Category Archives: Adoption

Birth Mother’s Day

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Birth Mother’s Day was created by Mary Jane Wolch-Marsh and shared with other birth mothers in Seattle in 1990, to help with healing from the loss of children placed for adoption. It is observed on the Saturday before Mother’s Day. This year, Birth Mother’s Day would be May 11, and Mother’s Day, May 12.

Is it on your calendar? A complicated, welcomed, loathed, non-Hallmark kind of day. However, there indeed are cards for it, some astonishing in their insensitivity. There are cards against it.

Controversy abounds around it. Start with the designation of “birth mother,” and find those who prefer “first mother” or “biological mother” or “natural mother” or “mother.”

Move on to the idea of a separate day: A rose by any other name is still a mother, and why should there be a distinct day? Alternatively, there are those who see it as a day to honor the realities of loss, grief, selflessness, coercion, courage, love that birth/first mothers may or may not feel.

If one does observe it, how so? Rituals? Cards? Flowers? Photos? Jewelry? So much depends on the relationship, the communication, the connections between the first family and the adoptive family, including of course the adopted child (teen, adult).

And Happy Birth Mother’s Day? Some birth mothers note that Mother’s Day is almost as painful as is their child’s birthday.

Here’s one take on it from a birth mother’s perspective: “Birthmother’s Day Created Out of Love or Just More Adoption Propaganda?”

Here’s one from an adoptee: “Birthmother’s Day and Mother’s Day” One quote: “In my reconnection with my birth family, I’ve been fortunate to find myself in the midst of communicators…We have taken a moment to communicate with each other, to say with love some of the difficult truths.”

To me, the bottom line is the value of acknowledging that adopted children indeed had/have a mother before their adoption. The acknowledgement can take many forms. From loss comes healing, with luck, and love: We are all in this together. I believe in adoption, if it is done transparently, equitably, and with integrity. I believe that doing so is possible, and I know it’s complex.  I have no magic words.

Here’s a post I put on the Facebook Adoptive Families page Sunday May 5, in response to a post that negatively portrayed birth mothers:

Children become available for adoption for a huge range of reasons. Some reasons include coercion, fraud, and trafficking. Some mothers are heartbroken and grieve deeply for the loss of their children. Some children are placed because of addictions, abuse, neglect. Some are placed because the mother did not have enough money to keep her children from dying. Some mothers have temporary short-term crises, and had they received even a small amount of help, might have kept their children.
We as adoptive parents have a responsibility to acknowledge the realities of our adopted children’s histories, including the fact that children can have difficult histories and still feel a connection to and love for their first mother.
We also have a responsibility to know that those histories can be complicated, and we may not know or have been told the full story–the options, the emotions, the choices.
And in any case, the first mothers of our children should be spoken of respectfully by us adoptive mothers to our children, regardless of how we view them.
Our children grow up. They can form their own views about their first families, and given technology and access to information plus the passage of time, they may learn much more about their first family, and they deserve to have all the truth, as difficult, simple, complicated, bittersweet as it may be.
I’ve known a lot of first mothers in the US and elsewhere,  have heard their stories, held their hands, and shared their grief. It’s powerful beyond words. Few things are as simple as we might like to think, once we hear their truths.
My 4 children’s first mothers have always been a welcome part of our family. I’ve met only one. The others are with us in our hearts, and maybe those children–now young adults–will choose to search and connect. It’s their choice, their truth, their reality. I am grateful for my children, and to be their mother.  I wish peace and healing and joy to all mothers.

Child Catchers and One (Surprising) Christian Response

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There is a maelstrom occurring in the world of adoption just now. One bit of thunder is the debate in churches and across the Internet about orphans, widows, Jesus, and Kathryn Joyce’s new book Child Catchers: Rescue Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption. 

I understand if evangelical Christians feel defensive while reading Child Catchers. The picture painted is difficult to view.

