How to order Conference 2002

Excerpts from Conference 2002

Nov. 28, 2002 -- I just returned from Toronto after three exceptionally educational and emotional days attending the "Planting the Seeds of Change" adoption conference. ...

... On Thursday afternoon I found myself, once again, teary-eyed in a workshop by Dr. Michael Trout. At least I was not alone! I was with two other adoptive mothers pretty much lost in a sea of social workers and other professionals except for the sounds of our whimpers. Again he focused on how a lack of attachment can sometimes lead to disruption of an adoption, a development of "a false self" and other changes in social behavior throughout life. Dr. Trout shared with the group a number of case studies and we viewed two different videos. All were heart breaking. ...

In 1973 Marie and Rod Adams, brimming with idealism and keenly aware of the plight of disadvantaged aboriginal children, adopted Tim, a young Cree boy, two-and-a-half years old. Tim began displaying severe behavioural problems almost immediately, problems that, despite their efforts to find help, only became worse over the years. He left home at the age of 12 and died on the streets of Toronto when he was 21. Devastated by their loss, the Adams began to search for answers as to why things had gone so horribly wrong. ...

In keeping with societal norms, which promoted closed adoptions, a veil of secrecy was considered vital for the well being of all concerned, especially the adoptive family. Secrecy would prevent the birthparents from intruding and would allow the family to integrate into the larger community as though the children had been born to the adoptive parents. Thus, an adversarial model was created where in order to join a family by adoption, one had to obliterate the family by birth. ...

Every toddler without a family is ready for a placement, but not every prospective adoptive family is ready for a toddler. The good news is that the vast majority of parents who have the ability to be effective adoptive parents can develop the skills to parent an adopted toddler, but there are unique concerns and issues that need to be considered.

Who are the best candidates? --Prospective parents who feel entitled to parent a toddler, have experience with toddlers, have deliberately chosen to adopt a toddler, have an extended support system, have prepared by reading about toddler adoption and networking with other adoptive parents, have a minimum of other stressors in their lives, and are willing to accept the unique challenges of toddler adoption. ...

What does the Canadian public think of adoption? If adoption professionals better understood this, they could more effectively recruit adoptive parents, and educate the public and policy makers.

Charlene E. Miall, Ph.D. and Karen March, Ph.D. published their study "Social Support for Adoption in Canada" in 2002. (See socserv2.mcmaster.ca/sociology/miall-news.pdf.)

Drs. Miall and March analyzed the answers of a sample of 706 Canadians to questions posed by telephone between May and July 2000. The data was collected by The Institute for Social Research, York University, Toronto. Here are their findings on how the general public feels about adoption issues.

-- Adoption in general. Over three-quarters of Canadians surveyed strongly approve of adoption as a family form.

-- Biological vs. adoptive parenthood. Over three-quarters think that mothers basically feel the same way about their children, whether adopted or not. About 70% think that fathers also basically feel the same way about their children, whether adopted or not.

-- Who should be allowed to adopt. ...

Adoption can be a very positive way to create a family. It is estimated that adoption affects the lives of 40,000,000 Americans. Increasingly, clinicians need to be skilled in working with the unique issues facing adoptive family systems. Marriage and Family Therapists can help these complex families. They can normalize and demystify the process of adoption so that those involved can be treated honorably and be prepared to handle the related issues. Mental health professionals should focus on family preservation when possible, a preventative approach to consultation, and the welfare of the children involved. ...

I think we tend to focus on the negative too often in society in general -- which is certainly what the media does with adoption. That concerns me for lots of reason, but one overriding one: even in this period of unprecedented support for and positive feelings about adoption (in a major way in the U.S. and somewhat in Canada), its treatment in the press is so skewed, driven by aberrational events and uninformed that I fear it could undermine long-term public perceptions of both the process and everyone this institution touches. ...

Here are a few examples of stories relating to adoption. I think it's important to point them out because they show not what we think is important, but what journalists do -- and, as a result, what most people learn about the process and about us.

-- A few stories out of Cambodia, about a dozen young children who had been seized from an orphanage because their impoverished parents were coerced into giving up their infants for as little as $20 apiece. The words "baby selling", "adoption scams", "trafficking of children" and "greedy adoption agents" appeared in each.

-- Several stories about overflowing orphanages in Romania, which cut off adoptions for foreigners. Words like "baby selling", "bribery", "unscrupulous practitioners", "unregulated profits" and "desperate Americans" appeared in these.

-- Two short stories about the so-called Internet Twins, adopted by one couple in California and another in the U.K. The little girls are now in their fifth home in a year of life, living with foster parents while a Missouri judge decides their fate. Both stories alluded to baby-selling, "shady" practitioners, desperate adoptive parents and a birthmother with suspicious motives "at best".

-- And, of course, I found a slew of stories about foster care. An occasional one told of some heroic person or couple who had adopted an especially difficult child. But the clear majority centered on the woeful state of the system, the harm being done to children as they bounce from one home to another, and my favorites -- two stories that referred to the children in foster care as "overwhelmingly damaged".

The common thread among all these stories is that they are aberrations. They tell us nothing about adoption's role in the lives of 99.9% of its participants. But, largely because the media give us so few insights and so little context -- though it is changing some -- we as a society and as individuals assume the aberrational stories tell us much more than they really do.

... That's what we do with adoption, however -- partly because there aren't other stories in the media on a regular basis, except when something sensational happens -- good or bad.

... Okay. So what can we do about this? I'll suggest a few broad strategies I think you can employ, maybe with a little tinkering, regardless of where you are or what you're trying to accomplish. ...

Transracial adoption has been described as more "complex" than same-race adoption. Many people who start out to do a transracial adoption do so because colour doesn't matter to them. But adoptive parents who believe that race makes no difference may not yet be ready to adopt transracially. ...

Joyce Ladner (a black sociologist) in her 1977 study at the Open Door Society found to her amazement that there are whites who are capable of rearing emotionally healthy black children. Zastro in his 1977 doctoral dissertation found the outcomes of transracial placements were as successful as inracial placements. ...

When I was growing up in the Kingsway in Toronto, I didn't personally know anyone with disabilities or anyone of colour. Now my husband and I are the parents of seven adult children of different nationalities and backgrounds. We also fostered seven medically fragile children through open-heart surgery from Korea, Ethiopia and the Caribbean, while I was a director for Heal the Children Canada.

In 1981, one year after we moved to Ottawa with six children, one cat, one dog and 14 rooms of furniture, our youngest son, whom we adopted from Vietnam, suffered a massive stroke, losing the use of the right side of his body. ...