Ok, I get that people are annoyed (and even think I am racist) with that last post, but let’s try another way of looking at it.
If all things were equal, why should international/transracial adoption be a typical white prospective adoptive family’s first choice?
We can no longer argue that there is a large supply of available orphans overseas who can be quickly/easily adopted by American families. Given increased wait times, increases in the allegations of corruption and child trafficking, and decreasing numbers of sending countries, that argument doesn’t carry a lot of weight any more. Sure, the orphans are there, but the orphan pipeline is slowing to a trickle. Also,especially in China, we can no longer argue that there are not domestic adoptive families who want to adopt healthy babies.
If we completely take away the issue of supply and demand, what is the argument in favor of transracial/international adoption?
Who benefits?
Does transracial adoption offer a benefit to the child that goes above and beyond the simplicity of “a family is better than no family?” Beyond the speed and ease of adoption, does the adoptive family benefit more from a transracial adoption than they would from a same-race adoption?
To be clear, I am not asking why this was YOUR first choice, given your family or your child’s particular circumstances. Let’s talk generalities.
Arguments in favor of transracial/international adoption that I’ve seen:
1. You can get babies/toddlers quicker/easier
2. You don’t have to deal with messy birth family connections
3. They’re supposed to be healthier
4. You’re doing more good by adopting internationally, because the children there would have worse outcomes compared to children adopted domestically
5. You have a prior connection to the country in question because of relatives, environment, language, etc.
1 and 2 are all about benefits to the adoptive parents and are neutral or have negative results for the children. 3 is selfish and debatable. 4-5 have potential benefits for the child. 4 is not selfish, but it is debatable. 5 usually does not apply.
Don’t forget saving the heathens!
I agree whole-heartedly that China NSN adoption should end, it is a matter of demand creating a supply; however, I will argue against sn adoptions being closed as there is still a huge stigma in much of the country for those who are different. That being said, I feel that aid to correct minor illnesses and non-visible conditions would allow for those children without visibile differences to remain in China.
As for the issue on a larger scale–international period, much of the time it seems the demand creates additional supply and it is the same children (as the visible sn children of China) that remain looking for families. They still remain on lists waiting for adoption while the nsn children are adopted first, then minor needs, then correctable needs, etc. imo–if it is about saving children (something I do NOT agree with) then you would adopt the child who is most likely not going to get adopted, one who will be ridiculed within their society or denied education, health care, lack future prospects, etc.
I do not agree with the “a family is better than no family” mentality. It typically comes from those who are on the benefiting side–AP’s. It is also highly dismissive of all that is lost when being transplanted from one culture to the next.
Ending corruption is a battle. As international adoption shifts from one country to the next as the big agencies scramble to increase adoptions from country B as country A “runs out” of desirable adoptable children the increase in corruption is more than likely, but most often the norm.
Depending on the reason for adopting, the children available, and the countries circumstances determines my opinion of international adoption as a first option. As a rule, probably not, but there are always situations that arise that may indeed make it the first option. Let’s face it, people can claim all day that America is FULL of adoptable children and there is no need to go elsewhere…a fact that is not necessarily true and not one that is an option for all children or families. Children are individual, their needs should come first–example: a child we were very interested in adopting (age 11, USA) was not really a good fit for our family (although we wanted her to be). She needed to be the youngest or only child, needed to stay in the area she was living, and was doing well with her current therapists–six hours away). We have a five year old, could not move to that area, and would have no way to go multiple times a week to her city. No one else was looking to adopt her–no one. However, it has been two years, I have followed along with her case (yes, I really wanted to adopt her) and she is doing very well now. Her therapy is working wonders, along with medications, and she has a “family” of friends and mentors. A family who could meet her needs would have been ideal, it didn’t happen, but she is making great strides and you can visibly see the happiness in her face that was lost behind her eyes two years ago.
My point is there is no cut and dry answer when it comes to never transracially adopting vs not, BUT the system as it is must be changed and the way orphans are presented as property to attain or rescue must be abolished. Those attitudes benefit the AP alone.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything from this post and your last one, but I DO agree that transracial adoption should be a last resort for a child. I see that my friends who adopted from China, but did not adopt transracially, are able to avoid or minimize some of the major issues we face as two Caucasian parents raising an Asian-American child. Adoption is hard for a child… transracial adoption is that much harder.
