XP from parenting: Adoption worries

RondackHiker · September 2013

Ever since we've dated, DH and I have talked about adoption. It's just something we both have always been interested in. DH always liked the idea of having one or two biological kids and then adopting. About three years ago he read an article about girls in India and has talked about adopting a girl from there since then.

Since I'm on my second HG pregnancy and I'm very, very sure that I cannot handle a third like this. But we've always wanted three, possibly four kids.

So we've discussed adoption more lately, especially from India or another country where girls are treated very poorly.

Something someone posted last week made me re-think some of that though. I think it was Fredalina who said that adoption shouldn't be about 'rescuing' a child, since that can create issues for the child, who feels like he or she needs to be grateful all the time for being 'rescued' from a bad situation.

We'd pursue adoption to add to our family and because we want a third child. But DH would like to adopt a girl from India because of the way girls and women are treated there, and he knows that many girls are unwanted and mistreated there. But wouldn't that mean that one reason we adopted a child would be to 'rescue' her from a horrible life? The reason to adopt is to grow our family, but the 'rescue' aspect would influence where DH wants to adopt from. We won't be adopting for another few years (we'd have to wait till DH is making actual doctor salary), but we're very interested in pursuing it. So this is a very long-term 'what if' sort of situation.

I guess my question is, if we do indeed pursue adoption, should we reconsider adopting a girl from India in order to avoid the whole "rescuing a child" thing?

Dr.Loretta · September 2013

IMO no, i don't think you should drop that idea.

If your ONLY reason to adopt is to save a child, my answer would be different. If it's one of many factors that's influencing how and where, and you don't make that the focus, i don't see a problem.

CaptainSerious · September 2013

Ah, welcome to the dilemma of most introspective international (prospective) adoptive parents!

My husband and I adopted because we wanted a family and had so many blessings to share, and wanted to share them with someone who might not otherwise get that kind of chance. So, we adopted internationally, from a place with high poverty rates. Does that mean we rescued our children?

Yes. And I'm darn proud of it.

I didn't adopt TO rescue my kids. I adopted because I wanted children. I adopted my specific children because they needed parents and I felt capable of parenting them well. I also felt that they had needs that not every prospective adoptive parent would feel comfortable handling, but that my husband and I could.

I did not adopt because I wanted to feel like I saved them. I did not adopt to save their soul for salvation or to save them from the life they would have been destined to have if they were not adopted.

I did adopt because I felt that my life wasn't complete without children. I felt that my children were in Peru and needed me.

Rescuing a child doesn't make a dynamic automatically play out in your family. Adopting with the PURPOSE of saving/rescuing a child, so that you are the hero and they are forever indebted, does.

Adopting because you are drawn to the ease of a child's suffering doesn't mean that you are adopting because you want a child to owe you her life. It could just mean that you know that your family has a place for girls who are from another country and whose needs are far more extreme than your own. It could mean that you feel that your daughters are awaiting you far from home, and that you can't wait to make things right.

Adopting (especially an older child) internationally means taking on their traumas as your own. Internalizing them and aiding them through it. If this what you are hoping to do, than it is far different than what is typically seen as adopting to save a child (in scenarios where the adoptive parents are often woefully unprepared and believe that simply being raised in their first-world, "loving" households will solve all the children's problems), in my mind. It is bringing home your child, who just happened to live without you for a time, and who needs you to hurry to them.

RondackHiker · September 2013

@captainserious

You just made me cry a little and eased a lot of my fears. We're obviously a ways out, but I want to start thinking through some of the basics and the difficulties.

I just want to make sure we come to this for the right reasons and with the right desires so we're ready to be parents to another child.

RondackHiker · September 2013

So if I'm sitting two to four years out from pursuing adoption, what's the best way to prepare?

We aren't sure yet if it will be a young toddler/young child/older child or teen adoption, and we know the process can two a year to two or more once started.

I know we can start researching some things, but would parenting classes in general help if we decide to pursue an adoption of an older child?

