Adoption and Race
Last week, The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute issued a report critical of the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994. You can read the story by The New York Times here. The day following the original story, I had the opportunity to hear one of the report’s authors and someone from San Francisco, who disagreed with the report, on a radio talk show (forgive me for not knowing their names, as I started listening after the introductions were done).
Basically, the law says two things—adoption agencies cannot consider race in matching parents to children and states must do more to recruit minority parents to adopt children.
The report contends that parents willing or wanting to adopt children of a different race should undergo special training. While I agree that families that will become multiracial through adoption have special needs to address, families that adopt any child will face many of the same needs. The question shouldn’t come down just to race. It must also include the family’s support network and whether it is sufficient (or capable of being sufficient) to support all of the child’s needs.
It goes further to say that those same parents should consider raising that child within the child’s culture. The reasoning given on the radio interview was disappointing. It went something like this (I’m paraphrasing): when you black children are raised in predominantly white areas, they have more problems in their teenage years with racism. Instead, the parents should consider moving with the child into an area that is more suitable to her. This may be taking it to an extreme, but it sounds like he is saying that since racism exists, we need to keep the kids separated by race.
That’s is less of an issue of race than proximity. But if cultural sensitivity is the goal, shouldn’t we all be exposed to a broader spectrum of cultures and not be told we should grow up with our own kind?
The report also acknowledges that states must make more of an effort to recruit minority parents. And I agree with that wholeheartedly. And they may not succeed in doing so, which might be OK.
Because, at the end of the day, what are the most important things we must accomplish with, not just adoptees, but all children? Health, welfare, a good education, a solid path to adulthood? Which of the available parents are best suited to provide that for these foster children? For any adopted child?
And who is going to set the criteria for matching children and parents appropriately?
Oh yeah, and how much time, money and effort are states going to put into recruiting the right parents for these kids?
This issue goes much further than race alone.
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I just noticed the article on CNN and saw your link. I am actually mortified that this is even an item of discussion by our society. In situations where sadly children are even in the foster care system to began with it is disgusting that this is what the focus is.
Two things I have to share are:
One, how obsurd to hold onto the fact that you didn’t know how to fix your hair when you were younger. My mother who is white and grew up in her own family – had curly hair that people used to refer to as ‘black’ hair, noone taught her how to fix it. They were poverty stricken and she instead focused on more important things – like caring for her siblings. In turn she didn’t teach my older sister how to fix her hair either. And I am sorry but I know little about my culture, but I am white myself so we just group them all together and it doesn’t really matter anyway to our society.
Two, my family adopted my sister from South Korea, so race if it is an issue needs to be addressed from all spectrums not just the white and black. My sister lacks the culture of her heritage as well – the only being or beings at fault for her loss of that knowledge are her biological parents. How obsurd to suggest that the adoptive parents are at fault for the lack of culture in the child’s life.
My parents aren’t Korean – obviously they know that – but they are willing to offer their love, their support, their home and their heart to care for a child that is in need of these things.
Now as my sister has grown, she’s blossomed into a beautiful person – she may have struggled at times to fit in LIKE EVERY CHILD DOES AT ONE POINT IN THEIR LIFE, but my parents have gone above and beyond to fill in for that fact, the fact that they aren’t Koren.
We have friends and family with others that have choosen to adopt children from Korea and/or Asia, we are apart of an organization that celebrates the asian history and tradition throughout the year, my sister took classes to learn the Korean language, the adoptive agency holds camps for the adoptive children as well to talk with one another – not about their race – but about their struggle from being adopted as a whole. You see every child lacks something depending on their perspective – even the children you bring into this world by birth.
My parents took my sister to Korea to learn more and meet her birth mother as well, we currently have a South Korean exchange student living in our house at the moment that is close in age to my sister. My parents know they aren’t Korean, they know they would never be able to give her what her biological parents could – like other families who adopt outside their race know they aren’t the same. However my parents offered her more then her biological parents did, they offered her a home, a family, love and support and encouragement and opportunity. The opportunity to be more, to be better, better then how she was unfortunately treated when she was a baby, abandoned. How incredibly absurd to make race a divide for people who are trying to care for the ones that need it the most.
And I won’t even get into what people might say about multi-racial couples who have children, like the fact that I am married to a man that is mexican and my daughter is half white and half mexican.