Creating Orphans and Ripping Apart Families Under a Banner of Love and Charity
I watched this incredibly poignant story twice and was so moved by the story: REFORM Talk post “Love Doesn’t Replace Knowing”. A few weeks ago I dove into the UK Kindertransport documents after learning about Jewish children who were sent to the US in the late 1930’s and I’ve been mentally outlining a post about this, but time hasn’t permitted it. I highly recommend readers do some digging for themselves and especially read a study on outcomes found here and one on language attrition here.
The more I dig into past and present practices the more I recognize a pattern I see emerging in my own mind about international adoption that goes far deeper than a bunch of greedy ego inflated agencies running amok. The bigger problem seems to be the widespread acceptance of the idea that separating children from their parents or extended families is a good idea.
It continues to strike me as some sort of Western disease to think that separating children from their parents-when they do not absolutely need to be-is even remotely humane. Please watch this (skip to 14:00 if you are short on time) YouTube video and REFORM Talk post “Love Doesn’t Replace Knowing” and this YouTube video and tell me why anyone would ever be engaged in creating this kind of soul level pain to any human being and feel good about it. And please, do not read further until you have watched the above links.
One of the arguments in modern day adoptions is that the children who were recruited from Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Nepal, etc….are better off adopted to North America and Europe than remaining with their families even after all manner of unethical dealings are uncovered in the process. Time and again we hear this from adoptive parents and agencies as excuses for why a child who is not in fact an orphan ended up in the system anyway. We even hear this regarding what is considered a lesser known evil, that of children with special needs being placed abroad for adoption instead of working to either provide resources for their families *or* supporting the immigration of parents AND children to countries who have the resources they need. It seems there is no energy or desire invested in keeping families together and this is shameful.
A South Korean adoptee wrote the following piece and mentions the Kindertransport children UK: here. For those not familiar, this was a program that enabled Jewish children to be sent to the UK starting in the late 1930’s. Some to a lesser extent were sent to the United States. NONE were allowed to be accompanied by their parents. Parents it seems were fit to be left to the threat of death while their children were allowed to be saved by people in places still unoccupied by Nazi Germany. The outcomes as highlighted in the study above are reminiscent of what we still hear today in adoptee and foster care homes. During Operation Babylift, mothers again were left behind while their children were flown to new families in other countries. This notion that the only option in crisis or lack is to remove children from their parents and families is something that continues in adoption policy and practice today. Presently, in international adoption parents in alleged dire circumstances is touted as the reason why their children must leave them. We know that some cases are dire, some far from it, but regardless there is madness inherent in this thinking. The children acquire new identities and lives in new countries with new families while hearts are often left wondering and bleeding back home. At what point are we going to wake up and recognize the importance of families, of mothers AND their children?
Please note I am not speaking of circumstances when parents refuse to parent or are so abusive or dysfunctional they cannot safely parent. Those are different cases. I am speaking of the seeming global acceptance of supporting children being removed from their parents lives through airlifts, humanitarian visas and international adoption instead of assisting families to be stronger or allow for the immigration of families as a unit.
Does no one else find it odd that the US government has no qualms about issuing an ‘orphan visa’ to a child who is not really an orphan to join a new family in the United States, but offers little by way of opportunity for visas to come to the US as a FAMILY?
We are now talking over 70 years of globally separating children from their families whether due to war, famine, or lack of specific medical or other resources. Isn’t it time for a paradigm shift?
REFORM Puzzle Piece
This is written as though greedy adoption workers lie in wait in convenient hospitals waiting for the umbilical cord to be cut from some illiterate Eastern European baby to snatch it away. This probably happened in Guatemala and in other countries. But this piece fails to consider the accepted cultural aspects of dropping Kid off at the orphanage. Some parents believe their children will remain there forever. Sometimes, these parents visit once per year. For some, it’s perfectly acceptable for the state to raise their child and visit (or not). This is written as if these families are just begging for resources in order to raise these much-wanted children – resources, mind you, that are not available and even if given, can be gobbled up by greedy overseas goverments rather than reaching the people intended. It’s that rosy world view that says “Money and resources are all families need” and when that doesn’t work in countries like the US and Canada, what precisely makes it a viable solution in places like Russia or Ukraine?
