Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Column
Prisoners of a crappy war
I don't regret protesting Vietnam, but "Return With Honor" has humbled me before the heroism of our military.
By Anne Lamott
[07/08/99]

Playing from behind
The trials and tribulations of being a female sportswriter were highlighted by last week's Samantha Stevenson-Julius Erving story.
By Steve Kettmann
[07/07/99]

And many more ...
Kids' birthday parties are out of hand. Whatever happened to cake, ice cream and pin the tail on the donkey?
By Janet Mazur
[07/06/99]

Bare, naked ladies
There's not much room to commune with your own nudity, or anyone else's, in a swimming-pool locker room full of wary onlookers.
By Jennifer New
[07/02/99]

Column
Optimistic complaints
Of course, mothers think -- and every once in a while they even complain.
By Sallie Tisdale
[07/01/99]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I have a recurring dream about what I saw at Anya's orphanage. In my dream I take one look at all those kids and bellow cheerfully to the staff: "Pack 'em up! I'm taking them all home!" The staffers comply. Then I lumber off into a Russian winter wonderland of snowy birch trees and colorful dachas, laden with kids and toys, all clinging to me in one happy-go-lucky clump.

In reality, of course, I left the orphanage that day three years ago with just one skinny little 5-month-old, who shortly became the love of my life. She didn't do badly for herself, either, despite my singlehood. By immigrating to the United States as the daughter of a middle-class professional, she locked up a future of Fisher-Price and "Sesame Street," excellent medical care, college and a bevy of friends and family to spoil her. Had she remained in the orphanage, she'd have most likely faced years of inadequate nutrition, the possibility of emotional attachment disorders and an inadequate technical education. "Graduation" would have come at age 18 -- with her release on to the street and, thereafter, a high probability of prostitution and prison (a not dissimilar statistical prognosis from that of U.S. children stuck in this country's foster care system until their federal assistance is cut off, whether they're ready or not, at 18).

As the beneficiary of one aspect of the current, if flawed, system's largesse, I admit to bias. But even without a bias, it's hard to rationalize the philosophy that underlies the single-parent prohibition in the Helms-Landrieu bill. Regardless of one's opinion of "alternative families," aren't children -- whether they're raised by single adults or unmarried couples, heterosexual or homosexual -- better off in some kind of family than with no family at all?

I'm hardly alone in my assessment. "I think there could be a very detrimental, drawn-out battle over this issue," says Maureen Evans, director of the Joint Council for International Children's Services, an adoption agency coalition based in Cheverly, Md. Argues Evans: "The criteria for eligibility to adopt ought to be maintained on a state level, not federal policy." Until now, adoption has always been regulated by state governments in the United States. Furthermore, says Evans, the Hague treaty on its own says nothing about eligibility criteria; an accompanying report actually states that the writers of the treaty chose not to make recommendations about parental eligibility. Concludes Evans: "This is an issue that could potentially bring down the entire Hague treaty." A number of key adoption advocates, including Maureen Hogan of Adopt America and Elizabeth Meitner of the Child Welfare League of America, have echoed Evans' concerns.

On June 14, Evans, Meitner and the principals of other nationwide adoption organizations -- 11 in all, organized as an ad hoc "Hague Alliance" -- fired off a protest letter to U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. Delahunt's staff is part of the bipartisan legislative effort drafting a more liberal House version of the treaty enactment bill. The letter said: "The requirement that parents adopting U.S.-born children be a married man and woman should be deleted. There is a concern that other countries may reciprocate by creating such a requirement for U.S. citizens, and that this provision does not serve the interests of children needing permanency."

The coalition was preaching to the choir. Delahunt is the father of a Vietnamese daughter, now in her 20s, adopted during the fall of Saigon. And Delahunt has no desire to add to the original language of the Hague Convention, says his legislative director, Mark Agrast. Accordingly, Delahunt's bill will contain neither the single-parent prohibition nor another controversial item: a 12-month waiting period for foreign applicants to adopt U.S. kids. (This House bill also champions accreditation of adoption agencies by the Department of Health and Human Services, not the State Department, which the Senate version advocates.) Said Agrast: "No one who cares about children would advocate that it is better for a child not to have a home."

Next page | All "alternative" families are Helms' target