HT: Challies
Other adoption related articles on this blog.
Category Archives: Info on Adoption
Maybe Because by Aimee Garcia-Tice
A new Australian Children’s book about adoption from the perspective of “the best boy in the whole wide world” was launched in Sydney in 2010 at the same time as National Adoption Awareness Week that year.
There is a huge gap in positive adoption stories here in Australia so Aimee Garcia-Tice and Serena Geddes have provided a great resource for kids and families to start and encourage the adoption conversation. But it need not be restricted to adoptive families as it is, simply, a great little kids book full of adventure and imagination. Grab a copy from The Book Depository or Amazon for your kids!
NB: illustration linked from best little boys website.
Myths about Adoption
National Adoption Awareness Week aims to demystify the issues around adoption, raise awareness and acknowledge all parties in adoption. Part of that aim is to dispel the “Myths of Adoption.”
Adoptive parents in Australia identified the top ten myths they have to deal with when talking with family, friends and passers-by in the shopping centre that can’t resist asking “Whose child is that?”
Here’s a list of the top 10 myths along with links to my brief thoughts on each.
10. Birth Mothers get on with their life after giving up a child
9. Love is enough to be an adoptive parent
8. You have to be rich to adopt
7. Adoption is only for rich infertile people
6. Celebrities can fast track adoption
3. Adoption is a 2nd best option
2. Adoptive parents are saints (because they saved! the child)
Education, communication and participation of all parties involved is the way forward to de-mythologising adoption and removing the stigma from talking about the real issues met by parents, children, adults, adoptive families and their extended families, networks and community. Have you come across any of these myths? How did you respond?
Potentially Related articles
- An Adoptee Investing in Champions (apologies.wordpress.com)
- Jane Aronson, the Orphan Doctor. The Babble Interview. | Babble (babble.com)
- Dispelling myths about adoption in Southwark (guardian.co.uk)
Care for the fatherless
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. ~ James 1:27
Adoption Myth #10 – Birth Mothers get on with their life after giving up a child
National Adoption Awareness Week aims to demystify the issues around adoption, raise awareness and acknowledge all parties in adoption. Part of that aim is to dispel the “Myths of Adoption.”
Adoptive parents in Australia identified the top ten myths they have to deal with when talking with family, friends and passers-by in the shopping centre that can’t resist asking “Whose child is that?”
MYTH # 10 – Birth/Natural mothers get on with their lives after giving a child up.
FACTS – The grief of giving up a child never leaves a person.
It is easy to be so focused on the child and the adopting parents that another, critical, party is left unconsidered. In most cases, especially with international adoptions, no information is available on the birth parents. Much is presumed about their attitude and condition that simply isn’t fair and more often than not, is unsubstantiated. Xinran Xue, when visiting Sydney on a book tour a few years back, vividly pointed this out, when she noted, in the audience at one reception, a high number of adoptive parents with Chinese children. Her tearful comment was, “Thank you for loving our daughters”.
To assume that Chinese women, or any others (!) are flippant and uncaring about their decision to relinquish their children evidences an insular, uninformed bias. This bias contributes to the anti-adoption attitude in our government and community today. A bias that National Adoption Awareness Week hopes to, in part, begin to, reverse.
“Wanting a Daughter Needing a Son“, by Kay Ann Johnson provides a good start point, in regard to Chinese Adoption, for those wanting to know more.
Adoption Myth #9 – Love is enough to be an adoptive parent
National Adoption Awareness Week aims to demystify the issues around adoption, raise awareness and acknowledge all parties in adoption. Part of that aim is to dispel the “Myths of Adoption.”
Adoptive parents in Australia identified the top ten myths they have to deal with when talking with family, friends and passers-by in the shopping centre that can’t resist asking “Whose child is that?”
MYTH #9 – Love is enough in parenting an adopted child.
FACTS – Love, empathy, understanding of losses these children have experienced and ongoing education is a better starting point for adoptive parenting.
The naïvety of The Beatles, “All You is Love” is recognised in most contexts. In adoption there are ‘variables’ that require prospective parents and families to be forewarned and educated about. Adoption is as much about loss as it is about gaining a family. Dysfunctionality will play a role in the emotional stability and security of a biological child, it also contributes to an adopted child’s sense of self and their place in the world. Issues of origin, relinquishment and formation of an independent identity are engaged by adoptees and adopters with greater frequency and intensity than biological families. Unconditional love is essential – but it must be strategically informed. Adoption is not for the light-hearted.
