And Another Thing…

China is trying to project an image to the world of a declining number of abandonments. The Chinese government has shown a history of sort , erm…okay… lying in the two years we’ve been through this process. I’m not presenting a conspiracy theory here. To anyone who has watched this situation unfold as closely as I have, it’s pretty much obvious. We saw it all first hand because China drastically slowed down in its referrals only a month after we were LID. We were timed perfectly to see the whole deal go down.

It is my belief that they are attempting to save face in preparation for being in the world spotlight for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and also because of the ever-increasing economic development of the country (which, as I stated before IS likely resulting in less orphans overall, but not the drastic reduction they’re attempting to claim). I also believe they know they’re in a fine pickle with the rising gender imbalance and need to take steps to address it.

I truly hope domestic adoptions pick up and/or they ease the one/two child policy. I don’t share some fellow adopters feelings that all the children should be adopted internationally to lift them out of poverty, ect. I think all steps should be taken to allow those children to stay with their birth families, if possible, or be adopted domestically. That’s the best case scenario for these babies. You know, like, the best case scenario for the babies in Africa is not for Madonna or Angelina Joile to come in and adopt them, it’s for the country to develop enough to allow them to stay with their birth parents. Obviously.

It is my hope China can achieve this in the future. In the meantime it appears that many, many little girls are going to end up growing up in the SWIs. May they find foster parents, learn a trade and have good lives. I hope so.

Back to what I said about the best case scenario…I know J and I are going to do everything in our power to be the very best parents we can. I think FD is coming into a very good, safe, loving and stable situation. I believe she will flourish with us and grow up strong, smart and beautiful in all the important ways. Obviously I believe this, or we wouldn’t be adopting.

I hope that we’ll be good parents. I hope we’re doing the right thing. I hope we can walk that very fine line between integrating her birth culture into her/our life/lives while not “appropriating” it. I hope she doesn’t resent us when she grows up.

Anyway, I have a lot of hope.

 

On the Recent Coverage of IA and the New Regulations

The new regulations and international adoption has suddenly become a popular topic for news outlets. Problem is, they’re getting a lot of the details wrong. (Big surprise there) Misinformation abounds.

The issue of the gender imbalance in China is a complicated one and the articles that I’ve seen so far seem to want to blame IA for it. Now, I have a lot of complex emotion regarding adopting from China, (which is an entirely different post), but I don’t think it’s fair to lay the blame of the gender imbalance solely at the feet of internationally adopting parents. There are many factors contributing to this problem.

Of course, I’m not saying IA isn’t contributing. After all, lots of little girls are leaving the country because of the IA program. Has China started to take steps to stem this flow? Yes, I think so…just not overtly. That’s what the new regulations are about — they pare down the number of families eligible adopt.

A related yet separate issue that the news agencies have been harping on is that there are more adopting families than children to adopt. This is very misleading. Only a fraction of the Social Welfare Institutes (SWIs) in China participate in the international adoption program. The bulk of the SWIs do not. I don’t know what happens to those kids in the SWIs that don’t participate.

So when the news agencies speak of children available for adoption, they should really be saying “paper-ready children” — that being children who are in the SWIs that participate in IA and are ready “paper-wise” to be adopted out. The numbers of abandoned children, as far the info shows, is still mind-bogglingly high. It’s just that China is controlling the number of kids put into the IA program for reasons that just aren’t clear.

When we first started this process waaaaaay back in March 2005, the situation in China was very different. Since then, in just a very short time, the country has developing economically at a fast rate. It is true that more couples can now afford to pay the fee to keep their second and third children, so less babies are likely being abandoned (in the urban areas). However, the economic development has not yet trickled into the rural areas of China in any truly impactful way. This is why most of the abandoned children that are in the IA program come from the southern provinces of China, the rural areas.

And, sadly, many more of the babies abandoned these days seem to be showing up with special needs, as a result of bad environmental conditions–pesticides in the water in the rural areas, ect. When we first started this process this was less of an issue. Economic development has its dark side. So there are less children in the non-special needs program because of this, more children in the special needs program.

Oprah didn’t help things either. Apparently she did a show about international adoption from China way back when and spurred a lot of people to adopt internationally. This increased the number of families with dossiers in China.

There is a domestic adoption program in China. They started it in ernest about a year ago (I think). Per my information (I don’t know if it’s correct. I don’t think anyone knows but China), the domestic adoption program started off well but then slacked off. They’re trying to promote as much as they can, and that’s a very good thing.

So, you see? Very complicated. There are many issues here. But the bottom line is that when they say there are more potential adoptive parents than babies to be adopted, it is very misleading.

Also, IA from China doesn’t cost 15k. (Some news agency reported that) We wish it did.

Lastly…(since I’m on a roll)….most of the money in an adoption from China actually goes to the U.S. government and to the adoption agencies. Very little of it actually goes to the SWI, itself. None (I don’t think. None from us directly…maybe there are some small fees in China that we have yet to pay) goes to the Chinese government. China does benefit monetarily from the travel, of course, because adoptive families spend two to three weeks in China, spending money on plane tickets, train tickets, hotels, restaurants, ect…

People who suggest that adoptive families “buy” children is ignorant and, yes, racist. I never hear anyone suggest those families adopting children domestically are “buying” children. But maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe ignorance abounds throughout all aspects of adoption.

Sometimes people ask us why we chose China over the other international adoption programs. It’s weird because it required little conscious thought on our part. We fleetingly thought of other IA programs — Russia, Guatemala, Korea ect — but it was always really China in our hearts and minds. As trite as it sounds, we just knew that our child was there. I always try to rationalize our decision better than that because it sounds so non-analytical, but the truth is that we just knew.

EDIT: Oh…and the language that is being used in some cases, like “supplier” and “export” is seriously pissing me off and making my blood pressure climb. People need to get a heart and then get a clue. What is WRONG with people?