Strollerderby

I think too few people know or acknowledge the dual-citizenship nature of American Indians in the US. In addition to the historical abuses that have necessitated the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), there's another layer of federal and tribal relationship that makes adoption of indigenous children more akin to an international adoption than a domestic one. Adoption agencies and other professionals have to be very well-trained in how ICWA works and very deliberate in the way they present it to PAPs - sounds like that didn't happen in this case, which is a disservice to this child, the prospective adoptive parents, and the child's tribal members.

What a great post. This has really made me think about this case beyond my knee-jerk reaction to it. I think all of the factors you mention should come into play before an adoption takes place. If a parent gives birth to an addicted child after losing 4 other children for the same reason, it makes sense that the 5th child should also be removed from her care. Is it possible that the mother will stop using drugs and become fit to raise her children? Certainly. If her children are still in foster care, haven't been out of her care for very long, or are old enough to remember her and wish to be reunited, then it makes sense for her to work to get those children back. I absolutely do not agree that children should be returned to their formerly unfit parents after they have been adopted and are emotionally attached to their adoptive parents. The mother's right to a second chance just can't override what is in the child's best interests. It is not fair for children to be bounced in and out of unstable homes, regardless of the social factors that may have contributed to their biological parents' addictions (or whatever it is that made the parents unfit).

Nice post. There were a lot of points in the original reaction on this blog to this that bothered me. You've managed to state well why they were bothersome.

Lula! Lula! Lula! So much yes to the dual-citizenship point - the designation American Indian is more than a racial or ethnic identity, it's a separate legal identity as well. My dusty memory of ICWA back when I worked with it is that there are multiple steps, CLEARLY delineated, which must pass before a child is *eligible* for adoption by a non-native individual or couple. This adoption was fraudulent, because the child was never truly free to be adopted.

I feel badly for everyone involved, because there are so many painful parts of this, but it's not racist, and it was completely predictable given the child's undisputed enrollment in his tribe. If any of the attorneys involved in this were anything other than cautioning, I think there's a clear malpractice case against them.

Thanks for pointing this out, Shannon. And 24 hours? That's awful overall.

Great post! At the risk of sounding ignorant, why do you capitalize Black when referring to the race of your children?

If anyone wants to read up on ICWA, this is a good resource - www.nicwa.org/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act

Coolteamblt:

Before African American was in common use a lot of people felt that Black should be capitalized since it referred to a specific ethnic and racial group.

"white" in the U.S. has historically meant "not Black" and was a catchall category and thus not in need of capitalizing.

People ,

   I am shocked how selfish this mother is.

I do not want to hear the history of what I am sure was a drastic past of the DRUG ADDICTED MOTHER. She Choice her path.

She voluntarly gave her child to a wonderful family.

Who adopted this child.

 I am so dissapointed in the tribe that intervend.

We need to all come together and help this nation heal.

Pulling people, families apart is not my idea of love to help this nation.

I  send love, healing and the hope of awaking to all.

Utah law does state that a mother can relinquish in twenty four hours.  A father must sign up on the putative registry within 18 hours of birth.  

The Indian Child Welfare Act states the woman can't sign until ten days later.   I know in Texas a woman can't until 72 hours after birth.  Texas does not allow for changing of minds.  I need to read and understand relinquishment laws in Indiana a little more.  

Shannon:

Thank you so much! I see it a lot on the internet and such, but I wasn't sure who I could ask without offending.

SharonB - My understanding is that the mother isn't even involved here. The decision to *not allow the adoption* (i.e. this child wasn't legally the Larson's son yet) was made at the tribal level in accordance with the laws governing adoptions of Native American children. The adoption was disrupted before it was finalized, which I think we can all agree is better than allowing an illegal or legally-disputed adoption to occur and then drag out in the courts for years. That's how we got Baby Jessica and Baby Richard, which were legally incomplete adoptions fought by the children's birth parents because their rights hadn't been properly handled, not because of some whim. In the case of American Indian children, their nation/tribe has rights as well as their parents, and is therefore involved as another party in legal issues like adoption.

If this child's mother is too ill with addiction to care for him, it's very unlikely that he will be returned to her. His tribe will work with Social Services to place him with an ICWA-approved family, perhaps for adoption and perhaps for fostering - I haven't heard the particulars for this case. But nothing went wrong here from a legal standpoint, or from an ethical one given the reality of this child's sort of dual-citizen status. If the agency did their job properly, the Larsons knew there was a very good chance that they would have to return this little boy, because they are not what ICWA is looking for in an adoptive family. If the Larsons *weren't* informed of the risk they were taking, then I blame their agency and lawyers and consider it a boon that the adoption was disrupted at only 6 months instead of a year or more from now.  

