Shattered Dreams, Shattered Hearts
On December 8th, 2006, word came through US adoption agency representatives in Beijing that the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) would be changing the qualifications for adopting parents effective May 1, 2007. Any dossier logged in after that date would be required to meet the new qualifications; those that did not would be rejected. These changes touch all areas or the parents' lives: age of parents, health and weight, education, financial status, family size, and eliminating the single parent program all together. This has created a panic among potential parents who hoped to adopt from China sometime in the future, and media organizations around the world have picked up on this news story this week with postings all over the internet:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/19/content_762799.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6194477.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/12/19/china.adoption.ap/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/asia/19cnd-adopt.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/us/20adopt.html?ex=157680000&en=cb2d5c753c6d93ea&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
In reply to the article in the NY Times on 12/20 and postings by other readers , I posted the following comments at http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=111 :
In answer to RY #62:You wrote: “If American parents disapprove of the rules, they are free to adopt from their own country, which has many children waiting to be adopted, and foster children in need of homes and love… I wonder why Chinese babies have become so popular, more so than Hispanic, Latino, African, or Indian babies. ”
I don’t disagree that there are thousands of children here in the USA deserving and needing the love of a permanent family. But it disturbs me when a flippant comment such as this is made by those uneducated in domestic and international adoption affairs.
It is not as easy as you might think to adopt a child in the USA, either through private adoption or from foster care. One of the biggest problems is that there is no national adoption law in the USA; adoption is handled on a state-by-state basis, and can be a very difficult road to navigate. Another issue is that many of the children in the foster care system are not legally free for adoption. Placement in foster care does not mean that the child is available for adoption, and the first objective of foster care is reunite the child with their birth family whenever possible. This keeps many children unavailable to be adopted into a stable, loving family, instead floundering in the foster care system, reuniting occasionally with birth parents who drop the ball again and force the child’s return to foster care. Another issue is that many of the children who are available for adoption through foster care have moderate to severe physical, emotional or psychological special needs, or must be adopted as a sibling group. (A review of the photolisting of available children in NY State, where I reside, will confirm this.) These are very special children and not many potential parents have what it takes to address the challenges of parenting children with known special needs or multiple new children into the household at the same time as with a sibling group. Even as an experienced parent blessed with children through adoption and marriage, I question my own ability to parent children in these situations. My children are mentally and physically healthy, but each carries some emotionally “scarring” regarding how they came to be my child, either through adoption or divorce. Those emotional scars have not made our road to becoming a family smooth, but these were all issues that I was aware of when I agreed to become a parent to each of my children. The unknown issues of adopting a child who has lived in various foster care settings can be frightening and overwhelming to many potential parents, myself included.
One reason why Chinese adoption has become so popular over the last 14 years is that, unlike other international adoption programs, China’s is a centrally-run government program. A governmental agency akin to a US federal agency oversees the international adoption program for the entire country. All applicants are expected to meet the same criteria, submit the same documents, and pay the same fees to complete their adoption. In other countries, adoption programs vary from state to state or province to province, with local officials “calling the shots”, arbitrarily changing paperwork requirements and fees paid, sometimes at the very last minute, in order to finalize the adoption. After having your heart wrapped around a child whom you’ve met, held and fallen in love with, you’d do almost anything to bring this child home. What better way to pull at your purse strings than through your heartstrings? It’s an atrocity! China’s program is a model for international adoption in that there is no tolerance for such treatment of adoptive parents. The program works they way they tell you it works, it costs what they tell you it costs; there are no surprises. I have two daughters who I adopted in China, one as a married parent and once as a single parent. The adoptions took place 3 years apart and in different provinces; they were handled in exactly the same manner and the fees I paid to the Chinese officials were exactly the same.
