Short synopsis of previous story: Couple adopts a baby from China. The adoptive father dies, leaving behind a trust for his kids. Years later the adoptive mom dissolves the adoption and attempts to argue that child is no longer entitled to inheritance.
Update: Adoptive mother reportedly adopted another child from China shortly after the adoptive father died but dissolved that adoption. From the NY Daily News: Continue reading
Good intentions are not enough.
Because race is critical to well-being. Because love isn’t enough. Because playing down the importance of race and ethnicity in adoption is misguided. Because children shouldn’t suffer disconnection and isolation. Because transracial adoption should be the last resort.
None of these ideas are particularly new or novel. Joyce Ladner covered some of the issues in a book published in 1978. And that was a long time ago. But apparently it’s still news. This despite the fact that so many people think we’ve moved past that. We’re in a post-racial society now.
Now transracial adoptive parents pat themselves on the back for their great parenting, noting that they have made so many changes since the bad old days when people just didn’t know any better. Noting how full that half-glass is, and not insisting on the full glass for their children, but instead telling them how happy they should be that there’s anything in the glass at all.
Summary of the study here.
Tammy Ljungblad | The Kansas City Star
Encarnacion Bail Romero never wanted her son Carlos to be adopted. But after she was detained in an immigration raid, that’s what happened. You can read an article about her ordeal here. And now the court has ruled that the six-year-old should stay with his “adoptive” parents.
Bail Romero has not been allowed to see him. Not once. Because although she stated repeatedly that she never wanted to allow him to be adopted, because although she said that if she were deported she would take him with her, because although she contacted her family who promised to help her care for him, she had no interest in the child and wanted to abandon him. Yeah.
(Additional rant on “illegal” long in the making and forthcoming.)
“It was the best day, but a powerful day,” Kiernan recalls about the day she and husband Bob Lazeski adopted their daughter Anna from Anhui province. “As we passed rice fields and people with oxen it struck me that we were taking Anna from her culture.”
Probably not the best day for her, but whatever. Also, China isn’t just about rice fields and people with oxen. We have that here in the U.S. too, you know.
“Over the years we’ve done a lot to share ancient Chinese traditions with our families,” says Kiernan, who is also [Families with Children from China’s] current president.
Ahhh! Not ancient Chinese secrets, I hope!
“As they’ve (the adoptees) gotten older, they realize by the quirk of luck, they were lucky enough to hook up with their forever families,” says Mary Hammele, 52, of Fairport, co-chair of the Teen Group Fashion Show at FCC.
Well, last year some website I never heard of ran a contest for the “Top 25 Adoption Blogs by Parents.” Yeah, bet you can guess how that turned out.
So this year the “Circle of Moms” was planning to be more inclusive. So they ran the contest for “Top 25 Adoption Blogs by Moms.” Yeah, I’m not getting it either. Only apparently they didn’t like one of the moms who was in the running. So they eliminated her. She didn’t shit rainbows or unicorns, I guess.
We did see several white adoptive mom bloggers who don’t shit rainbows or unicorns either. Instead they like to shit on adopted persons and people of color. And adopted persons of color. While other white adoptive parents cheer them on.
We were somewhat heartened to see the lovely Amanda was winning. It actually gave us a tiny bit of hope.
But then the contest was ended prematurely: Continue reading
It is bad enough that you keep talking about how wonderful you are because you adopted two kids. Because they had been abandoned and had no life until you gave them one.
But now you point to them as support for your anti-abortion viewpoint? Seriously?
You, sir, are an ass.
You and your wife have seven kids. Full stop. Not “seven kids, including two adopted girls from China and India.” Unless, of course, you wish me to understand that you are such a wonderful human being for adopting:
The family adopts Gracie Mei from Yangzhou, China. She’d been abandoned in a vegetable market. The path to adoption began when Mary Kaye volunteered in a Catholic orphanage while they were living in Tien Mu, Taiwan. After they returned to the U.S., Mary Kaye continued to research adoptions and convinced Jon to start the process. While attending a Christmas tree benefit auction she bought a tree dedicated to adoption. When the vendor asked her what to name it, her kids suggested the name for the new sister they hoped to someday have, Gracie Mei. Mary Kaye told the vendor that name at 8:15 PM. When she returned home there was a message received at 8:15 PM from the adoption agency notifying her that they had found a child for the family. Gracie Mei knows her story and loves to tell it. When asked who found her in the market she replies, “Jesus.”
Too bad that research didn’t include anything about transracial adoption. (Quotes from Huntsman’s website.)
Since you like to detail your kids’ origins, here’s my suggestion: “The Huntsmans have seven children, including five squirted out of Mary Kaye’s vagina.” Or maybe she had C-sections. Or VBAC. Why aren’t those details available? Continue reading
I have come to hate the phrase “honoring her culture.”
You often hear this expression bandied about when white parents talk about their internationally adopted children. But what does it really mean?
How does “honoring her culture” play out in the adoption community?
Fox News: Foreigners looking to adopt Japanese earthquake orphans need not apply.
Apparently the director of a Japanese adoption agency has been receiving specific requests. Ms. Ogawa was quoted as follows:
“I have been receiving many strange emails, from mostly U.S., and was asked, ‘I want girl, less than 6 months old, healthy child,’ … “I honestly tell you such a kind of emails makes Japanese people very uncomfortable, because for us, sound like someone who are looking for ‘what I want’ from our terrible disaster.”
No word on the humanitarian parole. Or the babylift. Yet.
Resist racism 