I'm glad you are going toward policy. If my health had held up, I was planning to move out of doing mental health therapy with children toward straight advocacy. Unfortunately somebody moved my cheese. It always makes me happy to see others with so much to offer going into the fields and pursuing the interests that I always love.

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As to the cost, keep in mind that everyone involved in the process has to be paid, so some of the money goes to salaries, overhead, rent, etc., for your agency. In domestic adoption, you're frequently paying for some of the prenatal care for the birth mother. In international adoption, you're reimbursing the orphanage for the care that the child received there so that they have the money to support the next child to come in the door. I don't believe many people are getting rich off the adoption process (although there are tales of bribes and whatnot in some countries).

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I certainly do wish that adopting parents tried to be culturally literate. But I really think that this explains the popularity of adopting Chinese girls. The cultural stakes are a lot lower. A lot of white people see Asian women as almost interchangable with white women.

If adoptive white parents don't try at all, and completely white wash their Asian girl, it won't be ideal, but it probably won't be a huge disaster either. I think that the consequences of white washing are significantly more severe for Asian boys and black and hispanic children.

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You may think that we see Chinese girls/women are "interchangable" with white girls/women, but it's just not always the case (although, I will admit, that I have heard some comments about "she's American, not Chinese-American" on adoption message boards, and I want to beat those people over the head).

My daughter will live her life as a Chinese-American, with all the stereotypes and assumptions that brings with it. It's my obligation as her parent to give her the tools to be a successful Chinese-American woman, and I take that obligation very seriously. I have met very few parents who have adopted transracially who do not take the obligation equally seriously.

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I didn't write that most adoptive parents are not culturally literate, I said that I hope that they try to be. I also hope the police officers try to resist bribes, and that doctors try to resist abusing medicine. I think that those are all valid things to say.

I truly do believe that Asian American women are often perceived as "almost interchangeable with white women." And that is not necessarily a condemnation of white people. I think that we Asian Americans need to look long and hard at ourselves and our community. If a white man said, "I see Asian women as interchangable with white women because most Asian women I know have white boyfriends/husbands, and there's a good chance that the young ones have white parents as well." What am I going to say? Really nothing, but "That's a damn shame, and we need to work on that."

I sincerely question if you are fully aware of what AA people experience, and I question if you know how to handle it all. What are you going to do if your daughter says, "Asian boys are yucky!"? I'm not trying to get in your face or put you on the stand, because a lot of Asian parents just don't give a crap. In fact, you very well might be "trying" harder than a lot of Asian parents. Did I mention that the AA community has problems and we need to come together to solve them? I really think your daughter is more likley to think like that because she has white parents.

So you have an Asian daughter and are trying to expose her to her culture. Great. But, you must admit, if you had a black girl, or an Asian boy, you would have more to think about.

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When I said that I have to give her the tools to live as a Chinese-American woman, I meant something more than hanging Chinese New Year decorations and going out for Chinese food. What I can do is give my daughter Asian American teens and adults from whom she can learn (including two of my very dearest friends, Asian American men, one of whom she believes hung the stars in the sky), make sure she has a place in the local Asian American community, and show her that I support the Asian American community. I believe it is a priority for adoptive families of Asian children to make sure we are a part of the greater Asian American community because it is important for our children. My family is an Asian American family, even if one of us is not. I take this obligation very seriously, even though I acknowledge that I haven't always done it perfectly.

I don't know that there would be "more" to think about if I were raising an African-American girl or Asian-American boy. There are issues for any of these children but I absolutely will agree with you that an Asian-American girl faces different issues than the other children you describe. Any adoptive parent who doesn't educate him or herself about issues faced by people of his or her child's sex and ethnicity is doing a serious disservice to the child.

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Also I am thrilled to see this update here on Jezzie having just finished rereading "The Lost Chinese Daughters".

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And I think it is wonderful that you have a daughter to raise and to love and you sound awesome as a parent.

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Not sure if the situation is the same now.

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Until the husband decided raising two more kids (he had kids from a previous marriage) was too overwhelming and their marriage disintegrated. GAK.

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Looking at state child-welfare websites is heartbreaking. I'm not sure people understand the seriousness of the mental, emotional, and physical problems many of these children have. IF they're even free to adopt - which not all are.

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And really, why are people so isolationist about this? Is a child in need of a parent in one country any less worthy of being adopted than a child in need of a parent in another country?

I wonder how many of the judgmental, "adopt American" commenters have been through the adoption process...

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I am sure there are some people who choose China for the reasons you suggest, but most of us chose it for reasons far more complex and less racist than those of which you are accusing us.

