts said, citing a perception that many children from Russian orphanages can present special challenges, due to such conditions as fetal alcohol syndrome.

Russian lawmakers for years have nevertheless suggested suspending such adoptions, after other cases of abuse and even killings of Russian children adopted in the United States.

Thousands of American adoption advocates had hoped this week to petition Russian and U.S. leaders to prevent the halt in adoptions announced Thursday. Poignant pleas from would-be adoptive parents were included in an online petition, signed by more than 11,000 people and addressed to President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, the council said.

U.S. officials appeared willing to consider Russia’s demand for a formal adoption pact, after years of resisting such entreaties while arguing that an international accord called the Hague Convention would be sufficient once Russia ratified it.

“We’re willing to talk about some sort of bilateral understanding where we would ensure that these kinds of things could not happen,” the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, told CBS television this week.

—

Read more:

New York Times Misses the Mark on Finding Solutions to Adoption Disasters

The following adoption "experts" weigh in on "How to Prevent Adoption Disasters."

• David Smolin, Cumberland Law School
• Peter C. Winkler, social worker
• Diane B. Kunz, Center for Adoption Policy
• Elizabeth Bartholet, Harvard Law School

All four take wishy-washy mid-ground, safe, ambiguous answers like making adoption more "ethical."

MY REPLY:

To put these replies in perspective, one must understand the sources.

The Center for Adoption Policy calls itself “a pre-eminent legal and policy institute engaged in adoption issues.” It was founded and is and directed by Diane B. Kunz and Ann N. Reese. Kunz practiced corporate law for seven years and is Associate Professor of History at Yale University. Reese spent over 25 years in a career in finance with ITT, Mobil Oil, Union Carbide, Bankers Trust and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Jones Apparel Group, Kmart and Xerox. She has an MBA from New York University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. Reese is a director of Their only connection to, or “expertise” in adoption, is that Kunz is the mother of eight children, four of whom were born in China and Reese is the mother of five children, two of whom were born in Romania. Their website reports no source of funding or non-profit status for CAP.

The Center for Adoption Policy (CAP), and the Harvard Law School’s Child Advocacy Program (CAP) share more than the same acronym. Prof Elizabeth Bartholet is behind both. Bartholet is an attorney who lobbies for adoption attorneys who profit from the transfer of children and are more concerned about their bottom line than the best interest of any child. For more, see: http://tinyurl.com/bartholet

Non-profit child welfare organizations (UNCRC, UNICEF, SOS Children's Village, Save the Children, etc.) those with no agenda other than assisting children in need, unequivocally and unanimously agree that international adoption should be a last resort after all efforts to keep families intact have been exhausted. Extended family should be the second line of defense, then community and adoption in-country should all be attempted prior to considering exiling any child - especially an older child - to a foreign country.

Note, too, that the Times neglected to include the many outspoken voices of adults who were internationally adopted who are not all as grateful as one might expect about having been torn form their roots, despite many material advantages. No decisions about the suture of adoption should be made without learning from the real experts who have lived it.

We have 1290,000 children right here in the U.S. who could be adopted. Each country should use all resources possible to find homes for their own children, not import and export them, as do American adoption practitioners whose livelihood depends upon moving children no matter in which direction.

Adoption is privatized, entrepreneurial, greed-filled and dangerously unregulated, exploiting families in need and commodifying children. Scams and abuse are the inevitable result of the lack of regulation and adopters paying for home studies conducted after the child is placed.

Adoption needs to return to being about finding homes, close to home, for children who are truly orphaned or have no safe in-family alternatives, not about filing a demand.

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New York has proposed tax on soda and "aids" drinks. TV ads almost immediately popped up featuring a seeming single mother talking about how the tax impacts the budgets of "family like ours." Like all sales tax, it will impact the poorest the most, while it might also discourage some sugary drinking and improve health(?). However, you need to watch the ad to the end to not that it is sponsored by the American Beverage Association. Then comes the ah-ha... Not exactly a grass roots effort, after all, is it? A bit of a stake in keeping beverage prices from increasing and possibly reducing sales?

Listening to Bartholet and her followers, or the National Council FOR Adoption, or the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) is like asking Philip Morris if tobacco is harmful or bank president about the buyouts.

What happened to balanced news reporting! Seems to only applies when our side is trying to get a story told. I am FURIOUS wit the NYT! They could not chose one out of four who's opposed to international adoptions?!

Always check the sourse. Check the source of funding of studies. And check who is behind campaigns to keep adoptions flowing. Bastardette has an excellent post on the push to keep Russian adoption unforozen