Apologies in advance. This one goes over the 500 word limit and has some really strong opinions on some really sensitive issues. Feel free to either read after the jump or move on to something less long and volatile.
I also add that I know many MANY transracial and overseas adoptions that have turned out fantastically well. My cousin Matthew Brandenberger; Jason and Cathy Sparks; many others in a list too long to name. I don’t have a problem with adoption in general and don’t want to see all adoption outlawed. Please don’t read any further without that fixed squarely in your mind.
If there is one thing I’m certain of, it’s that I am an individual. I do align with certain philosophies, chosen because I like the philosophy. I’m a Christian, I’m a Mennonite, I’m a libertarian, I’m a feminist, I’m a blogger. There are other groups I’ve been thrown into be default because of a choice I’ve made or one that was made for me by the forces outside. I’m disabled, I’m childfree, I’m fat, I’m a brunette.
Those are all terms I can use to quickly describe my position on one thing or another, but none of them have my utter allegiance. The only two things which have my complete devotion are that I am a Christ-follower* and I am the wife of my husband.
People are too eager to be on teams, I think. I suppose it comes with a different personality type that veers sharply away from my natural introversion. Because I don’t understand the impulse I can’t really say that the desire to belong to a team is a bad thing. I don’t have it myself, but I also don’t have a penis and penises aren’t bad things.
The problem that I’m having with this whole “I’m Team Conservative!” attitude is deftly illustrated by the recent conversations following Kathryn Joyce’s article in a respected national magazine. Joyce is a journalist who covers social trends; her latest book, The Child Catchers is about the social trend of Evangelical Christians adopting from overseas. The magazine article excerpted a portion of that book, telling the story of a family who had adopted a half-dozen children (yes, six. 6) from Liberia. The story didn’t end well; from my perspective it didn’t begin well either, as the children were collected trophies, not well-planned family additions.
I first heard that this was a Team Christian issue on Mike Duran’s blog. It’s been an issue of some concern to me for awhile as I’ve watched people in the revival meeting altar-call emotional high allow their judgment to lapse and bring home multiple children with serious physical and emotional needs. When you’re infertile you tend to have more exposure to the adoption world and the adoption process even when you don’t choose it yourself. You can tell the difference between “we are called to adopt”; “I guess we’ll adopt since we can’t have our own babies**”; “AWWW!!Cute Children need homes!! Let’s take that one!!”
I can pretty much guarantee you after twenty years of watching just how each family group will turn out. It’s one of the reasons I’m adamant that this nonsense about asking people to donate to your adoption fund as if they were donating to your mission trip needs to stop. One of the tests for parenting is whether or not you are prepared for the responsibility. If you can’t handle the basic start-up costs that says you can’t handle the long-term grind. Take out a loan. Sell your second car. Stop eating in restaurants. Whatever…just pay for it yourself. I don’t care that some popular Christian singer has adopted 15 kids and tells everyone that Adoption Is the responsibility of all Christians. That’s a popular singer with his own agenda, he’s not God. And yes, the kids are really cute. Just like puppies and kittens–and you can’t take every one of those home either.
I’ve watched kids get sent back to their “real countries”. I’ve watched kids get sent to jail by their adoptive parents for stealing. I’ve watched kids be brought into homes because their special needs entitle the adoptive parents to benefit checks from SSI and they like the extra income, using it for clothes and cars and not the additional medical help the child’s health requires. I know of one family who murdered their adoptive child by trying to pray for a cure for the serious health problem because they couldn’t pay for a cure. The least of these is exactly how these children are treated. They are not viewed as humans but as trophies, and receive about as much care.
Further is the problem that the legalities of the adoption process aren’t always entirely clear to the parents (yes, many of the adoptees HAVE parents) of the adopted kids. There are many parents in foreign countries who think this is a new version of Child Sponsoring and that their children are on a sort of scholarship to the US and remain THEIR CHILDREN.
I was delighted to see Kathryn Joyce’s article because I thought to myself “now maybe people will pay closer attention to this.” It has seemed over the last 10 years like the children weren’t on the radar of anyone with the ability to affect change to the system.
