More thoughts on our current international adoption system

When reports surfaced that babies born in Florida were destined for adoptive homes in Ireland I stared at the reports in disbelief. Let’s assume not one of them has a parent who can raise them. Are we to believe there were no family members or local adoptive families who could care for those babies? I mean really, have you been to adoptive parent profiles recently? But have a cunning agency and cash, will carry baby. It’s the international adoption way!

Admittedly, I struggle to look at this from a macro perspective and always have. I see each child involved in every adoption case and worse every abuse case. I see not only the highlighted child, but the other children related to them whether biological siblings, foster siblings or adoptive siblings or orphanage mates. All of the bloggers here do.

The irony is that the adoption industry says they do the same, but this only applies when they are trying to place a child.

Meet Tony! He is a gorgeous little boy who dreams of having his own family. He likes to run and play and read books. He is developmentally on target and would love to become a part of your family. Tony is aging out soon and needs a paper ready family immediately! Please contact our office at 555-1122

And so dear sweet Tony, with needs and wants left out of his promotional ad, is placed with a starry eyed foreign family, blissfully ignorant of Tony the individual and thinking only of the Tony described in the advertisement.

The very same agency/industry that desperately seeks to place Tony will do an about face the minute he is placed if not before. Tony is not an individual, but a pawn in a global system placing children haphazardly around the world. When Tony’s new family discovers the many parts of Tony’s history not disclosed to them and the discovery that Tony had different desires and expectations or *gasp* that Tony was not a legal orphan, the very people who exerted an immense amount of energy placing him will be conveniently unavailable to Tony.

They will be unavailable to Tony, to his family of origin, foster parents if applicable, and to his adoptive family. They will not be available to assist Tony in sorting out his feelings, acclimating to a new culture or environment. They will not offer help with resources or offer valuable classes to his new parents (with the exception of  how to put together a Lifebook). They do not care about the other children in the home Tony was placed in. They will not concern themselves with how Tony is treated in his new placement. They will not offer support or legal assistance to his biological parents if he was found to be recruited for adoption. The agency employees, government officials, regulatory bodies and others involved in Tony’s placement will cover their own tracks and worse, assist each other in doing so to preserve the system. They will not assist in obtaining his full and true documented history or assistance in locating siblings Tony’s new family now knows exist. In short, they will do nothing for Tony or anyone else except themselves by compiling post placement reports indicating a glowing, happy successful placement to secure more referrals by way of Jack, Vaughn, Tabby and Sue to be placed with new families.

Why? Because the system does not see Tony or any other child as real persons, rather they are goods to be placed. Except because the products are children, what a feel good ego inflating business it is!

If any of our readers have a child/ren with certain medical conditions that require a team to manage, you know how these teams operate. Each member of the team from a different discipline meets with and evaluates the child. They then conference together to come up with a plan that best serves the child. Funny how completely altering the course of a child’s life does not warrant the same type of planning and care.

If the system and those running it cared about these poor, poor orphaned or displaced children they would have a team in place prior to placements. They would show real concern about each child they are placing and have a plan. They would ensure that rules are followed and the child’s needs and wants are central in planning. They would carefully choose the best placement -for that child- and they would monitor the placement until the child is no longer in need of services or a case plan. Dumping a child into any willing adoptive family in any country would not be the order of the day.

But they don’t and they won’t. Because they don’t see the child, they don’t see the people in the child’s life, they see products and they focus on the goal of the system–to place children in adoptive homes wherever those homes may be and whomever the family is (and by all means to protect their ability to do so).

In the end, we have a macro system that places children in the plural sense by lumping them all into the concept of an “orphan problem” cloaked in a disguise of caring for each precious child’s needs. This wide focus allows all of the dirty deeds, corruption, and irresponsible practices to continue because it does not see the very people it harms.

It’s time for a new system.