You Know I'm Normally About Nuance

But you're not going to find nuance in this post. Maybe it's because "adoption versus institutionalization" is too often a hypothetical argument, and I'm not holding a hypothetical child. She wasn't hypothetically failing to thrive, isn't hypothetically catching up in growth. She didn't have a hypothetically bloated belly, she doesn't carry with her hypothetical grief, and she hasn't hypothetically blossomed before my hypothetical eyes.

Margie is hosting one hella challenging conversation over at ThirdMom. I encourage you to go back and read a few days' worth of posts to catch up. In just a short time, all of the old concerns of international adoption (stealing versus salvation, both equally problematic, both also ugly notions) re-emerged, and Margie managed to manage many points of view.

In her most recent post, she acknowledges a (hopefully) transient need for adoption in some current contexts. She provides the example of the origins of Korean adoption to the United States, and indicates that the need that drove those adoptions is no more. We might consider the conditions of contemporary Ethiopia similarly: temporarily adoption from Ethiopia to the United States (and to the few other nations with significant numbers of Ethiopian adoptions and to ex-pat families) can be lifesaving. But we'd need to intervene in the causes (in this case, the top immediate causes include AIDS, malaria, and high maternal mortality rates) and re-evaluate the need, something that has only been done recently with respect to Korean adoption, much on the initiative of KADs.

But then, Margie wonders, is it possible that life in an orphanage is preferrable, given that it preserves culture? "Not being an adoptee, I can't answer that," she says.

But I'll venture an answer because I'm not so sure that any identity guarantees a better answer to a question like this. Those who were adopted can and do tell us the problems with adoption, but what of their experience with an orphanage? Of real poverty?

My daughter was at the best care center in Ethiopia, of that I'm sure. My husband saw first hand that she was very well-loved, as were all the children. But it was a care center, with shift workers (a high nanny to child ratio, but even so . . .) There was never enough, and there never could be. No one at the care center or in Ethiopia suggested that they believed children, their most precious resource and greatest gifts, would fare better in an orphanage than in a transcultural family. No research suggests that mental and physical wellbeing are better managed in an orphanage than in a family (it all says otherwise, while agreeing that the healthiest placement is with a healthy family of origin). Did you know, for example, that young children who are institutionalized fall one month farther behind in growth for every two to three months in institutional care, as compared with their same age counterparts raised in families (a friend refers us to Gunnar et al in Development and Psychopathology 12)? That children institutionalized for long periods of time show brain differences on MRI (and she refers us to Chugani et al in Neuroimage 14)? But did you know that most children adopted by toddlerhood/early childhood catch up by preschool?

If the goal is preservation of culture of origin: How can we really preserve a culture in an orphanage? The parts of a culture that really matter? Even those who vehemently opposed Madonna's contested adoption of David advocated for guardianship over orphanage life. Further, my daughter's culture -- a rural minority culture, with a home language other than that of the capital and the care center, local traditions and local religion -- is being lost to her and to others, and it isn't through adoption, but through the original cause of the separation.

If the concern is the "deceit" of adoption: My daughter's records are not closed, there has been no lie, she knows and will know what is known (her language of origin isn't a written one and records are not routinely produced for birth). I feel strongly about open records, so it frustrates me that this might be the basis on which opinions about the value of an orphanage versus an adoptive family might be formed, and I want that to be very clear. And obviously, international adoption -- like domestic adoption -- needs reform. The Hague is one step toward that, but paparent and aparent attitudes toward adoption must be reformed first and foremost (if you're a longtime reader you know my committment to this, and if you're not, you may wish to review my archives).

YET:

When we look at this from the perspective of health (mental, physical, developmental) this is really a non-choice.

I'll look forward to other opinions on Margie's blog, but the only one that matters, in the end, is my daughter's. I look to blogging adoptees because they are the closest I have right now to the adult Miss I, to whom I will be accountable for all these choices, and I admire so many so greatly. But on this issue, whether life in an orphanage is preferrable to life with my family, I will defer for now to those who know life in an orphanage, and later, to Miss I.

I may not be able to give my daughter roots, but I can and will give her wings when no one else could. I don't want her to be grateful, I just want her to fly.

Reversal

An African American woman approached us at the water fountain. "Beautiful little girl," she said. "Thank you," I replied cautiously, hoping not to engage in a conversation about transracial adoption in that particular moment. "Is she yours?" she asked, too much emphasis on "yours" for complete innocence. "Yes," I said flatly.
"That's wonderful."
Here we go, I think. Either it's wonderful or horrible, it never just is what it is. But then she surprised me. "My daughter's white."
She went on to tell me the story of their beginnings as a family and some of the challenges they faced almost thirty years ago. She's now a grandmother (her daughter's family is beautiful!). She knew some of our challenges without my having to say it. But, she reminded me, if it's hard to be the white mother of a black child it was and is far harder to be the black mother of a white child: "Black people approached me to ask 'How dare you raise a white child when there are black children who need families?'" Yet her daughter never thinks of her as a "black mother of a white child," only her mother. She reassured me, too, that "every ounce of love [I] pour into that child will pour out of her someday." I hope so. Not for me, but for others in her life and in her world.
Best water fountain conversation ever.

Thinking Blogger Award

It is my pleasure to bestow the Thinking Blogger award (bestowed upon me by Michelle) to Swerl. Many of my favorite bloggers (whom you can find at left) have already been awarded the Thinking Blogger Award, and some of them are double-awardees (Mia, Margie, Nicole, Theresa et al, you know I'd be nominating you again)!