Caleb David is the co-founder of the One Child Campaign, whose mission is “to raise awareness in the body of Christ for the orphan crisis and to provide ways for each person to touch and change the life of at least one child through Orphan awareness trips and other holistic methods.” There’s a photo of a sad, big-eyed child of color on the web site. Caleb is also the adoptive father of two children from Ethiopia–and a friend of Kathryn Joyce.

Caleb was a recent guest writer on the Kingdom in the Midst (Christian–“living in and looking for the kingdom of God”) blog. His perspective may surprise you.

One quote (and please read the whole post): “…friends, there ARE major problems with how we view adoption, orphan care, and poverty. Just being an adoptive family does not make us experts on the complex socio-economic issues of our children’s birth countries.”

As much as it is stirring lots up, Child Catchers might also spread patriarchal leanings, white privilege, sincere efforts, hidden cash, facts and lies, tragic stories, and viable possibilities out on the lawn for us to pick through in sunshine. There’s a big mess to deal with, but I am hopeful the time has arrived for us to look carefully at motivations behind adoption, and the realities that occur as a result–and especially what we can do to repair the damage and prevent future destruction. Deep breaths and deep listening go a long way sometimes.

Melanie Chung Sherman on “Stuck”

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Melanie Chung Sherman is a gracious, insightful therapist specializing in adoption in the Dallas-Fort worth area. She is a Korean adoptee. Melanie and I met years ago and I continue to admire her thoughtful approach to children, therapy, life. Here are her thoughts about the movie “Stuck.” She wrote this review on Facebook last night and I am posting it here with her permission.

  • Last post for tonight because I am wide awake. Writing while this is still fresh. So, I viewed “Stuck” for the first time today. For what it is worth, I have been avoiding this film for several reasons that I will not go into here. It was everything I was expected–a lot of one-sided propaganda and not incredible substance on a very complex system. Flashy pictures of sad faces in abject poverty—all were children of color (some who looked like me, my brother, and friends at one point) and all of those who bring hope were White Americans—no one intervening looked like these children, represented their birth culture, or their birth families–some might not have been legal “orphans”. . .really?? How marginalizing. I felt alone in the theatre—and failed to see the humor in the collective mockery of social workers, the DOS, best practices, ethics, and the safeguards (like background checks!) that was supposed to be funny. It was not. It failed to offer solution-based focus on the complex issues that bring children into care in the first place—and perpetuated the overwhelming rescue mentality that continues to pervade adoption communities today. The scapegoating and incredulous demonization of the U.S. State Department, in particular Amb. Susan Jacobs, whom I have had the privilege of meeting (and find warm, friendly, and dedicated to child welfare issues). . .hmmm, Juntenen had an opportunity to dialogue with Jacobs and her team today (all of whom have committed their lives to serving children here and abroad). .as far as I know that did not happen. The film blasted The Hague, but none of the countries highlighted were Hague Convention countries —the countries that were featured were for a reason. The film minimizes our children’s narrative, the importance of universal accountability, and the complexities in adoption as if the ends justify the means. It does not. It never should. I felt stuck—and not in a positive way.
          I should clarify that I was impressed to see an African-American adoptive parent featured. My review is not meant to diminish the emotions expressed by the adoptive parents in the film, but the myopic perspective by the filmakers needed to be expanded. The Hague is not a panacea, but I disagree that it has not helped. I remember quite vividly what was happening prior to the ratification–and is still happening. Thus, the reason for universal accreditation.
  • Here’s (slightly edited) information from LinkedIn about Melanie:
  • Melanie Chung Sherman has worked in child welfare-specifically adoption and foster care spanning international adoption, private/domestic adoption, kinship adoption, DFPS (CPS) foster care and matched-adoption for nearly 13 years.

