I have 2 children adopted through the SN program from China. Every time I look at them, the joy I feel at having these 2 incredible little people in my life is shadowed by the sorrow I feel knowing that I shouldn’t be the one with that priviledge; that they are here with me as the result of tremendous losses for them, and for their first families.

I ask myself repeatedly if by adopting my children, I in some way contributed to those losses, either for them or for future children. It’s a difficult question to face, and to face honestly. And I think the answer is different for both children.

My son’s chances for a family domestically were slim to non-existant; his chances for a place in Chinese society as it is now and for the forseeable future were grim. (ok, to clarify: a place other than on the lowest strata of Chinese society) This doesn’t mean that his losses aren’t significant, just that I honestly believe that international adoption was truly the best option for his finding a family and having a bright future. And, I hope the fact that he and other children like him are wanted and considered desirable by international families, will influence Chinese society to reconsider their attitudes towards children and adults like my son.

My daughter, however. . . her SN is not visible. While I suspect that it may well have been known and contributed to the decision to abandon, once treated I don’t think it would have impacted her future in China. Once in China, we had the great priviledge of meeting her foster mother, and were told that her foster family had wanted to adopt her. However, they didn’t have the funds to do so. . . and they were “too old”. Now, we can give our daughter more “stuff”, and a better education than she probably would have received in China, but we can’t love her any more than her foster family did, and we can’t give her the pieces of her identity they could have preserved. And, unlike one of her listmates from that orphanage, she didn’t need treatment not available in China to survive.

Can you tell I feel incredible guilt over my daughter’s place in my family? Had I not adopted her, some other international family would have. . . but why should ANY international family have had the chance?

Of course, there are aspects to that I can’t answer: if her foster family didn’t already have her, and know and love her for the child she is, would she have been domestically “adoptable” as a girl with a corrected special need? Would she have gotten surgery without the influence of international adoption?

And, for me, the largest question of all: Did my children’s parents have the money to pay bribes, fines, for medical care, etc, and if not, were they abandoned not for their gender or the social impact of their special need, but because their parents couldn’t afford to keep them, or to get them the help they needed to survive?

There are no easy answers, in the world as it is, even to the relatively narrow international focus to the larger issue of adoption.

Thanks for commenting again. I agree that all the great things you listed above (childcare, education, etc) should be what we work toward as a society. I just don’t think that a mother who chooses to parent but needs assistance is necessarily getting more than anyone else would get. You can take advantage of financial aid based on income at any age, parent or not. The same things that should be helping a young parent, whether they’re single or not, too, should be helping you, who “waited” to have kids and work hard to support them. If we want to talk specifics, WIC is surprisingly open in the income guidelines. I can tell you that an E4 in the Army with 3 dependents qualifies easily. On an E6 income we received a grant that helped pay for childcare when I was in college for the second time. That grant was not just for young mothers or even just for parents going to school. It helped parents who were working to support their families get quality childcare. It is probably only now, on a Lt’s pay, that we have phased out of being eligible for programs like that, although I don’t know exactly because I have only used them for short periods when they were absolutely needed. I’m not an expert on this at all, but I think that shows at the least that the kind of assistance being spoken of does not all go down a drain of people who aren’t working hard or being responsible.

I think the thought process that is so appalling to me is the one that thinks teen mothers aren’t working hard because they happened to experience a pregnancy at a young age. I’m sure there are mothers like your SIL; there are mothers who are neglectful who have no money issues. I just think that using individual examples like that is a way in which we perpetrate the kind of thinking that says the majority of teenage mothers will probably end up like this, an idea that helps fuel the kind of pressure that leads a teenage mother to think she is being selfish or irresponsible to keep her child rather than passing it off to people who made the “right kind” of decisions. What are the right decisions, anyway? Lots of women are faced with the reality that their method of birth control failed them, even careful ones. That’s not something that hinges on the age of the woman.

I guess the most important thing I want to ask, and the thing that disturbs me the most about the subtle social judgment going on here, is why I’m seeing a woman being able to keep her child, even though she’s young, even though she’s poor and needs assistance in getting on her feet, referred to as “rewarding” her for “bad behavior”. I think the mindset that views that as a “reward” is pretty dangerous and exactly the kind that leads to a lot of the problems inherent with adoption systems that AmFam refers to.

I think I misrepresented my comments a bit. First, to Brittany, I absolutely did not mean to imply that you, or anyone else, should not be allowed to parent. I’m just not sure that choosing to parent (at any age) should result in someone being given extra assistance beyond what others would get.

I agree that health care, sick leave, affordable quality child care, and even universal education up through college SHOULD be the norm here. However, until they are, I think there’s the potential for inadvertently “rewarding” certain choices.

For instance, on a microscale, my sister-in-law J had her first child as a teenager and now is a single mother of 5 kids. Her parenting is quite neglectful, and luckily her mother steps in and provides the bulk of the parenting and financial support. However, what this means is that my mother-in-law cannot help financially support J’s two younger sisters as they attend college. Actually, J’s two sisters end up babysitting the children more than J watches them, even though both of them work and go to school while J is often unemployed. J’s two sisters are quite bitter because they feel that they are being penalized because they made what their mom taught them was the “better” choice (notice, this was a value within their family, and I’m not suggesting it’s the “right” societal value). And I can see their point – because my MIL helped so completely with her first child and then with the subsequent children, J didn’t fully deal with the consequences of being a mother and readily continued choosing certain behaviors that led to having more children, because the pain wasn’t really hers to bear. So, to bring this back, I just have a concern about the system getting set up where it financially benefits someone who makes a choice to have a child at the expense of those who wait to have a child. [Note: I am not suggesting that my sister-in-law is the norm, but I also don't think she's the only one in a situation like this.]

I think international adoption has put more of a spotlight on human rights violations in China. For one, I think orphanages in China have improved, children are receiving better care and there is a much larger number of children in foster care now. International adoption is a reason that more people are even thinking about orphans in China. How often to you think of orphans in Romania? There are still orphanages there and children who need parents. But because international adoptions are closed, people aren’t thinking about it any more. At least one good thing to come out of international adoption is that more people are becoming informed and passionate about the situation in China because it now affects them personally.

Personally I don’t feel like I have any influence on how China chooses to run its adoption program or how China’s government policies lead to abandonment. These are things that are not within my control at all. I can hope that someday children will all be taken care of in happy and healthy homes. I can hope that adoption can someday be hardly ever necessary. I can do my best to make sure my home is happy and healthy. I can encourage other parents to think about the welfare of children everywhere.

I’ve talked about this with my extended family in China and the reason is that most Chinese only see a Hollywood-ized version of the US.

They believe that America is the “land of opportunity.” People are rich, have multiple cars, and live a comfortable life.

Whereas in China, life is hard and full of competition.

Things like cultural-loss, self identity, and quality of life doesn’t compare to America’s standard of living.

But the fact is there are happy people in both America and China. And there are unhappy people in both places as well.

So I guess it just depends on what people think is a “better” life.