Parents Must Give Adopted Son Back: Another Side of the Story

Shannon LC Cate — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

My fellow Strollerderby blogger, Jeanne Sager, reports this morning on the case of an American Indian baby adopted outside his tribe being ordered to be returned to the tribe by his adoptive parents at the age of six months.

When my children (both adopted) were babies, one of the most common questions strangers would ask us is "can her real mother take her back?" Setting aside the problematic word "real," what annoyed me most about this question was the evidence it gave me that the population generally buys into the myth that adoption--especially domestic adoption--is a dangerous game in which tentative families are made, then torn asunder willy-nilly by impetuous birth mothers "changing their minds" about their adoption decision.

The fact is, in spite of the high publicity cases like the one Jeanne shares with us receive from the media, real adoption disruptions are incredibly rare. In the Utah case, bad adoption law met the Indian Child Welfare Act, met questionable adoption agency practice met complicated race politics for a perfect storm.

For one thing, Utah allows a woman to sign away her child for adoption only 24 hours after giving birth. Adoption ethicists disagree over how much time should be required to pass before allowing terminations of parental rights to be signed, but none I've read think 24 hours is anywhere near long enough. And it is the shortest time in any state in the U.S. Not enough time was allowed, in this case, for the mother to make her decision.

For another thing, the Indian Child Welfare Act, like it or not gives the tribes jurisdiction over placement of tribal children for adoption. The agency the prospective adoptive parents used ought to have apprised them of the legal risk they were taking in accepting this baby as their own before the tribe had ruled on the decision. It should have been made clear to them that this could happen and they should never have been led to believe the case was closed until the case was...closed.

As for race politics, people can argue about it until we all explode--it shouldn't matter what race the adoptive parents are as long as they are fit parents versus Indian children should be raised within Indian communities at all costs--and we will never settle it. Because in transracial adoption--as in all adoption--paradox abounds. The fact is that while it is true that love has no color, people do. And race matters.

I'm the white adoptive mother of Black children and our love for each other "has no race" as they say. Of course I can love them and they can love me as fiercely as any mother and children ever loved each other in the history of humanity, but that is a completely separate issue from what they need as people of color in what is still a white dominant society. Plenty of research suggests that transracially adopted children grow up isolated and alienated and unsure how to be adults in their own skin. As a transracially adoptive mother I watch and listen and read and work as hard as I can to prevent my children from having this kind of experience. I think I can learn from the mistakes of the past and the pain adult adoptees share and do a better job for my kids. But this is not a simple matter of love.

The Native American tribes have special consideration in adoption and were an exception to the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act (making racial consideration in adoption placement illegal) because of their special legal status as sovereign and because of an ugly history that included taking away tribal children as a form of real, intentional cultural genocide. Because of this, transracially adoptive parent though I am, I think that exception is reasonable.

Finally, I know that the mother in the Utah case had a serious drug addiction and had been declared unfit to raise her older four children. The baby in question was born drug-addicted. But having a disease like addiction does not automatically render women deserving to lose their children forever. Plenty of women can and do get clean and get their children back. The trouble is that people in power would rather take children out of sick families and sick communities than support those families and communities and help them heal. Putting our resources behind those kinds of efforts is in the best interest of children--both for their immediate survival and for the long-term health of their culture.

For part two of this debate, see:

Defending the Indian Child Wefare Act

Indian Child Welfare Act: Bad for Parents?

Report: Transracial Adoption Laws Harm Black Kids

Madeline Holler — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:02:00 GMT

As a white mother with only two biological children and probably a shitload of ignorance about race and 21st Century America, this story feels a bit delicate to me. So I'm looking to you readers for input in the comments.

Several leading adoption advocacy groups are calling for an overhaul of federal laws regarding transracial adoption. Turns out, making it easier for white families to adopt black children in foster care isn't actually serving the children in the system.

Among the groups' recommendations: approach transracial adoption with color-consciousness, not color-blindness. Also, enforce the laws that called for more outreach and adoption education for minority families. But the most controversial part of the report recommends changing the law fundamentally.

From Time.com:

The more contentious part of the legislation prohibits race from being taken into consideration in most decisions about adoption from foster care. For example, white parents seeking to adopt a black child cannot be required to undergo race-oriented training that differs in any way from training that all prospective adoptive parents receive.

A key recommendation in the new report calls for amending the law so race could be considered as a factor in selecting parents for children from foster care. The change also would allow race-oriented pre-adoption training.

Who knew there wasn't race-oriented training in the adoption process? Are parents really left on their own to figure it out (or ignore any problems)?

So what do you think? A family is a family? Anybody out there agree with the recommendation? Does it offend anyone?

Photo: Dailymail.co.uk

Strollerderby : adoption laws

Parents Must Give Adopted Son Back: Another Side of the Story

Report: Transracial Adoption Laws Harm Black Kids