Apparently I thought wrong. Because that respected national magazine I mentioned earlier isn’t respected by everyone. Mother Jones is a publication taken seriously by those on the Left, reviled by those on the right.
So are people reading the story and becoming horrified that these shady adoptions and child abuses are not only allowed to continue but allowed to continue in the name of Jesus?
No. People are pulling on the shoulder pads and the numbered jerseys (that all say “1”) and deciding that The Left Hates Christians and Mother Jones is trying to make Christians look bad.
Not one tear for the actual children who were brought to this country as slaves, whipped with pieces of pipe and sent back to Liberia when they became inconvenient.
No. It’s all about Joyce’s agenda, Mother Jones‘ agenda.
Me? I want to know three things:
1. Why does it matter that someone on the Left pointed this out?
2. Why does no one seem to care about the giant mass of muck so many of these “evangelistic” adoptions have turned into?
3. Why wasn’t this article in Christianity Today five years ago?
Gang, the problem is NOT with the fact that “the other side is making us look bad.” We can do that on our own.
The problem is with the fact that we aren’t doing better, that we are allowing Team Allegiance to have superiority over following Christ.
*Christ-follower is different than Christian.
**Anyone who frames adoption like this–like a consolation prize–gets special irritation from me. These are human beings. If you aren’t prepared to treat the child as YOUR OWN BABY then just walk away.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Wait. People have adoption funds & are asking people to give money? What’s next, a Kickstarter?
There are hundreds of these on Kickstarter already.
good grief. the internet has become one big off-ramp for begging.
You aren’t kidding. I cracked up reading EW the other day. Apparently Zach Braff is running a Kickstarter for his new movie. EW said “here’s your Kickstartr: The gajillion dollars you made for years of _Scrubs_.”
Which is pretty much…yep.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to read an impassioned blog plea or watch a video for people who want you to give them money so they can adopt a baby or have fertility treatment I would have enough to fund my own purchase of a designer baby.
They do all the time. I don’t have problems with “We’re selling these afghans we knitted” type things. Adoption is a HUGE chunk of money to plop down all at once – My friend Emily is adopting from Africa and it’s like $10k for adoption fees, PLUS several trips there and back for her and her husband. Or “hey, we’re going to put on an event” because at least they went to the trouble of it. But “Here’s my paypal account, drop in some money” is a bit skeezy to me.
To me there’s a huge difference between fund-raisers like selling handiwork, yardsales, pay parties, etc. and straight up begging. One says “we’re resourceful and will do whatever it takes to meet our goals.” The other says “when I’m in trouble I look for other people to bail me out.”
Those BOTH make a huge statement about what kind of parent you’ll be over the long haul.
They really do. You should read my friend’s blog. It’s the only adoption story I’ve ever heard that really made me care that somebody was adopting a kid.
It’s a variation on the “both sides do it” thing. Both are a way of changing the topic from something you DON’T want to talk about to something you do.
There’s a difference between exposing an issue responsibly, which means making sure people know that this is abuse and not the norm, and what I worry that article is doing. The reason why people are worried about the left is that the left doesn’t CARE about the nuance; they would be as happy to paint all Christian adoptees as that just as they painted us all as closet Dominionists, or accused all Catholic priests as pedophiles. Yes, it’s bad, and horrible! But if this is tied to all Christians as a problem of “orphan evangelism,” it becomes something greater and the abuse becomes seen as the norm.
Those adoptions that turned out well get tarred with the same brush if people aren’t careful when they frame the nationwide debate. Stopping this harm is desperately needed, and yes Christians need to look at this. But the other team is quite happy to use this to attack all Christians; look at the comments to that article for an example.
THE OTHER TEAM?!??!
For God’s sake, let the dead bury their own dead and focus on the real problem. Who cares if Christians and Christ followers look bad? The Bible pretty much tells us from the get-go that being Christians will win us a globe full of enemies.
I don’t care if people think Christians look bad.
I care when Christians look bad.
I can’t change what people think, but I can change how I act and how the community to which I am unfortunately (at times) tied acts.
Let me put it this way. Are you familiar with why Russia closed its doors to adoption?
The real reason most political savvy people knew was that we passed the Magnitsky Act, and Russia needed to retaliate in some manner. They couldn’t really attack us directly, but they attacked us instead by denying international adoption.
