Category Archives: adoptive parents

Update, Previews, and Teasers

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It’s good to be back.  In the last few weeks, I’ve gone from Seattle to Vancouver and back, and then from Washington State to Maryland to New York City to Maryland to Washington State.

Update:

During these 3 weeks: One of my daughters ran her first 5k, and finished in the top 20. My other daughter made the honor roll for her college semester, and was asked to be a teaching assistant this fall in the psychology department. One of my sons received the certification for sanitation at the Culinary School he’s attending. My other son closed on several real estate/rental contracts.

I attended my granddaughter’s dance recital in Maryland.  She has since had two tee ball games, Field Day in kindergarten, and her piano recital.

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In New York City, I saw the play “The Call,” about a white married couple considering adopting a child from Africa. I also attended the annual conference of the Joint Council on International Children Services. I presented a session on “Standards of Practice for Adoptive Parents: Ethics, Economics, and Responsibilities,” as well as a lightning talk (20 PowerPoint slides in 5 minutes) on The Art of Adoption, featuring poems, paintings, and plays by adoptees.

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And each Friday, whatever time zone I was in, I skyped with my dad in Massachusetts. He’s in amazing physical health for an 83 year old.  He lives in the Harbor unit of an assisted living facility, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  He’s delightful to talk with, often asks if any of my kids are getting married. No word on that yet, Dad.

I’ve had lots to reflect on in terms of family, adoption, being in the moment, the futility of art-directing others people’s lives, and more.

Previews and Teasers

Tomorrow night (Tuesday June 4), 7 pm pdt/10pm edt: Angela Tucker (of Closure) and Aselefech Evans via Google + Hangout. The conversation will be about transracial adoption (US and Ethiopia), hair, race, diversity, search: how perception and understanding of adoption changes over time for adoptees, how our definition of “family” can be so complex.

In the next week or so, I will be posting my JCICS workshop information about Standards of Practice for Adoptive Parents.  (Teaser: The basics are citizenship, DNA testing, and role models/mentors who are adult adoptees.  The more controversial: Insisting on equitable pre-adopt and post-adopt services for birth families.)

I’m thrilled to be soon getting an advance review copy of The Declassified Adoptee‘s soon-to-be-published book. It’s going to be wonderful, powerful, provocative, insightful. A tremendous benefit to the adoption community.

Washington State has also provided two items of fodder recently for writing and commenting. For one, a less than adequate “compromise” bill on access to OBC’s. The second item is still not having a trial for Hana Alemu, more than two years after she was found dead in her adoptive parents’ back yard. A hearing is scheduled this week.

So.  There’s lots going on. Lots to write about, think about, reflect on. It’s good for us to be here.

On Mother’s Day: A Prayer for Hana Alemu (Williams)

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This is a prayer for Hana Alemu, born in 1997 in Ethiopia, brought to Washington state in the US for adoption in 2008, died naked at night alone in the cold, locked outside her adoptive family home, on May 12, 2011: two years ago today, Mother’s Day. She weighed less at her death than she had at arrival 3 years earlier from Ethiopia.

Hana Alemu (Williams)

Hana Alemu (Williams)

Hana, may we learn from the loss of your life, that no child should ever suffer as you did.

May we remember and pray for your Ethiopian mother, keeping her in our hearts always.

May your Ethiopian family, those who knew you and those who grieve for you (whether angry, heartbroken, confused, prayerful) find healing and comfort.

May we adoptive parents deeply understand the responsibility we have, to care for and treasure our children.

May all parents who need help in caring for their children reach out and receive that help.

May adoption agency workers, child protective services staff, lawyers, police officers, and government officials receive encouragement and insistence that they do their difficult work conscientiously, aware that lives hang in the balance.

May justice be done.

May we never forget Hana.

A note:

I visited Hana’s grave this past Thursday (May 9), in anticipation of both Mother’s Day and the second anniversary of her death, May 12.

Hana's grave at Union Cemetery, Sedro-Woolley, WA

Hana’s grave at Union Cemetery, Sedro-Woolley, WA

As an adoptive mother of four children, including two daughters from Ethiopia, I have been both outraged and aching over Hana.

I wrote previously about Hana here.

Her adoptive parents Larry and Carri Williams have yet to go to trial. Hana’s body was exhumed and reburied in January, because there was a question about her actual age. If she is proven to be older (say, 16, at time of death), the charges against her adoptive parents could be reduced. Their next court date is in July.

A Facebook group honors and remembers Hana. There is much interest in getting Hana a decent grave marker, and we hope that can happen after the trial concludes and justice is done.

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.

Strong Love, and Slender Threads

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Singer/songwriter/guitarist Kate Wolf died much too young, from leukemia in 1986 at age 44.  I heard her in concert only once, about 30 years ago. One line from one song has stayed with me:

“Sometimes the strongest love hangs by such a slender thread.”

I’ve long thought that gentle sentence describes the connection between first families and adoptees, whether they were born and placed in Maryland, or arrived at 8 years old from Korea or Ethiopia.

