What I seldom hear first in the message of “called to adopt”

By TAO

I have hesitated posting this for several days, but I have decided to go ahead because I think it is something I need to say.  Something has bothered me but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but first let me take a step back putting the concern on ethical adoptions for only those who truly need adoption aside for the moment…

 

Lots of Links…

A Framework for Thinking Ethically an excellent article that describes the many different types of ethics and well worth reading and then thinking about which of the 5 Sources of Ethical Standards you most often apply in your life.  A teaser to the article below.

What is Ethics

Simply stated, ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on.

It is helpful to identify what ethics is NOT:

It then discusses what ethics isn’t and then goes to the 5 different thought processes or approaches to Ethics.  Fascinating read – I hope you enjoy it.  Something all prospective parents should read, understand, and apply to the adoption process instead of naively believing there is no corruption in adoption because their agency told them so.

PEAR posted a DOS Adoption Notice: Ethiopia – More Orphanage Closures Announced which is an updated list that now has more than 2 dozen closures. 

My question to anyone who knows – are these orphanages true orphanages based on our western understanding, or are they simply part of fulfilling the requirements for adoption referrals for international adoptions under Ethiopian Law and as such simply part of the pipeline?

Thanks Henry for commenting and reminding me to post a link to Nepal — Paper Orphans documentary posted on the web: Terrific documentary on the Bal Mandir kidnappings.  By the Swiss INGO — Terre des Hommes.

Amanda at Declassified Adoptee has a thoughtful post her recent Adoptee Rights Presentation and then on the different responses she got to her photo post that came out of seeing the Occupy Pittsburg protest on her way home.  Yesterday’s Photo: a Response to Some Responses  It made me sad to realize that most likely the negative responses came from those who should be standing alongside fighting for our rights.

Another thoughtful post from Insert Bad Movie Title Here on how words impact us.  The B Word

Malinda at Adoption Talk has posted about an article that reminds me that self-deception is alive and well in adoption land.  “Children choose their parents”

And finally Sunday posted a link to this blog on twitter that gave me hope.  I don’t know the blog and haven’t read any other posts but it was filled with a lot of hard questions that had no easy answers and everyone should read it.  Orphan Sunday: November 6 Preventing Orphans   

 

 

Doing it right matters…

Thanks to all the parents who have been actively engaged in talking about ethics in adoption this past week after they saw something that crossed the line in the sand.  They have started a dialogue and discussions on ethics in adoption are happening on many different blogs.  I hope it is a discussion that is never stopped. 

These are the same moms who have spoken up in the past and have withstood the attacks of other misguided AP’s and PAP’s, because they aren’t willing to be silent when silence equals acceptance of extremely poor ethical conduct.  Unfortunately, some AP’s and PAP’s still do not hear and would rather use God phrases to justify bad human behavior, but take heart that some will heed your words. Please always be ready to speak out when you see things done wrong. 

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

~ Woodrow Wilson

Every single prospective adoptive parent and those adoptive parents who have not yet done so, should read this book.  Every. Single. One.  A book that describes horrific lack of ethics and actions when power and bad intentions take center stage.  A book that will make your stomach turn, and one you won’t want to read but cannot stop reading.  After you have read this book you will realize that in various different guises, it is still happening today and you will wonder why no one ever learns from history.

The Baby Thief The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption by Barbara Bisantz Raymond

Finding adoptive homes for institutionalized orphans could have kept Georgia busy for decades.  Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be satisfied with merely finding homes for homeless children–she’d become obsessed with finding adoptive homes for children who already had homes.  She would acquire these children through kidnapping or deceit, and if she saved them from anything it was poverty.

Georgia considered poverty the worst possible condition. ”It was her upbringing, she was from a very snobbish family that looked down on people in those shanty houses who got their hands dirty for a living.” Andre Bond of Biloxi, Mississippi, told me.

Georgia felt she was taking children from “trashy people and elevating the children,” Christine Nilan of Nashville said.  Christine had been adopted through Georgia by a cultured, educated family whom Georgia frequently visited. ”It was as if she thought, “There’s something that doesn’t belong over here; I’ll put it over there,” Christine told  me.

Georgia often boasted about having placed children with “high type” adoptive parents, and she expected grieving birth parents to be comforted by this fact.

The back cover states in part: 

This is the harrowing story of Georgia Tann, who from 1924 to 1950 stole or otherwise separated more than 5,000 children from their families.  Whether abducting children outright or tricking new mothers still groggy from anesthesia into relinquishing their babies, Tann covered her tracks by replacing the names of birth parents on “amended” birth certificates.  Her ploy was legitimized by officials who legalized closed adoption, claiming this would spare adoptees the taint of illegitimacy.

