Media Attention of Haiti Adoption Sheds Light on Raw Adoption Truths
It seemed like the minute I heard about the earthquake in Haiti, the story was linked to adoption. My poor husband, such a news junkie, started clicking away from the channels when an adoption related story came on. I had to tell him that I would not start screaming at the TV, rather, I knew and expected that when there was a catastrophic natural disaster, whispers and then demands to adopt the children left alive would soon follow. I have accepted that on some level people just want to help even if their version of helping went against everything I rail against. I do understand; it’s awful for anyone to imagine any child being stuck in such horrific circumstances, or even just normal everyday third world poverty, and for many, they have been taught or just believe that adoption is the answer.
Haiti and Adoption Was to be No Different
At first it was the stories of American Families who were in the middle of Haitian Adoptions who wondered whether their intended children were alive or dead. Yes, I felt empathic.
Then there were the happy stories as some of those children were found alive and OK. Yes, I was happy that the kids were OK.
Then, there were the cries that diplomatic leniency be made for those “in the process” to speed the paperwork along and finalize the adoptions so the kids could get out of Haiti. Ok, I can get down with that just to be easy going.
And then, we had the plane full of Haitian kids coming in.. and I began to get that yucky feeling: Yup, Haiti would be an adoption free for all. As if the country had not lost enough already, now we shall strip them of their children in the name of “helping” and God?
Then, Haiti surprised us! The Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out the country last week without the government’s consent were not only stopped, but actually charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy!
Yeah, I admit it: I gave a big Whoohoo for Haiti!
Of course, I know it’s not that simple. Were the American’s hearts in the right place? I would like to think so. Were they just naive do-gooders? Some of them, sure.
But, as I say with Many Issues Adoption Related: Follow the Money.
Thirty three kids at a conservative 20K a piece? That’s $660,000.00 dollars. Yes, I know there are costs incurred with food for 33, staff, transportation, office space, letter head, etc.. but I am sure it would not be over half a million dollars in costs! Fact is: someone, and I don’t know who, had an opportunity to make a huge amount of money out of getting those children to the US and to waiting families. Rescued, abducted, trafficked, helped? I do not have to means to look into the souls of those American’s and see either halos or money signs. None of us do. But, we all need to do is find a lesson in adoption truth here that we MUST apply to many international adoption situations:
Families in Other Countries Do Not Understand Adoption in US Terms!
Maybe it’s just hard for us to understand because of the huge culturally differences in our cultures especially in economic terms, but what we know of adoption in the US does not translate well to many of the international states that we import children from.
It takes thought to go beyond what we might think of a perfect situation: couples has means for caring for a child and the great desire to be parents verses child in obviously horrible living conditions, often suffering to a heartbreaking level, that needs someone to take care of them and love them. It takes an understanding of places that very far removed from life as we know it in the USA.
Orphanages Mean Life
For many undeveloped countries an orphanage is not a place where children go if they have no parents. Often an orphanage is run by missionaries or organizations funded from other more Westernized countries. It is only in an orphanage that children are guaranteed a certain level of care such as an education, basic needs of life such as food and clothing, and medical attention. In many countries, it is only the act of placing these children in orphanages that enables their survival. Of course, in a war torn or famine ridden society, these desperate parents truly WANT their children to be in an orphanage as that is the only way these children have a chance to live.
Imagine that. I mean really try to picture how crazy desperate you would have to be to send your child away far from you just to ensure that they might live. Would you do it? I bet, if push came to shove, and the only other option was to watch your children slowly starve to death or be destroyed by parasitic diseases, that we ALL would. Even if it meant horrible loss and grief to us all. We would make this ultimate sacrifice for our child’s well being. Not because we wanted to, but because we had to.
Culturally, in many of these countries that are currently exporting their children to the US in the name of adoption, the acceptance of an orphanage has been part of their lives and survival for generations. Do they sign relinquishment forms? Some do. Does it mean that they really desire to give up their children to be parented by others and be part of another family forever? Somehow I think not. Would you sign something, anything this live saving place wanted if it meant your child would get food and medicine? Sure. We all would. Release your child to those who are seen as saviors for keeping their child alive and then, be thankful that someone was there to do so.
This was clearly the case in Madonna’s scandalous adoption of David Banda from Malawi. David’s father, Yohane Banda, had placed David in the care of the Malawi orphanage because the baby’s mother had died at birth and he had no one to help nurse the newborn. The orphanage was the only place where formula could be had. Of adoption, Yohane, obviously alive, initially thought Madonna would just “educate and take care of our son”.
“”I was never told that adoption means that David will no longer be my son – if I was told this, I would not have allowed the adoption.”
And that leads us to the second important point:
Adoption Means Different Things in Other Countries
I can honestly understand that to many parents, already in a desperate struggle just to live, that the idea of adoption sounds like winning the Lottery for their kids. No matter how great any orphanage might be funded, the children are still stuck in the war torn famine driven country of export.