"Pulling people, families apart is not my idea of love to help this nation."

Neither is it the idea of love for this child's tribe. That's why ICWA had to be implemented in the first place - to prevent the pulling apart of people and families.

I hate to hear of situations like this.  For many reasons.  The situation is not fair to anyone in the adoption triad.  The birth family was failed, the adoptive family was failed.  The baby was failed.  Not one member of the triad got the services they deserved.  

I am curious to know when this adoption started falling apart.  In most cases like this you simply hear "they child had to go back when he/she was X age.  What we do not hear is that things started to go wrong very, very early on.  In many cases even before the child was placed.  This is whey people have the impression that someone can simply walk in at any time and take an adopted child from their parents.

In legal, ethical adoptions children are not taken away.  This adoption was neither ethical nor legal.   SHAME on the agency for not informing the family of the ICWA.  This is some of the first information we got from or agency.  

I hate stories like this because I know people that have gleamed on to stories like this and avoided domestic adoption out of fear.   This makes me sad.  In truth bad adoptions make good news.   The media loves to report the rare story of "child was taken away".  For every domestic adoption gone wrong there are hundreds if not thousands that go right.  

My understanding is that mother made contact with the Larsons prior to her child's birth (on her own or through the agency, I don't know), was either living in Utah or went to Utah to give birth, and signed parental relinquishment papers about 24 hours after the baby was born (I think under ICWA mothers can't sign before 72 hours). The baby went home with the Larsons, and adoption proceedings began. Within a very short period of time - I don't know how long, but we're talking less than a month - the mother contacted her tribe, who noted that the adoption proceedings were in violation of ICWA and began to intervene to stop the adoption.

I don't know how long it takes to finalize an adoption in Utah, but in most states it's between 6 months and a year. So again, this was NOT a case of the tribe swooping in uninvited to "take back" a child who was already legally adopted - this was a case of a tribe being made aware of an adoption in progress that wasn't legally compliant, given the baby's status as a Native American child under the jurisdiction of ICWA. The agency or its lawyers failed their obligation to make sure that this placement was in accordance with the laws governing the adoption of Native American children, and that's how the child and the Larsons ended up in this situation.

Lori, we too worked with an agency that was very upfront with us about both ICWA and Father's Rights as they're handled in our state (IL). That's an agency's job, to educate prospective adoptive parents on the various legal scenarios that might come to pass! But in this situation, I also fault the Larsons for hanging onto the child and waging a legal battle instead of saying "We're so sorry, we didn't know we were involved with an adoption that was violating this law" and allowing him to be taken into tribal care months ago. The baby could have been in a safe, ICWA-compliant foster or adoptive home by now if they hadn't cried foul and dug in their heels.

Thanks for the additional information.

It seems like these stories always fail to mention that the legal proceedings to remove the child started days after the birth.  

I think this is one of those sad cases where there is enough blame to go around.  

You do bring up many good points.  However, as a woman who is waiting to adopt and has been trying to build a family for over 5 years, I ask you this:  If one of your children was placed into your arms and said to be yours and then 30 days later someone came back and said, "wait never mind, this isn't "quite" legal." Would you have just handed them back and said, "We're so sorry, we didn't know we were involved with an adoption that was violating this law."??????

I wouldn't.  I wouldn't care if it was legal, I would want to be with that child that I love. Especially if the alternative is foster care. Especially not on a "technical" legality.  I don't think the argument is whether it is LEGAL.  Obviously since the child is being returned to the tribe there were legal issues. Technically and legally speaking this child belongs on the reservation. But it is a technicality and I don't fault the Larson's one bit to fight tooth and nail for the child they love. This is this family's CHILD, maybe not legally, but psychologically and emotionally. I would question them more if they just gave up.

I agree - as an adoptive mother who waited 6 weeks for the agency to allow the mother to sign because of wanting to make sure the father's rights were clearly and ethically protected (it's 72 hours here in OH - we did legal-risk/foster to adopt), I understand the anxiety of not knowing and the attachment that occurs in that time and it would have been so very hard not only for us but our older son if we could not have parented K (who is now 6).  BUT I would never want to raise a child wondering if the first mother really wanted to place her child or was coerced, or if the father had been "over looked, ignored" etc.  The best interest of the child is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot and adoption really is supposed to be about the child.  I remember during the home study process finally "getting it" that this is not about me and wanting a baby.  This process is about finding a family for a child, not finding a child for a family.  Big difference and it sounds like in this case the agency didn't make it clear, didn't know the laws or the family just did not want to hear the reality of their situation.