And -- any one who thinks Chinese girls are docile has never met any of the Chinese girls I know, especially my own.

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So the babies and toddlers in foster care are almost always not freed for adoption - the agency is still trying to eventually send them back to their birth mother.

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Here one of the sensitivities of the system also is that DPS tries to keep children in situations where they are still connected to biological relatives and the focus is on reunification with the original parent.

In my family we are currently going through a situation where my nephew and his wife have divorced. They have one biological child together and she has a son by a previous relationship whose father is deceased. I won't go into details but the boys needed to go into placement here in this state (my nephew is in another state) and there were two sets of grandparents vying for custody of both boys since they are brothers. The one set is the mother of the older boy's deceased father and the other is my sister who is the bio grandmother of the other boy (my nephew's bio son).

Sorting this out has been expensive and heartbreaking and the boys have ultimately gone back to their bio mother because of the whole reunification thing. She is really emotionally not in the best shape to care for two prepubescent boys and sends them back to my sister as frequently as possible although she will not allow my sister custody of either one or both.

The first week the mother had them back, she spent 3 days with them and sent them to my sister's for the rest of the time. My sister contacted the social worker to report this and the social worker said "Well, she does deserve a break from the children, too."!!!

Some nerve saying this to my sis who raised FOUR children mostly by herself. And who was a stay at home mom except for a part time job during school hours.

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If you want, I'll slap the social worker for you. PM me.

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/sarcasm--actually not.

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I think a lot of people assume that the scars that kids can get from foster care are just temporary and can be erased with enough love from their adoptive parents, but that's an extremely naive way of thinking. It doesn't work like that.

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I have a few friends who were adopted around age 3 and all of them had a difficult transition. One of them packed her bags every night and sat by the door waiting to go home. That kind of stuff would be even tougher with an 8 year old.

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There isnt anything wrong with a parent knowing their "limitations" but thats OFTEN used as an excuse not to adopt children that are undesirable. Plain and simple.

And if a person will always remain with "scars" that they received from foster care...then they just dont deserve a family at all? I dont get it. So what if the scars never leave. Scars don't void children.

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I find it really strange that you are coming down so hard on parents who will only adopt young children but totally skip over the bio families and the foster families.

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Adopting a child is a generous action even if it fulfills your own desires. You are committing to loving and supporting a child when you don't have to and no one is going to pay you to do so.

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I always question how many people who make these glib remarks have adopted a child, because oddly, I never seem to hear things like this from anyone within the adoption community, regardless of where their children were born.

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You seem insistent that I am judging people who adopt infants when I have now said twice that I am not.

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Please stop putting words in my mouth to fit your agenda.

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@feministabroad: I know a (white) couple who adopted 1 mixed race child and 2 other black children. They already had two kids of their own.

The first was around 8 when adopted, the others were more like 5 and 2. One child has been institutionalized throughout her life from being raped by her father when she was 3. She was pregnant 3 times by age 20. One adoption was dissolved because the child was molesting the other children. The last one seems to be OK, except for some slight learning disabilities.

Of their birth children, one has emotional problems and the other has been in juvie.

Another couple I know adopted older children, middle school age. Who they ended up having arrested after the kids (now adults) came back and beat them up, demanding money.

I dunno about you, but I certainly wouldn't say that's easy.

When "family" means only bad things to a kid, sometimes they can't adjust to a caring family when they get one.

I'm not saying it's all like that, but to pretend that the problems don't exist? That's naive.

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@clevernamehere: It is too bad that you read it that way because I did not intend to come across as judgmental. I do believe that many people are trying to sound better, to others and possibly to themselves, when they say that they'd be a better parent to a baby, rather than simply saying that they PREFER a baby for whatever reason. I don't think I'm the only one who is saddened by the thought of thousands of American children without a family, discounted because of their ages.

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I understand completely both sides of this debate, and I think neither side can claim to be absolutely correct/moral/righteous. When people want children and choose to have their own they don't get to decide what the child will be like - disfigurements, learning disabilities, etc.

Yet there seems to be a strange double standard for those who want children and choose to adopt that they won't take just any child. They want one from a specific country, a boy or a girl, no emotional or physical abnormalities. This can seem like a rather shallow approach to parenthood. And yet you can't completely write this off because people are choosing to take another child and make it their own, and ideally this should not hold any precedence, but it does. When people do have an ability to choose their child, who doesn't want to most 'perfect' child they can get?