Scores of children in the custody of Tann’s Tennessee Children’s Home Society died, making Memphis’s infant mortality rate the highest in the country.  Yet Tann was publicly lauded for her work.  She also amassed a personal fortune selling children to the wealthy…

Barbara Bisantz Raymond is an adoptive parent who researched Georgia for 15 years and also found many adult survivors of these adoptions..

Ethics matter and I do not believe the adoption industry wants to talk about ethics unless it is simply a pat phrase such as we are the most ethical agency in the industry or some other marketing ploy.  They don’t want to talk about it or have adoptive parents talk about it, because frankly it is bad for business.  They would rather down play or dismiss concerns when a business that deals with children should strive for the top echelon of ethical conduct and blacklist any person (AP, PAP, or employee) or agency who does not meet only the highest of standards.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

~ Francis Bacon, “On Innovation,” Essays, 1597

Most, if not all of these parents talking are on my blog roll if you want to get involved in the conversation.

 

Really?

Step Forward for Orphans March: American families to protest U.S. policies

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 15, 2011 –- American parents of children stranded in orphanages around the world will take to the National Mall to march to the U.S Capitol on August 26. Dubbed the Step Forward for Orphans, the march is designed to bring attention to the dire situation that’s affecting orphans around the world.

So from reading the first paragraph the reader would jump to the conclusion that the adoption was finalized, done deal, the process complete which includes in international adoption authorization from the receiving country for the child to immigrate.  Feel free to correct me but unless the parents plan to relocate their country has to approve the immigration and the sending country has to approve the adoption? 

These families, many of whom have been waiting three years to bring their children home, have been caught in disheartening and mind-boggling limbo. These Americans are known as “pipeline” families. They were approved to adopt from foreign countries like Guatemala, Nepal and Vietnam and even paired with specific children, but they have been prevented from bringing their children home due to bureaucratic wrangling here and abroad. In many cases, these families have been blocked from all contact with their children, prevented from visiting, calling or writing, leaving these children alone with only photos of their families and the promises they made.

But this paragraph only states they were approved to adopt from foreign countries like Guatemala, Nepal and Vietnam and even paired with specific children.  So which is it?  The adoptions were complete? or they were approved to adopt and some matched?

To me there is a huge difference.  Crude comparison but to me the difference is kind of like being pre-approved to get a mortgage contingent on the home you pick, acceptance of your offer by the seller, completion of the paperwork vs. having completed the purchase of your home.

The fate of the children of these American parents remains unknown as new adoption procedures are drafted, treaties brokered and high-level discussions continue. This hasn’t been going on weeks, or even months. A lack of urgency on the government’s part has stretched this separation of families into years.

And yet the third paragraph again makes the reader jump to the conclusion that the adoptions were completed by calling them parents…

So I am going to go out on a limb and if the Americans were only approved to adopt from one of those countries and lets say they were matched, or even that the sending country finalized the adoption - why have they not found other homes within the country to step up and adopt those kids?  Surely that would have been the first solution that came to mind when those countries closed international adoptions due to corruption – get the kids out of the orphanages and into good homes – you know “in the best interests of the children“.  With all the many different religions doing missionary work in those countries for decades, surely they could have worked within the community of their church or another church to find “good Christian families” willing to take in these children and allow their Christian counterparts in America to be Godparents to them – no?  Would that not have been the obvious solution for those children?

What am I missing here? 

And besides the above reading the rest of the article just made me mad. Why aren’t they marching to get the corruption out of the adoption industry – that seems to be the place to start doesn’t it?  It would certainly give them more credibility if they marching to end the corruption that caused the closure of those countries to IA in the first place.  To force tough laws in the US that included redefining the US trafficking definition to include illegal adoption cases, so there could be real punishments for the bad guys – so no one dared to do it wrong – in either country…

 

My Comment to the Post “Fundraising thoughts”

I’ve always struggled with the whole fundraising thing. If you knew me, you would know that I always try to put myself in the other’s shoes first, sometimes, or really, most times, to a fault. What would I do, if I were in that position? I can understand a person doing things like having a garage sale to raise money. What I can’t understand and get past is playing on others sympathy by advertising the reason for the garage sale, bake sale, dinner, or whatever, by using the child’s unfortunate circumstances. If a person asks the reason, why not tell the truth, that you want to adopt and are just trying to raise money to do so. Advertising the reason by posting a picture of the child, or telling the congregation about the poor orphan, turns it into something totally different from just coming up with the money to pay the adoption expenses.

I see nothing wrong with trying to do what a person has to do to come up with the money needed. It’s what people do when they want to buy a home, a car, or build a swimming pool in the backyard. You earn the money; the key word there being “earn”. Can you imagine what your fellow church members would think if you held a BBQ dinner in order to raise money so you could buy a new house? A few friends and family would help you out, but probably not many strangers or acquaintances. Most would probably even be a little put off by it.

