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Wednesday, Nov 4, 2009
AncientAssyrian
Published Letters: 769 Editor's Choice: 54
Before you spread further misinformation about Guatemalan adoption, do your homework, Nulla Sallus.
It's important for people to hear more about Guatemalan adoption that what you've heard on some 2-minute news report.
Because there's the soundbite, Unicef PR version you're spouting, and then there's the reality.
The Guatemalan government is taking over the adoption process. Children available to be adopted will now be put into institutional government care -- instead of the private foster families who used to care for these children, often from birth. Adoptions that used to take from 5 months to a year are now likely to take a minimum of two years.
Do the research about the effects of institutional care of children when it begins at birth and goes past the age of two. See if what the Guatemalan government is doing is good for children.
Oh, and let's not forget the fact that the Guatemalan middle and upper class, almost to a person, don't want to adopt ANY of the children of their own country, due to prejudice against the Mayan and indigenous origin of the majority of these children, who come from the poorest regions of the country. The Guatemalans are, sadly, extremely conscious of the color of the skin of these children. Light-skinned Ladino Guatemalans who could afford to do so simply do not want to adopt Mayan, Indian and indigenous children.
And the government, run by mostly light-skinned Ladino Guatemalans, isn't setting aside the money to properly care for these children.
Think Romanian orphanages, and you'll get an idea of exactly what is in store for Guatemala's poorest children whose families can't care for them.
For many poor children in Guatemala, 2 out of 5 will not make it to the age of 5 due to disease and malnutrition.
The new regulations will not prevent children from being available for adoption. Poverty, birth control availability, and cultural circumstances mean that there always will be many children whose families can not care for them at all.
What Guatemala's new regulations WILL do is shovel many thousands of children each year into poorly run, nearly unfunded institutions where they can languish, receive sub-par food and medical care, develop attachment disorders, and lose out on a chance at having loving foster families, and loving adoptive families, early in life.
This is an improvement to the system?
What it is is a total travesty -- and the losers are the children.
It's always amazing to me how people who know little about international adoption, and whose primary source of information is apparently reading People Magazine, have decided that international adoption is some sort of "pop culture trend" and that is why people adopt children internationally.
Years ago, we had Mia Farrow -- now we have Angelina and Madonna. But these adopt-aholics are a handful of celebrities... and most of us don't know them, will never know them, and don't even run in these kinds of celebrity circles.
So Laurel, and anyone else who thinks this international adoption is some sort of "trend run amok" -- how many people do YOU know who have adopted internationally just because it's chic or trendy?
Because I don't know a single parent of an child adopted internationally who adopted internationally because it's trendy.
I know people who have adopted internationally because they were told by adoption agencies that if they wanted to adopt a healthy newborn, infant or young child of any race domestically, they'd wait for years, or forever, because they weren't the kind of families (wealthy, prominent, doctors, attractive, etc.) that are quickly chosen by pregnant women.
I know people who have adopted internationally because they were single, and didn't want to bring another child into the world, but rather, wanted to care for a child that needed a family.
I know people who have adopted internationally because they were infertile, and felt a pull toward children from a particular area or region of the world.
I know people who have adopted internationally, after having biological children, because they felt that their family had so much love to share.
International adoption is a grueling, time-consuming, and difficult process. You can only embark on it, and survive it, if you are ready for a major emotional/financial/physical marathon. There is absolutely NOTHING even remotely "trendy" about filling out hundreds of pages of paperwork, having dozens of papers notarized each month, seeing social workers on a regular basis to discuss your family's inner workings, making various trips abroad, and amidst it all, the waiting, wondering, heartache, tears and stress.
I don't know a single person who believes that they have "saved an exotic -- and very attractive -- child from poverty" as you so blithely suggest.
Maybe that's why Angelina Jolie or Madonna adopt -- I don't know and I don't presume to know. And maybe because they're wealthy celebrities, they don't have to go through the years of grueling paperwork and bureacracy like everyone else does, so it's not the grueling process it is for the rest of us.
But give me a break. Angelina Jolie Syndrome? Trendy? Saving exotic children from poverty as a motivation for adoption?
Try actually learning about international adoption from someplace besides People Magazine...
At least you can spell his name right.
And Joan, please read the esteemed David Talbot's response. And read it again. And again. And again.
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