I was reading Reform Talk’s FacePalm Friday post and they highlighted this…
Why Does Adoption Take So Long? from the Adoption Diaries Blog…
The post starts off with pretty standard fare for adoption today, but then it veers off into the place no one today wants to admit…money talks and people lie…
Has anyone out there been able to speed up the international adoption process? I realize that it’s quicker to adopt an Indian daughter if you are Indian and live nearly anywhere. It also helps to possess wads of adoption cash.
Domestically, I spoke to a single dad of two adopted American children and although he won’t go on the record (he is a gay dad who had to lie about his partner throughout the Home Study and adoption paperwork) this gay did swears that the second adoption only took a few months because everyone knew he was ready to plunk down $80,000 for a perfect little blond, Caucasian newborn.
(Off the record, this dad told me that his first adoption of a transracial child — also a private adoption via birth mother and attorneys — took much longer than adoption number two. He confirms that thick bank accounts can speed your process along.)
Hmmm…I wonder how the life book starts off for the perfect little blond, Caucasian newborn. I lied on my homestudy to be approved to adopt and then I spent 80K…
Recently, I had a prospective adoptive parent lay into me for daring to say in another post “An adoptee can already feel the sting of how money plays a role and fundraising may add to this feeling of being a commodity…how would you like to feel bought and paid for? (although she left out “feel” in her response). No, of course adoptees don’t feel the sting of how money plays into adoption. Why, we would be silly to view some adoptions as transactions.
Good grief…
Yes, I know there are parents and agencies who would never do this, and I would hope they are the vast majority…but if you don’t publicly call out bad practices…over time it becomes acceptable practice and the norm, and the race to the bottom just accelerated. We know this is what happens – it used to be illegal in most if not all states for the adopting parents to pay any of the relinquishing parents expenses pre or post adoption – now that is the norm and part of the advertising by the agencies to get the mothers to contact them – it also is the subject of valid concerns on whether or not - it adds pressure (coercion) on the mother…
