This month, Korea released figures showing that sixty percent of adoptions of Korean children were domestic adoptions by Korean families, rather than overseas adoptions. This is a large increase, and a big step toward a goal which the Korean government and Korean agencies have been working toward for a long time. Korea has for many years been gradually reducing the number of overseas adoptions, leading some adoptive parents to worry about Korea “closing” to adoption by parents from other countries.
China also has changed policies to make it easier for Chinese residents to adopt children. Last winter China also announced new restrictions on overseas adoptive parents, now refusing to allow adoption by single parents as well as those with obesity or certain disabilities.
These developments have caused some distress among prospective adoptive parents, and especially among adoptive parents of a child from these countries who had hoped to adopt their second child from the same country.
I am troubled when adoptive family publications take an alarmist tone speaking only from the adoptive parents’ point of view, of how this will make it more difficult for them to build their families. I admit I would like my sisters, friends and children to be able to adopt from Korea if they want to, because we had a good experience there.
On the whole, however, it is good news that a country is able to take care of its children. It is good news for the country, for the birthmothers, and for the children. It is good news if children can be adopted at younger ages because there is no immigration paperwork, and if they can be spared a traumatic transition to a whole new world where there is a different schedule, different cultures, and few people who look like them. A reduction in international adoption is good news if it means that there is less discrimination against adoption or single parenting in the home country. It is good news if it means that birthmothers will have true choices—that choosing to parent their children will not mean condemning them to a life of stigma and a lack of education and medical care.
We must never forget that, however painful it is to wait for a child, adoption should be about finding parents for children, not children for parents.
My next blog will consider these developments from a less optimistic angle.
Please see these related blogs:
Different Countries have Different Criteria for Adoption