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One of the misconceptions about adoption (in this case from Haiti) is that Americans are "stealing/removing the future generation" of leaders from the country.
I have noticed multiple reports of this post EQ on major news outlets (Anderson Cooper repeated similar rhetoric in one report he did from a PAP orphanage) and have heard this argument bandied about by many folks that lack facts. So lets take a look at some facts:
In 2007- 191 children left Haiti to become Americans
In 2008- 301
In 2009- 330
After the EQ 2010 - approximately 900 children left on Humanitarian Parole, seeking adoption and citizenship in the USA.
Take into account that most children stay with their families and are never abandoned. Then estimate that there are somewhere near 500,000 children institutionalized in Haiti. If 300 leave - or - even if ten times that many leave in a year - no one is removing the next generation. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing happening is that a microscopic little band-aid is being placed on a massive gushing wound.
This idea that institutions produce the future leaders of a nation is curious to me anyway.
Families offer stability and love. Love and stability create confidence. Confidence creates future leaders.
Changing the argument into something other than truth is the way to advance an anti-adoption agenda, it does not change the real statistics. If we're going to allow that argument any time or attention, we should also stop that man above from having so many of the world's cows.
18 comments:
Amen, sister! Appreciate your honesty--on all of your blog posts.
Agreed. The sheer stastics of adoption make me kind of crazy; we are not talking about mass exodus. To equate international adoption to a form of genecide (which has been done in some places) is just so wrong. After the earthquake and the focus on Haitian orphans coming to the US and the Russian boy who was sent back to Russia, it seems like there has been lots of adoption talk in the media. With that comes all sorts of facts, half facts, and nowhere even close to facts reported by the media and put forth by people commenting on the news articles. I ended up writing a post on my blog about some of the misconceptions put forth either in the media or by just the American population in general.
Thats a great way of putting it! Thank you for your perspective.
Two things getting mixed up. Adoptions are a good thing, meaning a child and a family finds each other. Of course, in a great and wonderful future there will be no children available for adoption. Long time from now... Anecdote: one of my best friends, adopted from Panama in the 1970's. Her story goes: my Mom and Dad walked in to a room with 70 infants and was told: take anyone, please take two. She was with her MOM and DAD from the age of 19 hrs. Her best childhood memory - her Grandad and Grandmom at ther airprt - and til this day her great supporters and the love of her life
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Pls, pray for a world where no one has to give a child up unwillingly, until then, pray for the ones that do not find a family.
Take a look at the Restavec stories and think about what you might do if you fear that your child might not survive in your own family. Let's not be spoiled by our own circumstances, let's look at how things are. The more moms and dads there are around, birthmoms and birtdads or not. A Mom and a Dad is ALWAYS better than not.
Late at night from across the globe
love the analogy with the picture ...
:) :) :)
And WOW Paige! The Golden Step is really yours, you will make a difference with all the houses!
:)
You are so right. I adopted my daughter 10 years ago from Vietnam and have paid attention to adoption stories for at least the last 20 years. It seems that lately there is a real anti-international adoption sentiment that has been very vocal. I don't understand it. Even a story like Sandra Bullock adopting her baby brought it out. Comments people wrote in the online addition of People at least a 1/3re were people saying, "way to go Sandra for helping an American child." Other people say "you are robbing a child of their culture." If you would have seen the conditions in my daughter's orphanage, there would be no doubt in your mind that she is better off in a family that loves her and can provide the attention that every child needs and deserves.I love international adoption. Terri Urban
WOW.
As always, your way of clarifying issues is very helpful. It would be interesting to see how many children adopted internationally venture back to their land of origin and make a difference, great or small, upon doing so. Listened a few weeks ago to kids who had been adopted from Vietnam in the 60s and were returning as prosperous, well-loved adults in order to give back to their native country. I look at your kids and can see that happening.
Camille-
I would love to know that too Camille. My children are free to choose their own path, but I hope and pray their hearts might lead them to serve their people in Haiti in some capacity when they are all grown up.
i think it's clear that i loved working in the orphanage in haiti. i loved that i had the opportunity to love those children whose parents realized they couldn't care for them, and desired to give them a better life. a life with food, love, and education. an education, mind you, that they could return to haiti with and use to the advantage of haiti's next generation.
however, the orphanage was still an institution. and the problem that i have with children being institutionalized is this: a child growing up in a mother's care observes her everyday life. he learns to interact with others, he learns to bargain at the market, he learns how to prep or stretch a meal. a child living under a mother's care learns about schedule, routine and when to set those aside. he learns manners and discipline. he learns about family and how that is one of the strongest ties of all.
a child raised in an institution (even a good, necessary one like Three Angles) is not observing but observed. this happens even here in america. a child in a daycare does not learn about grocery shopping, housekeeping, meal planning, etc. because a child in an institution only has his peers to learn from.
i believe that the difference between a child observing an adult and a child being observed is a MAJOR determining factor on who the child will become.
Thanks for saying this. I am getting so tired of reading about the supposed "free for all" in regards to Haitian orphans after the earthquake. People are really manipulating the truth, and I'm shocked at how prevalent the Haiti "baby-lift" rumors are (not to mention this notion that orphans who age out will somehow become the country's leaders).
There will ALWAYS be situations where a family simply cannot provide for their children and need to place them for adoption, and adoption is an absolutely wonderful thing. Having worked in the adoption field for several years, I am 100% in support of it, both domestically and internationally.
But, if institutions who do not support international adoption really want to raise children who will be dynamic future leaders in Haiti, would they not be better suited to aid families in keeping their children so they can be raised by their loving family in Haiti? We have run into the case time and time again where families have approached us wanting to put their children up for adoption to the United States because they cannot provide them an education. We certainly do not have all the answers, but the one God has given us for this situation is...pay for the education! A child in an institution with no hope of ever having a home, a mother, or a father just breaks my heart. Between adoption and other forms of aid to the entire family, there just has to be a better answer!
Love reading your blog! Thank you for yet another truthful post!
Very well said!
i think most of those who are absolutely anti-adoption have not participated in the adoption journey....many trans racial adoptee blogs i read question adoption..many adoptive parent and first parent blogs question adoption...yet are still not against adoption.....yes adoption needs to continue while there are children who need parents....what i have a hard time with is when first parents give up their children solely due to poverty and then we come in and swoop up the child for 20 grand....and we take out loans and fund raise to do this........a bit hypocritical.......what i hope this adoption rhetoric arouses is how we as a church can first keep families together.....and truly listen to the adoptee voices that are coming forward....all of them........while bringing light to adoption......
keri
Amen.
As long as there is a broken world to live in, their will be a need for adoption.
It is truly a band-aid on a gushing wound.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this so well!
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