Part of the horror of being adopted is feeling like you were bought and sold. I always felt like a souvenir or plaything as a child, and being acquired unnaturally gave me even more of a sense that adoption was less about my welfare and more about my parents purchasing a novelty.
Now, my situation might be different, my childhood perspective might have been skewed, and you might not LIKE my question, but a lot of us adoptees feel this way. But it DOES bring up some fundamental valid questions:
How are we different than purchased goods? What is the difference between adopting out babies and human trafficking? Don't Adoptive parents also wonder these things when they are being gouged for fees beyond reasonable cost? Should adoptive parents defend these agencies that rape them of all their money? Should money be exchanged when human lives are being exchanged? Everyone thinks us adoptees are being over-sensitive, but really - aren't there some fundamental civil rights and ethics at issue here?
I think this is an important question that everyone affected by adoption needs to discuss. I'd like to hear from all parents and adoptees. I don't want to hear from agency representatives, however...
2008-09-30T12:23:32Z
my parents did not tell me how much i cost - but i still feel like i was purchased like a collectible doll.
i will add that some ceo's of non-profit adoption agencies are paid six figure incomes. one was paid over $360,000 in 2006.
http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/14774
i wanted to have a discussion about ethics, not about literal price tags. when i ask questions, it is not to salve my own pain, but to get people talking about complex issues.
i personally think adoptees AND adoptive parents are getting hosed by the industry...and that anything above time and expenses and a living wage is called exploitation. but it's interesting to hear what is and isn't okay to you.
please keep it coming, i hope we can all learn from the answers.
2008-09-30T23:08:36Z
Gaia, I followed the link and it wasn't all that different from the answers here. I followed BLW_KAM's link and the home study fees sounded reasonable - but the PLACEMENT fees made no sense whatsoever! Those were crazy. I should quit my job and facilitate four adoptions a year and I'd be set...
people - can we stop talking anecdotes and steer it back to the ethics? none of you adoptive parents feel you were taken advantage of? none of you feel uncomfortable handing over money for a child? none of you are outraged over the amount of money NON PROFIT adoption agencies are paying themselves for their services? none of you can understand how your children might one day feel they were purchased?
2008-10-03T00:40:28Z
I've already agreed that expenses should be met. However, six figure NON-PROFIT? CEO salaries do not seem reasonable nor do fees that vary per ethnicity.
In my field, we charge time and materials at a fixed rate...or additional services have a pre-arranged schedule.
I still feel sold. Convince me I wasn't sold. My mother saw little asian adoptees in a Christian magazine and had to have one. Convince me that isn't consumerism. Convince me that isn't still going on today. Ethically, money is being exchanged for a human being. Where/How do you draw the line???
Quite frankly I think your perspective is pretty bogus. An aunt and uncle of mine on my father's side adopted a little girl from China (my father is Irish and my mother is Chinese. It was my father's brother and his wife that adopted.) They were childless and in their 40's and wanted a child more than anything in order to LOVE the child, not as a trinket or on a lark. Yes of course, they were getting something out of it, filling an empty spot in their lives. They thought long and hard whether they should try adopting a caucasian baby instead but they found that financially impossible and also felt their chances were not good because of their ages. So they adopted a girl from an orphanage in China.
I accompanied them on their trip because I am fluent in Mandarin. The day they received their baby they cried tears of joy and couldn't stop. They weren't 'purchasing' the child, they were getting a chance to love her and they were thankful. She is now 4 years-old and they love that girl more than life itself. She returns the love and you can see that she knows how much she is loved. They are honest about the adoption with her too and try hard to deal with whatever questions she has honestly and in a straight forward manner.
It sounds to me that it is possible that your relationship with your adoptive parents is not that way for some reason. I am sorry if it is not. But your carrying on about people 'purchasing' kids and characterizing adoptions as trafficking is really pretty over the top. While not all adoptive parents are perfect parents and some might even be poor parents, it seems to me that the vast majority love their adoptive children dearly and THAT is the reason they decided to adopt in the first place.
Finally, domestic adoptions in the USA are extremely expensive usually because domestic adoptions are complicated. Foreign adoptions have traditionally been cheaper. The agencies I have seen for foreign adoptions are NOT run by rich folks. These people aren't making a fortune. My aunt and uncle paid very low fees when they adopted my little cousin. Their air travel and hotel accomodations were actually about equal to the fees they paid the agency, which was under the auspices of a religious charity (I believe Catholic.)
Money isn't being exchanged for a human being. The fees cover the costs associated with arranging the adoption. The people that work for the agencies have to be paid, otherwise no one would work in the field at all. Really, you need to think more clearly about this subject. Good luck.
