Why do people get annoyed when you don't adopt from your own country?

Mei-Ling

It matters because sometimes love is not enough.

My parents loved me with love and care. But they weren't my original parents - they could not give me my original mother tongue, culture or identity. They gave me bits & pieces... like an "imitation."

And an imitation can NEVER be the real thing.

I do not accuse them of that, nor would they ever. But children eventually grow adopt and may even want to return to their country of birth - only they can't speak the language, know the customs, or feel "in place" because they are returning as a "foreigner" to their own motherland.

Yes, they can learn. Yes, they can take language classes and buy the food from downtown Asian shops. Yes, they can study a textbook based on the culture.

But they can't magically INTEGRATE themselves into the culture. It doesn't work that way. Taking languages classes once a week for a few hours doesn't compensate anywhere NEAR for the communication that is needed when you are in an all-Mandarin environment.

How would I know? Because I've DONE that. I've spoken to my own family through a microphone and tried VERY hard to communicate. Guess what? Language classes didn't really help me. Language classes cannot convey what a person is in their essence. Language classes cannot automatically help you to translate what is being said to you. Either you know it or you don't. And that's a harsh reality to face if you're not prepared for it.

I wasn't.

I had to scramble for a textbook and repeat "I don't understand" in the target language multiple times. My accent made (and still makes) me sound imcomprensible most of the time.

Sometimes it's nice to hear them, other times it's heartbreaking because you know they're RIGHT THERE and if you just could fricken SPEAK, you could tell them all about you and actually have a conversation beyond that of a 2-year-old.

But you know what? You can't. You're screwed.

That's what happens in international adoption. It is not just when the child is adopted, but when the child grows up and the barriers they face by returning "home."

Terri B

I actually asked a question like that today but it's because I'm just curious as to people's opinions on it. My husband and I are trying to adopt from DHS but I've noticed a lot of people really shy away from that and I was wondering why. We would like to adopt more than one child and I would love to adopt from another country as well as this one but just can't afford the thousands of dollars and travel it requires.
Since starting the adoption process, I have noticed that the topic causes people to get pretty heated when I ask questions about it. It's a sensitive subject for a lot of people.

anastasia beaverhausen-the real1

because i don't think it's fair to take a child from their home country and lose their culture and heritage and native language.

reneaumommy

I can't speak for others but I can give you a bit of my experiences.

I am not infertile I have a 1 year old son and am currently pregnant. I have always wanted to be a foster parent. As a child I knew it was something I wanted to do. As an adult I became a foster care case worker. When I had my son I quit to stay home with him. I give this background because I want you toundertsand that I "knew" what I was getting into more than most. We became foster parent and have offer a home to 2 girls (age 5 and 7) who returned to their family and now have a 3 year old foster daughter. We also have offered respite for several families and even a sib group of 3 (age 1, 3,4). It is a very difficult thing to do. The entire family has to adjust to a new person in the house (as the child has to adjust). The worst part is the waiting and wondering. Waiting for the next court hearing to see what will happen. So you are asked to treat the child as your own knowing full well that they may not be with you next year. I'm not saying we wish to take the child from their family if that is an option. I'm saying it is hard emotionally to bond knowing the child may not stay with you. People constantly saying don't get too attached. What exactly is too attached and how can you avoid getting attached to a child you care for everyday? I do not regret having the children in our lives but it is very different than adopting an infant that you know you will be raising for the rest of their life. I imagine it would be even more difficult for an infertile couple to emotionally handle "giving a child back" knowing they again are parentless.

I am aware there are specific programs in foster care where you only take children who are adoptable. THose children are few and far between. Most foster parents are so atteched by the time the child is available for adoption they adopt them (even if their initial plan was just to foster).

aloha.girl59

Because there are so many kids in need right here in the U.S., that's why.