Atlasien’s reasons are all ones I have heard before. Another I have heard (about China specifically) is that the children are already living apart from their first families – the separation has already occurred – so the adoption becomes about life in an orphanage versus adoption instead of life with the first family versus life with the adoptive family.
It is ok if you don’t agree with me 100%! Few people do. It is a burden I have to bear.
I think the biggest flaw with the argument that kids in China are already in orphanages may have been true before, but it isn’t now. If you look at the current wait for healthy children, most of the kids who might some day get referred to American families have not even been conceived yet.
If you have a line of people 5-6 years long waiting to pay $5000 per child to the orphanage, it is a huge incentive for foul play/trafficking to increase orphanage numbers. We are seeing more and more stories that point in that direction.
I also read something earlier this week that suggested that we might be creating a “demand” for special needs kids because orphanages get the same amount of money for their orphanage fees too. It was something that I had never, ever considered before, but it also seems completely plausible in a place like China. (Where did I read this? I can’t remember for the life of me. Does anyone else know??)
How do we know that the artificial demand for special needs kids won’t give them an incentive to hand their children over to an orphanage? Given the huge stigma against people with disabilities in China, how much money would it take to encourage a family to walk away from a child they might otherwise have kept? I firmly believe that MOST Chinese families who have disabled children keep them and love them, but if you provide a financial incentive, then what?
Just from my experiences, as minimal as they are in relation to the enormity of China, I don’t believe that the many families with visibly different children would choose to raise them over trying again. “Correctable issues and those not easily seen, yes, but not severe differences. There are too many people in the rural villages that still see this as a bad omen and or unlucky.
I understand that the biggest “demand” for “healthy” children in China right now comes from within China & the $$ is much higher than the “finding fees” that many SWI’s pay to birthparents who relinquish their children. Whether southern province children are outright stolen by criminal rings serving the north and Bejing, or birthparents who are willingly selling their babies to buyers – it’s quite an enterprise, though it’s been happening since before the inception of IA, just seemingly more now – or maybe it’s just that the news is impossible for China to keep the lid on now. I would like to see you explore the issue of social class as it relates to the supply/demand issue within China – the exploitation of southern-rural families for this purpose would be an interesting discussion. Also – how do you feel about informally adoptive daughters within China being raised in a role to serve the family – whether that means factory work which supports the family income or as future partners of male heirs – not as true daughters? Do you feel that the above-listed situations are also preferential to IA?
I think class plays out in informal and registered adoptions (and also trafficking)in China much like it does in the U.S. If a wealthy family wants a baby, odds are a baby can be found (by hook or by crook!). \
I think most children in china are raised to serve their parents (whether they are adopted or not), so expecting them to work to financially support the family doesn’t give me pause.
As for the adopted daughters be a son’s future partner? Yuck. 1,000 times YUCK. That is creepy as hell. I have never seen any statistics on that though, but I wonder if it shows up in the western press because it is actually prevalent or because it is guaranteed to get the attention of Westerners. (I have seen it multiple times and it always makes me cringe.)
I think of that scenario as repulsive as I thought of the story about the American adoptive parents who molested their daughter from China. They are both so far from being acceptable, I can’t really consider them to be something anyone would think is preferable to any other option on the table.
I’m not annoyed. I don’t think you are a racist.
You said all things being equal, so . . .(steeling myself for charges of racism and entitlement). . .
Because the chance to be a family with people who don’t look like they belong together may be preferable to raising “the tribe”. The looks, the questions benefit everyone in the same way that being raised by a gay or lesbian couple benefits the child, causing him or her to be more tolerant and more educated about minority sexual orientation. Let us not forget that an enduring argument against gay men and lesbians raising kids is how negatively people will treat their families. (non-argument: you can’t argue against something by appealing to the very reality people are divided over)
This is assuming favourable conditions, of course. Not when your community is honkytown and your kid is the stand-out in the class. That’s just insensitive. When people adopted transracially raise issues around this, that seems to be what they talk about the most–the larger context. I think people should move if they’re bringing a kid back to a very homogeneous environment. It should be a condition of adoption, and it isn’t.