    In providing therapeutic counseling, I use adoption-centered understanding and awareness that is oftentimes misuderstood or overlooked in the therapeutic process. I am very sensitive to the unique dynamics that adoption brings after placement. Adoption can bring about unique issues that can impact an individual and family long after placement–and when these are addressed in a healthy, sensitive manner,  tremendous healing, support and guidance an occur. I provide therapeutic counseling to all members of the adoption triad (adoptees, adoptive families and first families).

Everything That Rises Must Converge: Adoption From Ethiopia

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“Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.“

–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from Omega Point

That Teilhard quote is perhaps more known because of Flannery O’Connor’s brilliant short story titled “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” My point in sharing it today is to note and begin to comment on a recent convergence of numbers, money, information, and tragedies that has the potential to deeply impact Ethiopian adoptions. 

If Ethiopian adoptions are influenced, then Ethiopian children are affected. I’m an adoptive parent of daughters from Ethiopia, I’ve traveled to and around Ethiopia, I’m an active supporter of the effective nonprofit Ethiopia Reads (bringing libraries and schools to children who had none in Ethiopia), and I know lots of Ethiopians and Ethiopian-Americans. I’m familiar with the stereotypes of starving children with distended bellies and flies on their faces. I am aware of the astonishing history and beauty of one of the world’s oldest cultures, one which has experienced wars, droughts, famines, civil strife, and extreme poverty, and one which has champion runners, churches carved out of stone in the earth, breathtaking art and architecture, and potential beyond words.

Girls at Ethiopia Reads Library

If we talk about potential, we must talk about children. I’m going to list a number of recent tipping point items that all impinge upon adoption, in varying degrees. More than that, though, they can perhaps bring greater consciousness to the possibilities for Ethiopian children–in a convergence that I can only hope helps more children to stay with their birth families, or to be placed in a transparent, ethical way in families that are safe and loving.

1. Adoptions from Ethiopia to the United States began in a small way in the mid- and late- 1990’s and swelled dramatically. According to the US State Department, there were 42 children adopted from Ethiopia in 1999, rising to a high of 2511 in 2010. In 2012, the number was 1568. The numbers are expected to continue to decline in the light of allegations of corruption, inadequate infrastructure for processing adoptions, use of bribery, and the revelations about fraud made public by adopted Ethiopian children and adopted Ethiopian adults, by adoptive parents (in the US, Canada, western Europe, Australia), and by Ethiopian birth/first families.

A decrease in adoptions is not necessarily a bad thing–if it meant that children in crisis are getting the care they need. However, a decline in adoptions hardly means an automatic correlation with improved services.

2.  The role of money is staggering, and its implications mind-boggling. Approximately 13,000 children have been adopted to the US from Ethiopia in the last 13 years.  Let’s say each adoption was $30,000. This means $330,000,000 has been in play for these international adoptions completed through agencies. $330 million.

This amount doesn’t necessarily include fees paid to drivers, translators, guest houses, tour guides, souvenir sales, restaurants, and so forth by adoptive parents and agency staff visiting Ethiopia for adoption or for subsequent visits. If thousands of Americans, Canadians, Australians, and Europeans go to Ethiopia each year for adoption-related purposes (either for placements or for family visits), it’s a huge boon to the economy,  and a significant influx of cash for a beleaguered Ethiopian economy.

The gross national income per capita for Ethiopians is $371. (For the US, it’s $48, 620.)  Is it possible to overstate the role of western money related to adoption of Ethiopian children, and how easily it could be manipulated, corrupted, and devastating?

3. Facebook groups and the abundance of blogs by Ethiopian adoptive parents have magnified publicity around adoption. The photos of beautiful children and happy families, the sharing of information and stories, the quest for support and resources during difficult times, the building of community–all this can be good.  And all of it can have unintended consequences, if taken out of context.

Adoptive parents have outspoken and public about having been deceived by their agencies and/or Ethiopian facilitators and/or Ethiopian first families, and about the plusses and minuses of traveling back with their Ethiopian children to visit Ethiopian birth families.

Personal, confidential information about Ethiopian adopted children–good and bad news–is available in an instant.

