Adoption Agency Misleadings

My stance on this issue has changed slightly from what if first was. I started out just looking at Russian adoption but have broadened to international adoption. Although I do still believe that adoption agencies need to give all pertinent information to prospective adoptive parents in order for them to adequately care for the children, there is another fine line that is somewhat pressing. What about parents who bear their children naturally? They have no say in what their child is born with, other than the effort they put forth to ensure good health while the child is in the womb. I do think that my paper will continue to focus on the the care for the orphan children and the adequate medical testing and record keeping to ensure that no information is missed that could potentially help/hurt the child. After all, the most important thing is the well-being of the adopted children. It is beneficial to the adoptive parents to know the information about their adoptive child, but more so they can provide adequate care and learn about treatments, etc., not to simply let them know if they have a healthy child or not.

Key Words Defining Problems Associated With International Adoption

The importance of understanding basic terms to a topic is very important in order to understand the argument. A few key words involved in international adoption are: International Adoption, Orphans, Psychological Problems, Poverty, and Prenatal Care. It is very important to understand these topics and how they are used in international adoption.

When considering the definition of international adoption, it is important to understand that this is not solely inclusive of simply adopting a child from another country. Unlike most adoptions in the U.S. where the adoptive parents at least get to see a picture and get some detailed information of the birth mother and possibly father, many people go in and come out blind when adopting internationally. In orphans, it's important to understand that in this subject, it is children in orphanages and not including those on the streets unaccounted for. Also, the lack of care in orphanages actually alters the children's development. These conditions, along with poverty and prenatal care lead to psychological problems which define where the psychological problems come from. It is also important to understand that poverty and prenatal care are much worse than many people have ever physically seen and that these experiences effect the fetus.

These key terms, in and of themselves, define some of the major problems involved with international adoption. It is important to understand their relativity to the topic in order to understand why there are so many problems involved.

Can You Decipher Any Emotional Disorders in these Children?

This image appears to be depicting a situation of the sheer desire for orphan children to 'belong' to a family. There is not even a smile or peak of happiness radiating from any of them. The eyes from each child in the 'cage' radiates the longing to be loved. Also notice that there is not one adult in the confined area with the children. Except for the company of each other, the children are all alone.

This photograph is important to my topic because it shows what adoptive parents are presented with when choosing a child to adopt. How do they pick just one? And, when looking at all the children, how difficult it must be for them to look deeply into each child and pick them apart. None of these children appear to have any psychological disorders or emotional problems due to being confined in an orphanage. But how can the 'average joe' tell? This is why it is important for adoption agencies to present all information about these children so that parents are able to adopt a child that they can give a good life to.

Innate Love Already Exists

In reviewing the article Adopting With Care, and for Good written by Susan Dominus from the New York Times in April 2010, she uses inductive reasoning to move her audience by first reviewing certain characteristics looked for when medically screening an orphan child and then detailing how technology has advanced this process over the years for Dr. Jane Aronson who is a pediatrician who helps adoptive parents evaluate the mental and physical health of possible adoptees. Her major premise seems to be that many parents have an innate love and sense of belonging with their future adoptive child. She uses supports this by telling the audience that there is a love that develops for the unknown child in the long journey to first make the decision to adopt and then go through the process. This is a long journey that many take, and through this hard and emotional time, their love grows deeper and deeper for their child; any child.

Dominus centers the minor premise around the idea that with information given, although parents still have the tendency to be scared towards the situation and the unknown to an agree, it puts them many steps ahead than if they had no information or advice given at all. There can sometimes still be the unknown. She uses support that, although they screen these orphans and decipher what challenges the adoptive family is capable of managing, there is still the unknown. She has many clients whose friends try to give them support by stating that women who bear their children naturally are also presented with the unknown and are expected to deal with whatever their child is born with. Dominus does indicate that this is true, but international orphans are at a disadvantage with poverty rates and very poor prenatal care.

Dominus concludes with a story about a couple that adopted a young child who seemed to be very deprived and behind schedule developmentally. She evaluates these findings during a routine exam and informs the parents of this, but this information does not seem to phase them as they are enjoying the progress and advancements the child is making in the office while playing with toys and emotionally bonding with the parents. This story is used as an analogy to imply that most adoptive parents, regardless of any delays or setbacks, still have that innate love for their adoptive child that was formed long before they even knew the child.

Works Cited

DOMINUS, SUSAN. "Adopting With Care, and for Good." New York Times 17 Apr. 2010: 13. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 19 May 2010

Who Are the Experts?

In more in depth research of my topic, at this point I am leaning towards the problems and difficulties for adoptive parents associated with international adoption. There are many people who have a lot to say about international adoption with recent international happenings. These people also include adoptive parents who have first hand experience when it comes to dealing with the agencies and the emotional struggles that are involved.
The first source I have chosen to use is Interventions for Internationally Adopted Children and Families: A Review of the Literature written by Janet A. Welsh, Andres G. Viana, Stephen A. Petrill, and Matthew D. Mathias. This article comes from the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal which publishes articles that deal with children and teenagers and their families. I believe this to be a source of quality because it focuses on all children and teenagers - not just adoptees. Therefore, they have credible information to compare their research and findings about adoptees to.
The second source I have chosen to use, Strengthen Supports for International Adoption, comes from Kathleen L. Whitten who is a visiting lecturer at Georgia State University and is the author of Labor of the Heart: A parent's Gide to Decisions and Emotions in Adoption." I believe this source to be credible because her information is trusted by a university and she has a published book focused on dealings with adoption.

Russian Children Living with a Loving Family? Absurd!

I have been somewhat shocked at the information I have learned after reading A Russian Orphanage Offers Love and Care, but Few Ways Out from the New York Times written by Clifford J. Levy. I know somebody who adopted their daughter from Russia over ten years ago, and although I was quite a bit younger then and not quite as in tune to the details I am now, I remember them talking about their adoption experience. They said that their daughter, who was under one when they adopted her, had always been kept in a crib. The adoption agency told them that she may never walk. Once they actually brought her home and gave her individualized attention, she started walking and fastly progressing.
So, although I had an idea that the orphanages in Russia were not the most ideal, I had no idea that, according to Boris L. Altshuler, chairmain of Right of the Child, an advocacy group in Moscow, that "the system wants these children to remain orphans." It is so sad to me that these children, who deserve loving families and individualized attention, are not able to obtain this valued experience because of, basically, the economy. The orphanges in Russia create jobs and income for people and therefore, the country. The orphanges may take good care of these young children, but they don't get to grow up there forever, only until they reach a certain age where they must move on to their next orphanage or foster home.
The responsibility, it seems, not only needs to be addressed of the government or system, but the people themselves. It is horrible to think that this all stems from, among others, poor family life involving drug and alcohol abuse. Can we, as people, not be responsible enough to even keep our own children?