Really? People expect this? How do you know that?

I am a parent through international adoption -- one of many here -- and I know many, many more in real life. I have never met a single adoptive parent who expects his or her child to be grateful, who believes that he or she "rescued" the child or expects gratitude from the child's birth country.

I'll address how I feel, which is also what I hear echoed by the people I know. I am grateful that my child's birth country entrusted me to raise this wonderful little girl. I have quite literally sobbed at the thought of the losses my girl has suffered in her life, most significantly that of her birth family. I hate it when people tell me that I've done a good thing by adopting her (and people do say it). This was just the way I formed my family; I have never once looked at it as a rescue mission or what have you.

My daughter's birth country is not, as you put it, an "epic failure" (I assume you mean "epic"). It is a beautiful, rich and diverse place with much to offer which for complex reasons -- and like so many other countries -- has orphaned children who need homes and not enough families in the country to take those children in.

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I find it hard to get outraged over African children being adopted by both black and white people in Europe and N.America, when the alternative is far worse. These children are not going to have the working-class/middle-class/rich life if left in Africa. They are doomed to a life of extreme poverty.

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You personally might not feel as though you "rescued" her but the people who are telling you you've done a good thing do. It's implicit in the fact that they are complimenting you for adopting her, instead of realizing, like you said, that there's a mutual and reciprocated need and love.

I was recently in my (American) boyfriend's house and looking through his younger brother's highschool yearbook. There was a profile on three of his teachers. It was titled " *Name of town* heroes helping those less fortunate in the world" and I started to read the profile thinking it was about them volunteering for Habitat or Humanity or something. It was, in fact, a profile on them and their adopted children. One teacher specifically says "I felt doing my part to help Africa would be to rescue *daughter's name* from Ethiopia and give her a better life." And it's not an uncommon sentiment. Other people have said it to me personally, and meant it sincerely with no malice, without realizing how problematic the root of their statement was.

Not all people feel this way. I'm sorry if it seems like I suggested you must. But some people do. It's embedded in years of historical stuff that a lot of the world hasn't worked through yet. .

And yes, I did mean epic. I comment between working so I always type too fast and forget letters or misspell words =)

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The families I have met who approach the mindset you describe tend less to be "rescuing" the child from the country and more on a religious mission. I have encountered a few families who have that "bringing the child to Christ" thing going on, which is probably a variation on what you're describing. They're just not people I deal with much.

I just cannot imagine adopting a child and being able to raise her/him with a healthy self-image if you have so little regard for the child's birth country that you think the child needed to be rescued from it.

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And I am American, but I grew up without parents, as an orphan being shuttled all over the place, and it almost sounds to me like you are romanticizing and glossing over the realities of not having someone just to claim you, to call "Mom" or "Dad." Not to mention I did not grow up in poverty. The beauty of African countries may not be found in their orphanages, and it seems just as paternalistic to me to say, "well I know what's best for the Malawian kids- leaving them in an orphanage where they can enjoy the beauty and wonder of their nation."

I am projecting an insane amount here, and perhaps we feel differently about family in America than people do in Malawi, but I would have loved to have been adopted by an of my relatives, or any family who wanted a kid. I'm not sure why we automatically assume a kid from Africa wouldn't equally benefit from having a family. Oh yeah, and I'm sure if Madonna had wanted to adopt me, my dad might have come out of the woodwork too.

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I'm sorry if it sounds like i'm romanticizing being an orphan. I am not. I'm not trivializing in any way what a powerful thing it is to be claimed. I'm also not romanticizing poverty at all. I've lived in it. Most of my family lives in it. I've said repeatedly on Jez that there's nothing pure, or charming or beautiful about poverty.

The beauty of African countries is definitely not found in its orphanages and if it seemed like I was saying that leaving the kids in the orphanage to bask in the gloriousness of the continent is the only option then I wasn't clear. That's not what i was trying to say. What I was trying to say is that it seems like people assume that ANY FAMILY is better than being poor and orphaned in Africa when that is not the case. Much in the same way it would be a mistake to say of an American child "Well being adopted by a child molester is preferable to having no one" it is a mistake to assume that every instance in which a child from Africa is adopted by a white person is a good one.

The reason why it's harder to adopt a child here is because there are more checks and balances, and more ways of weeding out people who would put the child in a potentially unstable, psychologically damaging situation. Those checks and balances often don't exist on the continent. When they do, like in Malawi, they can often be circumvented by money, like in Madonna's case. My argument was that because of the paternalistic and patronizing attitude much of the world has towards Africa, people ignore the fact that the lack of laws/the circumvention of them isn't a good thing, that it is not ultimately beneficial to the children who are adopted. I was saying that, somehow because there is a notion that "any situation is better than there" or that "financial and physical care trumps their former situation so even if psychological damage is inflicted the kid is better off" that seems to apply to children from Africa more than it does to orphaned children from here in America (the implication being that children from Africa are less valuable/were in more desperate straits), the motivations of the people who are adopting children are often not examined as fully as they should be.

