Are you Ready for International Adoption?
Issues To Consider Before Reviewing International Adoption
Lori Rosove
Author of Rosie's
Family: An Adoption Story
1. What are your ideas about race? What characteristics do you think Asian,
Indian, Latin American, Eastern European, etc. people have? Do you expect your
child to have these characteristics? Try to visualize that cute little baby
growing up into a child, teenager, adult, parent. Think about your grandchildren.
2. How do you fell about getting lots of public attention, stares, etc? Possibly
your adopted child will get too much attention and other children will tend
to feel left out.
3. You will become an interracial family. Do you raise your child to have the
same identity as you or your other children? How do you help him to develop
his own identity? Should his name reflect his national origin? What relationship
will the name have to the sense of “Who am I”? Imagine a child that
you know and love being sent overseas to be adopted. How would you want him
raised? As a Canadian in a foreign country? A native in that country?
4. How can you learn to know what it’s like being nonwhite and growing
up in a white society if you don’t know this from your own experience?
You will have to find out how to educate yourself to become sensitive to your
child’s world.
5. Your family will now be interracial for generations. Adoption of a child
of another race/country is not just a question of an appealing little baby.
How do you feel about interracial marriage? How does your family feel about
interracial marriage/ How do you feel when people assume that you are married
to an Asian person?
6. In addition to your qualities and abilities as parents, it is important for
you to understand your motivation for this kind of adoption. Do you feel you
are doing a good deed for a poor, homeless child who will perhaps be more grateful
to you when he is older than if he were your birth child? This is poor motivation
and not very realistic. If your primary orientation is to help the child become
absorbed into your culture at the expense of his own, then transracial adoption
is not for you. You must have an attitude of respect for the country and culture
of the child.
7. Do you have the capacity to identify with this child? To see the world from
his point of view and to lovingly supply his physical, mental and spiritual
needs? Do you want to learn more about the child’s culture and heritage?
If you do, then you can consider further the idea of intercountry adoption.
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