However the cover was a single instance of abuse which was later ruled to be accidental:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/world/europe/russians-renew-fury-after-death-of-adopted-boy-in-texas-is-ruled-accidental.html?_r=0
Many Russian people actually believe this to be the reason, and it served as a public support for closing the doors to international adoption. I am not in the least saying or downplaying the abuse that happened; people suck, no matter what the creed. But how we are perceived does matter, and you can’t dismiss teams so lightly. I could easily see Ethopia seeing this, and shutting off all international adoption entirely, and if the public narrative ties this to a majority of Christians, they’d be right to.
Nobody else is owed Russian infants. They are welcome to close off international adoptions for whatever reason they see fit, even if people who do feel owed infants disagree with it.
Read this:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/17/adopting-my-russian-daughter-not-just-parenting-but-healing.html
This isn’t dealing with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome either, which according to one study, can be as high as 20% of orphans. Apparently Russian babies aren’t owed a chance at a decent life, too, however small. Those adoptions were like hitting the lottery for a tiny number of kids.
Plenty of children waiting for adoption in the US have fetal alcohol syndrome. There’s no need to go abroad to help in that way, if one feels called to do so.
I have a lot of issues with the way this is framed.
1. Russia isn’t a pitiful backwater.
2. If you’re looking for kids with fetal alcohol syndrome, natal drug addiction and a whole other host of health problems we grow our own. No need to traipse all the way to Russia. Except that in Russia those FAS babies tend to be white, as opposed to the FAS/ NDA babies in this country.
3. This whole idea that adoption into an American family is “winning the lottery” smacks of colonialism.
4. You discount the anecdotal evidence of the Mother Jones story, saying it will be misused to discredit the adoption movement. This is anecdotal evidence too.
5. Yes, I’m familiar with why Russia closed their doors to adoption and I’m glad they did it. Too many people were going there so the could get “a white baby”. (Actual quote I’ve heard and read too many times to count.)
1. Russia isn’t a backwater, but it’s documented to have issues in the orphanage system, and the general quality of life is still struggling due to effects of Communism. It’s a place that has suffered a lot. This is reflected in many things. In many ways it’s more like China than a western nation. Both have suffered massive national bouts of insanity, with communism and the cultural revolution.
2. Domestic adoption as far as I know is slow because of many reasons. The foster care system and the relationship of the biological parents are two issues. The system puts priority on the biological family if possible, and from what I read adds a lot of risk, uncertainty, and stress.
Maybe if they look at the domestic system and make it more attractive what you say can happen. I doubt it though, because of the difference in philosophy between the two.
3. You’re welcome to prove to me how being dumped on the street at age of majority in Russia is better than being in a loving family in the USA. Homelessness and prostitution are common problems for orphans there.
4. I don’t discount the abuse. I just don’t want it to be used against all adoptive parents.
5. Well, then those kids will take their chances in the orphanage system then. Better everyone suffers, I guess.
“You’re welcome to prove to me how being dumped on the street at age of majority in Russia is better than being in a loving family in the USA. ”
That statement is just in poor taste. NOBODY is arguing that.
There are more kids in the world than there are willing homes for. There are more kids IN THE USA than there are willing homes for. Every child that doesn’t get “dumped on the street” in Russia means a child that DOES get dumped on the street in the US (where, by the way, homelessness and prostitution are common problems for orphans as well). There’s no happy rainbows and butterflies solution when it comes to unwanted children. Period.
“Loving families” who wish to adopt have no shortage of children in need of homes. Dare I suggest that any family only interested in adopting if they can get their custom mail order child from Russia probably isn’t an ideal family for the child to be going with anyhow.
We can agree that for those with the resources and genuine desire to adopt, adoption is an important and gives children a second chance. What I’m having difficulty understanding is why you feel Russian children somehow are a priority over kids in the entire rest of the world.
The point is that economic colonialism or whatever reasons you give are going to be cold comfort to the majority of kids affected by this. Russia was just an example of what happens when it does. It’s not special. Currently most international adoptees are a tiny, lucky few that manage to escape often highly dysfunctional warehouses. Closing international adoption is going to remove that chance.
