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IA - Good or Bad, An “outsiders” view

Ok…first what prompted this particular thread. Two things:

1. The recent discussion relating to B. Stuy’s views on the state of China adoption along with discussion about how just these allegations may impact how China adoptees view their adoption story as they get older.

2. Comments in a couple of threads that bring up issues of how IA compares to other methods of family forming, both adoption and bio and how the media and general public view different forms of adoption.

As for the outsiders view…well I consider myself somewhat an outsider as I have not, and unfortunately likely will not, have the opportunity to adopt from China. I think I am something of a unique outsider though, in that I have a fairly high level of knowledge with respect to the world of adoption and more specifically China IA. For the purpose of this thread I am trying to look at things more from the perspective of a typical outsider, one that is honestly interested in adoption but is not particularly close to the issue personally.

So in trying to educate this “typical outsider” I use my own experience to explain the three basic ways to adopt where I am. Imagine that I have spent an hour or two explaining in painful detail all the ins and out of adoption and after that they try to summarize what I have told them. I imagine it would go something like this:

Ok so the first way you can adopt is to go through the local Children’s Aid Society (CAS)*. When the CAS has a child at the point where the bio parents rights have been terminated they then find adoptive parents to match them with. The CAS has a bunch of prospective parents to pick from and they have all gone through a CAS process that includes something called a Homestudy done on these parents and that includes all sorts of screening of the parents and also some training to make sure they are ready etc…, etc… All that process is paid for by the CAS. The CAS then decides which of the available parents is the best match for the child.

The second way is to complete an adoption privately. In that situation a pregnant woman decides to make an adoption plan for a child. Usually she is put in touch with an agency or social worker in the adoption field and will be presented with profiles of prospective adoptive parents and she can meet these parents and then decide which one she likes best. These parents will have gone through the same sort of Homestudy system as in the CAS method except these parents had to pay for it themselves. The parents have to pay all the costs relating to the adoption. Legally this can only include payments for a Social Worker and Counselors to assist the birthmom through the process along with all the other legal and paperwork costs of processing the adoption. The adoptive parents get an itemized bill for all these costs. The birthmom can not make the final decision on the adoption until 7 days after the child is born and she then has another 21 days during which she can change her mind.

The third way would be to adopt internationally from somewhere like China. Here the adoptive parents go through the same sort of Homestudy process that they pay for themselves but then their file is sent to China. China processes these files in the order received. A central body in Beijing collects files for available children all over China and once a month they match the available children to the parents on a first come first serve basis. There is a bit of flexibility in how specific children are matched to specific parents, but for various reasons (sizes of agency groups near the top of the pile compared to locations and numbers of children available for example) it is largely a random process in terms of which parents get matched with which child. The adoptive parents pay various administrative costs for their agency and to the Chinese authorities plus they had over up to $5000 when they pick up their child. The $5000 is called an “orphanage donation” but it is mandatory and no one is really sure what happens to this money. The children that are available have almost always been abandoned anonymously and virtually nothing is known about the origins of the child. There have been stories of children being sold to orphanages and then adopted internationally but generally the program is viewed being fairly well run and most people dont think this is a widespread thing.

Ok…so the above three cases might differ in the details if you changed the location of where the adoptive parents are from or if the IA country was changed and for the purpose of this discussion I have obviously also put a particular spin on the information to try to make my point, but hopefully everyone would agree that this is a reasonable presentation of the facts as it relates to the various processes by which people adopt.

So..what is my point. Well I guess what I have concluded is that it would be quite natural for an outsider to look at these three possible ways to adopt and see IA as being quite a bit different than the other two methods. The way matching is done is different, knowledge about how the child became available is different (except in rare cases) and the financial aspects are different. I am not in the camp that suggests IA is bad, very much the opposite, but as something of an outsider I think it is reasonable for people to reach the conclusion that IA might be bad. Does it matter what outsiders think? In some ways not, but unfortunately IA children will grow up in a world where people will think these things and say them…often in the media and in seemingly inappropriate ways.   So while I think it is important to try to educate and object when people make such comments, I think there is also a need to accept the that some of these comments can not simply be dismissed out of hand and it is important to give these children the tools to handle them.

