Comments on: “Not In My Adoption”…What Price Ignorance?

By: Nicki

Nicki — Sun, 03 May 2009 03:20:35 +0000

Dave – a specific example of how stopping adoptions not only can but HAS helped can be seen if we look at the number of domestic adoptions when ICA was at its height (few) compared to current (much higher and growing). No one believes orphans should grow up in institutions but ICA is simply not the only solution and it just isn’t so black and white as to suggest that without ICA the children of Vietnam will spend their lives in orphanages. There are many many ways we can help children in Vietnam avoid that end result and only one very very small way is through ICA.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 02 May 2009 23:44:50 +0000

When I was in Vietnam adopting my daughter I went to another orphange that housed older children. These were mostly children who were not adopted becuase of the previous breakdown in adoptions between the US and Vietnam. Now their chances of finding a forever family are much less likely…and if they were to be adopted their transition would be much more difficult. If your claims of rampant corruption were true you might expect that one or two of these children would have been reclaimed by a family that did not want to give them up. Over sixty kids in this one orphange, most between 6 to 10. Stopping adoptions because of a few corrupt individuals was a horribly cruel thing to do to these children. They were denied a chance to have a loving family. The rest of their lives will be much more difficult and their opportunites will be far fewer. I have read the negative postings on this website and been frustated in silence for some time. Really, I do not see how stopping adoptions will have a positive impact on the children who are in orphanages. I will never forget how much the kids in orphanage I visited enjoyed having us play with them for an afternoon…and how hurt and lonely they looked when we had to leave. Every effort should be made to make sure adoptions are ethical, by all means audit the records of the agencies and orphanage directors. Every dollar should be accounted for and corruption should be punished severely…but stopping adoptions punishs the wrong people.

By: Nicki

Nicki — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:08:07 +0000

We are a collaborative blog. That means our content comes from what people submit or want to write about. You are welcome to submit something that addresses ethics from a more positive angle.

By: Martha

Martha — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:45:05 +0000

The name of your group is Voices for Vietnam Adoption Integrity; however, your main focus is corruption. Where is the balance? Corruption does exist and it should be addressed. Ethical adoptions should also be discussed in the conversation. The majority of adoptions are ethical. Many changes need to take place to make the system better, but when you focus only on the negative you taint the reality. When will you write stories about the positive impact of adoptions of children from Vietnam? Presenting the facts as a whole not just one perspective, to provide a balanced representation of adoptions from Vietnam without an agenda to only discuss the negative, that is integrity. Please, for the sake of our children – tell the whole story, not a slanted version.

By: Christina

Christina — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:27:41 +0000

bella,
I’m thinking you got Nicki and me confused and are referring to her reply to Alice?
As to the point of your comment, the owners/contributors of this blog consider ourselves “authorities” only in the sense that we have gone through the adoption process ourselves and have spent a good deal of time in the last 3-7 years researching the issues surrounding inter-country adoptions. We have talked with people in the government, people who work with a number of different agencies, adoptive parents and adoptees. I don’t consider myself an “expert” per se, but it’s likely I have spent a lot more time studying all sides of adoption than the average adoptive parent has.

In fact, truth be told, I get rather tired of studying it. Like most of you, I really just want to be a mom. And most days, that’s what I am. Not an “adoptive” mom, just a MOM. But no matter how tired I get of dealing with adoption and ethics issues, I can’t just walk away … I come back because I feel I owe it to my children and to all the other children who have no one to speak up for them.

I never got into this to be a voice of “negativity” – I’ve said a million times I believe adoption at its best is nothing short of a miracle. The sad reality is that evil corrupt people have taken that miracle and exploited it for their own gains – making “orphans” out of children who have families and convincing loving caring prospective parents there are “millions” of babies waiting for homes. I don’t like that reality but ignoring it doesn’t change it. YES, there are MANY *true* orphans – NO ONE here disputes that. The problem is there are very very few agencies doing the due diligence required to be absolutely certain which children are *true* orphans and which have been kidnapped/coerced/bought from their families. And the only way I know to change that is to EDUCATE prospective adoptive parents. If WE don’t hold their feet to the fire, agencies WON’T change. I’m sorry many of you don’t like what we have to say, but the truth has to be told.

By: bella

bella — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:02:53 +0000

I agree, Alice. We can be mindful of what’s out there and the possibilities, rumors and facts, but the bottom line is that I will do everything in my power to make sure that my child does not feel guilt or shame, or that our family wallows in speculation. We know what we know, did the best research we could and will be honest.
Christina- to spout out ‘feel good about whatever your agency tells you’ (or something along those lines) is unfair. You don’t know which agency Alice worked with or what information she and her family have. I respect your perspective and appreciate much of the information this site has provided, but I can’t help but feel concerned the owners of this blog are, by many people, looked upon as some sort of authority on adoptive parenting or the process, and the picture is far bigger than that.

By: Nicki

Nicki — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:32:35 +0000

Alice, this blog advocates for ethical adoptions. We weren’t created to be a feel-good adoption promotion tool. I’m sure you can get plenty of that through your agency and through other resources on the ‘net, print media, etc. The goal of this site is to give adopting and adoptive parents and other participants in the adoption experience a voice to share what has previously been taboo and not tolerated specifically for those reasons that you shared. While our goal is not to make people feel badly (we are all adoptive parents, too), sometimes when faced with difficult ethical situations it is impossible NOT to feel upset. But the answer isn’t to stop talking about it just because the topic makes some people uncomfortable. Often times the topics that make us the most uncomfortable are the ones we MOST need to be talking about.

As always, this is a collaborative blog and anyone is welcome to publish a blog post and share their own perspective.

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:23:20 +0000

This blog consistetly acts “holier than thou”. Everytime I look at it, someone is bad mouthing all adoptions and all adoptive parents who do not portray all adoptions as possibly corrupt to their own children. What they hell do you know? You are just an adoptive parent who is as clueless as I am in the whole thing. You did your research, and I did mine. We came to the best conclusions that we could with what we have. Why pass judgement on others like you just because they don’t constantly question their family formed by adoption? Of course I hate that trafficking occurs; I especially hate that it is often funded by US dollars. Of course I know that I can never know my daughter’s full story because I simply wasn’t there for it all; I believe that any reasonable adoptive parent would recognize that. However, this fact would be true in any adoption, not just one from Viet Nam. I will, as any reasonable adoptive parent and honest person might, never pretend to know more than I do. However, I certainly can feel like the chances are very good that my daughter was adopted legitimately because of what I DO know about her adoption. I do NOT have to assume the worst nor do I need to pass the message on to my daughter that she should assume the worst. And yes, I know just what I would do if offered information, any information, about my daughter’s full story. I would take that information and do my best to verify it and try to offer it as part of the full picture to my daughter because it is HER information. The implication that because I do not question my daughter’s adoption constantly that I may do otherwise is frankly obnoxious and close-minded.

By: LauraT

LauraT — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:07:49 +0000

These are thoughts that have not been far from my mind since we started the adoption process – naively, I think, with more of a “rescue” mentality. I still have no doubt that our daughter was meant to be just that, but wonder what the best solution really is for the true orphans of the world. I’m no longer convinced that it must be adoption. I’m just curious what your thoughts are on a birth parent search. We would love to have more information about our daughter’s first family, and figure that it would be much harder 20 years removed from the process than 2.

By: VN

VN — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:00:06 +0000

Janie,
Would you be willing to contact me at vncn2@yahoo.com?