Another reason for China’s popularity for international adoption is the good health and relatively young age of the children available for adoption (starting as young as under one year old). With a society that was closed off for many years to many of the social issues that much of the rest of the world faces (drug use, alcoholism, AIDS), China’s orphaned children have not had many of the health risks that children in other countries open to international adoption face. Because of the Chinese government’s total involvement in the adoption program, regular apportionment of funds received from international adoptions have reverted back to the orphanages, improving the facilities and care the children receive. Unfortunately, with no centralized government agency overseeing many of the other international adoption programs around the world, only the facilitators, orphanage directors, and lawyers are seeing the bulk of the monies raised by adoption of children to other countries. The children remaining in the orphanages and baby homes are not benefiting from the exorbitant fees charged to adopting parents, and these monies are not being put toward improvement the care facilities for the orphans awaiting a family. Children remain in understaffed, poorly outfitted facilities while those who should be looking out for the welfare of these children get rich.
I have been in the international adoption arena for 8 years now, both as an adoptive parent and an adoption professional. http://www.joldossierservice.com/ While I believe that many of the changes indicated for the Chinese adoption program are good ones and I respect the Chinese government’s right and authority to change their program as they see fit, I’m saddened that many who already are or who would be wonderful parents and had hoped to adopt from China will no longer be permitted to do so, myself included.
Lastly, to Tom #66: I take great offense in your referring to those who adopt Asian children as the children being our “handbags”. Believe me, if you had to go under the microscope adoptive parents have to go under in order to adopt a child from any country, you’d find that no one does this in order to have a stylish accessory. To refer to anyone’s children as such is insulting not only to the parent but to the child. Posted on December 20th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I am sad that my family will no longer qualify to adopt from China. We are only 2.5 years into our marriage, second time for both of us. My husband will be 53 in a few months, already beyond the age to adopt a non-special needs child. By the time we are past the 5-year mark for a second marriage, we will be beyond the qualification to adopt a special needs child due to my husband's age.
As a single parent a few years back, my intention was to adopt a third child, a waiting child, perhaps an older child (ages 5-13). When we made the decision to marry, my husband and I discussed this issue. He felt that 4 children (my 2, his 2) was enough for us to handle but would be open to discussing the possibility of adding another child via adoption from China when and if the right situation presented itself. I held onto this hope of adding to my family again. Now I have to let that dream go. Don't get me wrong - I know I am VERY blessed with the wonderful children I have, and I am grateful to God that I have these children in my life and have been honored to be their mother. But I thought there was one more child from China to come home with us...
Guess I was wrong.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/19/content_762799.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6194477.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/12/19/china.adoption.ap/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/asia/19cnd-adopt.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/us/20adopt.html?ex=157680000&en=cb2d5c753c6d93ea&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
In reply to the article in the NY Times on 12/20 and postings by other readers , I posted the following comments at http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=111 :
In answer to RY #62:You wrote: “If American parents disapprove of the rules, they are free to adopt from their own country, which has many children waiting to be adopted, and foster children in need of homes and love… I wonder why Chinese babies have become so popular, more so than Hispanic, Latino, African, or Indian babies. ”
I don’t disagree that there are thousands of children here in the USA deserving and needing the love of a permanent family. But it disturbs me when a flippant comment such as this is made by those uneducated in domestic and international adoption affairs.
It is not as easy as you might think to adopt a child in the USA, either through private adoption or from foster care. One of the biggest problems is that there is no national adoption law in the USA; adoption is handled on a state-by-state basis, and can be a very difficult road to navigate. Another issue is that many of the children in the foster care system are not legally free for adoption. Placement in foster care does not mean that the child is available for adoption, and the first objective of foster care is reunite the child with their birth family whenever possible. This keeps many children unavailable to be adopted into a stable, loving family, instead floundering in the foster care system, reuniting occasionally with birth parents who drop the ball again and force the child’s return to foster care. Another issue is that many of the children who are available for adoption through foster care have moderate to severe physical, emotional or psychological special needs, or must be adopted as a sibling group. (A review of the photolisting of available children in NY State, where I reside, will confirm this.) These are very special children and not many potential parents have what it takes to address the challenges of parenting children with known special needs or multiple new children into the household at the same time as with a sibling group. Even as an experienced parent blessed with children through adoption and marriage, I question my own ability to parent children in these situations. My children are mentally and physically healthy, but each carries some emotionally “scarring” regarding how they came to be my child, either through adoption or divorce. Those emotional scars have not made our road to becoming a family smooth, but these were all issues that I was aware of when I agreed to become a parent to each of my children. The unknown issues of adopting a child who has lived in various foster care settings can be frightening and overwhelming to many potential parents, myself included.