The fact is, though, that the need is not equal.
Yeah, what Shelly said should be taken seriously, I think. Class is a huge issue in adoption where ever it happens. Nothing is ever “all things being equal”.
You raise some interesting points, however, I think you are working with a much too static understanding of race and culture and *perhaps* discounting how much more multi-cultural even the US is now than when many of the adult adoptees who write blogs were growing up. And about how much more aware many -but certainly not all – people who choose international adoption are of the issues of TRA/TCA. Finally – yeah, I think things in China are changing/have changed and I feel increasingly uncomfortable with the number of very young babies being referred to people who have been waiting for years. I’m also uncomfortable with reports of the buying and selling of male babies within China.
Adoption is messy. I think people who choose international or transracial adoption have just chosen their particular form of the messiness.
I can’t tell other people what to do, of course. But after 22 years of marriage to a man who was adopted from Korea as a baby, I can see that the pain the adoptee experiences does not end there. If it is at all possible to avoid, then it should be avoided.
I adore my husband, and am wildly grateful he’s come through the worst of the identity issues, but I would not wish this on a child of mine. No way.
I apologize in advance for the length of my comments…
“If all things were equal, why should international/transracial adoption be a typical white prospective adoptive family’s first choice?”
Your question appears to assume that the family in question could simply choose to easily and quickly adopt a healthy white infant domestically, a premise which is simply incorrect. That said, some prospective parents choose not to enter the private adoption marketplace due to ethical concerns with that particular system and choose instead to adopt internationally because of the perceived relative moral superiority and more stable timelines of at least some of the international programs.
Others choose to try to adopt from the domestic foster-care system because they are unwilling or unable financially to enter into the private adoption marketplace (A private adoption can cost in excess of $40,000. The average cost in 2008 was between $20,000 and $25,000.), or because they simply want to make difference in the life of a child. In FY2006 62% of the 129,000 available, waiting children were non-white or Hispanic. In choosing a domestic foster-care adoption white prospective parents are entering a system where they are roughly twice as likely to be placed with a child of a different race.
And some white adoptive parents may well choose international adoption from countries like Russia or Ukraine precisely because they can assure themselves of adopting a Caucasian child, and thereby avoid parenting trans-racially.
“We can no longer argue that there is a large supply of available orphans overseas who can be quickly/easily adopted by American families.”
Is the criterion the number of orphans, their availability or the speed with which they can be made available to American families? If the criterion is only the number of orphans then I must point out that there is, in fact, a depressingly large number of orphans in the world:
• About 1.5 million children in the CEE/CIS live in public care. In Europe and Central Asia, over one million children live in residential institutions.
• In 93 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of orphans (children aged 0–17 who have lost one or both parents) was estimated to be 143 million at the end of 2003; of those children 15 million were orphaned by AIDS, more than 12 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Asia has the highest number of orphans due to all causes, with 87.6 million children (2003). Source: UNICEF, Child Protection Information Sheet, “Children without Parents”
The speed with which prospective parents expect to be able to adopt from an international program, or at least the expectation that eventually they will be able to adopt, certainly influences their decision, and understandably so. Predictability has its appeal and often there is little or none in domestic adoption, especially if the potential white parents are not open to children of a different race.
Wendy O said “I do not agree with the ‘a family is better than no family mentality.’” Again, I respectfully disagree. Empirical research demonstrates quite conclusively that orphanage care is detrimental to a child’s development. In the nearly 20 years since Americans and Europeans first began adopting from Romania we have learned, to our horror, the effects of institutional care on the developing brain. The Bucharest Early Intervention Project published results from their multi-year, longitudinal study on the effects of institutionalization on infants:
“Three main findings emerge from this study.