This brings me to the whole Brian Stuy allegation world. Without getting into whether he is completely right or completely wrong, I think the consensus is that there is likely some ethical issues with some adoptions from China. Maybe this is only 1 in 100…maybe more, maybe less. No matter what you personally believe I do not believe adoptive parents can completely dismiss the possibility as it relates to their own child. What this means to me is that all parents adopting from China need to approach educating their child about their adoption story with this in mind. That isnt to say that I think anyone should feel bad about adopting from China or will have anything to apologize to your children about. On this I am in complete disagreement with Mr. Stuy.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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The complexity of attachment

Ok so let me start of by saying that this is not my area of expertise. I know some of the basic theories, and I would probably pass Attachment 101, but that is about it really.

Intentional or not many people seem to talk about attachment as a binary sort of thing (sorry for letting the math geek in me out again). Their child is either attached or not attached, nothing in between. I know that most people probably don’t think of it that way, but i do sometimes wonder.

We adopted our daughter as a newborn (she is now 25 months) so my experience is really closer to what a bio parent experiences than what a parent adopting from China goes through. What I will say though, is that I  really have no idea what is going on in her head with respect to her attachment to us. She has always been a very social independent child, never shy around strangers and dealt with the transition into daycare with relative ease. Now, what I like to think and what I suspect the experts would say, is that she is a well socialized, securely attached little girl. What I absolutely know though is that we still have a lot of work ahead of us as parents. Really this is just plain old parenting of course, but every day and every interaction we have with her from today until…well for a long long time…is going to have an impact on her “attachment” to us. There will be added adoption related issues specific to our situation as well of course. How we help her integrate her adoption story into who she is as a person, how we help her manage and develop the relationship with her birthmom, and I am sure more than a few other things that I haven’t even contemplated as of yet.

Within the world of toddler adoption things are considerably more complex…there is anxious attachment, plain old attachment, secure attachment, and a thousand shades of grey. It seems remarkably complex to me actually and I think I would always be questioning and wondering…maybe the best I would be able to tell people is that things look good but it is a work in progress.

I would be curious what others think on this topic.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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Another reprint from my RQ series. This one from last April so the 60 Minutes reference is from then.

Just going to throw these two questions out there and see if anyone has any deep or shallow thoughts.

1. Is it ok that some people see parenting an adopted child is less than equal to parenting a bio child?

I think most, but certainly not all, adoptive parents believe that it is equal. In terms of non-adoptive parents I think a significant number would say that it isn’t equal. This is obvious in terms of the way many adoptive parents are treated as evidenced by many many threads around here.

2. Should adoptive parents be held to a higher standard than bio parents?

Last night my wife and I ended up watching the last segment of 60 minutes. It was an interview with a US Supreme Court Justice (Scalia) and it was reasonably interesting. There was one very jarring part though. He and his wife have 9 children. They essentially said that they had 9 children, not because they wanted that many but simply because that is the way it worked out (both are RC). He then went on to say that he never went to any of his children’s extra-curricular activities. His reason? Well why would he…his father never went to any of his and anyway they were their activities not his. Finally on the subject of retirement (he is in his 70’s), he said he wouldn’t know what to do next. (He has 29 grandchildren ) I am not suggesting that he shouldn’t be entitled to live his life like that, but if I was the king of all adoption matching and I had a choice between lots and lots of couples/singles with all sorts of different attitudes about parenting, I think that sort of philosophy would never make it close to the top of the pile.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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Attachment

First is the original post from a little over a year ago.

We went to a get together of our china travel group this weekend. Seven girls adopted from china all about 20 months old now and our daughter adopted here as a newborn, now 11+ months old. What got me thinking was the fact that our daughter is now very similar in age to what all the other girls were at the time they were adopted. All seven girls clearly knew who their moms and dads were…none seem to have had any major “attachment” problems that I know of and to me as an outsider they all appeared to be happy little girls no different than our little girl.

Are they though? Are they the same as my daughter despite the very different experience they have had to this point?

