cross cultural adoption...?

Question

Just wondering how people justify it considering that the geneva convention declared that removing kids en mass from their culture to be placed and raised (through adoption and foster care etc) by the mainstream culture is a form of genocide. I have seen the talk shows where kids WITH their a-parents say its good. talk about biased, they arn't gonna say boo tp the mouth that feeds them. But of all the adults who were cross culturally adopted I have NEVER met one that thought it was a good. Thing. So A-parents. How do you justify removing a child from their culture, their religion and beliefS? Giving them white names and white lives? Do you think it is better for them? Do you take them to interact regularly with their people? Do you raise them in their peoples religion or yours?

Answer 1

I'm not an A-parent, but I wanted to chime in.



Re: en masse - We Korean adoptees, the first wide-scale international adoption program, were adopted one-adoptee-at-a-time. To date, there have been 161,558 Korean children that have been sent abroad between 1958 and 2008. (MHWF – Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs report) These figures do not include the adoptions that occurred between 1954 when Holt began international adoption and 1958. Nor does it include private non-agency adoptions. The estimate is closer to 200,000 when you include these non reported adoptions.



I'd call that en masse.



Re: shiny happy adoption talk - guilty as charged. Until my parents died.



Re: removing a child from their culture, their religion and beliefs - like many other Asian adoptees, when all you see is white people, you are expecting to see a white face when you look in the mirror, and it's a little disturbing when you don't. And the different way people react to you makes you know racism exists. It isn't until you grow up that you recognize the racism you've internalized and how uncomfortable Asians make you feel. That's so messed up, you don't know.



Living in my birth country now, I don't see how anyone can justify taking a child from a place where they SO FIT IN.



Re: justification - Except for war when parents are KILLED or children who are abused, the justification of benevolence seems very weak to me. There are so many benevolent acts which can provide assistance for temporary crisis, improve social services and preserve many families, but that doesn't happen because the real priority is acquiring children for privileged people who want them. And that's just gross.



Would they help the child if they didn't get to keep it?



Call it justification if you want. But this international adoptee calls it rationalization.

Answer 2

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm pretty comfortable with my choice in adoption. You assume that I have no understanding of my children's culture, which is untrue. We lived in country and completed the adoption there. Our children were not taken from their country which implies that we came in and left with children. I speak my children's native language fluently and continue to talk to them in both languages.



You are also assuming that my children had no say in the adoption process. As a part of the government adoption, older children must agree to the adoption for it to go through. And before you say that all children would do that--I personally know people whose adoption was ended when the children said no (not like a friend of a friend).



You are also assuming that people want white children and force children into that mold (not to mention that you assume all cross cultural adoption is trans racial adoption which it is not). My children have their names--no one changed them. You also assume that cross cultural adoption requires a change in religion which is not at all the case in my situation.



You also seem to assume that they were active participants in their "culture" and that they would "fit in," which is not necessarily the case. My children were not welcome in their culture--they were outcasts who could not get adopted. You seem to believe that all cultures are egalitarian and everyone born into a culture fits in to a culture. My children were treated as pariahs because of the circumstances of their births. In addition, they were true orphans who had no known family and were never adopted within the culture because the children were seen as "dirty." And again, before you doubt this, my oldest child was old enough to remember all of this--which is why we spend so much on therapy...



Can you imagine being forced to live in a country where the people hate you because of your birth status? My children (a sibling group) were beaten in the orphanage by the other children. So, do I think it was better for THEM, yes. My children smile and laugh. One of my children noted this saying he never understood that laughter wasn't mean and angry until he met us. Before that all of the laughter he experienced was AT him. It is not any child's job to fix any country-wide issues. No child should be expected to face a life of torture particularly in the name of the geneva convention.



Having said that, I also understand the difference between adoption and paying for children by perpetuating the poverty that can cause families to be separated. My children are adopted, but we continue to donate money to their native country so that children are not separated from their families because of financial constraints. I am not blind to the issues in International adoption, but it is important to note that there are many positive outcomes that can come from an International adoption experience.

Answer 3

I was adopted internationally; my birth country put in policies that encouraged my parents to abandon me because I wasn't male then didn't pay for the health care I needed because they didn't provide prenatal information.



My parents raised me with as much Asian culture as they could, even sending me to afterschool language lessons. China doesn't have a stat religion, but they did teach me about Taoism and Buddhism along with every other religion (one parent's an atheist, the other's a moderate Jew, I'm Jewish with strong Taoist influences). I have two names, Chinese and white, I chose to use the "white" (actually Jewish) one but got stuck with a nickname regardless.



Most of the countries where children are adopted into the West are overpopulated. The Chinese will not go extinct any time soon.



Human beings are so much more alike than they are similar.

