“Instant adoption” promoted by UK charity

At this blog I learned of a new adoption scheme being proposed by Coram, a children’s charity in the UK. The plan is as follows:

• Babies taken into care immediately after birth (substance abuse and imprisonment mentioned most commonly) are transferred to prospective adoptive parents when they are days old.
• An agreement is made between the PAPS and the natural mother through Coram about visitation and contact.
• The natural mother has one year to “get her life together” (in the parlance of these schemes) and reclaim her child.
• The charity commits to helping the natural mother do the above.
• If she can’t do the above within one year, the PAPS become the adoptive parents of said child.

The goal of this approach is to “prevent very young babies from being moved around while decisions are made about their future.” Theoretically, it could also prevent placement in a sub-standard foster home or homes, said to be at the root of attachment disorder.

According to the head of adoption at Coram, Jeanne Kaniuk,

[T]here are so many advantages it should be taken up by all children’s services departments. She said: ‘It is crazy that there are not more local authorities using concurrent planning. It is a great system for parents who want to adopt a baby, although obviously they carry all the risk and have to be quite courageous.

‘It is very sympathetic to the birth parents, who are given help and support and every chance to show they can care for their baby. It speeds up the process and a decision is made early. And, of course, it is good for the baby.’

It should be noted that only a small handful of children placed by Conram have been reunited with their original mothers. Also, there is no discussion of what happens to the adoption (how closed or open it remains) once it is finalized.

The charity is urging other jurisdictions to implement its scheme, known as concurrent planning, because it’s better for everyone, faster, and about £25,000 cheaper for the system than your average adoption.

Thoughts? Comments?

Filed under: adoption, kids, life , concurrent planning, contact, Coram, instant adoption, natural mother, PAPS, substance abuse, UK charity, visitation

Save the Children dishes the “orphans” statistics

The well-known international charity Save the Children has done its own research in Central and Eastern Europe, Indonesia, and Africa and has concluded that four out of five “orphans” have, in fact, one living parent, usually living in the same community as the orphanage.

According to Voice of America,

In a new report, the charity describes how children are treated as commodities in an industry that recruits children in order to profit from international adoption and child trafficking.

Louise Melville from Save the Children says in some countries running an orphanage is lucrative because, she says, governments and well-intentioned donors invest heavily in orphan care.

“Orphanages tend to attract a lot of donations from well meaning individuals, churches and other organizations,” she said. “And I think a lot of people don’t realize that the vast majority of children in those orphanages have one or both parents living in the same community as their child.”

Had a hard time locating the actual name of this report but I finally found it in this press release from Save the Children Canada. The report is called Keeping Children Out of Harmful Institutions. I have yet to find a link to the report itself, but the Canadian press release contains more information about the publication and the findings than the Voice of America article. Example, from the Canadian newswire:

In Central and Eastern Europe almost every child in an institution – 98% – has at least one living parent. In Indonesia that figure is at 94% and in Ghana 90%.

It’s time for everyone to retire the 143 million figure when talking about adoption.

Filed under: adoption, kids, life , adoption, Eastern Europe, institutions, Keeping Children Out of Institutions, orphan care, orphans, Save the Children, Voice of America

Hissyfit over Find My Family

ABC’s Find My Family airs today, Monday, November 23.

It’s about search-and-reunion. Period. That’s what the show is about. It is not a show about adoption or how great it is except as a backstory. From ABC:

The producer of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition created this show with one simple mission—to bring families back together. With the help of a dedicated team of researchers, hosts Tim Green and Lisa Joyner guide people searching for lost loved ones through the emotional journeys that will change their lives forever.

Filed under: adoption, kids, life , ABC, adoption, Center for Adoption Policy, family, Find My Family, Rainbow Kids, real families, search-and-reunion

Adoption: Groan in my heart and the total bitter truth

This is not about My Lil’ Guatling, but something like it. It’s my own lil’ Guatling. Like your own lil’ Waterloo.

