My last blog shared some of Kay Ann Johnson’s research from her book Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son. This blog continues with more of Johnson’s research, this time in an area which I have never seen addressed in all the reading I’ve done about adoption in China. This topic is the adoption of Chinese foundlings by Chinese parents in China.
Johnson began her research interested in the situation of birthparents who abandoned children. She soon discovered a greater interest in what became of the children. Only a minority, she says, (her book was published in 2004) are adopted abroad, and only a minority are raised in orphanages. What becomes of the girls who remain in China?
Westerners sometimes have certain stereotypes about Chinese people and adoption: That girls are nothing in China and only Westerners would adopt them, and that Chinese people don’t adopt out of concern for “purity of bloodline”.
Johnson did something which to my knowledge no one had thought to do before: she and her Chinese colleagues interviewed 800 Chinese adoptive families between 1995 and 2000. Most of these were in south-central China, but a Chinese researcher interviewed 400 more adoptive families, this time from all over China, and found similar results.
Some of these findings:
Nearly 60% of the adopted children were abandoned, which seems to defy the contention that purity of blood is all to the Chinese.
On the other hand, families who already had a boy were much more likely to adopt abandoned children (who were overwhelmingly girls). Perhaps there is a vestige of prejudice (in Western countries too) of wanting a son to be of the same bloodline.
Johnson found a widespread desire among Chinese people to have both a daughter and a son. She even found a saying, “A son and a daughter make a family complete.”
My next blog will discuss Johnson’s research on the hurdles faced by adoptive parents in China.
Please see these related blogs:
Book Review: The White Swan Express
Book Review: Motherbridge of Love