Answer 4

You see too much color and not enough PERSON. It doesn't matter that someone is raised by a person of a different race, IT MATTERS THAT SOMEONE RAISED THEM! You've never met ONE? Obviously you haven't met very many people who are adopted and their parents are a different race than them.



Remember this: usually, biological parents CHOOSE the families their children go to. If THEY thought race differences were a big deal, don't you think they would have GIVEN their children to people of their race?

Answer 5

You're giving a child a good life and a loving family. How does that need justification? How selfish can you adoption-haters be?

Answer 6

Justify it? I certainly didn't remove a kid "en mass", I only removed one. Thats hardly "en mass".



Also, my daughter was 8 months old when she came to us and was on deaths door due to malnourishment and neglect in the orphanage for the previous 8 months. I could have certainly left her there however she wouldn't have been able to enjoy her culture as she would have been dead.



At least my daughter is now a happy and healthy 17 year old who can research her culture, experience it and even move back to it one day if she wants. She can practice any religion she chooses and believe what she wants. She still has her east Indian name and as far as who we socialize with and pray with...that is really none of your business. The bottom line is alive today to do all of this. Something she would not have been if she had been left in the orphanage.



And just so you don't assume, we didn't parachute in and scoop a child. We happened to have lived in the country we adopted from for 3 years during the time she chose to adopt.

Answer 7

I have 6 internationally adopted cousins and they all are glad they were adopted. 2 were from India, perhaps doesnt count because their adopted grandfather was Indian and their adopted mother Indian blood born in England. But they came to Britain, to a place in the country where almost everyone else was white.

My bio mother adopted four older children (11-13) from Ethiopia. They kept their names. They have always gone to Ethiopia once a year for 2 weeks for Ethiopian christmas (different date to ours) and Timkat (bigger than christmas). She had an African restaurant and shop, and a friend from West Africa. Religion - they can't go to an Ethiopian Orthodox church because there isn't one. They go to a catholic church. But they're free to believe whatever they want. When in Ethiopia they go to the Orthodox.



They all think having a family and a home of your own, and love, is more important than keeping your culture, religion and beliefs.

Answer 8

First of all, if you want to read some books about the perspective of transracial adoptees check out: Inside Transracial Adoption and In Their Own Voices. You don't know any trans-cultural adoptees that felt it was a good thing? I know several. An adult adoptee from Korea was the first person to suggest to us that we consider international adoption.



But to answer your other questions:



1) My children were living in an orphanage in a developing country embroiled in a civil war for almost their entire lives. Their biological family made the decision for them to be adopted by Americans. We spoke to them. Their traditional culture had been entirely replaced by a culture of war, rape, brutality, starvation and disease. My children still have nightmares about it. We didn't change their religion.



2) We did not change their names, just tacked on our family surname. And since we live in a very diverse area, I'm not sure what you mean by "white lives". Sounds like a very baited statement. I imagine I'm supposed to say that by providing adequate food, shelter, love, education and healthcare that I am providing a "white life" so that you can come back and call me a racist. But I'm not taking the bait. Sorry.



3) Do I think it's better for them? Absolutely. No doubt. And so did their biological family and their country of birth. It's pretty ethnocentric to assume that the governments of other countries and their families aren't able to decide if adoption is the best thing in a terrible situation.



4) Do I take them to interact regularly with their people? I keep the door open to making return visits. But because of the trauma they endured while living in a culture of civil war, they are very fearful about going back. In small doses, they are willing to interact with immigrants from their home country and continent, but at times even that is fearful for them.



5) We had the same religion. But if there was a difference, we would have supported it. In fact, we had resources already lined up to help us.



ETA: Walter, thank you for proving my point. Because according to you, parents of children aren't capable of deciding whether or not adoption is in their children's best interests. No, they need spoiled kids like you, who have never gone a hungry day in their lives, to tell them what they should be doing.



Until you've lived in those conditions, you have zero ground to stand on.

Answer 9

I agree with Jennifer L. completely! My sister and her family adopted a little girl from Japan. They named her Aiko(love) Nanami(seven seas), because they brought her from an unsafe orphanage that provided no love at all, overseas to America. I personally am fluent in Japanese and I know everything about Japanese culture. I've taught her about Buddhism and Shinto, but she chooses to go to the non-denominational church our family goes to. I don't appreciately people like you that think just b/c someone adopts abroad they will brainwash the kids to be completely Americanized. Its a ridiculous assumption! >:-(

Answer 10

They haven't heard of or believe in sponsorship especially the Aps that claim to know the real parents of children from countries in midst of civil wars.



Its a shame that some parents have to let their children be purchased by adopters just to save them from the affects of war and/or poverty due to no fault of their own.