Ostensibly many of these groups are private or closed. The reality is pretty much anyone can join a closed Facebook group. Anyone can take a screen shot and send it to anyone else, anywhere. 

4. Ethiopian adoptions gone horribly wrong are transmitted quickly around the world.

The recent MSNBC airing of the interview of Tarikuwa Lemma, recounting her story of being adopted against her will under apparently fraudulent circumstances, has been shown on multiple Ethiopian outlets: Tadias magazine, ethiotube.net, amharictube.com, sodere.com, ethiosoul.com, ayyaan.com, ethionews24.com, bolepark.com, and more. In other words, negative news–true as it may be–can form opinions quickly. Many of the Ethiopian sites use the headline “Tarikuwa Lemma Exposed the Selling of Ethiopian Kids.”

Information about Ethiopian adopted children who have been abused or died at the hand of their adoptive parents is also tragic, available, and publicized. The cases of Hana Alemu (aka Hannah Williams) in Washington state and of Douglas and Kristen Barbour in Pennsylvania have angered and broken the hearts of Ethiopians and many others.

Thousands of adoptions go right; thousands of families are (if not perfect) loving and healthy. That’s not what makes the news, and it doesn’t diminish the tragedy of those adoptions that are grievous disasters.

5. As I type this, a documentary and a book about Ethiopian adoptions are generating much buzz.  “Mercy Mercy: A Portrait of True Adoption” is a heart-wrenching film about 2 Ethiopian children adopted to Denmark. It is causing outcry and outrage, it is difficult to watch and not be moved deeply, and there’s an online fundraising site to return the little girl to her Ethiopian family. A recently published book The Child Catchers by Kathryn Joyce focuses on the history and impact of the Christian evangelical movement on international adoption, especially in Ethiopia and Haiti. Both the film and book are sobering for anyone involved in Ethiopian adoption.

Still from “Mercy Mercy” documentary

6. Cultural misunderstandings about adoption are now becoming apparent, which arguably should have happened long ago. Ethiopian culture has a tradition of sending children to other families or sponsors who raise the children, including sending them to school. The understanding is that the children would return to the family to help support them. More than once, I’ve seen this view cited as the (mis-)understanding of a US adoptive placement from Ethiopia, which of course requires total severance of legal rights and no guarantee of a child’s ever returning to the Ethiopian family.

Whether it was inadequate translations, laziness, failure to consider cultural differences, malice, naiveté, good intentions gone astray–the reasons are negligible beside the damage done. Children have been removed from poor families who believed the children would receive an education and then return to them one day. These are parents who did not understand adoption as the permanent placement that we in the US consider it. Increasing numbers of adoptive families, having hired searchers (another profitable new venture for Ethiopia), have found this to be the case, and must discern how to live with this haunting knowledge.

I’m well aware how powerful, overwhelming, and bleak this list is. There are conversations about adoption blazing around the world right now, in the US, in Canada, in Ethiopia, in Australia. Yes, there is anger and frustration, perhaps shame, perhaps sorrow and regret. Nonetheless, I’m hopeful. From these convergences and conversations we must rise; I hope we are led by Ethiopian adoptees and by Ethiopian first/birth families.  We can move toward transparency and creative solutions for children and families in crisis. It is past time to move toward that ascent.

OBC Outrage: Adoptive Parents?

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Adopted children grow up. As adults, as US citizens, they should have the (basic, human, civil) right to access their Original Birth Certificate.

Access is a matter of state law. In only 6 states do adoptees have full access to their own OBC.

Birth parents were never guaranteed privacy through legislation on the federal, state ,or local level. Never. Yet they hold the legal rights (via vetoes written into state laws) to prevent the child they placed for adoption–the child to whom they gave up all legal rights–from accessing knowledge of who he or she is.