It is a wierd feeling to visualize another set of parents taking over from us right now…to imagine in 8 or 9 months our daughter calling two other people mommy and daddy. Would she have totally forgotten us? What sort of imprint has the time we have spent with her left? Countless hours of holding her, singing to her, playing with her…

The analytical me knows that the answer to this question is a venture into the unknowable. My understanding of the research is that very young children who have bonded well have an easier time of transferring the bond than those who don’t bond with anyone as an infant. The emotional side of me of course wants to think something very different. Ultimately we just can’t say.

So what is my point here?

Well I guess what I concluded is that what I think doesn’t really matter…and since our children aren’t really capable of expressing themselves on this subject until they are much much older I have reached the following conclusions:

1, Attachment parenting is critical in those first weeks and months yes, but I don’t think it ever really ends.
2. The impact of up to a year or more in an institution may or may not have an impact on the child. The impact may or may not be large.
3. No matter what, you need to be vigilant for signs of problems. Anxiety, stress, etc…
4. You need to start early to make sure the lines of communication are as open as possible and is likely to be hard work at times.

As we have been with our daughter since hour 1 we may have it a bit easier, but as time goes on the challenges will be similar i think especially when it comes to the fourth point.

Ok so that is what I wrote a bit over a year ago. Our daughter is now 2 and it was an experience I had last night on the subject of attachment that brought this to mind.

My daughter went through a “daddy phase” about 6 months ago but at the moment mommy rules. Last night my wife had a meeting in our house that went right through our daughters bedtime so I was in charge of the full bed time routine. A few months ago that wouldn’t have been a problem but now…well lets just say that it was one of the hardest hours of parenting I have done to date. It is incredibly discouraging when you aren’t able to console your child, listening to them cry and cry for the other parent. The thoughts that ran through my head were not at all pleasant. My wife and I believe in equality of parenting (within practical limits) so I stuck it out and eventually she calmed down enough that I was able to leave her to go to sleep.

I confess to being in a pretty grim mood for the rest of the evening and when my daughter unusually woke in the middle of the night I thought things were going to get worse. I got up and went into her room to find her standing in her crib crying. I picked her up, changed her wet diaper and pj’s and we settled into the glider together. She never once called for mom and seemed quite content to be with me. Eventually she let me know she was prepared to go back into her crib and I settled her down and stood over the crib for a while. She would just calmly look up at me and after a bit I thought she was going to fall asleep. She just kept looking at me though and eventually she was back to sitting up and looking at me. Moving in the wrong direction so I told her I was going to leave…got her laying down again and then left her. She cried out twice for Daddy right after I left and then started chattering to herself and eventually things went quiet and she was asleep.

Now getting up in the middle of the night is never fun, but I was a much happier dad afterwards. Being able to meet the needs of your child is an incredibly fulfilling act and I will take that anytime over a bit of sleep.

How does this relate to the subject of attachment? Well I guess to me it just illustrates that work on attachment is an ongoing thing for all parents, both for bio parents and for adoptive parents no matter at what stage your child joined your family. It also showed me that attachment is hard to define, it isn’t a yes or no switch in a child’s head, it is just so much more complex than that and as parents we will often need to be patient and trust that we are doing the right thing.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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The “perfect” adoption scenario

Following on from my previous post I thought it was a good time to did this one out.

A while ago this article was in the Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/306460

As part of an open adoption I read the article with some interest. My first reaction to the article was pretty ambivalent. There wasn’t really much I hadn’t heard before and as with most new pieces it was a pretty superficial look at a very complex subject. After a while though I realized there was something about the article that was bugging me. It took me a while but I eventually figured out what it was….nowhere in that article does it mention anything about the impact of an open vs closed adoption on the child themselves. The whole article was about the impact on the adoptive parents and birth parents.

So anyway…I know it is not realistic to expect a sophisticated discussion on this issue from a mainstream newspaper…but we can do better here I hope.

So here is my question:

What is the “perfect” adoption situation from a purely child centred viewpoint?

Now let me expand on that.

First there is no perfect adoption situation. Every adoption starts with some sort of loss and even in the world of “open” adoption no two situations can really ever be identical.

But lets take the following hypothetical:

Birthparents are unable to parent for whatever reason but are still alive. Both the adoptive parents and birthparents are geographically close enough to have whatever level of relationship they feel is best for the child.