“First, … children reared in institutions showed greatly diminished intellectual performance (borderline mental retardation) relative to children reared in their families of origin. Second, as a group, children randomly assigned to foster care experienced significant gains in cognitive function. Lastly, at first glance our findings suggest that there may be a sensitive period spanning the first 2 years of life within which the onset of foster care exerts a maximal effect on cognitive development. However, a closer reading of our analyses suggests a more parsimonious conclusion: That the younger a child is when placed in foster care, the better the outcome. Indeed, there was a continuing “cost” to children who remained in the institution over the course of our study. “ Source: Cognitive Recovery in Socially Deprived Young Children: The Bucharest Early Intervention Project, Charles A. Nelson, III, et al., Science 318, 1937 (2007), DOI: 10.1126/science.1143921
I should add that the study found that children raised by their biological parents fared better than either the institutionalized children or the children placed in foster families. You might also want to read the .pdf version of The Bucharest Early Intervention Project’s presentation “Care Orphaned, Abandoned and Maltreated Children” for more information on the study’s findings.
“Also,especially in China, we can no longer argue that there are not domestic adoptive families who want to adopt healthy babies.”
There is undoubtedly more visible domestic adoption occurring in China than in years past, however even if one were to take the unverifiable number of domestic adoptions (60,000) given by the CCAA at face value, that number represents only about 5% of the estimated 1.2 million children abandoned annually. Additionally, there seems to be a good deal of evidence that the majority of child-trafficking now happening in China exists to feed domestic demand for healthy children and the southeast Asian sex trade, not to supply children to orphanages for international adoption.
Finally, I would like to point out that the US is a sending county as well as a receiving country. I would love to know what you all think of the adoption of U.S.-born African-American children by families in Canada and Europe.
Additional Sources: HumanTrafficking.org, China Digital Times, Ask Jane in China Yahoo group, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families.
I am very aware of the multitude of factors that adoptive parents consider when they choose an adoption program/method. Almost all those reasons you are listing as the reasons why people choose to adopt transracially are about the ADOPTIVE parents. I don’t think anyone is arguing there are not legitmate reasons for those choices.
I was asking people to take those issues (the needs and wants of adoptive parents and their desperation for babies) off the table so we could just discuss the transracial/cultural aspect of international adoption.
You and I quote similar stats on the number of orphans globally, I used those stats here when I noted that 90% of orphans are being raised in some kind of kinship care. That leaves only 10% (roughly 1.4 million) orphans with the potential to go on the international adoption “market”.
Are there 1.4 million orphans out there available for U.S. families? Heck no, because the vast majority of countries agree with UNICEF’s stance that children have a right to grow up in their own country and culture. Countries who allow their children to be adopted internationally are a huge minority.
In the last 3-4 years, there has been huge shake up in the world of international adoption, many due to programs closing because of charges of child trafficking specifically to feed the huge demand for babies in wealthy developed countries. There is no predictable guarantee of a baby via international adoption any more. Show me an international adoption program and chances are it is at a risk of closing sometime in the not to distant future.
As for American children being adopted abroad? I think there would be far fewer American babies in need of adoption if this country didn’t do such a crap-ass job of providing support and health care to expecting mothers in crisis, not to mention the stigma around single/teen motherhood that still exists.
It is also my understanding that some of those babies are being sent to other countries because their birthmothers believe their children will face less racism in other countries and have a perception that no one wants to adopt Black babies here. It is something to think about, that is for sure.
I had meant to start off my oh-so-long screed by saying that I’m not annoyed and I don’t think that you are racist. I think that a substantive discussion about the issues surrounding international adoption is far more interesting and useful than playing “Let’s All Dance Around the Ladybug Bush”.
Thank you for kicking off the discussion.
I am not annoyed either, but it is hard to discuss in a coherent fashion because there are so many different issues that come into play. Talking about just one facet leaves people saying but! but! but!
“I think there would be far fewer American babies in need of adoption if this country didn’t do such a crap-ass job of providing support and health care to expecting mothers in crisis, not to mention the stigma around single/teen motherhood that still exists.”
~~~~~~~
I really like this point. I remember reading another adoptee’s post (Mei-Ling) about how many people say that adoption is about the “start” of a family, but they often forget that it first begins with the destruction of the biological family.
And so I hope well-meaning adoptive parents can recognize that and if they truly want to help the children, they should think of ways to help the family stay together in the first place.
Are there benefits for the children who are adopted trans-racially? All other factors being equal, meaning that a same race family or the child’s biological family has the same access to resources like food, shelter, education, etc. that the adopting other race family has? Is this where you’d like an answer?