One reason why Chinese adoption has become so popular over the last 14 years is that, unlike other international adoption programs, China’s is a centrally-run government program. A governmental agency akin to a US federal agency oversees the international adoption program for the entire country. All applicants are expected to meet the same criteria, submit the same documents, and pay the same fees to complete their adoption. In other countries, adoption programs vary from state to state or province to province, with local officials “calling the shots”, arbitrarily changing paperwork requirements and fees paid, sometimes at the very last minute, in order to finalize the adoption. After having your heart wrapped around a child whom you’ve met, held and fallen in love with, you’d do almost anything to bring this child home. What better way to pull at your purse strings than through your heartstrings? It’s an atrocity! China’s program is a model for international adoption in that there is no tolerance for such treatment of adoptive parents. The program works they way they tell you it works, it costs what they tell you it costs; there are no surprises. I have two daughters who I adopted in China, one as a married parent and once as a single parent. The adoptions took place 3 years apart and in different provinces; they were handled in exactly the same manner and the fees I paid to the Chinese officials were exactly the same.
Another reason for China’s popularity for international adoption is the good health and relatively young age of the children available for adoption (starting as young as under one year old). With a society that was closed off for many years to many of the social issues that much of the rest of the world faces (drug use, alcoholism, AIDS), China’s orphaned children have not had many of the health risks that children in other countries open to international adoption face. Because of the Chinese government’s total involvement in the adoption program, regular apportionment of funds received from international adoptions have reverted back to the orphanages, improving the facilities and care the children receive. Unfortunately, with no centralized government agency overseeing many of the other international adoption programs around the world, only the facilitators, orphanage directors, and lawyers are seeing the bulk of the monies raised by adoption of children to other countries. The children remaining in the orphanages and baby homes are not benefiting from the exorbitant fees charged to adopting parents, and these monies are not being put toward improvement the care facilities for the orphans awaiting a family. Children remain in understaffed, poorly outfitted facilities while those who should be looking out for the welfare of these children get rich.
I have been in the international adoption arena for 8 years now, both as an adoptive parent and an adoption professional. http://www.joldossierservice.com/ While I believe that many of the changes indicated for the Chinese adoption program are good ones and I respect the Chinese government’s right and authority to change their program as they see fit, I’m saddened that many who already are or who would be wonderful parents and had hoped to adopt from China will no longer be permitted to do so, myself included.
Lastly, to Tom #66: I take great offense in your referring to those who adopt Asian children as the children being our “handbags”. Believe me, if you had to go under the microscope adoptive parents have to go under in order to adopt a child from any country, you’d find that no one does this in order to have a stylish accessory. To refer to anyone’s children as such is insulting not only to the parent but to the child. Posted on December 20th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
I am sad that my family will no longer qualify to adopt from China. We are only 2.5 years into our marriage, second time for both of us. My husband will be 53 in a few months, already beyond the age to adopt a non-special needs child. By the time we are past the 5-year mark for a second marriage, we will be beyond the qualification to adopt a special needs child due to my husband's age.
As a single parent a few years back, my intention was to adopt a third child, a waiting child, perhaps an older child (ages 5-13). When we made the decision to marry, my husband and I discussed this issue. He felt that 4 children (my 2, his 2) was enough for us to handle but would be open to discussing the possibility of adding another child via adoption from China when and if the right situation presented itself. I held onto this hope of adding to my family again. Now I have to let that dream go. Don't get me wrong - I know I am VERY blessed with the wonderful children I have, and I am grateful to God that I have these children in my life and have been honored to be their mother. But I thought there was one more child from China to come home with us...
Guess I was wrong.