When will anyone on this site address the cultural disconnect that exists in some countries as it relates to children and particularly children with special needs? When will it finally be discussed that there are longstanding social norms that give the label of acceptable for parents who have children they cannot afford to take care of, find embarrassing (or even ‘cursed’ due to a special need), or culturally unacceptable (such as a child of mixed race)? When will biological parents in foreign countries be seen not just as victims (and some are) but as complicit in a society that accepts social orphans as acceptable? As the landscape of international adoption continues to change; as the median age of an adopted child gets older, special needs adoption becomes more prevalent than “healthy” adoption, when will the image of biological mother solely as victim finally be lost? Anyone who has spent time in any serious capacity in an overseas orphanage knows what the situation is in many countries. Social workers who work with families to prepare plans for reunification, only to find a family has disappeared or does not truly care. Parents who believe an orphanage is an acceptable place for the state to raise their child and come for 15 minutes on Christmas Eve to “visit”.
There’s so much wrong with this article, I don’t know if I could write it all out. I just wish some would open their eyes to the reality instead of the fairy tale dreams of empowering these families. It’s not feasible, and it’s certainly not feasible for those outside of the country. APs are not saviors. Biological parents are not saints.
This piece is written about the history of large movements of children to foreign countries. You must not have looked at what she linked to.
As for “greedy adoption workers” lying in wait, you must not be aware that doctors and nurses and social workers are very much involved with separating children from mothers in many places. We have never said this is in all cases but in cases in which trafficking has been shown, they are most definitely part of the process. NGOs and adoption agencies are documented in many countries to have selected children direct from hospitals, orphanages and biological family homes.Bribing biological parents by agencies to terminate rights also has been documented in many places.
I am interested in this “culture” of dropping off kids at orphanages that you speak of. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? How racist and imperialistic that sounds? The US had this “culture” too and now we don’t but you think that other countries have a desire to keep the status quo?
We have acknowledged many times that disability rights is in its infancy in foreign countries and that it needs support. We have never stated that all biological parents are victims so stop putting out that stupid strawman. But in all trafficking cases, they most definitely are victims. And we have never said that all children currently in orphanages will be able to go back to their biological parents.Again stop putting out that stupid strawman. What we have said is that extended family, foster care and domestic adoption options should be supported and expanded instead of allowing international adoption agencies to pluck whatever kids they want out and to not allow international adoption agencies to be the deciders of which kids get placed locally and internationally. That IS the current state of international adoption.
Thanks, Rally for responding. I would ask our reader to go back and read the piece again and the links and watch the videos.
The piece was not about parents who will not/truly cannot parent and that was stated. However, I do want to address your post even though it had little to do with mass separation of children and families. I did not mention EE adoptions, but that was the focus of the comment so let’s address it because the bloggers here are familiar with that system. And as we have stated over and over on this blog, some of us have been in multiple EE orphanages so we are not pulling random ideas out of the sky.
Orphanages in EE are used as social care centers and as foster care in North America is used. I don’t think the wider audience always understands that this is not a country x problem as we see the same scenarios play out right in our own countries with parents who place their children in foster care for all manner of reasons including having a child with special needs, although often on a smaller scale. People appear to believe children in foreign orphanages are mostly placed there by poor parents and children in North American foster care are always there because the authorities removed them from their homes. Not true. Some will not/could not parent no matter what kind of supports are offered to them, but there are parents who if given even a small amount of encouragement and access to resources would not be separated from their children. Many children could be placed with extended family. I know families for whom this is the case-yes, ‘even’ in Eastern Europe. If we continue to say it cannot happen, it will be more difficult to come to a mental/policy shift where it is the norm. However, we are pleased to see more and more efforts like this cropping up globally in spite of adoption clients demanding kids and agencies happy to supply.
The adoption industry does not care about family preservation. The adoption industry and everyone working with and for them has one goal in mind…to place children with adoptive families. Oh you may may see a random case or two that they will advertise to the world in an attempt to show that they do care, but mostly it is marketing at it’s finest.
Disturbingly, some children have been unnecessarily kept from their parents , yes, even in Eastern Europe. We have been truly shocked at the blogs sent to us by readers about PAPs who pray for the children’s parents to go away so they can adopt them. In another case, one professional searcher discovered in a former Soviet nation that several years ago the searches turned up many parents in desperate situations who knew they were relinquishing to the state and knew their children might be adopted. In recent years, the searcher began finding mothers who placed infants in orphanage care, but then went back to reclaim their babies or visit them and were told they’d been adopted and were gone. They left heartbroken. Guess what? Those babies had NOT been adopted and were still there, but they were in the queue for an international placement. The difference between the early years and later years? Money and corruption. Why would the orphanage workers allow an infant to return to its mother when they have a paying customer who is bringing not only foreign cash, but donations to them? Imagine how both the child’s first mother and adoptive mother feel now. How is the adoptee going to feel and process this later on?
If a placement could benefit a specific child why not focus on the best possible placement him/her and eliminate the cases that don’t?
We are well aware that not every child can remain with their biological families, but we have seen even from very personal experience that many more can than the adoption community would have us believe.