Back to Adoption

Joylynn asked some doozies in the comments on that most recent adoption post, so here are my answers, plus some bonus angst.

How do you understand the roles of women of color as 'sending' or 'giving' their children and the roles of white women as 'receiving' or 'taking' the children? When I went to the INCITE! conference in New Orleans last year, there were speakers who identified themselves in their bios as stolen from various Asian countries by Americans, when I would have said they were adopted. What do you think about that?

Back in the day, my knee-jerk political response to international adoption was to say "that's imperialistic." And now, I still think that it is imperialism that has led us to this place in which women of color are "sending" white women their babies. And imperialism is bad.

But--and this is how I feel about domestic, transracial adoption too--I don't think it's the adopters per se who are the imperialists we need to jump on. I mean, they are part of the overall problem in the social and political sense of being inheritors of privilege that comes from unjust relationships between people and nations. And some adopters are more enlightened about this privilege than others and some adopters have more paternalistic racism than others and assume it's inherently bad to be a girl in China or anyone in Guatemala or Vietnam or whatever. But I think most adopters probably fall somewhere between well-intentioned white liberals and downright anti-racist activists.

I think that transcultural, transracial adoption is with us because of a chain of injustice that goes back a long way. But I think it's a shame that the responsibility for that injustice falls, sometimes disproportionately, upon the heads of adoptive parents, who often enough are deer-in-the-headlights about the whole thing. And as much as it is everyone's responsibility to know what they're doing and where these situations came from, there's a big machine in place (white supremacy) that systematically miseducates Americans in general and white Americans specifically NOT to see history and not to see injustice and it sends up images of poor little children "in need" to replace political outrage with sentimentality.

So while I agree with the people you met at the conference that one-way (darker children to lighter parents) intercountry adoption is evidence of something deeply, deeply wrong with our world, I don't think adoption is the site at which it can be fixed. It needs to be fixed way, way, way back before you ever get to adoption.

One thing that drives me nuts sometimes, is the assumption that if you are a transracial adopter, you must be a political naif who believes "love has no color" and you've done the world a favor by rescuing a child from its own inferior race.

Um, hell no. I don't think any of that. I don't think as many transracial/transcultural adopters think that as I used to, either. I think that there are plenty of transracial adopters who see their family's origin story as a mandate to be activists about the kind of injustice that led to the adoption in the first place.

I once heard an anthropologist say that if he did his job right, he'd make himself obsolete. That's kind of how we feel about parenting Nat, and living life in general. (It sure sounds like I'm leaning further and further towards agreeing with Dawn about no adoption existing in a perfect world, doesn't it? I'm still not ready to say that with 100% certainty, though.)

We figure that if Mama Rose had crappy choices constrained by racism and poverty and we got Nat out of that situation we owe the universe in a BIG way to work as hard as we can to make life better and choices more just for Mama Rose, women like her, and their children.

But on the other hand, it is typical too-little, too-late American thinking to place the onus of this pursuit of justice on white adopters of non-white children. It's a way to nearly guarantee justice won't ever come. Not because we aren't going to earnestly pursue it, but because every single white person in the U.S. needs to take responsibility for this stuff. Picking on adopters is a waste of energy, frankly. At the point of adoption, it's too late. Baby has been relinquished because birth mother didn't feel she had any other choices. Adoptive parents want a child to love and raise. Not adopting wouldn't do anyone any favors in that specific moment.

Do you wonder about resentment from Nat? All children resent their parents... I met an Aboriginal women this summer who said that her adopted family loved her, but she never felt at home with them. She was always concerned that if they were angry, it was because she was black.

You know, she is going to resent us for something. We're giving her an array of options. We're gay, we're white, we're planning to home school. We are just plain freaky freaks who look and act and vote weirdly. She'll likely hate our music, or our clothes or the place we end up living and rearing her. She might very well hate all of these things about us when she's 14. Maybe between 12 and 21.

But what are you gonna do? I think it's sad that the woman you met doubted her family on the basis of race. I don't know that woman or her family but I have read all those books of interviews of transracial adoptees and some felt out of kilter in their families and some felt perfectly fit. I wonder if you did a giant survey, if you'd find a significant difference in the percentage of people raised in their bio families and people raised in adoptive families who felt like they didn't fit in their family? My guess is that it wouldn't be much difference. My guess is that adoption might stand in as an excuse sometimes.

Sometimes I read these things and the kids talk about how they didn't really understand what being black was all about until they went to college or something like that. They had sort of a racial awakening. Hopefully, we'll be able to raise Nat with a clear, happy and complete sense of the many facets of her identity including race, but if the worst-case scenario is that she has a racial coming-out experience in college, I'm not worried.

I had a coming-out experience in my mid-twenties, and it did my soul good. No queer child (well, not until recently, anyway) is raised with a strong sense of his/her "people" and culture as queer. We are all aliens raised in families that don't know how to impart that aspect of our identity to us throughout childhood. But families of origin can do better and worse jobs of supporting children through coming out experiences. I do run "worst-case" scenarios through my head sometimes and if Nat comes home from college all Black Nationalist radical and calling white people devils, that's okay. If she doesn't come home for a while because she's sorting it out, that's okay. We'll love her enough to let her do what and be whom she need to when she needs to. It may not always be easy, but that's parenting, right? I think when people are parented well, they come "home" to the good values their parents gave them. Sometimes those values take a radically different form or expression than their parents' did, but there's a bottom line shared. So who know what Nat will do and who she will be? But I trust she will do it well and be a good person. Maybe even that is an unfair expectation, but it seems like a reasonable enough one.

