Disappointment
I could regale you with yet another post of yet another trip to the zoo (and this one included not one, but TWO, beautiful little two-year old girls from Oscar’s orphanage, which made the day extremely special), but I won’t. Instead, I’ll write about what’s been racing through my mind for the past week.
A terribly upsetting news story was recently broadcast on Australian television focusing on adoptions in Ethiopia. Most of you adopting from Ethiopia or who already have done so probably have seen this video. I hesitate to write this for fear of engaging in hyperbole, but I think it’s fair to say it was tragic. The most upsetting aspect of it (to me) was a clip from a waiting child DVD sent to prospective adoptive parents by an agency called “Christian World Adoptions”. In this segment, a woman sat surrounded by children and seemingly some parents and presented the children to the PAPs watching the DVD as being available for adoption. During this process, she said to the people around her something to the effect of “if you don’t want your children to be adopted, please don’t stay.” I am definitely paraphrasing, since I have watched this only twice and do not plan to watch it again. The gist of it was that she was asking parents to relinquish their children for international adoption and the tenor of the piece indicated that this was unsolicited by these parents.
I don’t know how many of you have seen waiting children DVDs. I have to say that, personally, I believe that they are distressing at best. I understand why agencies make them available, but they are extremely tough to watch simply because of their subject matter. Watching video of children available for adoption who are in need of parents should distress us. Watching video of children available for adoption who actually have parents who may be able to care for them should terrify us. I am not saying that the only children who should be adopted are those with no living parents (and please don’t call those kids “true orphans”). I am saying that the only children who should be adopted are those whose first parents or other surviving family members have made their own decision, free from coercion, to make their children available for adoption.
People are rightfully upset as a result of watching this story. We should be. While I think the piece itself was meant to be provocative, probably even shocking, in order to garner attention and ratings, the clip I referenced above was compelling. I do think that there were some glaring inaccuracies in the story that detract from the overall credibility of the piece, but the seed has been planted. How exactly do these kids end up in these orphanages?
As you might imagine, reactions vary greatly online. Families with the agency in question appear to be standing behind them. Families who have already adopted from Ethiopia appear to be saying that this is a result of the influx of new applicants for adoption and this never would have happened back when they adopted. Families in process appear to be confused and a bit afraid. I’m obviously in that last category.
People keep asking what the answer is here. How can this be prevented? I don’t think there is a simple answer.
I don’t think the answer is to shut down international adoption. We can pretend that there is no need for it, but I don’t believe that is the case. We can say that there are alternatives – people or governments can sponsor or otherwise provide for families living in poverty in these regions and that could prevent the need for adoption. A great idea, but it’s not happening on the scale that would be needed, and more importantly, possibly, is that a great many of us do that in different forms, and it does not appear to be eliminating the need for adoptive families.
People also like to say that the UNICEF statistics of the number of orphans is greatly exaggerated. Fine. I’ll agree with the premise. So there aren’t 5,000,000 orphans in Ethiopia who are available for adoption. Are there 500,000? 50,000? Even 5,000 in a year? Because even if 1% of the overblown number is accurate, there are more orphans available for adoption than are going to be adopted in a given year.
I think one thing we can do is engage in much more pointed conversations with our agencies both before and while we’re adopting. So many PAPs appear timid, as if they believe if they ask the hard questions their agency will blackball them. First, if that is the case, perhaps a second look at your agency is in order. Second, I think we want to know the answers to these questions sooner rather than later to prevent being caught unaware when we hear stories like this. The hope, of course, is that this is a complete and total outlier, and that “stories like this” will not occur again, but I do think it’s useful to have whatever information we can gain in this process. Believe me, as an adoptive parent, you’ll be happy to have the answers in the future. We should all better understand the process of how children are relinquished and brought into the care of their respective orphanages. Where are the weaknesses where impropriety could occur? What do our agencies do to prevent these issues?
I think we also have to also stop being so impatient when it comes to referrals. I get the impatience, don’t get me wrong. I just cringe when I see a post on a group where someone talks about getting a referral in X months and there is an immediate response saying “which agency???”. You know people are then moving to that agency expecting a quick referral. And you know that agency is going to be getting calls from those people, frustrated that their referral did not occur in X months. And the question becomes – are some of these agencies going to become a bit more creative in how they manage their average referral time. I think sometimes it might be prudent to remember what a referral actually signifies.
Many other things come to mind, which I’m sure I’ll eventually bore you with, such as conducting independent investigations prior to travel. But for now, I guess I’ll just keep hoping that people will continue to discuss these issues in a thoughtful manner, without resorting to hysteria. I do not think this story taints all adoptions, although it should make us all think a lot more critically about the manner in which we’re choosing to form our families.
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