Even non-profit agencies aren't run by volunteers. If you want them run decently, you have to pay the employees enough to be competitive with other types of employment the the for profit corporate world. However, non-profit firms do have to publish their financial records. I suggest anyone taking a good look at the records of the agency they are using. They should compare the expenses and salaries with those of other non-profit organizations in the area (check children's museums, family/children charities, food banks, etc) to get an idea of what is reasonable to pay certain employees like lawyers and CEOs.
However, public social services do not offer the perfect solution either. For one thing, they just don't have the resources to give enough personal attention to potential relinquishing mothers who want to find the "perfect" match for their child. Also, it is not unreasonable to offer women considering relinquishment resources to make sure she and the baby stay healthy. Of course, ideally these would be available to every pregnant woman, but this isn't a perfect society.
I am also not comfortable with agencies that charge different fees for different "types" of children. You know, the ones who charge $35000 for the adoption of a healthy white baby, but only $22000 for a mixed race baby, and $15000 for a black baby. That, to me, is just sick. That definitely seems like you are selling the baby to the highest bidder. I mean, how on earth can you possibly incur more expenses based off the child's skin color? That is definitely pricing the child based on the "market" and that is selling.
On the other hand, an agency may be able to charge money for the custody of a child, but the child himself/herself can never actually be sold. He/She is still her own person, and nothing can chane that fact. You can really buy a kid anyway, the most you can really do is "rent" since at 18, the child can go wherever he/she likes.
However, for most parents, I cannot imagine thinking of your child as a commodity. Once you love that kid... they're a KID, not a toy or a doll. And remember, there are alot of parents who don't pay for their kids at all... they Do adopt through forster care, and do take kids just because they love them.
Also remember, there are some biological parents who dont treat their kids as much more than toys are dolls. Look at Brittany Spears for goodness sakes! Or any of those kids whose parents put them into beauty pagents when the kid obviously hates it. I think there are just some people incapable of truly parenting - and that's sad, but it's not limitted to those who adopt.
If there were private profiteering agencies in Aust. I still wouldn't use them.
Inter-country adoption is expensive here, but not because of profiting agencies. The Government controls it. I can't go into detail because I didn't adopt inter-country. But i know its limited to only a few countries that have signed Hague convention and its still NOT for profit.
Serenity, where do you get the misinformation that inter country adoption by countries who have signed the Hague are not for profit? Where do you think the tens of thousands are going? They certainly aren't being given to the care of the children. My daughter is adopted from Kazakstan which is one of the Hague countries. Not a penny of the fees I paid went to her care. You should have seen the place and conditions she was living in. The only thing that really pissed me off there was that the doctor who ran the hospital refused my offer to buy cribs for the kids, and fix a broken window in the hospital - telling me that "The State pays for the childrens' needs but we doctors need a TV armoire for the doctor's lounge". That pissed me off because the only need I could see being taken care of was food. The cribs were broken, there weren't any toys, and the broken window was letting in crazy amounts of mosqitoes that can carry diseases. I was even told NOT to buy toys because "Somebody takes them - we think it might be the staff", Yes, the fees were high. There was a lot of paperwork, dossier translation, fees for interpreters and drivers in country etc. So there was a reason for the fees. But essentially most of it is profit for the agencies and facilitators. Yep, it's somebody's job to faciliate adoptions, and nobody's gonna do the social work/legal work for free. but I do think the fees were very high. Of course I can't say I was taken advantage of, because I was fully aware of the fees up front. But still it's capitalism at its worst running rampant in developing countries. Still I think it's ridiculous to say that adopted children are purchased. You're not purchasing the child, you're paying fees to people to take care of lots and lots of red tape and paperwork that you probably wouldn't be able to organize yourself. How on earth for example, could I just pop on over to Kazakhstan and know where to file my initial dossier and application to adopt. And then fly over there again in a couple months and file another paper with a local regional authority. I don't know how or where to do it, nor do I know the language. It's an extremely complicated process with various documents translated and filed at varying times and in various regions in a large country. They charge fees for doing all this. I'm a sign language interpreter. I charge a fee for what I do. Is that heinous and revolting to charge a fee for providing a service that most people can't do themselves? I don't think it's horrible to charge fees, but I do think the fees they charge are excessive. So I'm sort of with you and not with you at the same time. I think the fees are excessive and advantageous. But I disagree with the many people on here who feel like they were a commodity. My daughter is simply my daughter. I adopted her because I wanted to be a mom. I love her with all my heart and it doesn't matter whether fees were paid to adopt her or not. She's the same daughter to me - loved, and loving.