And now for the angst. To have another child or not to have another child? If so, how? We are currently considering just heading back onto the list at our agency and getting a second healthy newborn, waiting until Nat is a bit older and fostering toddlers and maybe adopting if the chance arises, waiting until Nat is considerably older and fostering teenagers and adopting if the chance arises, and (drumroll) adopting an HIV+ infant (probably an infant) from (most likely) Africa.

Then again, we could do none or multiples of these things. The one we know least about is the Africa possibility. Does anyone have any experience or know anyone with experience adopting in/from Liberia? In our deciding and thinking we want to find out as much as we can.

Also, if you are interested in adopting a child who is HIV+, please let me know and I'll point you in the direction of the program our adoption agency started to locate children and match families. It is an all-international program, because very few (almost none) children are born HIV+ in the U.S. anymore, due to preventative treatment in pregnancy (which of course is a very good thing!). It seems that most of the children they locate range from just under one year old to 8 or 9 years old but the vast majority are around 2-4ish.

The angst arises in this scenario in particular because that "rescue a child" motivation to adopt certainly kicks in here. Ironically enough. But again, whatever horrid global racism and even genocidal thinking has led to the AIDS crisis in Africa, there are children left without parents or other adult family members who need homes and quality medical care. And while we will fight for them to get those things in their home countries, in the meantime, we could be giving them to one child right now, while also adding a second child to our family which we may want to do anyway. Efficient, no? hmmm...

What do you all think?

Comments

[Joylynn]

Your answers reminded me of something important. The 'systems of oppression' exist before you act. It is hard for me to remember that while doing the the up close/in your face research. But those systems are why I am doing my research. Thanks Shannon, I think I needed the reminder to zoom out a little.

[Sarah L]

I feel like a learned a lot from this post. I bet you are a marvelous teacher.
Sarah

[Ally]

Brava. I don't understand people who are flat-out anti-adoption. The fact that there are children without families is certainly an indication of something gone wrong. But like you said, how is the solution to NOT adopt? I especially loved the analogy you made between growing up gay and what Nat will experience growing up black in a white family. I do feel badly for adopted children who never felt a part of their family, but guess what? I never felt like a full-fledged member of my family either. I was a product of divorce raised by my grandparents. I didn't fit anywhere, not in my Catholic school, not with my mom, not in my dad's family. It's human nature to feel alone within the crowd.

Here's something I struggle with. We have a bio kid, but I've always been interested in adoption. Long before we got married, dh and I decided that, if we had problems conceiving, we'd adopt rather than pursue fertility treatment. Now that we're getting a little older and it will probably be a few years before we could afford another child, I think more and more about adopting, especially adopting an older child. But, while I don't doubt my capacity to love an adopted child as much as my bio child, it opens up such a huge can of worms. We have some time yet, but it's been on my mind lately.

[afrindiemum]

I don't know much about Liberia. We looked into adopting from Ethiopia, where there is a similar crisis with HIV+ babies and would still love to later on in life. Good luck whichever way you choose to go.

[shirky]

Well, when I think about international adoption, the first issue for me would be the necessity of representing ourselves as unrelated and unattached straight people.
I know there are many gay adopters who do not find this problematic, but it would be for me. All the work that has been done--by us and by others--to make our relationship legal, recognized, and secure--we're very grateful for, and very mindful of. And our identities as gays are also important to us.
Those are the things I always come back to when I think of international adoption.
Well, I also think about travel. Do people travel when adopting from LIberia, though?

[Tatjana]

I'm biased because I'm planning to adopt special needs from Ethiopia, so of course I think that's a wonderful idea ;-) There are a couple of Yahoo groups for people involved in adoption from Africa, e.g. adoptafrica and ethiopiaadopt.
Do you know this blog about a family adopting an HIV+ 10-year old from Ethiopia?
http://www.bringingdestahome.blogspot.com/

[lorrie]

Awesome post! Compassionate, articulate, wise--two thumbs up!!

I hate the whole system that led me to my daughters in China. But they were already in the orphanage. It seems ridiculous to let two beautiful children stay there because I was trying to make a statement.

My obligation, as I see it, is to support the girls homeland for my sake as a thank you and for their sake as Chinese women. By giving to reputable charities that encourage in-China foster care, etc.

[Maria Morris-Burke]

As always you have written with intelligent and loving concern. As the mother of a Lesbian daughter I found great strength in your coming out experience and I know you will rely on that same strength to see you through Nat's teen years. The struggles and youthful rebellions may not be as difficult as you anticipate. The thing to remember is that you are the best mother that you can possibly be....the rest will take care of itself.

[cluttergirl]

wonderful posts Shannon. Intelligent, articulate, in depth. I am sure when it is not 5am after being out on the town I'll have something more intelligent to say too, but I am very interested in the issue that shirky brings up. It is the wall I bump up against constantly in the adoption game, esp since we don't have domestic open, private or agency adoption. I would like very much for you to address this topic of what you will do if are thinking seriously of adopting internationally. Thankyou.

btw the photos of Nat's baptism are stunning. I love the Happy Family one near the very end. It is just beautiful. She looks so surrounded with love and family in the whole album. I esp like the one with her grabbing her Uncle's lips too. :D Congratulations on a beautiful ceremony. Has Uncle David found a date yet?

[Mieke]

You are a better woman than I am. I couldn't adopt.HIV+. My heart would not survive the death of my baby (which realistically is how it would end up, even if it took 20 years).

We have numerous friends who adopted from Ethiopia and that is our plan too (in a few years).

If you go to my blog and put "layla house" in the search you'll see a lot of links about it and a FANTASTIC story about the Orphans that AIDS is creating all over Africa, but in particular in Ethipia that Melissa Faye Green wrote in the NY Times magazine Dec. 22, 2002.

Her adoption experience in 2002 was so successful that she and her husband went back last year and adopted a ten year old boy