Look, domestic adoption is different. There’s a stronger chance of the child you raise and bonded with being reunited with their biological parents, and whether its agency or foster-to-adopt, it can be a harsh blow. It’s a completely different dynamic than overseas, and not everyone can accept raising multiple kids through foster care for the chance to adopt one, or an open adoption making the birth mother a part of your life too. But people still can do good even if they may be less altruistic. We’re kind of pricing compassion out of the market here.
That’s a really heinous objection to domestic adoption, and one that I’m tired of hearing. People want children from overseas not because the mothers overseas want the children back any less but because the expense of getting the child back is way too high for an overseas birth parent.
People want children from Russia and Estonia and Latvia because the children are white. That’s why there’s so much fuss about Russia closing down international adoptions. People were forced to go to China, South America or Africa for their international adoptions. So as much as you want to say “the poor FAS babies from the vodka-addled Russian whores need loving homes” it really isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that Russia was a place where you could get a white baby whose mother couldn’t afford to make changing her mind your problem.
It’s no coincidence that the numbers of international adoptions will fall drastically now that Russia cut off the White Baby supply. And while it looks like I’m just playing a race card I guarantee you that I have been a party to multiple conversations with adoptive and potentially adoptive parents where these exact things were said. One former co-worker even cancelled her adoption of a South American child at the last minute because she felt she couldn’t parent a non-white child. Luckily (?) for her, they got a baby from Estonia. A nice white baby.
So pardon me if I don’t see every adoption as a good deed being done to help needy children. I’ve seen too many examples of it being people shopping for accessories that match them.
People aren’t owed babies. That’s not the way the world works. If you feel the call to be a parent then I think working through a system that has checks and balances and isn’t exploiting you because of your emotional vulnerability and spiritual worldview is a responsible way to accomplish your goal.
This line is a good example of what I’m suggesting above: “Yes, it’s bad, and horrible! But…” [insert whatever bad thing OTHER people are doing that I’d prefer to talk about]
It’s a basic silencing technique.
If I wanted to silence you, I’d just agree with you in very mild language. Trying to actually engage your points and give you a chance to reply, or as Mike did, post about an issue from a source a lot of Christians don’t even read is a backwards way of silencing things, don’t you think?
It’s a debate tactic; basic silencing technique is a way to redirect the conversation toward what you want to talk about.
I don’t want another conversation about how nobody likes us, everybody hates, I’m gonna go eat worms. I don’t do that here.
I want answers to the questions I very clearly posed in the body of the original post.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Is there some degree of irony in using a term such as “the left” in a comment expressing concern about painting with too broad a brush?
When the left constantly accuses all Christians in public of being homophobic, dominionist, bigots? No, no irony here. It’s to the point where I find it in places it shouldn’t even be in, like Mommyish, for example.
That is a generalization. There are at least three “on the left” commenters on this thread alone who do no such thing.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
All the hundreds of commenters I have seen apparently don’t matter compared to the three you know I guess.
You said “the left” which comes across as an all-inclusive term. The three here and dozen others I know who aren’t participating, including my devoutly Christian aunts and uncles (who are on the left) are not participating in such conversations. Perhaps you would do well to seek other left-leaning folk out in different venues.
Exactly. I mean, I don’t even *have* a t-shirt that reads “All Christians are baby-stealing, homophobic dirtbags,” despite my status as a pro-choice, pinko commie, feminist lefty. I will gladly wear one that says “People doing these specific homophobic/sexist/racist/elitist/baby stealing/culturally ignorant/harmful things are harming people.” I won’t even wait for Nobabma to buy it for me. *eyeroll*
WordPress needs to institute a “Like” feature into their commenting system.
Rachel, one internet is on its way to you. You want it at home, or at work?
That’s the irony. You’re asking not to be judged on the actions of some “Christians” while simultaneously passing judgment on the actions of some members of “the left.” Passing judgment on half the nation on the basis “hundreds of commenters” is as likely to be wildly inaccurate as passing judgment on all Christians on the basis of the topic of a magazine article.
And for the record, “the left” and “Christians” are two groups with a substantial overlap.