Given that scenario what do people think is the ideal situation for the child, irrespective of any issues that might create for the parents.
My own thoughts continue to evolve on this, but for my own daughter my ideal is that her relationship with her birthmother is first of all a “comfortable” one. By that I mean I would like them to know each other well enough that they can talk without wondering or worrying about how the other person will take things.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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Altruistic Adoption

A few things have happened in the past few days in the adoption world that got me to thinking about altruism and adoption.

First there is the latest development on the Angelina Jolie Ethiopia adoption. As I understand it AJ originally thought the child had no parents. Now she knows that this is not true. Fortunately the story pretty much ends there and despite the “misunderstanding” everything still appears to be on the up and up and the birthmother is reported to be happy with how things have turned out. As with many Ethiopian adoptions the birthmom simply felt she could not provide for her new child and made the decision that placing her in an orphanage where she could be adopted was the best possible solution. What I started thinking about though is the unique factors that come into play when you have someone is adopting with the resources that AJ has. I wonder whether she would have still adopted this particular child if the only reason that the child was available to be adopted were economic ones.

Moving away from AJ specifically (I dont intend this to be about her really…I certainly do not intend to be critical of her). What about all of us? What if we had more money than we knew what to do with. Would we approach the ethics of expanding our family differently?

With respect to situations where the child is available only due to economics, would it be a more “ethical” decision to simply fund the support of the birthmom so that the family could remain united? Certainly it would be argued by many that this would give the best possible outcome for the child. Could this argument be made even for less affluent people? Do the practical difficulties of actually doing such a thing make this a non-issue? (Although it is much easier to think about this sort of hypothetical situation with respect to Ethiopian adoptions, there are also adoptions from China that are the result of purely economic issues…inability to pay the fine for extra children…in those cases I think it truly is impossible for adoptive parents to solve that problem)

The next thing that happened was a comment in another forum. Not a rare sort of comment, just a statement about choosing China over other options because there are so many children needing homes. I think it is now clear that if one was trying to find a program where you were most likely to provide a home to a child that would otherwise not have one, China is likely near the very bottom of the list.

Ok so what am I getting at? Well I think I have once and for all come to the conclusion that most of us…whether we admit it or not…are adopting mainly for selfish reasons. I am not saying I think there is anything wrong with this at all. I don’t think it is the job of anyone to solve all the world’s problems. I think the selfish desire to be a parent…to provide boundless love to a child…to want to raise them…hopefully see them grow into healthy, self reliant, successful adults…is more than enough reason to want to adopt.

Let me also say that I think there is a clear need for many many adoptive parents. In many cases there is way more involved than simple economics, certainly this is the case with many adoptions from China, Ethiopia and our own countries as well.

For me, recognizing and understanding my own motivations for adopting make me a better parent. It makes me more ready to see things through the eyes of my daughter.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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Open vs Closed Adoptions

Here are my general thoughts on Open Adoptions, what they are and how they work. These are somewhat generalized and there are exceptions to everything I think:

1. Open adoptions are really any adoption that isn’t what is known as “closed” or “semi-closed”. A “closed”adoption is one in which no identifying information is exchanged either way and there is never any contact. A “semi-closed” adoption is one in which no identifying information is exchanged but some contact is made through an intermediary. Unfortunately that leaves every other possible arrangement (and the possibilities are endless) left with the term “open”. China adoptions are by their very nature “closed” adoptions for example.

2. There are a lot of good reasons to feel uncomfortable with pursuing a private adoption and if you do pursue one there are lots of good reasons for being very careful about accepting any particular match. I personally do not believe that a fear of openness in and of itself is a good reason to not pursue an open adoption.

3. One of the reasons we originally chose not to pursue a private adoption was the lack of control you have over the process and the risks involved. First you need to find a birth mom to pick you and then you need to hope that she doesn’t change her mind. This power imbalance is rightly a huge issue for many, but ultimately it has nothing to do with the “openness” issue. Once an adoption is finalized the power imbalance completely reverses. We signed an agreement with the birthmom with respect to the level of contact we were prepared to live with. These agreements are quite common I believe, but are not legally enforceable in most jurisdictions (I believe there may be a state or two that are working on trying to make them enforceable, but am not as up to speed on that as I used to be). Enforceable or not, I don’t think it matters. If you made an agreement you were truly comfortable with then the only problem that could arise would be the birthparents pushing the envelope and then you would like it to be enforceable anyway.

