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A
Journalist's Guide to Adoption
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WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND ADOPTION
The family has changed
dramatically in the last four decades. Society, itself, is adjusting
to the new realities wrought by these changes.
Adoption is only one in a mix of non-traditional families. Others
include divorced, step, foster, multi-racial, single, gay and
families headed by grandparents. All of which can complicate
children's lives in the classroom and on the playground. Negative
perceptions and depictions of such families can adversely affect
children. This is why teaching tolerance and understanding is
critically important. Even though adoption is often misunderstood,
it is also gaining a wider acceptance, making it a valuable prism
through which to view not only non-traditional families, but
all families. Indeed, by understanding adoption, we lay the groundwork
for the understanding of all families.
"It is not adoption that is a problem," a 10-year-old
told Celebrate Adoption, "but what everyone thinks about
it." The same can be said of all non-traditional families.
We may be long past the time when adoption was shrouded in secrecy,
but we have yet to rid ourselves of its baggage. While adoptive
families today are proud of their families and reject a legacy
of stigma and shame, the lingering impacts of past misconceptions
and stereotypes remain in questions and comments, in comic strips,
on television and as the butt of jokes on sitcoms. The fact remains
adoption is a curiosity and, for that reason, among others, it
makes good copy. However, there are serious consequences to misunderstanding
and misrepresenting adoption in society and in the media.
Negative Views on Adoption
Adoptive families regularly
report that negative comments from friends and even strangers
are made even in front of the children. These include:
| Can you
really love this child as your own? |
| How could
her "real" mother give away her own flesh and blood? |
| My cousin
was adopted and she's on welfare. |
| Maybe the
baby's fussy because you aren't her natural mother. |
| You would
never know your son was adopted. He is so normal. |
Both news and entertainment media generally focus on aberrations,
leaving the impression that adoptive life is defined by extremes
- good or bad, not realistic. Studies indicate that negative
stories on adoption outnumber positive stories by two to one.
(Symbolic Crises of Adoption: Popular Media's Agenda Setting,
Beth M. Waggenspack, Adoption Quarterly, Volume I, Number 4,
1998)
Virtually everyone agrees that adoption plays a positive role
in our society. But many Americans, even those with very favorable
opinions about the institution, harbor doubts.
Half feel adopting a child, while
preferable to remaining childless, is not quite as good as giving
birth and a quarter think it is harder to love adopted children.
A majority says adoptees are well adjusted and secure, but a
sizable minority incorrectly believe they are insecure, poorly
adjusted and more prone to behavioral and academic problems than
other children. (Benchmark Adoption Study, Evan B. Donaldson
Adoption Institute, 1997.)
The misconceptions abound. The media, which simultaneously mirror
and shape the attitudes of society, perceive adoption as a small
niche within our country. The facts, however, are that:
| 1. As many as 100 million Americans have
adoption within their immediate families ~ a third of the nation.
The number mushrooms when you include the additional tens of
millions who encounter adoption in their lives and in their work
such as journalists, doctors and educators. (Adam Pertman,
author, Adoption Nation, How the Adoption Revolution Is Transforming
America) |
| 2. Approximately seven million Americans
of all ages are adopted. |
| 3. More
than 120,000 adoptions are finalized in the U.S. each year. The
majority are multi-racial adoptions with long-term implications
for society. |
With the growing prevalence of
adoption, it is becoming clear that it is another normal way
to build a family. That is a major reason we all need to understand
the institution, but there are others as well.
It matters because:
1. Hundreds of thousands of children are still waiting
for loving homes. Until we address the social bias against adoption,
the barrier to helping these boys and girls remains very high.
2. Research on pregnant teens has concluded that they often get
information about adoption from television, particularly soap
operas and talk shows that regularly sensationalize adoption
themes. Since teen parents are at greater risk for neglect and
abuse, the low adoption rate of the children of teens has contributed
to a crisis in foster care.
3. The gross annual cost to society of adolescent childbearing
and the entire web of social problems confronting adolescent
parents is calculated to be $29 billion. (Kids Having
Kids, Robin Hood Foundation, 1996.)
4. Young people who want to make adoption plans report intense
pressure from peers and teachers to parent even if they feel
unready to do so ~ and even if they do not have economic resources
or personal support systems to help them.
5. Birthparents who do make adoption plans report intense criticism
from society for their actions.
6. Professionals who encounter adoptive and birth families make
inappropriate remarks in front of the children.
We can, however, provide
a steady drumbeat, communicating the realities of adoption. The
reality is:
1. Day in and day out, the joys and challenges of adoptive
parenting are the same as biological parenting.
2. Birth parents, in deciding that the best they can do may not
be what is best for the child, have met the strictest definition
of what it means to be a parent. They have put the welfare of
their children ahead of their needs.
3. Adoptive families today embrace their childrens' heritage,
retain a connection to their racial, ethnic and cultural roots,
integrate those elements into their families, and long to be
welcomed into these diverse communities.
4. The human condition is complex and issues cannot be reduced
to a single factor such as adoption.
5. Research indicating adoptees are uniquely vulnerable psychologically,
ignores a mountain of data showing that fully 95% of them are
never referred for therapy. (The
Chosen Family, Jean
Bethke Elshtain, "The New Republic", September
12/21, 1998. )
6. Children adopted in infancy do as well as non-adopted children
on measures central to mental health. The differences are so
slight this study puts to rest the oft-stated view that adoptees
have major mental health problems compared with their non-adoptive
peers. (Adoption and
Mental Health, E. James Lieberman, MD and Katherine
Whipple, Ph.D, Friend of the Court, Volume 5, Spring 1997.)
7. Adopted teenagers are
at least at the national average on every dimension, and are
above average on most. These kids are optimistic, happy to have
been born, and get along well with their parents. In school accomplishments
and plans for the future they are in at least as good shape as
the average American their age.
(Growing Up Adopted: The Search Institute Study, Dr. Peter
L. Benson, Dr. Anu R. Sharma, LP, and Eugene C. Roehlkepartain,
June 1994.)
8.
Adoptees see themselves as being more in control of their
lives and have more confidence in their own judgment than do
their non-adopted peers. In numerous other comparisons, adoptees
tended to view others more positively, have a more internal locus
of control, and see their parents as significantly more nurturing,
comforting, predictable, protectively concerned and helpful than
did the non-adopted. (K.S. Marquis and R.A.Detweiler, Does
Adopted Mean Different, 1985, as described in The
Adoption Handbook.)
9.
Studies show extremely high rates of attachment to adoptive
parents, as deep as their non-adopted siblings. Ninety five percent
of parents have a strong attachment to their adopted child and
95% of adoptive families say that raising an adopted child is
no different than raising a non-adopted child. Indeed, the terms
adoption and adoptive are not defining factors to these families'
existence. (Growing Up Adopted: The Search Institute
Study, Dr. Peter L. Benson, Dr. Anu R. Sharma, LP, and Eugene
C. Roehlkepartain, June 1994.)
10. The impact of adoption on children is overwhelmingly
positive. Adoptive families provide supportive, nurturing environments,
the effects of which are evident in the health, development and
behavior of young adoptees. (Nicholas Zill, Vice President
and Director of Child and Family Studies, Westat, Inc in testimony
before the House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means,
Subcommittee on Human Resources, May 10, 1995.)
© Institute
for Adoption Information, 2001
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