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Those who began the equal rights movement in this country campaigned for "EQUAL" treatment... not special treatment. I am so tired of "minorities" (women, black people, hispanics, gays, left handers) screaming "EQUALITY" but not settling for less than "special". The women of the past wanted equal pay for equal work, not lower standards to help them qualify - as exist in our current military. When will people learn that if a woman takes 3-6 months off every 3 years to have a child and stay home to bond with them, you don't deserve the same promotions and pay as a man whose career isn't dotted with those events?
When is "Take your son to work day"? When is "National White History Month"? Can you imagine the screams if there was a "United Caucasian College Fund"? As a matter of fact, I cannot think of ONE scholarship that has as it's FIRST qualifier a "Parent of Caucasian descent", though I could easily list hundreds that list "Parents of African-American" or "Hispanic" descent. - Things that are proven by skin color alone, despite their fancy wording.
I have taught my kids that to judge another by the color of their skin is as stupid as judging a cat by the color of their fur. Wanting special treatment for your skin pigmentation or 2 "X" chromosones is just as ignorant.
Okay. Hold the phone. This is stupid beyond all human belief. It's a sign that the idiots have taken over the asylum in my honest opinion.
The number of black children needing parents far outstrips the number of black parents who are willing or able to adopt. So now, people who are willing to shower a child with love and raise that kid circumstances far, far better than foster care or an orphanage now have to leap an additional hurdle by fulfilling some nebulous requirement of "respecting cultural heritage."
Say what? My wife and I have three children of our own, so we've never needed to adopt. But we have several friends who have adopted children of Chinese parentage. Do they suddenly need to learn the poetry of Li Po? I know somebody else who adopted a Guatemalan child. Should this woman have to undertake extensive Latin American studies?
Or, more specific to the black experience, what if a well-to-do professional black couple wants to adopt a child who comes from an impoverished, inner-city existence? The parents and the child will come from utterly different cultural experiences, having only skin color in common. Will the parents have to learn all about gangsta culture, too? What if the child is the product of a bi-racial couple? How do you gain proper cultural awareness then, and how do you mete out cultural appreciation in the proper proportions? Do you alternate rap with old Perry Como albums? Does anybody else see how quickly this descends into fulfilling the arbitrary whims of whatever the social worker defines "blackness" to be?
The truth is, your culture becomes what you were raised in. It is the sum total of your experiences, your education, your artistic tastes and your family. It is not some artificial construct somewhere over there to be visited occasionally like some dusty museum. Yet a few militant child psychologists are suddenly wanting to impose conditions on people who want nothing more than to share their unconditional love with a child who has not started life on the best foot.
Not exactly a sensible approach if you ask me. Anything that slows a child's exit from the overburdened foster child system is an appalling disservice to the material and spiritual comfort of the adopted.
When will people learn that if a woman takes 3-6 months off every 3 years to have a child and stay home to bond with them, you don't deserve the same promotions and pay as a man whose career isn't dotted with those events?
I know I'm dealing with a nut-job here, but I thought I'd take a wack at it anyway...
So then I guess according you your way of thinking that the human population should just cease to exist at this point, either that or, even a better idea may be to keep the women working, and just outsource having babies to a foreign country like our big corporations do with American jobs?
I think that sounds like a darn good solution to your thought process.
A mom is a mom and a parent is a parent and our main function is to Love our children, whether or not they are biological or adopted. Once you love your child everything else will fall into place.
On one hand, obviously love knows no color and, having volunteered in group homes for foster kids, these kids deserve a REAL home. Adoptive and foster parents are great people and often great parents REGARDLESS of what race, religion, sexuality, or age they are.
On the other hand, my best friend was born in Korea and adopted by American parents. While her parents are absolutely wonderful and other than the phenotypical differences, you'd never know they WEREN'T blood related, she still has trouble with the fact that she knows nothing about her Korean heritage. I imagine that many children who are adopted by parents of a different race might struggle with this. Most of my adopted friends have also been completely adopted into the culture of their parents- and that's great! I have friends who were adopted by Jewish families and brag about being the only black, Korean, Indian, and Guatemalan Jewish kids in their Hebrew schools! But, on the other hand, they still feel a loss of the culture they were born into.
I don't think that is something that foster care agencies should regulate. On the other hand, parents who foster or adopt cross-culturally should be made aware of these issues. Many kids don't express them until they are older for fear of hurting their parents. I know my best friend didn't tell her parents she mourned the loss of her Korean heritage until she was in her late teens. Although her parents adopted her through an agency that dealt exclusively with Korean adoptions, the agency never really sat them down and explained these feelings of alienation that happen to so many kids. That's not to say that parents should not adopt or foster children of a different race- that's crazy talk! They just need to know that the situation IS different than adopting within your own race. Not harder or worse, just different.
I agree with what you are saying. The situation is going to be different. The adoptive parent are obviously aware of that and obviously the child is going to grow up being aware of that. How they choose to handle it is up to the "family". It may not be the our ideal way but it's up to their family...There may be some resentment that they didn't grow up living in their individual culture but teenagers and young adults will get resentful of a lot of things. The beauty is it's never to late to learn.
Therefore, I go back to children need love and stability. Some may disagree but with love and stability education will follow. With children in the foster system they will not know the stability and can't focus on education because they don't know whether the home they are in is for today or for a week. Whether they will be in the same school system today or tomorrow. That situation is much more disruptive than being adopted by a person from a different race or culture.
These are the children of the future, everyone should have a chance.
Last edited by Rose Red; 05-31-2008 at 08:36 PM..
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) screaming "EQUALITY" but not settling for less than "special". The women of the past wanted equal pay for equal work, not lower standards to help them qualify - as exist in our current military. When will people learn that if a woman takes 3-6 months off every 3 years to have a child and stay home to bond with them, you don't deserve the same promotions and pay as a man whose career isn't dotted with those events?