4. That brings up another downside that results out of the original power imbalance. Parents may be willing to commit to a greater level of openness than they are comfortable with just so they will be chosen.

5. “Oh you are so brave”, “Oh I don’t think I could ever do that”, “Aren’t you worried she will want her back”. We get all those and more. Let me approach this two ways. The very first time we discussed the concept of openness with our SW (even before we chose China) she made this simple statement “No child can have too many people that love them”. A bit too sappy for my personal taste, but is still one of the most concise description of the advantages of open adoptions that I have come across. Secondly, and also kind of sappy…but you know the old question that people ask about what the first thing you would save in a fire is? Well for me it would be to make sure I had copies of the picture we have the day after she was born that shows both families together in the hospital and the one we have from the day before her 1st birthday of the same group. Those pictures, with everyone smiling and happy are simply priceless.

6. Ok, I also know that we have been very lucky with respect to the particular birth family our lives have been forever joined with. For me though that is a reason to make sure that people find the right match as opposed a match at all costs. However, even if our relationship with them deteriorated, we would still be in control of the situation and would go to any length to provide the right environment for our daughter. This is where the matching process is so important though. The birthgrandfather and I got to wait outside the L&D room together…I went for a short walk just after she went into labour…and when I came back ten minutes later she had been born, he rushed up to me and shook my hand and told me I was a dad and I better hurry up and get in there. That is just typical of how the whole family is and makes it truly impossible for us to have any worries.

Well that is probably enough for now. If people have specific questions I suspect I could go on some more , but let me finish by trying to explain how I think this is also relevant to people that have chosen the IA path.

Like many, when we first started looking into adoption I thought the inherently “closed” nature of many IA programs was an advantage. Through a lot of research and reading, and even before our path changed, I had begun to realize that the very opposite is true. Maybe the simplest way to explain it is to imagine a time when your son or daughter begins to ask the very hard questions about their story. Why? Why me? How could they? Didn’t they love me? Well in our case we are extremely lucky. We will as a minimum be able to pull out those two pictures we have and show her that her path to our family was made in love and with some sadness but also with a lot of happiness. Even better we hope she will get to know her birthmom and be able to ask those questions herself. I think understanding the loss that comes with not having the ability to do this is a good first step at being able to help your children deal with these issues.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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This is one of the first in this series, originally posted on May 17, 2007

Untitled

So there on the front page of one of the papers I read is a story about how the number of teenage pregnancies in Canada continues to decline. Good news of course…so why is there a part of my brain that immediately thinks about the fact that this will also lead to less opportunities for adoption.

From reading posts online I suspect I am not the only person who has these thoughts, and I think it is interesting to ponder why we think these things sometimes.

For many many people in the adoption world I think there is a tendency to focus primarily on the positives of adoption, how lucky we are, and how lucky our children will be. Focusing on what went before is not often given the spotlight. Again, not a bad thing…during a long wait of trying to stay optimistic, trying to just get through the stress of it all, it is easy and maybe even a good thing to push aside the negative parts of the adoption story just to try to keep your sanity. I think it is also important to challenge your thinking on adoption now and then. I think I can safely say that no one reading this thinks about adoption in the same way now as they did when they first started on their journey.

So…what are some of the hard truths that I think about when I am trying to give myself a reality check:

• at their core, adoptions are simply making the best of a bad situation
• parenting is hard work, parenting an adopted child is likely to be even harder
• somewhere down the road when my daughter is a teenager (or maybe sooner) and I have earned her wrath I can fully expect to hear “well you aren’t my real father anyway” and I suspect it will hurt…no matter how well I am prepared for it and how much I know that she doesn’t really mean it.

After a sleepless night of standing over a crib am probably thinking about this stuff way too much so better stop there!