Well done. As a Native American social worker, people rarely stop to think how incredibly racist they sound when they sound off about how much they hate ICWA. I appreciate your well thought out comments. Kudos!

We adopted our oldest child 17 years ago. We started researching adoption 20 years ago, way before the ease of the internet. Even then, I understood the ramifications of the ICWA. If you are adopting, you need to know everything you can. I find it remarkable that prospective adoptive parents don't do enough research to know how adoption law works.

And yes, if a birth parent, or a tribe had claim to a child I hoped to be mine and asked me to return that child, yes I would. It would kill me emotionally. But it would be far worse to know I went against my child's family and/or faced a massive legal battle.

BB, I too am a woman who wants to be a mother, and is unable to have biological children with my partner. We went through the homestudy process for a domestic adoption last year, were approved, and then had to deal with unexpected health and financial situations that at this point prevent us from adopting. So yes, I know what it is to want to be an adoptive mother.

That said - NO, I absolutely would NOT want to be involved with an illegal adoption, especially of a Native American child! My partner's family lineage includes people who were taken from their families as part of the Boarding School assimilation programs in the first half of the 20th century. What kind of people would we be if we participated in any sort of perpetuation of that tragedy, which is partly why ICWA came into being in the first place?  And more importantly, what kind of adoptive parent would I be if I was willing to violate my child's history, family, and tribe that way? Do you think my child would thank me in adulthood for such an act? I don't. Willing, knowledgeable participation in illegal adoption as an act of pure selfishness, not parental love. How could an adoptive parent ever look their child in the eye again, knowing that they freely broke such a law just to "get a baby"?

Read The Bean Trees by Barbara Kinsolver for an account of something like this...and what it looks like from the tribal perspective.

As an adopted person...would I rather have lived with the people to whom I was born? Yes...absolutely. To me...it would be, "get me out of here...get me back home...even the strange home I might have come from to you."

In fact, at the time frame we are talking about of six months...I was already ensconced in a foster home...that I was torn from later...and I don't remember them...but I want to know who they were.

I would say this for those parents who are trying to adopt: don't let them forget your names...that person someday may want to meet you and thank you. Keep that child in your heart all his life.

The worst thing about adoption is that our history gets stolen and forgotten. We don't get to keep our history because others think they know what we adoptees want. Most times it isn't much thinking involved. I want my whole story...everything...those who fought for me...those who won and lost.   As an adopted person I have never forgotten the people who brought me here to this earth to begin with...though I never knew them.

Would I have "given" my son back to his mother within the 30 days allowed by my state for her to change her mind? Yes. Absolutely. That's why the law allows for that time. He was not truly ours until that 30 days was over. We knew that. We didn't name him until that time had passed. His mother deserved that time to truly make up her mind. If she decided to commit to raising him, there is nothing I would have done to stop it. If I found out the adoption was illegal for some reason, again, I could not fight it. I could never look a child in the eye and say "yes, your mother wanted you back, but it would have broken my heart to lose you." It's not about me. It's about the child.

As a prospective adoptive parent, I was going to be able to parent a child, no doubt. So, bluntly, one baby was the same as the next. For each individual child, however, they only have one life, one family. If they have the chance to live with their birth family, then why shoudl I prevent that? I'll always have the chance to parent another child, they will not have the chance to have another childhood.

I come from a background of having done foster care, however, so I'm practiced in parenting children who are not mine, no matter how much I love them. My heart has been broken numerous times, but it's not about me.

I understand the reasons for wanting to raise a native child within a native community and I agree that the parents should have been made aware of all of this up front.  What's happened here is a real mess.  This child has had a loving family for 6 months, however, and it's terrible to break the family bonds (not to mention their hearts) in this situation.  I say they should come to some kind of compromise with the adoptive parents that involve raising the child with connection to native relatives and focus energies on making sure that this doesn't happen again.

Shannon, Thank you for openning the eyes shut by blind emotion.  The fact that these adoptive parents knew at an early point that the adoption was in question negates their cry of "It's not FAIR"  I feel sorry for them that they attached themselves to such a lovely child but, as an adoptive parent myself, shame on them.  They knew.  I have adopted two native children and taught them what little is left of our culture as my grandmother taught me. With every generation there are less and less who can pass on our traditions.  The culture genocide of Native people in America was excellerated in the 1950's and 60's by the  Indian Adoption Project which placed hundreds of Native American children with white parents, the first national effort to place an entire child population transracially and transculturally.  ICWA was inacted to halt these practices.  

On a seperate note, I am apauled that almost every adoptive parent wants a baby, have you seen the countless older children waiting for a place to call home?  Give your love where you can. My girls were 12 and 17 when the adoption was final and are jewels in the rough. I would not trade them for the world.