This becomes particularly sticky when you have people adopting children without having fully disabused themselves of racism. Because the psychic damage that is done to African children when they are raised by racists/paternalistic colonialists is vast and should be treated with the weight with which one would treat physical abuse. Am I making any sense now?

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But as far as the larger implications of plucking kids out of African nations to complete a family, I think you made some very valid points about the risks of paternalism. It's just hard for me not to think that any kid, whether from an African country or America, is not going to be better off with a family. And it's hard to adopt a younger child from America, because our system does put such an emphasis on trying to keep kids with parents, by the time we realize it's not working, the kids are already pretty old, or abused, or whatever.

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Talking about the often unconscious biases that permeate the media reporting of Madonna's adoption, and the complex historical factors that are involved, I would hope, doesn't aim to paint everyone with the same brush. It just tries to broaden the discussion =)

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I have mixed feelings about the way she went about with both adoptions, and yes, am extra sensitive to the neo-colonialism overtures, but I cannot help but be reminded that this is a family matter, and as such, an intensely private matter (as private as can be for celebrities) with their own unique reasons and experiences that would not be known to outsiders.

All this cynical nitpicking is depressing. I am not also not understanding the argument against adoption due to her busy work schedule and divorce: are we now adopting the stance that people who travel for work and are divorced are not fit to be parents?

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@bambooshoot: Yeah...some of those "but...but...she's too busy and divorced to be a good mother!" comments kind of rub me the wrong way. Because I know lots of busy and divorced mothers who still deserve to be mothers.

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Then I remembered Salma Hayek and the breastfeeding of the hungry baby and I realised there is no comparison, she was just feeding a hungry child not trying to compose a tacky photo op.

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This so-called "art star" makes me want to throw up.

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Sometimes I think people believe they are being respectful but instead they are being really patronizing.

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I guess the point that I am trying to make is that I don't think changing a child's name is inherently bad or somehow disrespectful of their origins. Instead, it can be a way to tie them to their adoptive family, which may or may not share their ethnicity. I think it varies based upon a number of factors.

That said, I completely agree with you that the manner in which Madonna and Angelina talk about their adoptions is inappropriate.

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[www.dailymail.co.uk]

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*If* this is all true, it really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

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While I do think it would have been better for her to adopt a child with no living family, I think the role of Mercy's family has been overstated in the media. Her mother is dead, her father wasn't remotely involved in Mercy's life until Madonna showed up, and an uncle has stated that he approves of the adoption. The most legitimate protests seem to be coming from a grandmother who is, at best, peripherally involved in Mercy's life. (Which doesn't mean that I think it's right to ignore the grandmother's wishes; I just think that the whole "but she has a living family!" thing has been played up far more than it actually exists in reality.)

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[www.guardian.co.uk]

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The other part I object to which you didn't mention is the fact that she "chose" both David and Mercy personally, wouldn't take another child. It is pretty distasteful and does suggest a sort of "shopping for babies" attitude.

This as far as I know does not resemble the experience of most people who adopt internationally.

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@gherkinfiend: Don't know if you saw it, but the documentary that article describes was on Channel 4 last week, and it's on 4 On Demand now.

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I don't see why there's a problem with wanting to have some kind of connection with the child you're planning to adopt.

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I have some friends who are adopting from Ethiopia and they get DVDs of kids too, to "choose" from. I also have a very strong reaction to that process, though I understand that on a couple of levels it is rational.

Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that when someone gives birth, or adopts in the American system through foster care or at infancy, there is not that level of choice. You get who you get, and you love and bond with them the best you can. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, both with biological and adopted kids. I suppose I see that as part of the job of a parent, to love and raise a child regardless of whether you "get along" or whatever.

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I have some friends who are adopting from Ethiopia and they get DVDs of kids too, to "choose" from. I also have a very strong reaction to that process, though I understand that on a couple of levels it is rational.

That must be a particular orphanage, because I know Ethiopia's adoption system isn't centralized. My friends just returned with their daughter from Ethiopia about two and a half months ago, and their process didn't involve picking a child. Their daughter was assigned to them.

There are some other countries which, as I understand it, allow you to "pick and choose" among available children -- I think Ukraine was one, but I can't swear to it. It's not a process with which I am comfortable.

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I should fess up that I have in fact tried to adopt a child (she was a teenager at the time) from a country with restrictive adoption laws, so I just want to make clear that I'm not condemning Madonna's actions in the abstract, just reacting to the details that I've seen and my lifelong following of Madonna and there fore belief that I can telll what she is thinking.

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