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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Originally posted on October 19, 2007.

The Biological Imperative

So there I am last night…all is well in the world…daughter is asleep…managed to stop worrying about which way the lady is turning (thanks arw)…just reading a book for pleasure when I come across this passage…a conversation between one of the main female characters and a stranger on a rainy day in an art gallery:

“He wants us to adopt. I want my child — his child — a family that’s real, one that we create, not one that we apply for…..It wouldn’t be mine, I tell him. It wouldn’t come from me. It wouldn’t come from us. I couldn’t love it the same way if it isn’t mine.”

“No,” he said. “That’s very true. You wouldn’t love it the same way at all.”

She grasped his arm. The wool of his coat was damp and scratchy beneath her fingers. “You understand. He doesn’t. He says there’re connections that go beyond blood. But they don’t for me. And I can’t understand why they do for him.”

“Perhaps it’s because he knows that we humans ultimately love something that we have to struggle for — something that we give up everything to have — far more than the other things that fall our way through chance.”

I know this doesn’t cover any new ground and I think every human is somewhere on a continuum between the two positions described. Many of us that are adoptive parents or pursuing adoption, I suspect, started closer to the womans position than we often might care to admit. Some of us may still have doubts even.

I guess the point I would make is that it is a continuum…there is no right or wrong way to feel on this subject in my opinion. It is a useful thing for me to remember I think, when dealing with those who haven’t made the journey that I have made in my thinking with regard to adoption.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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Originally posted August 8, 2007

My journey through adoption thinking

One of the things I often need to remind myself of as I journey through the world of being an adoptive parent is how much my own thinking on adoption has changed since we started our own adventure almost three years ago. Sometimes people say things about adoption that now strike me as simply bizarre and then I realize that at one time I might have said something similar. A few examples:

Adoption language

I never imagined how hard this would be. We know exactly what words we want to use and I still get all wound up if someone uses the term “real mom” instead of “birth mom” for example. What I have learned is that while we do need labels to help us navigate the world of adoption, ultimately they are just labels. So I am now trying to give people a break on this issue and try to educate as opposed to scold and if they don’t get it well thats ok too. I mean if I still struggle with the language after all this time how can someone new to adoption possibly get it right.

Openness - good or bad

When we first started our adoption journey, the concept of an open adoption was exceptionally hard to grasp and I will freely admit that this is one of many reasons why our first adoption choice was china. Not having to deal with an open adoption seemed like a positive thing. As those of you who have heard me rant on this subject before know I have done a complete about face in my thinking on this subject. I think China is still a great choice for adoption (note: not as true anymore). We would be adopting from there right now except for the rule changes and the wait, but I think the fact that we would know nothing at all about the child’s birth family and that our daughter would likely never have an opportunity to meet them is a big negative.

Now that we are involved in an open adoption I struggle to deal with peoples misconceptions about the concept. We recently got together with our daughters birth mom. In the days leading up to the day we would tell friends how excited we were and many of them would get this look on their faces. Like we were crazy. We would get comments like “oh how brave you are for doing that”, “i am not sure I could ever do that” or “aren’t you worried?” This leads to the next point….

It’s about her not me

While going through the long wait to adopt I found it easy to get wrapped up in what it all meant to me. I needed to constantly remind myself to think about the issues of adoption as it relates to my daughter. In the case of having an open adoption that meant not letting my own personal insecurities interfere with what would be best for my daughter. As my daughter grows it will mean talking about adoption with a recognition that it is her story and not mine. In our case our daughter looks enough like us that she will get to decide who knows and when.

I also need to restrain myself when it comes to others. I was a stay at home dad last week and was at the local playground and found myself at the swings beside another dad with his daughter. He was white, she was Chinese (2.5 years old). Now I love talking about adoption in general and adoption from China specifically, so I was so tempted to just come out and ask, but I restrained myself. Shouldn’t they be able to go to the playground without ending up talking about adoption just like I can? In the end it turned out that we live very close to each other and sort of knew of each other through the neighbourhood grapevine so we did end up talking about adoption.

Would love to hear from others about how their own thinking has changed. So much to learn.

Tags: Hard Thinking Series by Windthrow
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