I believe in the rights of birth parents. I recognize how often they have been marginalized. The playing field, though, needs to be level here. It’s simply not fair to deny adoptees the fundamental right to know who they are.  No other group in the United States is cut off like this.

I’m disappointed in what seems to be happening here in Washington state, as adoptees’ rights are again being crushed. I’ll be writing to the Seattle Times and elsewhere, and I hope other adoptive parents join me.

The world hasn’t ended in Kansas or Alaska, where adoption records have never been sealed. In Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine, adult adoptees can access their records. In these 6 states, adopted adults have the right to access or not access their own records. Many adopted adults choose not to seek their OBC.

The right to one’s original birth certificate should be a real option, not an impossible, illicit act.

It puzzles me that adoptees and birth parents favoring open records have not been more successful. Very frustrating, but I think it shows the imbalance of power in adoption policy. We adoptive parents have been historically mighty in the World of Adoption Policy; it’s time we wielded our clout in this arena for our children to have access to their original birth certificates.

Adopted children grow up. It’s time we treated them as adults.

For some good advocacy, look at the following:

Adoptee Rights Coalition: Information about the status of legislation across the country.

Family Ties:  Thoughtful blog written by a grandmother like me, though she’s an adoptee.  And has 5 more grandkids than I do.

Bastard Nation: Great name, right? Provocative, helpful information. Here’s the Washington state info.

Washington Coalition for Adoptee Rights and Equality: Information specific to Washington state adoptees.

Sharing Children’s Private Information: How Much is Too Much?

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Note: This issue will be a part of my JCICS presentation about Standards of Practice for Adoptive Parents.

A reader of my Watershed post commented, “Maureen, you write: ‘I feel strongly adoptive parents should not write about their children’s confidential stories …’ But this post feels quite supportive [of that behavior]. I hope you will clarify in a future post.”

I indeed feel strongly that adoptive parents should not write about about their children’s confidential stories, unless their children are old enough to genuinely give permission (after 18, say). And my post was indeed quite supportive of the Watershed blogger’s post, which included a bit of her child’s confidential story. Here’s why.

Consider some history. An adopted child’s past was pretty open during the Orphan Train times from the 1850’s to the 1930’s.

Orphan Train illustration

From around the 1940’s on, adoptive parents were counseled to tell their children that they were adopted; because of “matching” tactics and other reasons, some did and some didn’t.  The Baby Scoop Era in the US and the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland between 1940-1970 negated the feelings and value of women who gave birth outside of marriage, and mostly requested the impossible of them: forget your babies and move on with your lives, with shame and disgrace that you can never talk about.

Transracial adoption (US or international) has made more overt the creation of a family via adoption. Listening to and reading about the experience of tens of thousands of Korean adoptees, many now adults in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, has opened my eyes. Many were told one story about about why they were placed for adoption; many have found out the truth was quite different, when they have returned to Korea and dug deep, well beyond slender files handed to them by adoption agencies. Many are now demanding that adoption policy be changed.

International adoptions have declined mightily in recent years, in no small part because of the uncovering of fraud and trafficking. The “uncovering” has been done by US consular officials, by adoptive parents returning to search for information for their young children, and by adult adoptees themselves.

Adoption agencies have been complicit in this, perhaps inadvertently. (Perhaps not. That’s a whole huge, raging discussion for another time.) The voices kept most silent in adoption, including in the fraud and coverups? Consistently, the first/birth families. That’s especially true in international adoption, given distance, language, culture, and economics. All too often, we have relegated them to the status of the Magdalenes and left them far far behind.

As I see it, the Watershed blogger posted information because she is heartbroken about finding the truth about her child’s situation, and grieves for both her child and for the child’s birth mother. The blogger is providing a voice of sorts for the birth mother, who surely is the most marginalized and voiceless of all the people involved In this sad story. We adoptive parents sometimes need to be reminded of the reality of the grief and loss often felt by birth mothers.

