It’s refreshing to read a piece by an AP (i.e., Christina) that takes a step back, refocuses and produces a snapshot of the adoption situation in Việt Nam that clarifies and forces the reader (i.e., me) to re-examine some presuppositions he may have had about the practice and those who participate in that practice.
Read it HERE for yourself.
Christina does a heckuva job bringing together many of the debates and competing ideas surrounding adoption from Việt Nam and drilling down to the heart of the matter.
“It’s a gray, gray world in inter-country adoption. So many parties involved, and few easy answers. Our hope in creating VVAI was to point out these complex issues, and also to suggest that adopting parents do in fact have some power and responsibility. We can seek out the best most ethical agencies and refuse to work with others that make lots of promises but do nothing to improve the system. We can speak up when we see things we know are wrong – in our agencies, in our in-country process, or in our own government’s procedures. … Consider the big picture – what is best for all adoptions, and not just our own.”
Taking into account my own personal philosophy on procreation and reproduction, it begs the question why I would even care about family planning and adoption in general. I have no desire to father a child, let alone raise a child.
However, the simplified reason is that I feel an affinity toward the little kids being adopted out from the same country I was born in and then taken from. Pretty self-explanatory.
But, there’s a more complex reason why I think I have a vested interest in informing myself and having an opinion about adoption, specifically from Việt Nam. Because I am a 34-year-old adult who is looking at these kids being adopted from Việt Nam and not only wishing that they are given as many, if not more, opportunities in life than I was given, but also dreading that they will run into many of the same brick walls, closed doors and ignorant people as I did as they grow older, gathering more experience and wisdom under their belts.
When these kids slowly become adolescents and pull themselves up out of the “adoption fog” and start looking around, asking questions of their parents, relatives, adoption “professionals” and many other people, directly or indirectly, involved in their adoption, how many of them will be met with either angry stares or blank stares?
When these kids quickly become adults and start to do their own research about the country of their birth, how many of them will look deeper into Việt Nam’s tattered and torn past, and gilded present, and either want to look deeper into the heart of the matter or just snap their minds shut and continue on, content with their current lives?
And, when these kids become parents themselves, how many of them will rejoice when they relocate birth parents and/or relatives and how many of them will regret ever searching in the first place after ending up at the same dead end?
The world is not always gray. Some days are clearer than others. And, those are the days we shall seize.