Adoption is full of strong loves and slender threads.

That’s been true for quite a long time.  In the 1700’s, in the midst of devastating poverty, mothers left their children at London’s Foundling Hospital, often hoping to return to get them someday.  They would also leave some small token: a bit of fabric, a ring, even a hazelnut. Those memory tokens would be sealed away in the child’s file. When (if) the mother returned, she could use that to identify herself, and reclaim her child.

“Threads of Feeling” is a new exhibition opening at Colonial Williamsburg May 25. It will include a display of the Foundling Hospital swatches of fabric and other bittersweet items that were the only connection between a mother and child: such small objects, ragged and dirty perhaps, with such enormous significance.

My children arrived with various items from various sources: a soft blue bunny, a hand-crocheted baby blanket, black patent leather shoes, a sweet snowsuit. We know the stories behind some of the items: humble, valuable treasures. To think whose hands have held them, and chose them, and made sure they accompanied small children to unknown places.

And whose hands might again embrace.IMG_3483

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).

What If Adoption Agencies Provided Top Quality Services–to First Families?

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In cognitive therapy, there’s a useful technique called “What If.” It’s used for taking fear-filled thinking down a notch. “What if I am fired?” “What if my brother keeps drinking?” “What if my child loses the scholarship?” The idea is that listing possible solutions calmly can give us a sense of control, and can ease the sense of helplessness. Sometimes fears are reduced, and possible solutions increased.

Ethiopian adoptions are at a critical tipping point. While the number of children being adopted from Ethiopia has decreased, signficant numbers of adoptive families are taking their adopted Ethiopian children back to visit their birth families.  I wouldn’t say it’s common yet, but as a trend it’s on an upswing.

Among the lessons learned from these trips is that while some Ethiopian families are getting current information (and photos, maybe more) about their children, many other first families are not.  US and Canadian families report that, during their visits to Ethiopia with their adopted children, they are often besieged by other, grief-stricken Ethiopian parents. These are not the families of their adopted child who is visiting, but of other children who have been adopted and never heard from again, despite assurances or misunderstandings that there would be word.

Two questions (at least) come to mind.

Were the children placed for adoption in an ethical, transparent way?

What were the families told about whether there would be future communication about the child?

The answers to both questions can be fear-filled, for first families, for adoptees, and for adoptive parents.

What if we changed the way first families are treated in the international adoption process?

What if the US adoption industry and US government saw the first families as equal to adoptive parents in the way that services are provided?

What if first families received the equivalent of the counseling and classes that pre-adoptive parents are required to have?

What if the counseling was provided to them by a well-trained professional social worker, who speaks their language?

What if the legal rights and responsibilities were clearly and consistently explained to the first families, with a witness? What if they had time to think over their decision before signing legal agreements? What if adoption agencies videotaped the explanation of rights and responsibilities when explained to the first family, and provided adoptive families with a transcript?

What if we adoptive parents insisted that adoption agencies made a much greater and more visible effort to ensure that first families received the letters and photos that adoptive families send to first families?

 What if adoption agencies made sure that the letters were translated accurately, that the language of the translation was the same one the birth family used, and that the letter would be read to the birth family if they were illiterate?

That is, what if post-adoption services were considered as valuable, accessible, and viable for first families  as they are for adoptive families?

What if adoption agencies provided equivalent services to wealthy American prospective adoptive parents as to poor uneducated Ethiopian birth parents?

Because that’s surely not the case now. Is everyone okay with that?

Insisting on a Place at the Table for Everyone

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Ethiopian food

If you’ve never had Ethiopian food, the first time can be challenging. The food can seem unfamiliar and strange. It can be spicy, raw, bland, mushy, crunchy. You tear off the injera (spongy bread) and eat with your hands. You share one big plate with your companions. You will probably ask questions about what is what, and watch how others eat. You might need some translation (see the photo above); it would be great if you learned some Amharic words. You dive in, hoping to be polite and to enjoy the experience.

The joys and challenges of Ethiopian food for us ferenjis (the Amharic word for foreigners) made me wonder if there was a correlation with improving services to children in Ethiopia, whether through adoption or otherwise. (I think about metaphors a lot lol, and mix them wildly sometimes–such an English major.)

I recently posted about several significant challenges in Ethiopian adoption issues. The main points were the rise and fall of number of children being adopted to the US, the approximately $330 million that has been paid for those adoptions since 1999, the impact of Facebook groups, the instantaneous sharing of bad news about Ethiopian adoptions gone wrong, a new film and new book related to Ethiopian adoptions, and the increasing awareness of cultural understandings of adoption.

Big, complicated stuff.

I heard back from a lot of people (thank you!). I’m diving today into something that’s crunchy and fearsome: how to begin to address the huge challenges in Ethiopian adoptions.

One reader asked : What can we do to get the adoption service providers (ASPs, which can include home study agencies and placement agencies) and adoption lobbyists to listen to all the damage that’s been done, and get them to change? Good question.