I offer a single nomination, then, while I mull the other four (leave it to me to corrupt a meme!):

I only recently became acquainted with Swerl, when we both were raging against Urban Outfitters. Once acquainted, I became an admirer, and a second link in just a few post shows as much (I'm usually such a bad linker, though I'm trying to do better). Swerl offers intelligent, insightful and informative posts, as well as links to allow readers to learn, and other links to do something with that knowledge, sometimes with just a click. I appreciate not only his thoughtful posts but also his thorough researching, aggregating, linking. I am impressed by such initiative and organization, both of which are not in the skill set I bring to blogging.

Self-Titled

First, a squirrel is trying to move into our home via our window airconditioner. Fortunately, our siamese mix guards better than our terrier mix. But I can still hear the scritch-scritching in the wee hours.

Then:
Mia discusses the untenable assertion of adoptee "assimilation," in direct response to a problematic blog, one I won't address here. But the analogy, while a good one, is also a really provoking one. I had to ask: is my daughter really a squirrel?

I tried to follow the analogy. Then I tried to bend it. We're different kinds of dogs, she's a different kind of puppy. I'm a (mostly, the Gardeners) Labrador, my husband is a (mostly, the Blooms) Poodle, my son is a Labradoodle (though we tease him that he's a Poopador) and my daughter? Well, we're not quite sure but maybe a Basenji. Can a Labrador parent a Basenji?

But first my adaptation wasn't satisfying, and then it wasn't defensible. There are problems with pursuing the makeup of a transracial family through animal analogies. There's a history. There's the old (but not gone) failure to comprehend (or to recognize) the biological limits of race (someone from a different generation once told me that "cardinals don't raise bluejays," to explain why I oughtn't have black dolls). Baggage with the notion of breeding.

I'll stick with what I never realized before was an analogy: that a new flower blooms.

To be continued . . .

Dear DH

It is not a rant unless I say it is a rant. My letter decrying the seller's behavior and the possibility that our new house will not close despite the fact that we already have tenants for this one is NOT a rant.
Peace.
(and love).

Mo' 'Gain NuhNight Bears (A Review)

Miss I and ds alike were thrilled when they realized that books had come in the mail. Books in boxes are the favorite parcel of all members of the Bloom household, and without even knowing yet who the package from Brighter Minds Media was for, the two smallest Blooms were diving in.

Miss I immediately recognized that the Care Bears Lullaby Nightlight Book was for her, even though she has no familiarity with the characters (we're a TiVoed PBS-only family, so far as my kids know), characters whom I recognized from my own childhood. But the friendly bears and the embedded nightlight made her eyes light up. She quickly discovered how easily she could turn on the light herself, an added delight. Dh started the cd that comes tucked in the book, and by the end of the book and three minute lullaby Miss I was entranced. "Mo' 'gain," she insisted. I listened as Dh indulged, rereading the few rhyming pages, as she repeated the sound effects: "gulp, gulp, gulp." He did not restart the cd, and she didn't complain (so while the song was very sweet and soothing, it may not have added much to her experience -- perhaps if it repeated, or continued with an instrumental version it might add more value for her). She asked for the book again for bedtime last night.

The embedded nightlight (which stays on for five minutes) is neat, and a vast improvement over books with sound chips (which can drive a mother crazy). The battery can be changed by a grown-up, so the book can stay in long use.

A few things I noticed in her use of the book: She very closely associates it with "Nuh-Night" and hasn't shown an interest in it outside of bedtime, but is very interested in it then (which we can contrast with her Christmas in July! in February! Redeployment of all musical Christmas books at all times) and would love to keep it with her once we've finished reading and tucked her in. But as the mother of two near-insomniacs and insomniac myself, I do wish the light glowed cool blue rather than warm yellow, as cool light promotes night-time sleep, while warm light, even as soft and dim as this, can be rousing.

Still, that a little girl who didn't even know who the Care Bears were before and owns a million books wants the "bear book mo' 'gain," seems a happy endorsement. (I read this outloud and she added, commercial ready, "I Yike It!" I think her aunt - herself a childhood Care Bears fanatic - and her cousin, more apt to recognize the characters, will yike it even more).

Little Bun was not forgotten, and he really enjoyed the The Marvel Heroes Mix & Match Storybook Brighter Minds's Lauren sent along. The book has five independently flipping panels to construct varying sentences with different villains, threats and heroes. An example: Magneto aimed the mutant evolution ray and it froze traffic but it as suddenly destroyed -- because it ran into the invisible woman's force field!" could just has easily been "at the White House" destroyed "by the Hulk's giant green fists!" His appraisal: "It's cool and I don't even watch Teen Titans." His self-directed project: Copying over the sentences he'd created onto blank paper to "keep them." Dh Yiked It! even better than little bun did. Little bun is a committed reader, so he had fun with it, but I imagine its best use would be capturing the imagination of a reluctant reader and encouraging his literacy skills.

Michelle named me a Thinking Blogger. I'm not sure where to go from here: most of my favorite bloggers have already been named, and some named twice. I'll keep thinking, I may choose one, I may repeat. But either way, it sure was sweet of Michelle to think of me!

Update forthcoming.

Diape(red)

I'm working on a post about squirrels, but it's really quite complicated and I need more time.
In the meantime, new products: I'm buying one of these for A.