Now image that the concept of adoption come up:
“Mrs. Bruddanha, the opportunity has come up for Kieshata to be taken to America for adoption!
Oh America?
Yes, Mrs. Bruddanha. We have located a very fine Christian family who wants to take Kieshata to their home and raise her as one of their own. They will take care of her and educated her in the best American schools. And she will go to college! Would you like Kieshata to have such an opportunity?
Oh YES! Mr. Director! Oh yes! That would be my biggest dream for Kieshata to go to college in America!
I thought you would say this, Mrs Bruddanha, so I have just these papers for you to sign.
“
Ok, so I completely just made up that previous conversation, but I do not think it is such a far stretch. The Haitian parents said that the Americans’ offer of an education seemed like a gift from heaven. Yes, they might have attempted to explain adoption to these parents and went through all the legal jargon of what it really means: “You understand that you are giving up all your rights to be this child’s mother. You have no more parental rights, etc.”
But the thing is…
International Adoptions “It’s What’s Best”
Birthmothers in the US think they want to do this all the time, too. And we understand the actual concept of adoption. And they explain all the same things over and over again too. And still, we have NO IDEA what the heck we are really getting ourselves into!
- Without the language barrier
- Without the cultural Barrier
- Without the Missionary life
- Without the appreciation of Orphanage Life
- Without the War and famine
- Without the threat of childhood death
The concept of adoption doesn’t translate well into what it means to one’s heart. It’s a logical choice at best. A desperate choice all too often. Most mothers/ families that say they choose relinquishment really do so because they can’t find another option that provides for their child the way they think the child needs.
Haitian parents, Kisnel and Florence Antoine, said they sent two of their children with the Baptist missionaries because they had offered educational opportunities for the children in the Dominican Republic.
Educational Opportunities Equal Adoption?
So we already have cultures who are used to living away from their children for the pure survival of those children and then we introduce this legal concept that they have no real ability to comprehend. It’s completely alien and just makes zero sense to most. As one of the mother’s of a Haitian “orpahange” was quoted saying:
“Do you think I would give this child away?” she said, opening a grade school yearbook to show her son in cap and gown, at his kindergarten graduation. “He is my only treasure.”
Logically, I know these parents think, “how can signing a piece of paper make my child not mine?”
A mere piece of paper has no ability to take that away.
But, my child is going to go live in America. I must have heard the director wrong. He just means that the American Mother will be like my child’s mother. After all she will be there for him, I will not. But I must do this and someday my child will come back to this horrible place and bring us all to America.
Yes. This is what parents often think when they relinquish a child for international adoption. In Haiti, they are still alive and talking and we have a wonderful opportunity to learn for watching what happens. We have the ability to seek understanding from these very real, live human parents to understand what caused them to send their children away. And as a more developed, more educated, more “civilized” country, we have an obligation to realize that they don’t understand adoption as we do. We are asking for apples and they see oranges.. and I don’t care how much anyone might want family or want to help, we don’t have the right to trick people or take advantage of them, even if it is “for the best”.
Don’t tell me that “they wanted to give up these children”. Don’t tell me that they made a choice. Death or adoption is not a choice. Educational Opportunities or Adoption is not a choice. Extreme Poverty or Adoption is not a choice. Prison or Adoption is not a choice. Social scorn or Adoption is not a choice.
In any country, any race, any nationality, any color, any culture: ask any sane, non emotional damaged, mother is she wants to give up her child and her answer will be no. Ask her if she would if she had to if it ensured her child better and she will hope that she can.
That’s not a choice.
I want to say I appreciate your blog and your work. I’m also an adoptive parent who is going to say some of the things you guessed someone like me would say in response to this post. I’m posting anon because I don’t put my kids stories online. I adopted a 6 year old who was left on the street by her mother. I know the story is true because my child remembers what happened, and it is a great sorrow for her. I’m sure it’s a great sorrow for her mother too, who must have been scared and desperate. My child spent two years in an orphanage where she was sexually abused by another older child. She has told me this, as well as a therapist. She’s also told me how she was always hungry/scared etc. I have two other kids who are orphans (yes, both parents died), also adopted at older ages, also able to verify their stories. One child saw his father murdered. So just as many adopted people and first mothers have painful stories that they want a-parents to hear and take in, so do my kids, so does our family. I do get tired of hearing people who have never been to an orphanage assume they know what it is like. There is the myth that it’s like a happy boarding school, and I guess that can be sometimes, but I’ve never seen it. I think that myth exists so adults can feel better about not doing anything real to eleiminate the need for orphanages. My kids have almost no happy memories of life in the orphanage. They do remember their families with love, as one would expect. Yes, some families do rely on orphanages for child care, and those kids should not be adopted. But there is tremendous, genuine need that is hard to understand if you haven’t seen it with your own eyes, or seen the effect of orphanage life on an innocent child.