Imagine this: you are a white child born in the United States and relinquished for adoption. A couple comes from another country (China, Kenya, Guatemala) and pays an agency $30,000 for you when you're about eighteen months old. You are then taken to their home country. You are loved very much by these people, but everything is strange. Nothing smells, looks, or sounds familiar to you. You grow up learning a language different from the one you heard as an infant/toddler and you may even have difficulty learning the language. People in school think you may be a slow learner or even retarded, so you are tested for special education. Nope, it's just a language difference, not a disability. But you are still behind in some of your classes because this new language is so hard for you to learn. Not very many people look like you because you are very fair-skinned and don't have (fill in the blank: black hair/almond-shaped eyes/etc.). You always feel a bit out of place even though you know your adoptive parents love you. When you ask questions about your heritage and your first family, you don't really get any answers that satisfy you. You know your parents are doing their best, but you're still unsatisfied. It may be impossible to find your first parents because you were abandoned/stolen/bought, so you will have unanswered questions your entire life. Your parents want to honor your homeland's culture, so they take you to the country of your birth on vacation. You stay in a nice hotel and go on organized tours of local historical and culturally significant places, but you have no idea what it would have been like to grow up there. You, however, are fascinated by all the people who look similar to you! You wonder if every woman with light hair that you pass could possibly be your first mother. Unfortunately, there is no way to find out. Eventually you return to your home, the one where you grew up, with no more of a sense of self than you had before you left, despite your parents' best effort.

Any of that make sense to you? Think about David Banda, the little boy Madonna adopted from Malawi. I've never seen him smiling in a picture. He doesn't look thrilled to have been adopted by rich white people...at least not to me. And he's just one example. If you REALLY want to help a child who needs love and a family, adopting from your home country is best for the child...which is what adoption is really all about in the first place.

Possum

1. adoption should be about finding a permanent home for a child that needs one - NOT about finding a child for someone who can't have one biologically (which is why most people turn to adoption)
2. most of those people that want to adopt because they can't have there own - want a baby
3. there are literally thousands of children waiting for a loving home in foster care.
4. very few are babies - but why do they not deserve a home - but some babies overseas do?!
5. adopting from foster care is virtually free - adopting from overseas costs tens of thousands of dollars
6. taking a child from their own culture should be a last resort for any child - as being adopted by a family of complete strangers is a struggle - even without the added loss of culture and language that O/S adoptees must face

Do some research - especially google blogs written by transracial adoptees.
Adoption is extremely complex.
And sadly - no - love won't fix everything.

Lillie

Then ask yourself this question: Would you be willing to move to that child's country, learn that child's language, take on that child's culture, heritage, customs and beliefs, in order to raise that child?

Could you leave behind your homeland, everything you know and are familiar with and hold dear, to be able to raise this child you "love"?

Why is it that the child always has to be the one to sacrifice everything?

The brain

Personally, I think that the problem is that IA parents do not do it to help a child, but they do it for themselves. If they were doing it to really help a child, then foster care kids would be a choice. But in most IA, the parents bring home a baby or a toddler. They don't want an older child.

It is sad...in foster care, the kids are considered old at age 5. If it was about the children, IA parents would adopt a 5 year old instead of the toddlers they spend $30,000 for.

Kids are kids, yes, ...but those kids that spend their lives in the foster care system have a really difficult time.
And people in the US are travelling all over the world to get their babies/toddlers for them...NOT for the child.

GEEGEE

Most people want there to be a happy home for all children. There are many thousands of children in the USA in foster care, and it is sad they don't have permanent homes. Granted, some of them have health or behavioral problems and many aren't babies, but still, they deserve loving parents. So it doesn't seem fair (I know, life isn't fair) that people bypass these kids and go for international adoptions, which of course is their right.

almost human

You said:
Children are children, love is love, why does it matter where people adopt from?

I ask:
Why does it NOT matter where people adopt from?

Race matters TO THE CHILD when they look radically different from the majority around them

Culture matters TO THE CHILD when, by virtue of their looks, they represent another country

Any attempts to ameliorate these matters are exactly that - attempts. But they don't make the issues go away, because the issues are part of the child's skin, their eyes, their reflection in the mirror and the way society responds to them.

If you were mute and had no power and someone placed you on a plane and dropped you into the hands of foreigners who couldn't speak your language and who looked and acted radically different from all you'd known, but you were entirely dependent upon them for your next meal. What would you do? How would you feel surrounded by nothing familiar? Unable to communicate? Looking and seeing that you were the only one like yourself? What recourse would you have?

As an adult transracial adoptee, I can tell you that the only recourse is to make the best of it and try to love your adoptive parents. But all that other stuff? None of that changes or goes away just because the child adapts to the situation.

It affects us profoundly, and it's asking an awful lot of the children. It should be an option of last resort to affect a child in such a way, instead of a first choice for the parents simply because they are fascinated with another country and think the kids are cute. That's called cultural appropriation! At it's most extreme.

As for the "look in your own backyard comments." That is an answer for the argument some make that they look to other countries because their children are in greater need. There are many children in need here as well. And they get left behind when good families can look abroad.