Clearly there are detriments to not looking like the rest of your family or the rest of your community especially if you are the only ‘other’ to be found. I get that. God, I get that. After living in Asia for two years I get ‘othering’ much more profoundly than I ever thought possible and cannot wait to sink back into anonymity for a time when we visit the States for Christmas. Whenever I get tired of being stared at, touched, prodded, treated inappropriately or the rest of it I remind myself that here my girls are the ‘same’ and I can bear a bit of ‘other’ing for them to have that.
Still, I do think there are benefits to being multi-cultural/multi-racial/multi-ethnic both in communities and yup, even in families. The benefits I might name are most likely deeply rooted in my own liberalism/leftist leaning notions of culture and identity and probably need some rethinking before airing them in public.
Also, you note that you are the minority in your own family. As I count it no one in your family has the same cultural or racial make-up – a Chinese-American born of two Chinese (Taiwanese?) parents in America, a bi-racial person born in America, a Chinese born adopted into American family person and a white girl. Yes? Are you conflating race and ethnicity and culture? That the rest of your family is somehow Chinese and you alone are not?
Anyway, I remain a proponent of international and transracial adoption, but don’t think it is for everyone and want very much for more careful work to be done on how to do it well. Do you have any suggestions of recent books/articles? I know that much has been written in the past few years whilst I’ve been without access to an English language university or public library. I’d love to hear any reviews you might have.
I was thinking along these lines:
1) If the process of adopting a child of color or a white child were the same, is there a benefit to adoptive parents to adopting a child of color?
2)If there were equally qualified potential adoptive parents of the same race as the child vs. potential transracially adoptive parents, is there a benefit to the child to be transracially adopted?
According to UNICEF, there are estimated 100,000 Chinese children abandoned each year, not 1.2 million. There are between 500,000 – 600,000 orphans in China but the vast majority of these are living with other families in a kind of informal adoption arrangement and the rest are basically homeless and living on the street. Most of these children are not available for adoption. CCAA has stated often that the number of kids actually available for adoption is around 50,000. Today, most of these kids have special needs.
hmmm I think, well actually I don’t know what I think. My sister lives in CA and had one adopted and one bio kid, she is white, he’s CBC ( canadian born chinese)there adopted daughter is laotian/japanese?/american but domestically adopted at birth. I have 2 kids both adopted domestically when they were much older (6 and 8), international adoption was not an option for us but I also felt like I wanted older kids who really needed a home.
That being said, I think that culture is very important in raising children and I do think that many cultures can be represented within one family successfully and if you are a parent who wants to do ( as challenging as it may be) that then adopt children from where ever you feel called to BUT and this is where I get on my soapbox, if you are going to bring those children back so you can turn them into perfect little citizens who have no sense of their culture or birth country than I think you should leave them alone. I do think that race and cultural play a huge role in personal idenity and to ignore that is to create a gap for that child can not be filled with love or a good education.
For the record – I don’t think you’re racist either – duh for whoever asserts that
This debate is an important one – and you’re right…so many factors. And for the record – I want to snerk at the term “Honkytown” from O Solo above. A brief lol moment.
amber, here are a few provocative benefits to adoptive parents that i can think of:
1. they get to think they are not racists (or at least distance themselves from their white privilege) because they have a child of color.
2. by extension, a nation that “accepts” and “embraces” transracial families gets to think of itself as a tolerant, diverse, progressive, “civilized” nation.
3. they get to be seen as generous, giving, charitable, big-hearted.
4. by extension, the same thing about the nation that accepts and embraces transracial families.
5. some might argue that transracial adoption, especially internationally, is a form of conspicuous consumption that proves a certain class status. that class status has a lot to do with demonstrating the kinds of neoliberal values that i am talking about in points 1 through 4.
6. adoptive mothers benefit from not having to go through the labor of pregnancy and labor. i realize most adoptive mothers would have preferred to do this, but it is labor nonetheless: it’s expensive, difficult, and time-consuming labor that i did not have to do as an adoptive mother. this of course is not limited to transracial adoption.
7. adoptive parents get to have a more “interesting” story than their friends who have “just” given birth.