Last week, it got me kicked off an adoptive-parent list.

Admittedly, ignoring all Internet etiquette I shot my mouth off in another forum and someone learned my take on things. My comment was harsh, uncompromising, and personal. Also, maybe, I was hypocritical. By remaining on the list, I appeared to embrace a pejorative. Why stay? Because like any parent who adopted internationally and is now searching I welcomed any information about my daughter’s origins, though the list often made me angry. There was a full-blown discussion of Gotcha Day that was notable for peeling back not one micro-layer of advantage or entitlement.

I will not state the name of the group, the pejorative, or the phrase that reminds me of talking about your new Pomeranian.

(However, somebody pointed out to me that this post is hard to understand without some background. With that in mind, the issue is about China, an orphanage-assigned surname, and a word created out of the surname.)

I will only say this:

Appropriation of cultural expressions is never acceptable by adoptive parents. Taking the name of something that is filled with history, meaning, and loss and turning it into a jamboree is wrong. That name does not belong to us. We don’t own these girls, and we don’t own their history. As has been pointed out to me so often before, our children might one day revert to their original names. Though the idea basically stops my heart, what I accept is that our children only come to us because they were supposed to be in some other place, with some other people, and it all went south. Especially in the case of children named by orphanage staff, that surname represents no less than that total bitter truth.

It will be argued by some that the name doesn’t matter because the work of the group is to put girls from the same region in touch with each other. No one can challenge the goodness of that. But names do matter. In my twenties I attended a party full of wealthy couples where the hostess announced to her husband after inquiring about my background, “Get this little Greek girl a drink.” Across a lifetime that incident has remained my one-and-only encounter with ethnic prejudice, yet to this day I can still remember the room we were standing in and what I was wearing and how those words made me want to crawl under a rock. Imagining myself an adopted child in, say, Sweden, treking to “Our Little Athenas” every year and wearing a chiton would probably make me as mad as Tobias Hubinette. Seriously, you wonder?

Undoubtedly, the people in this group will swear that there is nothing nefarious about the name they have chosen to celebrate their daughters’ heritage. And there are girls in the group who are old enough to have an opinion and would think my position insults the good work of their parents. To them, I apoligize. And I accept that I handled it all wrong. I should have joined the group and objected to the name immediately and openly and let the chips fall where they may instead of venting on another forum and making it personal. That part wasn’t so nice.

About three months ago, something happened that brought things home for me. For years, my daughter’s health card carried her original Chinese name because of a glitch on her landing paper. When her permanent resident card was updated we took the opportunity to change her health card. Announcing the change to hospital staff at her most recent asthma appointment, I blurted out, “Yup, F- B—– ’s gone. It says Pegis,” and turned to see my daughter looking at me with absolute and COMPLETE horror and dismay. When we talked about it later I apologized, saying that this was an example of how it’s almost impossible for a non-adopted person to put herself in the place of an adopted person. And I promised never to do it again.

Because that name belongs to her and no one else and only she will decide how it is used.

Filed under: adoption, kids, life , adoption, adoptive parents, China, ethnic discrimination, Gotcha Day, names, Tobias Hubinette

Are men attracted to smart women?

This all started because I noticed recently that this post, in which I confessed to loving David Gergen and one my colleagues blurted out that

ahahaha! did you see him blush in the video? he’s so cute when he’s all “Gergeny!” i just love his baked potato head. it’s full of smartness and stuff. *swoon*

. . .continues to have a nice viewing audience. Also there was something about the image of the baked potato head being “full of smartness and stuff” that kept making me laugh out loud and then the big rock fell on my head: women really do think smart men are sexy.

And the reverse is not true.

Men learn to love smart women but it doesn’t come naturally. Smartness for men, I would wager, intially reduces sex appeal but it’s something they can think themselves over. If they’re smart, heh-heh.

The same doesn’t go for gay men or lesbians, though.

Smartness is sexy for lesbians and gay men and their partners, all-ways, two-ways, every-ways because they’ve freed themselves from continuing the species. Lucky them–the same rules don’t apply.