The difference is that the left isn’t reigning in those members, and they also tend to be expressed from the highest publications in the land. Christians specifically in this case are being painted unfairly because there is a small number of abuse relative to a large amount of good. With the left, it’s not the same; you find reflexive anti-christian attitudes pop up way too frequently for me to believe its only a minority, and the public face is identified with it. There’s a point which generalizations stick.
The only thing that isn’t the same is your perception. It would be EASY to paint any pretty much ANY very large group in pretty much ANY way I’d like and I could find HUNDREDS of examples to support my point (it’s usually very easy to find hundreds of examples when the group you’re talking about numbers in the millions) and I could assure you that it was way too frequent for me to believe its only a minority. Your simply choosing to do that in the instance that fits your worldview while choosing not to do that (or perhaps even to do that in reverse) in another instance because that too fits more how you prefer to see the world.
Which is fine, I suppose. You’re free to pick and choose whichever stereotypes you like, I’m just pointing out the irony of you condemning the act of painting with a broad brush whilst holding one still wet with paint yourself.
Another problem with this “teams” approach is that Joyce’s book is, in great part, about how Christians who are trying to do the right thing and want to adopt actual children in need are being lied to by the adoption agencies who are taking advantage of the birth parents’ confusion about believing that they’re just sending their kids here for school–like some kind of foreign exchange situation–and the adoptive parents’ belief that, if they’re working with a “Christian” adoption agency, everything must be fine and ethical.
Joyce details how, when adoptive parents figure out that something is not right, they’re often demonized by the agencies and ostracized.
I’m both surprised and not surprised that people on this very thread are arguing “Well, there’s something wrong with the article. Or with liberals! Or both.” Yes, that’s exactly the response these unethical agencies are hoping people will have–the problem isn’t with the “Christian” agencies. It’s the liberal media or the ungrateful parents or the lying children.
No, people. “Christian” adoption organizations are preying on Christians and irrevocably changing the lives of children who have birth families who still want them.
Coming up with excuses for why you can’t look at that straight on just helps perpetuate the problem.
I’m waiting for pay-day to get Joyce’s book so I can’t speak to the content. But if it’s anything like her book _Quiverfull_ it’s a measured, journalistic overview of the situation that brings problems to light, showing where change can be effected by those who care to do so.
I find it ironic that her thoughtful work is being dismissed as bloody shirt waving…by people who are waving bloody shirts.
Wow. Second post in a row I inspired. So when do I get a cut? 😉
I think I did express disgust with the abuses and horrors on the blog post you referenced but didn’t link to. I also mentioned how Joyce’s article is drawing equal support from the Left, which is why I suggested that “the issue is more than just purely humanitarian.” It seems to fit nicely in the Bash the Church wheelhouse. It’s hard for some to take the article in Mother Jones seriously in the same way it’s hard for some to take an expose on Fox News seriously. Not sure the issue is “us” (christians) trying not to look so ad, but whether caricatures are foisted as representative of “us.” Also, I’m not as put off by the “us v. them” mentality, mainly because the Bible seems to draw some distinctions, calling us in the world and not of it, saying we will be hated by it, and that the evil one is at work in those who don’t yet know God. So, yeah. Go team Christian!
No offense, but this one wasn’t inspired by you but by the roughly two dozen posts and comment threads I read yesterday after leapfrogginge off your initial post. The comments that were consistently minimizing concerns raised by the article in favour of general sniping at the “other side” got very frustrating for me.
As I told you privately this is an issue which is highly personal for me and in which I have a vested longterm interest. I went from being relieved that attention is being paid to being HORRIFIED that any concerns are dismissed as left wing smear tactics.
I have no general love for Mother Jones or Fox News or Daily Kos or World Net Daily. But my first response upon seeing an alarming story at any of those sites is to track it down as far into the source material as I can. This is much easier with the Internet, but I’ve done it ever since I was a kid and had to use the Library along with heavy Periodal Reference books and blurry microfilm.
My reaction is NEVER to dismiss an alarming report because of the source. Even the boy who cried wolf saw a wolf.
I do get mighty tired of your constant refusal to differentiate between Constructive Criticism and Bash The Church. I know you’re writing a book about church-bashing and I think you are bringing some Yellow Volkswagen Syndrome to the whole thing.