Ok, put the berbere spices on the table. Chop the vegetables. Turn up the heat.

Keep talking and telling stories. Do not underestimate the power of effective stories in bringing about change.

“Stories” means candid, honest narratives. They are very powerful.

My 3-placemat strategy for effectiveness:

Who should do the talking? Adoptive parents, yes. Speaking only from my experience, perspectives change as children grow up and one has decades of parenting under one’s belt. I am not dismissing the valid and valuable experiences of parents of young children–keep speaking out. I wish, though, that more “seasoned” adoptive parents would share their stories as well.

That said, I encourage Ethiopian adoptees to speak up and share their stories, positive and negative. The adoptee community award for Most Vocal currently would probably go to Korean adopted adults: they are the oldest, largest group of international adoptees, and are leading the way in terms of activism, networking, socializing, lobbying. Look at their models and learn: no need to reinvent that particular wheel.

Unlike most other international adoptions, Ethiopian adoptions are increasingly “open,” inadvertently or purposely. Adoption agencies have had birth families and adoptive families meet at the time of placement. Adoptive parents have done their own searches, found birth families, and connected with them, via occasional letters or routine visits to Ethiopia. Adoptees themselves have searched and reunited with Ethiopian family members by traveling to Ethiopia or using Facebook and Google.  Older child adoptions have often meant that the children themselves, while in the US, talk with birth family regularly in Amharic or Tigrinya or Oromiffa.

As a result of these increased and open connections, both adoptive parents and Ethiopian adoptees can be the key ingredients to providing Ethiopian birth/first parents with a seat at the table, to tell their stories and to be seen. 

In all adoptions, birth/first families are usually the most marginalized. They are usually the weakest economically. Poor people have the least power in any society.

We adoptive parents have a tremendous responsibility to care for children who were placed with us, to know the truth behind the reasons for placement as best possible, and to share that truth with our children. I recognize the need for privacy and confidentiality. I understand there is tremendous complexity for adoptees in traveling the journey of loss and grief that is adoption. But we are in this together, and sharing the loss eases the burden. Acknowledging the birth family, connecting with the birth family, speaking out about the realities that cause children to be placed for adoption: it’s time.

And that to me is one of the keys to bringing about positive change in Ethiopian adoptions, to getting ASPs to listen (and the State Department, the lawyers, Congress, and so on): that everyone’s stories are heard.

Those of us who are connected by Ethiopian adoptions have a great opportunity right now, to share a meal, to talk together, and to bring all our truths to the table. It is crowded and noisy. Good listening and excellent translators will be important. But like any raucous family meal, it can offer connection, information, communication, and the possibility for nourishment and change.

Tomorrow: Some thoughts on the responsibility adoption agencies have to the birth/first families, and how they might bring about change.

Adanech, Art, Adoption, and Me

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When my kids were growing up, I loved doing art projects with them. One daughter remains interested and is really good. This is Adanech’s painting from a photograph of her and her niece/my granddaughter about 6 years ago.

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For all of us, the arrival of the baby Zariyah in October of 2006 was wonderful, amazing, joyous.

My daughter Aselefech, Zariyah’s mother, was adopted at 6 years old from Ethiopia. For Aselefech, Zariyah’s birth may also have been a visceral connection to what her Ethiopian mother had gone through giving birth to her.

For Adanech (Aselefech’s twin sister), it may have been the same; plus, Zariyah was now a second person biologically related to Adanech, living under the same roof.

Biological connections are a big deal. Having people who look like us, have the same quirks, laugh or sneeze the same way, who are connected to us by blood, can matter a lot.

I have no siblings. My mom died over 9 years ago, and my dad lives in the memory unit of an assisted living facility, where he’s doing quite well. We skype every Friday, and that’s a joy. I have some wonderful cousins, but we are miles apart.

I have no biological connection to the children I adore more than words can say. Zariyah, now  6 years old, knows I’m her grandma. She is still sorting out what it means that I am white and she is black, and that she also has an Ethiopian grandma that we hope she meets maybe this summer. Zariyah knows she’s not adopted, and that her mom, auntie, and two uncles (my sons) are. She knows the word “adopted.” I’m not so sure she fully gets it.

Someone will probably tell Zariyah soon that I’m not her real grandmother, just as other kids told my children I wasn’t their real mother when they were little. Blood matters, and each of my children have a real mother who gave birth to them and cared for them–they also have a real father, real grandparents, siblings, cousins. I’ve met some of them, and what an incredible blessing that has been.

And my children have me, and their dad, and their grandparents, and on and on. We are real too. I’ve always told my children the more people who love you, the better off you are. I hold their first families in my heart (those I’ve met and those I haven’t), as I do my own mother and others whom I love and who are no longer here. It’s a very big family portrait: a bit abstract, surreal, impressionistic, realistic, chiaroscuro. A work in progress.

Zariyah intent on her art

Zariyah intent on her art

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A few of my collages–piecing colors and images together. Hmm.