Straight men need to father as many children as possible. Straight women need to pick that special guy who can help her raise a child.

Hence smart men are sexy.

Smart women are the equivalent of the species thinking outside the box.

So don’t go all insane on me. In answer to my own question, yes. But not immediately.

Filed under: Hillary, critical thinking, life, solo life , David Gergen, do men like smart women, gay, lesbian, raise a child, sexy, smart women, species, straight

Ohio letting moms raise children behind bars

Apparently, the number of women in prison just keeps going up and up in the United States. So Ohio has started a program that will let pregnant inmates give birth to, raise, and keep their babies in prison with them. Why?

Drum roll, please:

Some experts say that approach is best for both mothers and their children because the women are less likely to commit crimes when they get out, and children get to be with their moms during critical periods of their development.

The naysayers claim that prison is all about punishment and that kids don’t belong behind bars. But the research looks convincing at this point:

Programs for convicts and their babies are relatively new, and little research about their effectiveness has been done, according to [Chandra] Villanueva of the Woman’s Institute.

In her study, she found Ohio prison officials looked at the program at its five-year mark and found 118 mothers had participated, with just 3 percent of the women committing another crime within three years of being released. Of the general female prison population 30 percent commit another crime.

Only 3 percent of kids born in prison go into foster care, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, Parents in Prison and their Minor Children. The overwhelming majority live with the other parent or another family member. However, those figures most mostly describe the situation of men. Pregnant inmates have fewer options.

Filed under: adoption, fatherlessness, kids, life, solo life , bonding, crime, foster care, inmates, moms in prison, Ohio, punishment, Woman's Institute

Christian publisher angers Asian-Americans with gibberish cover and fake accents

“Kung Fu” to sell Christian books was Zondervan’s brilliant publishing and marketing strategy.

Gulp.

The Michigan publisher’s 2007 book Deadly Viper Character Assassin: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership was supposed to help Christians develop character and integrity but instead it’s recently ignited a firestorm about appropriation of Chinese and Japanese (“what’s the big diff?”) cultures by two white authors, one of whom is a pastor and the other who runs a place called www.xxxchurch.com

Can’t say for sure if this idea got passed around the way publishing ideas are supposed to, but I suspect not. Missing—the guy or gal who looks you in the eye and says, “You wanna do WHAT?”

So now Soon-Chan Rah, an evangelical Christian, author, and professor has called the authors and Zondervan on the racist overtones of the book and charged them with appropriating Asian cultural symbols for their own profit. You can read a series of blog posts on the subject here (where you can see some icky promotional pictures) and here. Please note that the Facebook videos appear to be locked down and if you aren’t a member, you won’t be able to access them.

To see how one of the authors reacted initially, go here. Both authors are now in apology mode but so far, Zondervan isn’t.

Highlights:

• The book uses gibberish Chinese characters and kanji (Chinese characters used in modern Japanese). That’s right; apparently, that red stuff on the cover is just a bunch of nonsense squiggles.
• The book “orientalizes” threats to integrity of character starting with the creepy cover image and then embracing other caricatures.
• Its marketing videos and images are offensive and stereotypical.
• It confuses and conflates the distinct cultures of Japan and China.
• The two white dudes don’t have anything to do with Japan or China.

I should add that some people think this is OK.

Filed under: critical thinking, life , Asian cultures, China, Christian leadership, Deadly Viper Character Assassin: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership, evangelical, Japan, Soon-Chan Rah, stereotypes, Zondervan

Child for Sale, unknown gender, Indiana, up to $39K

Last night I visited the Christian Adoption Blog where . . . OK, stupid thing I did. Commented on the children-for-sale listings known euphemistically as “adoption situations”.

To the untrained eye, it was noted (politely and without sarcasm) that they appear to be offering children for sale. Could they supply us with a financial breakdown? Needless to say, my comment has not been published.

