At this time of year, when many people are searching for socially responsible ways to mark the season, purchasing greeting cards can be a way of demonstrating our heart-felt values and lived commitments. Now might be a good time to show your support for the movement to reform international adoption.
There is a rather inflammatory article being circulated in the adoption community denouncing UNICEF for its stand on transnational adoption. You can read the original article (“Why I Won’t Buy UNICEF Holiday Cards”) by clicking here.
But be forewarned: you may find yourself indignant at the tone of the article. I do NOT agree with the expressed “anti-UNICEF” position. Ever since I was a kid, when I would go “trick or treating for UNICEF” to collect spare change in one of those black and orange milk carton-like coin boxes, I have supported the work of UNICEF. I just took the time to read their position statement on international adoption for myself. Compared to the way the author of the above-mentioned article made the UNICEF statement sound, I found the actual statement both ethical and courageous. In contrast, the bombastic article comes off as polemical and whiny. It’s hard not to read the first article as the self-righteous outrage of an entitled Westerner whose “privilege” (to adopt whomever and whenever she chooses) is being threatened.
I, for one, support UNICEF’s stance, and the Hague Convention on International Adoptions that their position statement endorses. I admire the courage and moral leadership shown to speak truth to power, and to call out the global adoption industry in support of keeping children and their families connected. I urge readers to read the UNICEF statement, and to perhaps think about “orphans” in a different way, and then act to show your own support by sending UNICEF greeting cards as an act of solidarity and goodwill. You might even want to include a little note that educates your card recipients about the Hague Convention on International Adoption and why you are supporting UNICEF at this time, in solidarity with real adoption reform efforts.
Thanks, John. I had seen this article posted on FB by several of my AP friends who I thought “knew better.” I have been VERY upset about this article and APs who blindly re-post it without doing their research. Here is a blog post by an AP in support of UNICEF that I think is well-written: http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/get-out-of-my-way-im-entitled-to-adopt.html.
Tracy (from Ethica and Voices for VIetnam Adoption Integrity)
I really appreciate this post. That author has written some pretty inflammatory articles in the past as well and it infuriates me that other adoptive parents don’t recognize her position of privilege and the fact that, as an AP herself, she is not an objective writer.
Don’t even need to read the link to know who the author is. Shameful, just shameful bashing UNICEF. Thanks for standing up.
Hear, hear! The anti-UNICEF mumbo-jumbo just reminds me to send donations to UNICEF.
I agree with you completely. The author of this article appears to be selfish, bitter and uneducated about what UNICEF’s stance really is. The organization is not against inter country adoption, rather it is supporting that it be done ethically, morally, and always in the best interest of the children.
Thank you, John, for your support of UNICEF and for speaking out about the utterly nonsensical campaign against them by rabid adoption promoters.
I’m just plain sick of the “adoption above all” nonsense. How lucky the people in that camp are that they came to their ridiculous attitudes in a time when there are plenty of biased news outlets to promote their POV. And how incredibly sad that they are taking up space in a dialog that should be focusing on ensuring that the needs of world’s children are truly served and that when adoption is appropriate that it’s just and ethical.
But John, didn’t you know that it is the job of the person of color adopted by the White family to bridge the divide between races? You know, so we can all hold hands around the globe. It’s so nice that adoptees can do so much for the entitled adults in their lives. *sigh*
Thank you for being the voice of sanity.
Maybe you should do a post on what 25,000 dollars for a single child can buy in adoption reform so those who say, “But–but–adoption rescues children” will sit down and stop stating crap like Unicef is evil and is taking away *my* child.
You know, like 120 dollars to Heifer buys a goat, microloans, single mother programs… what does the “rescuing” of a single child by adoption really buy in terms of stopping the reasons adoption happens? What can you really do with 25,000 dollars to adopt a single child? I’d love that post to pieces.
I am not against adoption… but the attached “rescuing” stuff really makes me cross when I know that adopting one child could have saved at least a few more for the same amount. I think adoption should be for those children that need it. Really have no other option open to them. Not because of poverty, single unwed mothers, medical disorders like cleft lip, racism in their native country–you know things that are within our reach to actually fix.
Why just not outright and say it? “I want to build my family through adoption.” Instead of justifying it with the rescuing crap? APs have said to me, my child rescued me. Why can’t the other APs also get on board with that?
I did the post about what 25,000 dollars can do for children instead.
http://is.gd/B32VLQ
In light of people arguing, “But adoption rescues children!” I’m going to take the number $25,000 which is the average amount for a domestic adoption for one child and break it down into what it could do to you know, actually rescue children AND cauterize the wound while we’re at it.
You can donate 25,000 dollars to Red Cross. You can specify which community it goes to, and also specify what it is donated towards, say children. 25,000 dollars could get toys, blood, shelter and help children find their relatives who may adopt them.
25,000 dollars to the Heifer International organization is a big enough package transform an entire region. Or simply by a little less than 20 goats. This would leave 99 dollars left over, of which you could buy a flock of hope, or a trio of rabbits, leaving 30 dollars left over. You could then buy some honeybees, and you’d still have 9 dollars left over. (How many children did you save?) This would help entire families and communities to get out of poverty–the organization doesn’t only donate the animals, but funds vets and care for those animals. When those animals breed the community benefits.
You can donate that 25,000 dollars to help single mothers in Korea keep their children because the Korean government has not caught up to industrialization in Korea. Considering that minimum wage in Korea is 4.00 an hour and single mothers are shunned, you would have given enough to fund more than one child and give the mother a fighting chance to keep her child. (Though Korean adoptions cost an average of 28,000 dollars).
You can donate 25,000 to organizations that need microloans to women in poverty who have business plans, but not the means to do it. Many of these business plans require only 5,000 dollars, or less, which means, if you invest the full 25,000 dollars, into these women, and specifically choose those that have children, then you could save 5 projects, maybe with 2 children each? So that’s 10 children.
With 25,000 dollars you could donate to places such as Operation Smile where they go around the world and repair things like cleft lips and cleft palates. They provide medical care to children who would be stigmatized by society for a minor birth defect–there are other organizations that also help with repairing birth defects.
Stop kidding yourself, if you wanted to “save a child” You wouldn’t adopt. You would donate and save more children and stop the causes that make the system have children that shouldn’t be in it in the first place rated by the amount of melanin in their skin tone/government they have. You want to adopt–it’s for yourself, it’s not to “save children”. The act of making a family is selfishness–own it, but once you own to that fact, don’t forget, it will not only be about you, but your child and the future that you want to show them. Do you want to show them a world where you don’t try to mend the world for your own gain, or do you want to show them a world where you could spend only 120 dollars to buy one animal from the Heifer foundation and see a woman go to college through that one animal? Do you want to show them that you put effort into helping women keep their children? Or do you want to show them that you think if women are poor and single in a stigmatized country that we should take their children? Do you want to be the person who asks when are the children going to be shipped out of a disaster area, or the person that donates money to help with relief that will help more people than the adoption of that one child. Think through your choices and justifications.
Own the choices you make, don’t make it heroic when it isn’t. And don’t blame Unicef for following the governments of the world in their policies.