I hate to keep blogging on the Russian story, but we seem to keep having to face it. We are sharing our decision to adopt with our family this week, and of course, they all immediately ask if we have heard about this case. I feel like we have to keep defending adoption--this is the exception, not the norm!
Of course it scares us. It scares the pants off of us. There are so many unknowns. Was the adoptive mother mislead? Was the child really out of control? How can any child adapt in only 6 months?
But the biggest question we have is "What if this happens to us?"
I'm not sure I'll know how we'd handle something like this. Not becoming a family unit is one of our greatest fears. But I know we are no quitters. Giving up on a child is not an answer.
The thing I worry about more though, is that we will be judged by the actions of this family. The state of international adoptions is tenuous. It's a delicate dance between countries, often tip-toeing around cultural differences, political agendas, and even anger over the "export" of children from their birth country. The fragile thread of hope for a family must survive amid the every changing relationships between sending countries and the United States. We hope the US continues a good relationship with Korea and the ripples caused by this situation and the Russian international adoption program will not adversely impact our chances of creating a family.
So I cling to the hope that this is the exception to most adoption stories. Not the rule. I know that most adopted children live a happy and well adjusted life. And most adoptive parents would go to the ends of the earth to help their child before putting them on a plane back to Russia.
I want other countries to know that not all Americans who are adopting should be judged by the actions of this family.
The Joint Council on International Children's Services have a call to action for adoptive families who want to have their voices heard on this subject in the international arena. They encourage the US and Russia to prosecute any situations concerning abuse and work together for the protection and support of adopted children.
Go here to sign the Joint Council's petition and stand up for adopted families!
Also, for you bloggers, the Joint Council has designated April 15 as We Are The Truth adoption blogger day. Use your blog to share your adoption SUCCESS stories!
Thanks for your great blog and for mentioning it on the Korea forum.
ReplyDelete~Christy
www.threelittlemonkeysjumping.blogspot.com
We adopted from S. Korea. No issues like this. I think that you have to look at the country from where you're adopting and determine the veracity of the facts that you get on the child and then determine whether or not that fits with what you can handle. In our case, we received very good information, and have found all of the information thus far to be truthful (and it's been almost two years since we came home). We have no regrets. We are, however, dismayed by the perception in the media that foreign adoptions are somehow fruaght with peril when in fact it's a very small percentage of cases where things go bad. I'd go so far so as to venture that if you look at the "problem" cases with foregin adoptions vs. the "problem" cases with natural mothers in the US, adjust for the statistical difference in the sizes of those populations, I would be surprised if foreign adoptions had a higher or even and even rate of incidents. Thus, the entire media blitz about this is likley just "if it bleeds, it leads" without really doing any serious journalism. Then again, that's the state of journalism in the US today, in my opinion. Asian nations really look at hard at prospective adoptive families (I don't know if the Russians do) so there is less change of this.
ReplyDeleteMichael Trust