Further, my understanding is that the Watershed blogger agonized over the decision to post. She didn’t do it because it’s an interesting story, or because she can make money from it. She acknowledged the possibility that sharing the information may be the wrong choice for her child. Her efforts, I believe, are meant to help her child, and to acknowledge the harsh reality of how her child came to be adopted. She gives an empathetic voice to her child’s mother. And what she’s learned leads her not just to hope, but to demand, that her next adoption will be transparent and ethical.

I stand by my assertion that adoptive parents should not expose their children’s confidential information. I understand some parents see things differently, and respect their right to act as they wish.

But there are degrees of exposure. For example, a recent posting in an ostensibly closed Facebook group features a video that depicts adopted children, accompanied by their adoptive parents, searching in their eastern European village and encountering their “drunk grandmother.” People in the village were vocal about how horrifically the children had been treated by their birth family. The reason given by the adoptive parent for posting was to help other families who might be going through the same things. I don’t see how public denigration of a first/birth family is appropriate, especially by an adoptive parent. The posting—done without the knowledge or consent of the author’s teenage children—certainly doesn’t seem intended to help the children nor the children’s first family.

In any case, I feel that sharing a child’s or birth family’s information should always be done cautiously, respectfully, never casually, and with full awareness and acceptance of the ramifications. I think we should try to look at any posting of a child’s information from the perspective of the child herself in 5, 10, 15, 20 years.

Some adoptive parents post confidential information on the Internet in the course of attempting to get support and access to resources. It’s a sad affirmation of the pitiful state of available post-adoption services. It’s also another reminder of why adoption policies must be overhauled if we are going to provide adequate support for families in crises small and large, and sooner rather than later.

Of Search, Heartache, and Connection

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“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?”
― Rumi

With my four children, two sons adopted as babies in the US and twin daughters adopted at 6 from Ethiopia, I felt the decision to search for first/birth family was theirs, and that it would be best to do so when they were at least 18. They are all in their 20’s now. Searching (and re-uniting) is a big, complicated, emotional, intricate process. My view as a parent was that this was their decision, their story, their information. Their dad and I also always let them know we would help and support them in their decision.

While they were growing up, the kids and I had lots of conversations about their first families. I offered to give them all the information, when I felt they were ready, that we had from the adoption process. I shared different information at different ages. They looked at it, or not. Over the years, they kept copies in their rooms, occasionally asked questions, talked to each other a little about their information, asked questions, went to basketball practice, came to me with heartbreaking insights, and asked more questions.

I believe rituals are important, especially in adoption. At Thanksgiving, we would sometimes all light candles before dinner to honor the people who were not with us that day.  I would say something about my children’s birth/first families. Over the years, their reactions might be eye-rolling, indifference, a slight tearing up, a slight smile.

Each of my kids had different levels of comfort and curiosity about searching, at different times in their lives, and that’s still very true today.

My daughter Aselefech, once she had been here long enough to speak sufficient English to understand what Mother’s Day meant, would weep deeply that day. She would talk through tears about how very much she missed her Ethiopian mother, and how deep the pain was of forgetting what her mother looked like.

I knew she and her mother had to have been very close, because of how much Aselefech loved me. Oh, my heart ached so for my daughter and for her mother. My daughter and I cried together.

And, not surprisingly, Aselefech has been the most proactive about searching and connecting with her Ethiopian family. She and her twin sister now know their Ethiopian family in Ethiopia, and here in Seattle,  as it turns out, where I live.

IMG_7827

They re-connected about 4 years ago. We all got together most recently last week here in Seattle for dinner. This photo shows Aselefech with her brother, and with her daughter/his niece (my brilliant, amazing granddaughter) who is the same age Aselefech was when she arrived in the United States some 18 years ago. There is to me an incredible light in everyone’s eyes here–a connection always, a void filled, a candle lit.

In remembrance of Hana

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Update: Unfortunately, the Senate Committee did not act on the bill. Let’s hope that positive change will occur in the next legislative session.