8. the nation in which adoptive parents lives gets to see itself as a more just, progressive nation than the nations from which the children are “sent,” thus helping to justify its relative power and status in the world.
i realize that most parents are not thinking about how to glorify the US or canada or the netherlands when they adopt. i wasn’t. but these “benefits” still accrue. i think we should start seeing the ways that transnational/transracial adoption benefits not just adoptive families but the nation as a whole: the way we want to represent ourselves and our values. these serve real strategic needs not just for parents but for our nations.
so, there’s something.
I think this list hits on sore truths, and I would add another one: adoptive parents of benefit from the adopted child widely being perceived as more than ordinarily “cute”. As the mother of babies who were perceived that way, and good friend to more than one mother of babies who weren’t, I feel like that’s a tangible benefit.
“According to UNICEF, there are estimated 100,000 Chinese children abandoned each year, not 1.2 million.”
Could you please provide a link to your source? The data I was able to find from the UN – “Progress for Children: A Report Card for Child Protection”, dated September, 2009, states quite specifically that UNICEF is unable to provides estimates of birth registration, child marriage, child labor, etc. for China as China will not provide data to the UN.
“CCAA has stated often that the number of kids actually available for adoption is around 50,000.”
Yes, and in 2001 China told the UNICEF “In China, there are 46,808 orphaned or abandoned children, most of whom are disabled and under state care.” Source: 2001 CHN: Children in Institutions and Other Forms of Alternative Care in China I don’t think that anyone believes that particular number, and yet that was the official number reported.
As they say – “never believe statistics you don’t falsify yourself”.
“I think there would be far fewer American babies in need of adoption if this country didn’t do such a crap-ass job of providing support and health care to expecting mothers in crisis, not to mention the stigma around single/teen motherhood that still exists.”
I agree with your complaint about the lack of support and health care available to expectant mothers, however the stigma surrounding single motherhood seems to have existed in the white population and now seems to have largely disappeared.
Among children born to never-married women under 45 years of age, percentage who were relinquished for adoption, by race, according to year of child’s birth: United States, before 1973–2002
according to year of child’s birth: United States, before 1973–2002
(truncated to fit here)
Race Before 1973 1973-1981 1982-1988
All women 8.7 4.1 2.0
Black or African American 1.5 0.2 1.1
White 19.3 7.5 3.2
Source: Jones J. Adoption experiences of women and men and demand for children to adopt by women 18–44 years of age in the United States, 2002. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Stat 23(27). 2008. Statistics
Also noted in the text of the report “As noted in the ‘‘Methods’’ section, relinquishment in this report includes infants relinquished during the first month whereas in previous reports relinquishment was limited to those infants relinquished at birth because, of the estimated 6.8 million babies born to never-married women 18–44 years of age between 1996 and 2002, too few infants were relinquished at birth (without being named) by the biological mother to produce statistically reliable results (not shown).”
The study makes for fascinating reading, BTW. It looked at not only the characteristics of potential adoptive parents but also at the “Characteristics of the Adopted Child That Women Would Prefer”.
Interesting discussion, and not a simple issue.
My issue is not the race of the adopted parents but the general cluelessness. Most white Americans who adopt from China are oblivious about both China and racial and identity issues. And, of course, parents who assume that white=normal/better, and exoticize their adopted children, have no business transracially adopting.
On the other hand, I know white parents who have lived or still live in China, who speak Mandarin, who are more conversant in “Chinese culture” (but the actual, live variety, not the fetishized variety), who have adopted Chinese kids. They live in multi-ethnic, heavily Asian communities, whether in Asia or in the US. But – even for them is it better? If they stay in China, the kids get to keep their birth country identity while having all the advantages of being US nationals, growing up bilingual, etc. On the other hand, by tint of their adopted parents, they’ll grow up as foreigners and outsiders in their birth country.
It’s not restricted to adoption – I’ve seen some kids of transnational families grow into sophisticated global citizens, but others into lost souls fitting nowhere.
Back to adoption, keep in mind that China remains a very poor country. The urban glitter is a mask, a false face to impress foreigners. 5-10% of Chinese are well-off, but mostly at the expense of the rest of the people, and the prosperity of the minority drives up the cost of living for the majority. Of course all the child trafficking is immensely disturbing. But there are still a lot of abandoned kids – albeit a lot of them older.