I think one thing a lot of adoptive parents may not realize is that in many instances here in the US (and I’m assuming as well abroad) the children who are “available” for adoption are put up for adoption against the natural mother’s will. In the US children’s services take away the babies from families and sometimes make them “available” for adoption. Many people do not realize that sometimes children are taken away by children’s services not because the motehr was abusive, but because she was too poor, homeless, or that she was not educated enough to understand the legal proceedings and lose the children to the court. Sometimes the mother’s are poor and homeless because they had suffered violence at the hands of their partners (baby’s father) and they were escaping violence with their children. It’s like in the case of foreign children, the mother’s may be signing legal paperwork not really understanding what they have done because of the language problem.

I think the problem starts when certain middlemen who are only interested in money-making deceive and trick both the natural parents and the adoptive parents just to make a quick cash “deal” for their “services”. If the natural parent had never agreed to give up their babies in the first place, it should really be considered illegal child-trafficking regardless of what legitimate “paperwork” was signed by the parties.

I personally know of a Japanese friend of mine who is still fighting in court to get her 6yr old daughter back from a Japanese-American couple who were caring for the child for 6 yrs. The Japanese-American couple had recently decided to adopt the child and cut off all of the natural mother’s rights to the child. My friend, due to her difficult situation in the past had asked this couple to care for her child in the US while she had to return to Japan with her older son. But she was in continuous phone contact with her daughter, came twice a year to visit, and was sending $1000 a month for the last 6 years to take care of her child until she can return and care for the child. When she informed the couple she was now ready to receive her child back, the Japanese-American couple went to the local family court to ask that all rights of the mother be terminated, and are now making allegations to the court that the mother had abandoned the child. The judge didn’t buy their story because my friend was able to produce her receipts for her support payments over the years, but it is a long-drawn court case with psychologists and everything. Now, the childless Japanese-American couple have been refusing to let my friend have normal contact with the child, forcing her to visit only under monitored supervision for 4 hrs a week, and refuse any phone contact with the child and alleging that the mother is mentally unstable and is a danger to the child.

I can understand how the adoptive parents may feel dissappointed when the baby they believed were going to be theirs can’t come to them. Obviously, once you were told certain kids were “available” and you’ve already seen their pictures, bonded with them in some way, it will be difficult to separate. But these adoptive parents should also understand that if the children’s mother truly never intended for their children to be adopted, the child MUST be returned. After all, I still believe that children belong to their natural mothers first of all and that it is not just the natural mother’s right but also the children’s right to be able to grow up with their own natural mothers.

Isn’t that why many adopted children still try to find their birth parents? We need to remember that the children has also formed a bond with their natural mothers before they were born up until the time they were adopted. We need to remember even little newborn babies are not dolls or toys and they have human feelings too.

“1. It is a highly unpredictable system where cases are randomly held up or dismissed at the whim of a social worker in Family Court, a lawyer in the Secretary General’s Office, or someone in the U.S. Embassy. Each case is processed at a different pace and it is not only frustrating, but also frightening because you really just don’t know when the adoption will be completed, if at all.”

This is exactly what I’m saying. There are no benchmarks in place, there is no institutionalized process for these adoptions. And similarly, various other intercountry adoptions vary quite a bit as well. It’s an understandably frustrating situation for the adoptive parent, but I would argue that it is just as hard if not harder for birth parents to make these decisions. Which is something you alluded to later. The system is not working for all parties involved clearly.

“2. They want their child home with them. They want to love and parent them.

Are there jerks out there who want “better service?” Probably, but I’d venture to say they are a small minority. Most of us just want to start parenting the child we fell in love with when we saw the first photo.”

Most parents would like to see their children in a caring loving home. It’s no easy decision, and I know you know this because of what you have written below. Service, service…yes, it is sad, and unfortunately we are dealing with a business, and in countries such as the US where capitalism reigns supreme, any time there is money exchanged there is an expected value that many expect in return. But, (and this is just my opinion) but there really is no comparison between a birth parent’s love for a child and a prospective adoptive parent’s love for an adoptive child through photos. It is a love that becomes as the relationship develops. Comparing the two as equal is something that I believe is a common belief. Feel free to dispute this, but this is just my opinion. No harm intended.

“Birth mothers in Guatemala, like all women in Guatemala, are treated like second class citizens. How tragic that they have to hide the fact that they are making an adoption plan for their child, or suffer being ostracized or worse, killed. This is what happened in the case of the little girl Luciany.