Y’all know I paid. The money went to the first agency (lost the $5000 fee but we shut them down); new agency fee—around $1500; fee for the home study paid directly to the social worker; document fees paid directly to the various gov’t agencies involved; travel, hotel, and spending money for the mandatory 2-week stay in China (2 locations, 2 hotels); and the then-US$3000 orphanage donation. That added up to about CDN$20K. A huge chunk of the money went toward traveling to China and staying in hotels for two weeks. These people are doing domestic adoptions. ???

What’s weird and perverted is how in the current marketplace some of their “adoption situations” are worth $16K and some are worth $39K.

Why is that?

Can somebody please step up and explain why the African-American boy from Illinois costs $15K and the caucasian child of unknown gender in Indiana might fetch up to $39K?

All things being equal, why isn’t the fee standard and where does the $24K float go and why? To whom? For what purpose?

What the heck is an “adoption situation” and how is it indistinguishable from child-selling?

Note: This site has already been flagged by an adoptee blogger—Issycat, Ungrateful, or Addiepray. Can’t remember which one of you guys blogged about it, but I remember you did. Honestly, this stuff needs to be looked at.

Filed under: adoption, kids, life , adoption, adoption situations, African-American, children-for-sale, China, Christian Adoption Blog, orphanage donation

Transracial adoption: Did you ever think you were white?

That’s what I asked my daughter this morning, after reading about Kim Eun Mi Young in the New York Times. In a story highlighting the release of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute study on the challenges of trans-racial adoptees, Beyond Culture Camp, there was this paragraph:

“At no time did I consider myself anything other than white,” said Ms. Young, 48, who lives in San Antonio. “I had no sense of any identity as a Korean woman. Dating an Asian man would have forced me to accept who I was.”

And according to the Institute, about 78% of the other adoptees they interviewed had the same attitude she did. Many of them felt free to explore their identity and heritage only after moving away from their parents to more diverse neighbourhoods.

“So . . . did you ever think you were white?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because there was this story where a Korean adoptee who is in her 40s said she thought of herself as white while she was growing up in the US.”

Pause, pinching arm.

“Do you mean white skin?”

“No, I mean, did you ever think of yourself as anything other than Asian?”

“Nope. Isn’t it obvious?”

Ok, I thought—good check. We live in a place where white kids are now the minority at school (29%) and her friends are mostly non-white, but you never know what a child is thinking just because it is the most protective thing to think.

“Is there such a thing as yellow skin?” she asked abruptly, pulling the post-shower towel off her head.

“No, why?”

“Because when we were doing our film study yesterday, we were talking about skin colour and someone said some people are supposed to have yellow skin and C. looked at him and said, ‘Dude, Lisa on the Simpsons has yellow skin. Nobody human does.’”

“Well, she’s right. That is a stereotype. It used to be said that there were four skin tones—black, white, red, and yellow. That’s . . . uh, very passé now. (Thank goodness for smart kids who can talk about this stuff.)

Anyway, I had to wince at one of the anecdotes related in the Times piece that had to do with identity and reunion. One of the male adoptees from Korea, Joel Ballantyne, was talking about tracking down his relatives in Korea:

. . . Mr. Ballantyne said that while traveling to South Korea was an eye-opening experience in many ways, it was also disheartening.

Many Koreans, they said, did not consider them to be “real Koreans” because they did not speak the language or seem to understand the culture.

Mr. Ballantyne tracked down his maternal grandmother, but when he met her, he said, she scolded him for not learning Korean before he came.

“She was the one who had put me up for adoption,” he said. “So that just created tension between us. Even as I was leaving, she continued to say I needed to learn Korean before I came by again.”

Wonder if he did.

Filed under: adoption, kids, life, solo life , adoptee, Beyond Culture Camp, Evan B. Donaldson Institute, Korea, language, minority, New York Times, race, transracial adoption

What does adoption reform mean to you?

Go here, everyone. It’s hot.

Filed under: adoption, fatherlessness, kids, life, solo life , adoption, adoption reform