 

No child should ever be abused. I believe adopted children deserve a special level of protection, since their movement from their biological family and their placement into an adoptive family (if done legally, ethically, and transparently) involves local, state, federal, and sometimes international laws and regulations.

Hana Alemu (aka Hanna Williams), 13 years old, died at the hands of her adoptive parents here in Washington state, in Skagit County, on May 12, 2011. Her obituary said she passed away unexpectedly. The coroner’s report said she died from hypothermia, found naked and dead locked outside her family home on a rainy night when temps were in the 40’s. News reports said she’d been beaten, starved, made to use a toilet outside, and, at the time of death, weighed less than she had at her arrival in the US from Ethiopia in 2008.

Hana (Alemu) Williams

Hana (Alemu) Williams

Her adoptive parents have yet to go on trial.

To its credit, Washington State is working to ensure that additional measures are in place to prevent such horrors happening again to any adopted child. The Department of Social and Health Services and the Office of Family and Children’s Ombudsman issued a report on severe abuse of adopted children; it’s sobering, daunting information about adopted children who were abused in terrible ways. Hana is among them. The children whose abuse (and, in some cases, deaths) prompted this report were from both US and international adoptions.

The report also proposes several important, realistic measures that can strengthen the success of adoptions and the safety of children:

Improved oversight of child-placing agencies, including tracking adoption disruptions and dissolutions (when the adoptive parents end an adoption before or after the adoption has been legally finalized),  as well as developing a list of “red flags” regarding troubled adoptions;

Better assessment of prospective adoptive parents, including enhancement of minimum requirements for home studies; and

Improved training and post-adoption services, including additional support services for adoptive families.

These proposals, which would apply to US and international adoptions, are significant and necessary. Some of the recommendations require relatively small legislative changes, and HB 1675 was introduced in the Washington State House, passing by a vote of 90 to 7. On March 21, the Senate Committee on Human Services and Corrections held a hearing on the bill.  Several people from the Ethiopian Community Association in Seattle traveled to Olympia to speak in favor of the bill at the hearing, as did I.

Some folks would like to see this bill called “Hana’s Law,” to honor her memory. The ECA folks were there because of deep concern about the safety of Ethiopian children adopted to the United States. I was there as the adoptive parent of twin Ethiopian daughters, 6 years old when they came here, 24 years old now. All of our hearts ache for Hana; her death was a tragedy of suffering that never should have happened.

I hope I am wrong in hearing that HB 1675 will not be sent to the Senate floor by the Human Services Committee.  They have only until Wednesday April 3 to move the bill. It is a great opportunity for a state legislature to act publicly and positively on legislation to protect adopted children.

The Right to a Credit and a Child

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Since 1997, about $7 billion (Yes. Billion.) of your tax dollars have gone toward adoption, but not the way they should, if we really wanted to help children and families.

Joyce Maguire Pavao has often been quoted for saying “Adoption is about finding a family for children, not finding children for a family.” Much too often that is forgotten, or at least set aside.

An unfortunate corollary is the linkage between adoption and the adoption tax credit, in terms of entitlement. Tax credits are designed to provide an incentive for behavior that the government wants to encourage.  In case of the adoption tax credit, its original purpose was to encourage adoption from the US foster care system.  Instead, the credit has ballooned into a multi-billion dollar reimbursement primarily for international and private adoption expenses (including lawyer fees, hotel, airfare, meals abroad). That was not the Congressional intent.

Today, way too many adoptive parents have come to feel entitled to the tax credit as a right. Too few children are being adopted from US foster care, and too many adoptive families desperately need additional post-adoption resources. This revenue could be used to benefit far more children and families than it does currently.

Please take a look at my article on the Adoption Tax Credit. I argue that even a small percentage of these billions of dollars could be much better used for family preservation, for pre-adoption counseling, and for post-adoption services. It’s hard to talk about money sometimes–but this conversation is long overdue.