Although you are staggered by the number of children adopted, you should be even more staggered by the fact that 5 children die every day from malnutrition. 80% of the children have stunted growth from malnutrition by the time they reach the age of five. 80% of indigent women are illiterate. I could go on and on and on.

The birth rate in Guatemala is one of the highest in the world. With the endemic poverty in Guatemala, it is no wonder that mothers make the choice to place their child for adoption rather than watch them suffer and/or die in front of their eyes. And yes, of course there are other more personal reasons for placing a child for adoption.”

I agree that these women and mothers ARE treated extremely poor. There are issues of socioeconomic status and of course the ability to physically and economically raise a child. Not to mention many other aspects such as wanting to provide the best you can for your child. But I am very very very careful in these sort of analyses. I agree your statistics on children who are malnutritioned and starving are incredibly horrendous. But I would be careful in assigning the same sort of analysis to the adoption of your children. There is a charity aspect to many adoptions which adoptive parents tend to overlook. I’m not saying this you in particular, but I’ve seen this before. And more often than not it becomes an issue of entitlement, and expected gratitude. Adoptees are not slaves, adoptees are not indentured servants who owe MORE than any other person to their adoptive parents. No doubt my situation in Korea would have been much different than here, and I am “thankful” that I have had the opportunities. HOWEVER, there is a thin line between acknowledging these privileges and feeling forever indebted for being “Saved” from poverty in a “Third World Country.”

I appreciate your offer for your website, and I will take a look. But if you are insisting that my website is not “inclusive,” I hope you’ll understand the reason I start this blog in the first place. It is supposed to be a safe space for adoptees. It is also supposed to foster dialogue between various members within the adoption community. But, the PRIMARY goal of my blog is to be a safe space for adoptees to feel SAFE to express any feeling or opinion they may have without being dog-piled by adoptive parents. I’m not saying this is you either, but it is when adoptees aren’t comfortable stating their honest opinion that this space is not truly being inclusive.

Thank you so much for your honesty and comments. Many adoptive parents who comment on my blog tend to be hostile, and I’m glad we’re able to discuss these issues together.

I just wanted to clarify that you have your facts a little wrong. No new adoptions from Guatemala have been initiated since Dec. 31/07 and won’t be until the new system is set up – which may be never.

When parents complain about the adoption process in Guatemala, it is because:
1. It is a highly unpredictable system where cases are randomly held up or dismissed at the whim of a social worker in Family Court, a lawyer in the Secretary General’s Office, or someone in the U.S. Embassy. Each case is processed at a different pace and it is not only frustrating, but also frightening because you really just don’t know when the adoption will be completed, if at all.
2. They want their child home with them. They want to love and parent them.

Are there jerks out there who want “better service?” Probably, but I’d venture to say they are a small minority. Most of us just want to start parenting the child we fell in love with when we saw the first photo.

Birth mothers in Guatemala, like all women in Guatemala, are treated like second class citizens. How tragic that they have to hide the fact that they are making an adoption plan for their child, or suffer being ostracized or worse, killed. This is what happened in the case of the little girl Luciany.

Although you are staggered by the number of children adopted, you should be even more staggered by the fact that 5 children die every day from malnutrition. 80% of the children have stunted growth from malnutrition by the time they reach the age of five. 80% of indigent women are illiterate. I could go on and on and on.
The birth rate in Guatemala is one of the highest in the world. With the endemic poverty in Guatemala, it is no wonder that mothers make the choice to place their child for adoption rather than watch them suffer and/or die in front of their eyes. And yes, of course there are other more personal reasons for placing a child for adoption.

Come visit us at Adoption Under One Roof – we really are an inclusive website.

Lisa S. lisas@ouradopt.com

Please see Bastard Nation for US info, or a site called fassit for info from the UK.

Seventeen out of twenty adoptees like to trace their roots with only one in twenty biological mothers turning the chance for the reunion down.

I know that this comment is probably not what adopting familes want to hear but adoption is complex and sensitive issue from the child’s point of view, because we feel rejected by our birth mothers in our formative years, which hurts obviously, and often we reunite to discover that there was third party pressure on the birth mother when she was young, and thus lacking the wherewithall to refuse authoratative sorts of pressure prior to relinquishing us.

If only America got it, in the way this judge appears too.