Intrepid Murmurings

Thoughts About Race & Adoption (part I)
When some people hear we are in the adoption process, their faces light up, they look very excited, and immediately ask "oooohh....from where?". When we respond with some combination of "from here" "our adoption will be domestic" or "somewhere from Oregon or Washington", there is visible flash of disappointment in their face. Their expression falls; they seem crushed! Often, after that, they respond with "Oh..." and have nothing else to say. It's a little weird, and slightly uncomfortable. Both my husband and I have gotten this reaction, and more than once. When I get it, I usually blather on a bit about our agency and open adoption, etc, because I don't know how else to handle it. But inside I am wondering...what the heck did that mean?!? There are several ways that I've been able to interpret it (though I have not actually asked anyone, of course). First, I wonder if it is that international adoption seems more glamorous and exciting to a lot of folks. Exotic. The idea of going on a trip halfway around the world to pick up your child can be a fascinating and romantic idea. It also plays into the "saving a poor orphan" mentality that some people have; that it is somehow more noble, more saintly, to adopt a child from abroad and "save" it from a life of poverty and neglect, and to give the opportunities that we have here in the US. If they think this, the disappointment perhaps stems from the fact that they suddenly see us as less charitable, because we are choosing to find our child in our own city or state instead of abroad, where the need is greater. That, or they are just disappointed that our journey will be less exciting, because we will not need passports to bring our baby home. Another likely reason for this reaction is that many people seem to know more about international adoption; they have a friend or colleague who has adopted from China or Russia or Guatemala, and hope that we will be too so that they can share their stories and what they know about it (sometimes they do anyway, which is fine, and further supports my theory). This, I don't mind so much; we all like to talk about things we know. We like to find things we have in common with other people. It doesn't completely explain the weird initial reaction, but leaves me with less of a strange feeling about the whole thing. This is also why I like to go on and talk about our adoption experience with people that respond that way to our news. I am getting the feeling a lot of folks don't know much about current domestic adoptions. When they think of domestic adoption, I get the feeling they are thinking about closed adoption, about getting a baby that looks like you, and passing it off as a biological child. They think that domestic adoption involves paying outrageous sums and waiting for years and years to get a "desirable" baby. One person, after giving the initial response above asked me what race we wanted and when I replied (Caucasian) she responded "Oh, just like what everybody else wants...". Um. Okay. Not exactly. Perhaps that is how it used to be (I admit I'm a youngin' on the adoption scene), but it is not now. I have read somewhere (but don't quote me on this) that in the U.S. currently, international and domestic adoptions are about even in terms of numbers. In my own personal experience, I know far more folks who have chosen international. I have absolutely nothing against international adoption or building multiracial families through domestic or international adoption (stay tuned for more on this in a future post), and we may very well consider it at some point in the future. There are also other domestic options, like foster/adopt, an incredible way to build a family for some people. However, for a variety of reasons I will not go into now, those were not right for us currently. We are choosing domestic infant adoption, and a baby that shares our own race. I don't like being judged negatively for that, though on some occasions I feel that we are. So. For now, I am getting in the habit of talking to folks about the process we are going through, if they are at all interested, because I want them to know. That the fact is the costs for adoption services (note, we are not "buying a child") are about the same for both international and domestic. And that the wait is often very similar, as well. I talk about the application steps we are going though, what I have read and the research done about the benefits of open adoption, and how we hope our relationship with the birth family will be. And I hope that I am not annoying to people, when I talk about these things. But its all I can do, really, when I get such strange reactions from them, to a decision that is so personal, and that was made with so much thought and care.