CaptainSerious · September 2013

I don't think general parenting classes would help, quite honestly. Parenting a child who is adopted at an older age has unique challenges, and often requires a different style of parenting than typical children.

Are you familiar with concerns about adopting out of birth order? It's something you should seriously deliberate on a case-by-case basis before committing to adopting a child older than the children already in your home. If you aren't familiar with this, let me know, and I'll explain further why it's such a big deal.

There are some books listed in the FAQs post that I think are essential for adoption in general, and them some that are directly related to adopting/parenting older adopted children. I'd check out that list and start reading.

Hanging out on some support groups, like Yahoo's "Adopt Older Kids," also helped me get an idea for what types of problems people were facing, although many of those families were American foster care families, and dealt with issues correlating to that with a high frequency. As long as you take it all with a grain of salt, and remember that posters on those types of boards most often post when they are in the midst of turmoil or after having lived through similar issues themselves, it is a helpful place to get an idea of what types of issues might arise and understand what types of remedies might exist.

RondackHiker · September 2013

Thanks! I'll start reading through the FAQ and the books there as well as hanging out on some forums. I do follow a few adoption blogs, including one that follows older child adoption and out of birth order adoption, but they don't seem to discuss issues or struggles. Either they haven't had any or they don't share.

I vaguely remember reading a discussion about the trouble with adopting out of birth order. My take away was that it disrupts (may not be the right word) the family and that children gain a lot of security from their birth order and changing it up impacts all the children. I think I remember one poster saying that it can put the younger children at risk if the older child has some issues (this poster may have been flamed).

It's definitely something I need to look into more. We're in no rush, and if it would be better for all our children and we decided to do older child adoption, we would be happy to wait longer.

CaptainSerious · September 2013

RondackHiker said:

I do follow a few adoption blogs, including one that follows older child adoption and out of birth order adoption, but they don't seem to discuss issues or struggles. Either they haven't had any or they don't share. I vaguely remember reading a discussion about the trouble with adopting out of birth order. My take away was that it disrupts (may not be the right word) the family and that children gain a lot of security from their birth order and changing it up impacts all the children. I think I remember one poster saying that it can put the younger children at risk if the older child has some issues (this poster may have been flamed).

I'm somewhat surprised the poster saying that younger children in the home could be put at risk when older children are adopted out of birth order, unless it was in regard to a specific situation, in which there was no reason to worry about past traumas inflicted upon the older child. In fact, that's the main concern, as far as I'm concerned. I think preserving birth order in adoption/fostering is often a much bigger concern than it initially appears.

Adoption/foster professionals often city jealousy and the child's understanding of how they fit into the home as a reason for preserving birth order, but in a large part, that's because they often choose not to discuss the larger issue when not relaying the circumstances surrounding a specific child. Many older children who are in foster care or are available for adoption have experienced trauma in their lives. This could be as simple as losing caregivers through death, but more often means witnessing or being the victim of abuse, neglect, or other violent behavior. Children who have suffered these types of trauma often act out those types of behaviors on younger children around them. This can happen even if they are getting all the emotional and psychological help they need; it's often part of their process as they learn to cope with what happened to them/what they witnessed. So in the minds of many adoption professionals, placing an older child, who may have had a turbulent past, in a home with young children is not ideal in most situations.

This is not to say it can work with minimal/no related issues, just that if you are considering adopting out of birth order, you really need to make sure that the new child entering your home is not at risk of perpetrating these kinds of behaviors on younger children in the home (has not suffered/witnessed these types of abuses).

lizlemon2 · September 2013

I understand the feelings you are having. I think if you feel like it is right for you and your family and you think you can meet the child's needs and will do whatever it takes, it is not a wrong reason. Like others said, don't expect everything will go perfect or they will be grateful to you.

sgb721 · September 2013

I don't think that the reason a family adopts is so cut in dry as a rescue- You are opening your family up to what would work with your family and what you and your husband feel would complete your family. It is a plus that you may be able to welcome a little girl from India as a result of that, but it isn't necessarily just to rescue her

XP from parenting: Adoption worries

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