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Honestly, I don't think anyone should become a parent if they're not willing to care for a child like that. You just don't know, whether you have your own bio kid or adopt, if your child will have behavioral, psychological or medical issues. A biological child might have trouble with the law. A child adopted at birth might develop autism or another medical condition. And then what? You can't just send them back!

This is a reality that terrifies me and makes me question whether or not I want kids at all. It is a gamble and people need to think about how they would handle a special needs child because there are no guarantees.

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However, I think 99.9999% of parents, adopted or otherwise, love their children despite all things. So while having a special needs child would be difficult, I bet nobody would love them less, including those of us who question whether we could handle it.

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Hi. I am 23, went into foster care when I was 16. Although I was never adopted, the family that took me in is my family in every way now. They took in a 16 year old with 16 years of mental and emotional abuse by a crack-head mother.

Guess what? I had to go to counseling a few times a week for a few years. I am graduating college next week. I have my own business. They love me and I love them.

OH- get this. I am black, the family is white. It wasn't EASY for them, but they ALWAYS say it was worth it. I am eternally grateful for their open hearts. I would have killed myself if they did not take a chance on me.

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But the truth was more obvious. Basically children love their parents and just because I raised one child (easy, easy child) that didn't mean I could bring home a very emotionally damaged kid and "fix" him. In fact the more likely thing to happen would be that he would be happy with us for a week, kill our animals, burn down our house and then run away to find his real Mom.

Some people are capable of meeting challenges like the children you describe and some people are simply not. The sad thing is that as a society we can't afford to just write off children like the one I mention above, but we are. :(

I also worked for awhile with a child with severe attachment disorder. Three hours in an isolation room with her 1-1 was a very long time. After we got to know each other, she stopped throwing things at me, but that was my only victory before her family was reported to DPS again and moved to avoid scrutiny.

Her family specialized in adopting/fostering special needs kids because they bring in large sums of money from welfare. They were not very competent and I can't imagine why any children were placed with them, much less 6 special needs kids except that social workers must light up like candles if they can move "inventory" like that.

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People adopt domestically and internationally for a variety of reasons, many of which are personal and not necessarily something that they want to share with the general public. Those are not easy decisions.

I know, easily and without exaggeration, several hundred families who adopted internationally and not one of them did it because a celebrity chose to do so.

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I think it's funny that people really seem to believe that people choose to adopt, spend tens of thousands of dollars, do reams of paperwork, and spend years on waiting lists as part of a "trend."

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Really, the whole thing was just a whim.

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I really don't think it is as simple as "White Americans are racist!"

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There was an adoption agency, I think it Texas that was developing a speciality in this kind of adoption, which raises some issues too.

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But I am seriously shocked that you posted this. There is an element of designer baby to it. Its great to want to adopt, but to fantasize about a specifically Chinese baby girl when you are not a Chinese woman seems really fetishistic. Babies are people, not accessories.

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I'm not saying that China won't be an option when you get there, but you may want to think about why you're so set on China and whether what you really want is a child or, specifically, a Chinese child.

Please don't give up on your dreams of adopting a child. There are children all over the world (including the USA) who need families.

@clevernamehere: It's not so much about trends, at least in the sense of trendiness (please forgive me if that's not what you meant, but my ex sister in law accused me of adopting my daughter because it was "trendy.") Korean adoptions were the first large-scale international adoptions, starting after the Korean War. Vietnamese adoptions followed -- again, after the war. Until relatively recently, those were the two large programs. That's one reason you see a lot of adult Korean and Vietnamese adoptees.

Others (including China) have since grown. China's program has been prominent in recent years, but there are babies coming home from many countries. One reason for China's popularity was that -- until a few years ago -- it was one of the programs that accepted single women.

Currently, Ethiopia is one of the programs that is growing like gangbusters.

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@ErinGoBawl: But okay, I understand the baby could be from anywhere and you totally copped to it being a little selfish, but I do have one question: how old were you when you decided you wanted a little Chinese girl?

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Ironically, one of my Korean adoptee friends was adopted after her parents tried for an Ethiopan adoption which in the early 80s was almost impossible.

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@small-fox: Sure, it's not inherently fetishistic - I'm glad that so many people have been adopting from China, and giving the children happy homes - but it CAN come off that way. But actually, there are horror stories from other countries, of course there are. And I know that you put it in quotation marks, but even thinking to use the term "proven goods" does suggest a level of consumerism. It's no wonder that that would happen, because there has been a huge and long-lasting wave of Chinese babies into the US, but it still strikes me as odd. And for the record, I don't think all babies are cute.

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