Children have more needs than love and opportunities. Adoptive parents who simplify international adoption down to these basic components are fooling themselves: simplifying the issues don't make them go away. and international adoption is the most complex of all the adoptions. It is the child who must bear the burden of this complicated situation. It is the least simple of all for the child.

ETA
The thumbs down is so appreciated. When are people who want to adopt going to recognize the things they want to adopt have feelings?

Indian-vision

For some reason there is a strong belief by many that adoption should "ONLY be for the best interest of the child!!!!!!! " While not being able to wrap the idea around the concept that it can be a win -win situation for both adoptive parents and their interest and desire as well as the "best interest of the child/adoptee".

Many who do not foster care, as they do not want a child with "emotional and family baggage". With due respect and hats off to all wonderfull people out there who selflessly foster care. In most cases the foster parent are just mere care givers or sedond set of parents.

Now lets see in India or some other countries if one does International adoption THROUGH AN ORPHANAGE PLEASEEEEE!!!!" An adoptive parent is to be the only set of "known parents". Sure there was a set that they share DNA with.......but in most cases they are abandoned and origins unknown!! An "infertile myrtle (as some here like to throw insults) become "forever parents" and meet their desire to be parents and an abandoned child relinquishing in an orphanage gets a "forever family". This makes adoption both a win- win for parent and child who wish to adopt.

I know people will hate my answer and thumb me down. But thats O.K

Serenity71

From what I have seen the focus is on International adoption in Australia. Legislation was being put forward recently about local adoptions and I didn't hear a peep about it from the media. But when it comes to inter-country.... the media are all over it.

When people discover that our children are locally adopted they look at us in shock. They say things like. "No one adopts children locally any more."

But then even in local Aust you won't be placed with a baby under four months old, and most are six months and older. Only in permanent care will that happen.

Gone are days of new born adoptions in Aust.... (Unless you want to try do it illegally.)

I was alarmed to see on a program this morning that Deborah Lee Furness is campaigning for Australia to become more relaxed towards Hague in countries that haven't signed it. (I support positive change, the system does need it, but not that kind of change.)

I feel people could look more into their local system first instead of jumping to inter-country without a second thought.

I'm not against inter-country adoption, there is a place for it in the world. And more awareness is needed for the sake of the kids.

(Roberta, thats a very good point you have made. ..)

Roberta P

Because many think that FC is the only way to adopt. That only children 5 or older should be able to be adopted. Any one who adopts an infant or toddler is selfish and not thinking about the child only themselves. (Leave all the infants and toddlers in FC until they are 5, then they can be adopted)
Infertile couples should be barred from adopting, since they are adopting for selfish reasons and don't have the best interest of the child in mind. The child will always know that they were second choice.
That taking a child from their home land and forcing them to live in another country is child abuse. (I didn't realize that there were so many people on YA whose ancestors were never immigrants or political refugees. How many people here celebrate all the customs, culture and speak the language of their ancestors?) Only children in the US should have the privilege of having a family.
What about interracial adopting from FC? Should that be banned along with IA? I'm German, so I should only be able to adopt a German child from FC? That way I can teach them German and all about their German heritage.

Honeybee

I've been interested in adoption since I was 7 or 8. I've been researching International Adoption since I was 13. I'm 31 now and from what I've seen in over the past 24 years is the people most concerned with Domestic Adoptions are the people that would be least likely to adopt.

They are too busy trying to control the children other people adopt instead of just being happy another child found their forever family!

My aunt is one of them. She's got p!ssed off at me when she found out I wanted to adopt from Asia. (A desire of mine since I was 15.) She's one of these pro-Domestic Adoption people, but wants NOTHING to do with her sons' girlfriends' kids, let alone an American foster child!

Amanda

I absolutely agree with you!

Kimberly

Foster Care.

People believe that we have so many foster kids in America that need homes, we should adopt from foster care first. Or even in just America.

However, adopting from anywhere is fine.

XOX

i don't know
but i would adopt from another country to get to know them and experience something new!!!

ruthym02

its true, there are many children in our own countries that need families, and i think that thats the only thing some people see. they don't see that these children are in foster care, and sometimes not adoptable, that by the time you adopt, this child knows your their caregiver, but your not their mother(or father). If you want to adopt a baby, you normally have to be chosen by the bio mother to adopt.
International adoption allows parents to adopt babies and raise them from infancy .

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