Becoming a parent, whether you give birth, or adopt, costs money. It’s just a fact. What would the congregation say if you were pregnant and held a bake sale at church in order to help pay for the hospital stay and prenatal care? Have you ever heard of such a thing? Someone in the church might see your need and ask others to help by donating something, and giving it out of the goodness of their hearts, but would you ask them to do so? Were you to ask, I’m sure there would be those, who were generous enough to help, but probably not as generous as they would be if a poor, pitiful, orphan, from a poverty-stricken country, was staring them in the face. Those commercials for “Feed the Children” immediately come to mind. How can anyone not contribute to the cause of saving a child from their unfortunate circumstances, especially when a potential adoptive parent has so very much to offer?

Why not host a fundraising dinner to help get the funds for infertility treatments. What would happen if you posted a picture of you and your spouse, looking so longingly at a crib, on a flyer? Surely some people would, well, want to help you out, and donate? Is it really so hard to see why fundraising to get the money to adopt a child is offensive, especially to adoptees. Can people really not see why it is advertising, why it is a form of manipulation? Even more offensive is asking people to “help us bring our baby home”, when that baby is not theirs to begin with, at least not until the adoption is finalized. I really cannot believe people cannot see the hypocrisy in this.

Its one thing for people, or a church, to take it upon themselves to help out potential parents, it is what they do when they see a need, it’s entirely another when they use a child’s unfortunate circumstance to play on the sympathy of parishioners, and others, to get money. Is it really so hard to see how that is using the child, your future child, for personal gain? Do what you have to do, but is doing it at the expense of your child’s privacy, and well-being, really how you want to begin your new family? What will it teach your child? Will it teach them that when you want something bad enough, it is acceptable to play on the compassion and sympathy of others to get what you want?

When I think of fundraising in adoption, what it says to me is simply one thing. It says “entitlement”, whether it be potential adoptive parents, the church, or agencies. When I hear of the outrageous amounts of money people pay to adopt internationally, I am truly amazed. When I hear people advising potential parents to “Do whatever you have to do“, I hear them saying, “It’s all fine, as long as you get what you want“, with no consideration given to the child, or their feelings. After all, look at how much better off that child will be, and, seriously, people wonder why we, adoptees, talk about feeling obligated and grateful. No one has to tell us we should be grateful. It simply implied on a continuous level by well-meaning people, and society.

Most adoptive parents don’t expect their adopted children to feel grateful. You don’t have to expect it. We will do it anyway. It’s just part of the deal, and I would imagine, though I can’t speak for international adoptees, that it is even more so when they hear their stories.

Though I won’t argue that it might be part of God’s plan for a couple to adopt a child, I don’t see God’s will in it at all, especially when it comes to potential adoptive parents intentionally holding fundraisers playing on the compassion of others, by posting a picture of the child and asking for a handout. What I see is the “human will“, hard at work. If you truly believe adopting is something God wants for you, then trust him to help you find the resources without soliciting everyone you know, and even those you don’t by playing on others sympathy for a child’s unfortunate situation.

There are thousands of missionaries all over the world doing all they can to help improve the lives of children, and the families of these children. These missionaries left their homes, and families, to do the work of God in places most of us would never dare go, much less be able to survive in. They risk their lives daily for God, doing God’s will, which is to spread the Gospel and love one another. Why doesn’t anyone hold garage sales, bake sales, and spaghetti dinners, to raise money for these missionaries, thus enabling them more money to do the work of God in these situations? Why is it that special offerings once or twice a year are taken to support these missionaries, who are there witnessing and doing what they can to help improve the lives of children all over the world? Do you realize what these missionaries have given up in order to help improve the lives, and simply love children all over the world? Why is it we give our offerings in church, and then expect that the church will take care of the missionaries, providing them with funds to continue their work? Do you really think that is enough money to help them adequately do the job at hand?

Do you have any idea what a missionary can do with $30,000-$50,000? Do you know how many children you can help with that kind of money? When God instructed us to take care of widows and children, I have a hard time believing that he meant we were to take the children of their country, away from their culture, and origins. What about the thousands of children, right here in the USA, who need loving parents, and a home to call their own? You don’t need $30,000 to $50,000 to adopt one of them. With so many children, right here in the USA, in need of loving parents, it really pushes me to question the motives of anyone holding a fundraiser to adopt internationally. When I think of the cost, the amount of money needed for international adoption, and what that money could do when used properly by missionaries all over the world, well, all I can do is shake my head, look to God, and wonder if he looks down on the human race and says, “What was I thinking?”