Sometimes negative reports about the Church are brought by concerned people seeking change. Or do you consider the Seven Letters of the Revalation to be more good ol Church-bashing?
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Well, of “the roughly two dozen posts” you were inspired by, mine was the only name attached. So…
As I said in my post, I’m not dismissive of these charges. Frankly, (and I said this in return to your private email) I’ve only recently become more familiar with the Christian adoption movement (for reasons I mentioned in the post). During our years homeschooling, we encountered some fringe groups that were awfully weird. Not to mention my years pastoring. So I definitely don’t put it past “Christian” groups to be cultish and abusive. But are there enough of these abuses to discredit the entire adoption movement?
Also, I’m not writing a book about church-bashing. I’m writing about my experience of surviving the ministry and is very much aimed at Christians who have become disenchanted and bitter towards the Church. It’s not an expose of the Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine.
You keep arguing against points I’m not making. I’m not entirely sure where you think I’ve been attempting to discredit the entire adoption movement.
Honestly, I asked three questions. None of which even remotely touches on discrediting the process.
I’d prefer that you set aside this misdirection.
Katherine, I don’t think you’re trying to “discredit the entire adoption movement.” (Although you DO think I’m trying to discredit all “Constructive Criticism” of the Church as bashing it.) I’m telling you that the reason I hedge against articles in Mother Jones about “The Evangelical Movement’s Adoption OBSESSION” (emphasis not in original), is that it, and many who support the assertion, are conflating facts to fit their anti-evangelical narrative.
So what? Does that make the information incorrect? Does that mean we should not be concerned about the many flaws in the system?
Frankly, I don’t care if Satan himself pointed these flaws and weaknesses out in an effort to make the Church crumble. The fact is that there ARE flaws. There are weaknesses. We need to stop being angry about where they first came to light.
Well, other than being angry that we didn’t bring it to light ourselves.
Didn’t you know it’s more important to acknowledge Mike Duran’s specific role in your thinking and writing than it is to actually engage with the issue at hand (which is actually ensuring legit, consensual adoptions, not Christians-bad!)? Sheesh, Coble, thought you’d been around for a while. 😉
Answers.
1. There aren’t many of either Quiverfulls or international adoptions to where people can easily notice. I know Quiverfulls are a bete noire of feminists, but they are far more visible due to the net than in real life. An NPR article put them at 10,000 in 2009 citing the very Quiverfull book you mention, and in 2012 we had 9,000 adoptions. Unless the percentage of actual abuse is absurdly high, it’s not going to be seen as systemic and draw attention.
2. What to do? We need numbers. If its a recurring thing based on certain churches or agencies, the easiest thing to do would be to restrict them. I don’t see on the Ethiopian side much ability to restrict when even our own domestic foster care still struggles with abuse and neglect despite our oversight measures. My bet would be for Ethiopia simply to outlaw international adoption. if you argue that Christian desire to help orphans is creating trafficking, there is no other way except to do so. Romania did.
If you want to preach to Christians along your lines, go to it, but I think that it would probably be taken to heart by good people more than the abusers. If churches refused to collect for adoptions, it hurts good and bad together. The trick is somehow raising awareness without making good adoptions impossible due to second-guessing or suspicion, and to be honest we’ve sucked at doing this for anything. More likely than not we’ll just make IVF and possibly even surrogacy more attractive as a result.
This is why we have to be so precise discussing it. If it’s really only a small number of people, it might be able to be fixed. If it’s systemic, there is no response but to outlaw it entirely. That’s why I worry about the focus of this. If she’s arguing its systemic, adoption more or less is done.
An aside: why do you keep referencing Ethiopia? Do you have exposure to that particular country and their adoption system?
The country in the article at Mother Jones was Liberia; I haven’t read Joyce’s book yet so I can’t speak to whether or not she references Ethiopia specifically.
1. That’s why I’m excited about the book and the article. For the record, I knew the Tennessee families in the article. Not well; I knew them through mutual acquaintances. But I did know of them and the Above Rubies adoption thing. To me this has been a big issue but whenever I bring it up I’m just a crazy childfree person hating on adoption. Not true, but the will to disbelieve runs strong in people. Exposure from a serious investigative journalist along the lines of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle should’ve been a wake-up call. Instead people are slapping the snooze button.
