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In my last post I wrote about how the media tends to portray transracial adoption as “trendy”.
In this post I am going to look at the flip side, and how many portray transracial adoption as taboo.
Wikipedia defines Taboo as:
A taboo is a strong social prohibition (or ban) against words, objects, actions, discussions, or people that are considered undesirable or offensive by a group, culture, or society. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent. Some taboo activities or customs are prohibited under law and transgressions may lead to severe penalties. Other taboos result in embarrassment, shame and rudeness.
There are many out there that believe that transracial adoption is taboo. There are many that liken it unto child trafficking (or claim that it is one and the same).
In fact, the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines human trafficking as:
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”
Now in this world of crazy people in which we live I can certainly not say that no child ever adopted has been used for prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery or the removal of organs, HOWEVER, I can say with great certainty that the overwhelming majority of adoptive parents are loving and devoted moms and dads who love and cherish their children and choose to adopt out of a desire and dedication to parent those children, AND that the practice of adoption itself is designed to HELP children in need, not exploit them.
The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, is an international agreement that is currently attempting to improve and ensure adoption practices with the goals of keeping the best interests of the children in mind and preventing abduction, exploitation, sale and trafficking of children.
It is unfortunately true that children have been abducted and sold for the purpose of adoption. That is a fact, and to deny it does not do any good. Children have been taken from their families. Birth mother have been pressured into giving up children that they could have parented. It is wrong and it is sad and it is never o.k.
However, the answer it NOT to decide that all adoptions must be bad. The answer is for all adoptive parents and adoption professionals to demand and ensure that ethical adoptions are taking place.
Others who see transracial adoption as taboo do so because of the racial issues involved. Some feel that black, Asian and other non-white children do not belong with white parents. Some feel that it is more important for a child to remain in the country and culture in which they were born and with people of the same race, than it is for them to have love, security, education, medical care and a promising future.
Some think that transracial adoption is unnatural and just plain old “wrong”.
Some view and portray adoptive parents as selfish and evil people, who do not care about the emotional well-being of the children they adopt, where they are from or their birth families, because all they care about is getting children.
I know that adoptive parents are not perfect. Just like any “group” of people, I know that there are some really awesome adoptive parents, and some that could use a lot of improvement. However, I do believe that most adoptive parents genuinely love, care and want what is best for their children. I believe that most adoptive parents DO care about their children’s birth cultures, their birth families and want to build healthy racial self-esteems in their children.
If this wasn’t true, there wouldn’t be so many countless books available on transracial parenting and so many people buying them. There wouldn’t be culture camps, heritage tours, and hair and skin care classes for adoptive parents. There wouldn’t be oodles of adoption forums and email groups where parents are always asking questions about how to properly care for their children’s hair, how to maintain their culture and how to honor their birth families. There wouldn’t be a huge surge in the number of open domestic adoptions, and adoptive parents going through great lengths to search out and be in contact with birth families in countries far away.
I think adoptive parents have learned a lot from the generations before us. We’ve learned not to be colorblind. We’ve learned how much color and race matters. Most adoptive parents I know are trying really hard to raise their children to the very best of their abilities.
In my opinion, the people who see transracial adoption as taboo do so out of ignorance, whether it be a lack of knowledge about adoption as a big picture (and not just a small piece of the puzzle), a lack of knowledge about how most adoptive parents feel and act, a lack of knowledge about the overwhelming number of orphaned children and to the degree of which they are suffering emotionally and physically, or just blatant racism.
There are many reasons why people see transracial adoption as taboo, and yet there are even more reasons why so many people see transracial adoption as not only a beautiful way to build a family, but also a solution for a tiny percentage of the millions of orphaned children in the world right now.
I don’t understand the need that so many have to portray adoption as taboo. I truly do understand the need to want reforms in the adoption process, to increase adoptive parent education and to find a higher level of ethics in adoption, but I do not understand the need to label the whole kit and caboodle as wrong.
More to come on all of this tomorrow…
