Some readers may be wondering…. well, what happened to that plan? After immersing myself in adoption readings, what do I think now? Well, I no longer think I can do it. The politics of adoption *are* fraught.
There is the psychology of the adopted child. Even a tiny newborn baby experiences and grieves the loss of their birth mother to a significant degree. And this primal wrench echoes through their life in issues of attachment, abandonment and insecurity. Apparantly the ‘genetic markers’ of a child’s appearance and mannerisms that are reflected by the biological family are very important in a sense of belonging. Many adoptees who discover that they were adopted later in life, experience almost a relief: “I knew there was something not right”.
These issues are compounded by transcultural adoption. I found advice that you should not contemplate a transcultural adoption unless you already have friends from that culture – to provide at least some reflection of the ‘look’ and culture from which the child came. Initially I found this idea difficult. Surely it was clear that “culture” was not genetic – it was a social construct. If you were brought up in Australia, then surely you would identify with Australian culture? Also, wasn’t the need to ‘look alike’ a reflection of racism that we should be working against – not reinforcing? (In my sideline investigation into racism, it turns out I am a moderate racist www.implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ , but on the upside, I have no bias against gay people). A friend referred me to Jung’s Collective Unconscious for a theory that in fact culture *is* genetic. Ok, now I’m wading in waters that I’m likely to sink in. I looked into this briefly, and I concede the possibility. Blogs of transcultural adoptees would support this. These peoples’ search for identity is ongoing.
Ok, so no great surprises here. I assumed that it would be better for the child to stay with their biological family, but we’re talking about cases where that option doesn’t exist, right?
Well, no. In my naivete I thought that children put up for adoption would be orphans – that is, had “no family”. But the truth is that many of the children put up for adoption have “no family that can afford to keep them”. It seems that the issue is ultimately one of social justice. I read some disturbing stories whereby the adoptive family actually met the poor (in all senses of the word) mother/extended family of the relinquished child….. and didn’t seem to consider that if they sent this family some regular money, it might well be possible for the child to stay with their biological family. Even if the child *doesn’t* have any living relatives, it would be better if their culture of origin had the resources to accommodate them.
Initially I came to the conclusion that based on all this, international adoption was not for us, but maybe we could consider adoption of an older Australian child who needed a family. But then I thought – isn’t this essentially the same issue of social justice? Whoever heard of a middle class child being removed from their family by child protection authorities and put up for adoption? Again, it’s an intersection of poverty and social dysfunction (though in this case society seems to find it easier to blame the individual parent.)
None of these concerns adequately address my initial position, which was that yes, there are all these crappy social conditions that need to be vastly improved, but in the meantime what about the children caught in limbo? Already in state care. Don’t they deserve a loving (albeit non-biological) family? Well, of course they do. So I conclude that adoption is a reasonable individual answer to collective problems. How much this individual answer corrupts or postpones solutions to the collective problems is unknown, but in my view it probably does.
I am left again, bereft of a black and white answer in this grey world. At this stage my personal answer is not to adopt, but to *somehow* come up with a way to work towards the collective solution. Sigh. Talk about lessons in feeling inadequate.
