This CNN story has been ripping our hearts apart. This is real. Choice Network has helped in a handful of international adoptions that have fallen apart and it has been the hardest work we have ever done. We have no idea if these kids came to the US legally or not. By the time they come to us, the adoption has finalized and failed, and the family is desperate to re-home the adopted child.
Re-home. What a horrible word. Right? That's exactly what it is called though. When an international adoption fails because the US family didn't know what they were signing up for - they re-home the child.
The family portrayed in this story are not the norm. We have found many international adoptions come from a place of one’s faith pushing them to adopt. For many, all Choice Network has encountered, this faith push comes not from a place of true desire for good but rather from a place of privilege. It’s a family who expects that because they have saved a child, the child should be grateful to them. This is in the most simplistic of terms. An example that sticks in my mind is a family who was furious that they bought the little girl they "saved" a princess bed, but all she wanted to do was lay on the floor. I had to remind them she slept on concrete her entire life.
I could go on and on about the issues I see with international adoptions BUT I would be remiss to not say this article could as easily be talking about domestic adoption. Families are created to stay together. We must first do everything in our power to make that happen. If that cannot happen, then we must help them create plans that support the parent placing the child. Peace in their heart about their plan is the ONLY option.
Here are quotes from the article that are important for us to hear from an adoption perspective in general. They are hard to swallow, but before we look to judge internationally we need to make sure we are standing on solid ground in our own work here in America.
The first: “The travesty in this injustice is beyond words. I must be clear in the following statement: My race, country of origin, wealth (though small, it's greater than that of the vast majority of people in the world), my access to "things," my religion -- none of these privileges entitles me to the children of the poor, voiceless and underprivileged.
If anything, I believe these privileges should come with a responsibility to do more, to stand up against such injustices. We can't let other families be ripped apart to grow our own families!”
The second: “Too many of us see international adoption as way to "save" children. But what if we looked at it another way? What if we decided to do everything in our power to make sure those children could live their lives with the families God intended for them in the first place?
I'm not talking about children taken by necessity from abusive or neglectful homes, but those whose loving families were wrongly persuaded to give them up. Families who thought the decision was out of their control because of illness, poverty, lack of access to education, intimidation, coercion or a false idea about what the "American dream" means for their child.”
The third: “Only through listening and acknowledging hard truths can adoption lead to an ethical and positive outcome. This will mean something different with each family. For us, it meant reuniting a family torn apart by a corrupt process and exposing criminal activities within international adoption. For others, it may mean a lifetime of making sure a child holds on to his or her cultural or racial identity, or keeping alive his or her ties to their birth family, no matter how hard that may be. Adoption can be beautiful, but it is never easy.
So I say yes to adoption, as long as families have a clear understanding of the weight they will bear. The weight of doing right by this child in ways you maybe never realized before: fighting for his or her best interests, without ill intentions, selfishness or greed. And realizing that sometimes that best interest might mean he or she does not become your adopted child at all.”
I could insert more quotes. This article is good and eye opening. Read it in its entirety. We must do better.
To read the original story, visit: http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/13/opinions/adoption-uganda-opinion-davis/index.html.