2. Again, why the focus on Ethiopia? And so what if they outlaw adoption? Maybe they should. If I ran a country I’d certainly outlaw it. Children are the new oil. The US is running low and needs more to maintain its economic engine. The true Christian response, I believe, is more along the lines of traditional missions or the Peace Corps. Enable folks to succeed where they’re at. Instead we are repeatedly siphoning off natural resources in the form of future generations.
I’m wanting the good people to take it to heart. I want the adoption agencies who cut corners and exploit people to be shut down.
I doubt we will ever see adoption disappear but I wouldn’t mind seeing it made a bit more stringent once again.
There are ten thousand or less international adoptions per year. You know how many people were adopted from Liberia in 2011? 29. You know how many total in twelve years from every single country on the globe? under 300,000. You want to know how many kids are aborted on the globe this year? 14 million. The economic argument is bunk.
I default to Ethiopia because it’s the largest provider of international adoptees in Africa, almost tenfold more then Liberia. I mix the two in my mind, I guess.
As for the rest, good luck. More likely we will see foreign missionaries decline; already it seems single women are missionaries at a 4 to 1 ratio, and when the Mormon church seriously is considering opening up missions to women, you know something is up.Reality is probably not going to be what you and I want, and more likely we’ll see a few generation of kids suffer until NGO’s provide abortion and contraception there, too.
Those random numbers do NOT make the economic argument “bunk”. I In fact, the number of abortions underscores the negative growth in the current birth generation. The scarcity principle at work–those 300,000 are a much rarer commodity, thanks to abortion. Statisticians and economists all agree that abortion is the game changer in any number of ways. The authors of Freakonomics, for instance, assert that abortion is responsible for the reduced crime rate since 1993.
http://www.chicagobooth.edu/news/2009-02-28-becker-mfi.aspx
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/12/03/why-a-falling-birth-rate-is-a-big-problem
The “economic argument” is not only as far from “bunk” as it is possible to be, it is a serious concern for policy makers and one of the reasons for turning a blind eye toward the occasional irregularities in the overseas adoption process.
As for the low number of adoptions in Liberia, the article itself addressed that. Liberia has been closed to adoption since 2009, largely because of problems mentioned in the Mother Jones article.
It had previously been a popular choice because they speak English and had no restrictions on age, family size or gender.
The amount of adoptions are so tiny that it’s impossible for them to make any economic impact at all. It has no effect on adoption attitudes. If this were immigration or natalism, it’d be one thing, but the numbers were to show that compared to the amount of kids we abort, adoption is just a rounding error.
I’m not saying Liberia is bad or anything. Ethopia just has a high level of international adoptions, but even then, for 2011, it’s all of 1,700 kids. The stats were given to point out how small the amount of international adoptions are. Compared to 1970 or so, total adoptions per year have declined something like 70%. I think this is because safeguards to prevent child trafficking combined with other issues have had significant effect.
Haven’t read the comments…
For the most part I agree with you. I’m actually reading the Joyce book right now (I requested that the library buy it for Kindle, and they did!) and so far I think it would be a terrible shame if Christians ignored or dismissed it as you say they are doing. It is a sad, hard, troubling book to read, but an incredibly important one, I think. My eyes have just recently been opened to the dark underbelly of the adoption world, the need for ethics reform, etc., etc. …I think so much of the church is like me–seeing adoption as this unequivocally good, gospel-reflecting thing. We have great intentions, but the most well-meaning people can do more harm than good for lack of knowledge and wisdom. And I am learning that there seems to be a great lack of knowledge and understanding of all the angles and perspectives among Christians at large.
I thought the Mother Jones excerpt of the Joyce book was unfortunate–because it focused so narrowly on the Above Rubies/Liberia situation. The Quiverfull/Above Rubies/Pearlites are still pretty fringe, really, so I think that probably makes it easier for evangelicals in general to go, “see, your example is these extreme, fringe people; this isn’t what we believe, you can’t paint us with that brush.” But this isn’t a fringe issue–there are major problems we ALL need to know about and think through carefully. The preface and first chapter of the actual book make that case much more persuasively, in my opinion.
