What's your take on adoption from overseas?

Question

and this video

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=35528557

Answer 1

Does anyone know where I can watch this in full.  This brought tears to my eyes because I can absolutely see where the "adoptees" are coming from.  

I migrated to Australia in the 1970's when they had just lifted the white only migration policy.  That meant that there were very few asians when I went to school, actually my siblings and I were the only Asians in our school.  The feeling of being different is hard to describe, but at least I had a mother and siblings who looked like me.  Imagine if you are adopted in an all white family, the feeling of being different would just be magnified tenfolds.  

If you are not from the same culture as your child/children, I really believe you will not be able to do enough for your child/children in terms of giving them a sense of belonging.  You cannot comprehend how they feel unless you have had the experience of being a minority.

If you lived in their country for a few years, the only white face amidst all those brown ones, you might get a slight concept, but you would have already been raised to think as a majority, so you would already have that sense of confidence.  

Your child however, would have been raised from day one looking like the odd one out, so there will be years in which it would be ingrained in their minds the feeling of inferiority.  The sad thing is they will probably show a brave face in front of you, so as not to disappoint you, pretending nothing is wrong as you would have invested a lot of time building up their self-esteem, teaching them to be proud of who they are, but having absolutely no concept of how they really feel inside or how it is to be in their shoes.  Pep talks are not enough.

My advice to people who have adopted internationally is to visit your child/children's country regularly.  It will give them a sense of pride in where they came from.  If you really want them to build up high self-esteem, then you make sure that you show them that in their country, they are not a minority.

It's not enough to feed them a few national dishes or enrol them in a class or even joining a playgroup with other international kids.  That might be okay when they are young and have not yet grasp the concept that they are different.  But once that realisation hits, those activities are not going to be enough.

My kids are adopted, but we have the same culture and they look like me.  They are going to have a lot of things related to adoption that they may go through growing up, but at least being cut off from their culture is not going to be one of them.

I have said in previous answers regarding international adoption, that people who adopt internationally should be worldly people.  People who have travelled a lot and gotten to know other cultures and enjoy experiencing them.  It would help too if you have the financial means to travel back regularly to your child/children's home country also.

Unfortunately I do not think love is enough when it comes to international adoption, you have to do a lot more than that.

Answer 2

Very interesting. We adopted transracially & have open and candid discussions with our daughters about it. We all see that they don't look like us...they know it's ok to talk to us about that and all that means in their lives - if they don't "fit in" somewhere, if they get a rude comment, if they just feel uncomfortable...they know they can talk to us about their feelings. There's nothing we can do about not looking like them...but there's something we can do to validate their feelings and make sure they know they're valuable just as they are.

Answer 3

not against it by any means but our country is short on families to adopt children...why not adopt in america

Answer 4

didn't watch the video but as for the overseas adoption...its really great that people are thinking of the third world countries problems and helping those babies and children come overseas to get medical treatment and such that they do not have over there,but on the other hand with all the overseas adoption where does that leave the children here who need to be adopted? Its like since the celebrities are adopting overseas now everyone is and they have forgotten that there are poor children over here who need the same love and attention that the other children need as well.

Answer 5

They need to lower the adoption fees.