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susankate, I just read the link you sent - thank you for sharing a different viewpoint. However, I'd like for you and perhaps others to go back to that site and read the comment from "Lisa" - it's the next-to-the-last comment - and see if you can answer some of her questions about international adoption of children with special needs, and how such children are viewed and treated in their birth countries, and what the role of the church should be in regard to adopting these children. Her comments are specific to Eastern Europe, but are applicable in other parts of the world as well.
David Smolin did not respond to her. Nor did I see anything he wrote that seemed to pertain to this situation.
But this is why I choose international adoption. I want no risk and no contact at all. The possibility of a demanding or intrusive b mom or family exists. I do not want to deal with it.
As an adoptee with over 30 years experience in adoption reform, I find this comment to be extremely abrasive.
YOU don't want contact. What about the child you adopt? What will he or she feel as time goes on? Do you not realize that the very people you label as "demanding" or "intrusive" are actually your adoptee's natural family? These are the people who begat that little child you so desperately want to call your own, as if that child is totally yours for all eternity. That is not so. Your little adopted child will grow up someday and wonder where she came from. And that wonder is also a yearning for ancestors, for home culture, for home language. By removing a child from his or her homeland you are depriving that child of name at birth, family of birth, sisters and brothers and extended family.
So, then your argument will be that your adoptee was kept in an orphanage. What about the desperate living situations in these countries? Why don't we spend our money to improve the situation? Improve the status of women so that they will not be stoned to death for having a child when they were raped? What about the death of one or both parents? There may be sibling groups in an orphanage that are split up because of adoption.
Your very last sentence is absolutely appalling: "I do not want to deal with it". Wow. This is a negative attitude and your adoptee will certainly feel it. What exactly are you inflicting upon the child you want to love? No matter what you don't want to deal with, the child you adopt from a USA-foreign land will have to deal with it all --- the losses, the racism of being of different race in a white world, and the shame of not-knowing. The worst feeling of all is that your adoptee will know that he has no say in his life. Only you do. What you want is all that matters.
As an adoptee with over 30 years experience in adoption reform, I find this comment to be extremely abrasive.
YOU don't want contact. What about the child you adopt? What will he or she feel as time goes on? Do you not realize that the very people you label as "demanding" or "intrusive" are actually your adoptee's natural family? These are the people who begat that little child you so desperately want to call your own, as if that child is totally yours for all eternity. That is not so. Your little adopted child will grow up someday and wonder where she came from. And that wonder is also a yearning for ancestors, for home culture, for home language. By removing a child from his or her homeland you are depriving that child of name at birth, family of birth, sisters and brothers and extended family.
So, then your argument will be that your adoptee was kept in an orphanage. What about the desperate living situations in these countries? Why don't we spend our money to improve the situation? Improve the status of women so that they will not be stoned to death for having a child when they were raped? What about the death of one or both parents? There may be sibling groups in an orphanage that are split up because of adoption.
Your very last sentence is absolutely appalling: "I do not want to deal with it". Wow. This is a negative attitude and your adoptee will certainly feel it. What exactly are you inflicting upon the child you want to love? No matter what you don't want to deal with, the child you adopt from a USA-foreign land will have to deal with it all --- the losses, the racism of being of different race in a white world, and the shame of not-knowing. The worst feeling of all is that your adoptee will know that he has no say in his life. Only you do. What you want is all that matters.
I am not even going to respond to this tirade. This is really over the top, inappropriate and uncalled for. My daughter is fine. More than fine. She is not longing for or worried about the woman who gave birth to her or her Korean heritage.
While I would like to, she does not even want to visit Korea. Her dream vacation after HS graduation is Australia.
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