One aside, though…I do take exception with your strong statement about the wrong-ness of fundraising to adopt. I don’t really see the connection between “adoption ethics is a huge issue and we need to look at it seriously regardless of who raises the concerns” and “stop asking for money to support your adoption.” You say “One of the tests for parenting is whether or not you are prepared for the responsibility. If you can’t handle the basic start-up costs that says you can’t handle the long-term grind.” …come on, really? People who become biological parents don’t have to shell out $10-20K as a “basic start-up cost.” There are plenty of basic start-up costs to parenting (clothing, gear, medical bills) without that enormous adoption price tag. Why should that disqualify someone from becoming a parent?!
It simply does not follow that the only people who want or need help financially to adopt are the people who are simply thinking “cute baby! I want one!” I fail to see why it is wrong for a family who feels called to adopt, has educated themselves on all the issues, and is really going into it with eyes wide open and approaching it in a totally above-board, ethical manner, to say, “We need help bringing this child home. We’re prepared to care for him/her once the child is ours (because we will *STILL HAVE* all the same start-up costs as a biological parent, plus likely *additional* costs for medical care, therapy, etc!) but we don’t have several thousand to shell out up front.”
Reality is, I didn’t have to go into deep debt to become a parent, simply because I am fertile. I don’t see why my infertile friend should be expected to shut up and pony up $20K to become one, if I and others have the means and the desire to help her. It has been a joy for my husband and me to give to friends who are pursuing adoption. If you don’t choose to do so, that’s your call, of course, and you should feel free to decline to give with no guilt. But I just don’t understand the adamant declaration that to ask for such help is horrible. How is it different from contributing to a fund for someone who faces enormous medical bills from cancer or an accident, for example?
As an infertile person I think I’m well-positioned to answer that. My answer isn’t going to be pretty but it’s going to be honest.
You can’t always get what you want. If you try, sometimes you get what you need.
Is it fair that someone else has a smaller house because they didn’t get a job that enabled them to buy a bigger one? Is it fair that some people can afford to eat out in restaurants every night and someone else can’t?
Is it fair that someone has four kids and someone else has none?
Part of maturity is the realisation that sometimes the deck is stacked against you and how you handle that adversity is what makes you a better person, a grown-up.
Yes, infertility comes with several unique expenses, both monetary and emotional.
That being said, if you are an infertile person who wants to adopt I would first ask you to realise that adoption is not a consolation prize. It is a parenting journey in its own right.
Since you prefaced your comment by allowing that you had not read the previous comments (and I cannot blame you as they descended into rabbit trails on more than one occasion) you missed the earlier discussions on this point. Which is that it’s one thing to hold fund-raisers where you sell crafts or have pay-parties. It’s another thing to mail out a letter that frames your adoption as a ministry. Are genetic parents not having a ministry? Should they ask to have their pre-natal and delivery costs covered? Framing one’s desire for a child as a charity or a ministry is an inappropriate rewriting of life’s narrative. Everything we do as Christians should be a ministry; I consider a lot of what I do online to be a ministry as I work behind the scenes with parents of gifted children, other infertile couples, other chronically ill women. But I am not going to ask people to pay for my electric bill or buy me a new computer so that I can “have my ministry.”
Of course family and friends and church family should help if they are called to do so. That’s part of the kindred relationship. I’ve had family help me with life expenses. The problem is, as I said earlier, there’s a difference between resourcefully seeking solutions to your difficulties and just straight up expecting others to bail you out. The difference reflects what kind of parents you will be. So sending these letters out en masse to acquaintances, putting up Kickstarters and Kickstarter-like pleas on the Internet, those don’t fly. The difference is subtle but it’s there. It’s the difference between earning and begging.
And again I would say that a kindred relationship has different expectations, one of those being financial and emotional support in a crisis. So asking your church members for help or appealing to your best friend or your grandmother is seeking active familial support and different altogether.
That makes a lot of sense–I appreciate your thoughtful clarification.
whoa, that was a lot longer than I intended. sorry 🙂
Believe me, a long on-topic comment is doubly-welcomed at this point in the conversation.