Adoption Bookshelf: Web Wanderings

Showing posts with label Web Wanderings. Show all posts

Wednesday's Web Wanderings

-- Want to know pretty much anything and everything about the history of adoption in the U.S.? Check out The Adoption History Project and be staggered at the depth of information featured there. (I know I was!)

Included is information about all kinds of aspects of adoption--for example, a history of the "orphan trains" of 19th- and 20th-century America (as advertised in the flier at left).

-- "Black Adoption Myths and Realities" from the North American Council on Adoptable Children.

-- A Birth Project explores an issue that I've been pondering lately--whether adopted children from Ethiopia (or any other African country, for that matter) will identify themselves as "African American" or will continue to view themselves exclusively through the lens of their homeland. I think this is more of an issue for older child adoptions, but this article offers good food for thought applicable to children of all ages.

-- "A Family Again, if Only for a Week"--a bittersweet article in the New York Times about a summer camp that reunites separated siblings in foster care.

-- And on a much less serious note, the satirical article "Brangelina to Accelerate Adoption Binge" made me smile, not so much for its Onion-esque take on celebrity adoption but for how frighteningly plausible the article seemed. Sadly, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to believe that "each [adopted child] will receive the Lamborghini of their choice on their 16th birthday and have a teaching hospital bearing their name in their country of origin."

Wednesday's World Wide Web Wanderings

I'm introducing a new feature on this blog, and I just couldn't resist the alliterative sound of "Wednesday's World Wide Web Wanderings." It's perhaps the most unwieldy blog-post title ever (in the future it will be shortened to "Web Wanderings" or something similarly more manageable!), but for today, at least, I harkened to the siren call of excess alliteration.

Anyway, so this new feature is a link round-up of sorts, a list of some of the articles I've read this week that I find interesting. And please note that I said "find interesting"--while I think these links are noteworthy, I may not necessarily agree with all of the opinions espoused there.

So what's interested me this week?

--I'm very much agreeing with this blog post from another prospective adoptive parent adopting from Ethiopia about the importance of not conveying only negative aspects about a child's home country. In our eagerness to help our children's home countries, it can be all too easy to post about numbers of dying orphans or food shortages. We want to raise awareness, and that is admirable. However, a constant stream of images of starving children ultimately reduces a country's rich history to little more than a Sally Struthers infomercial. Worse still, it unintentionally teaches our children that their heritage is tainted, that they have nothing to be proud of in their home country. Instead, we all must highlight the many positive aspects of our children's birth cultures--both for our children's benefit and our own.

--From The Times of South Africa, a lifestyle article called "Black, White of Adopting," which explores the idea of transracial adoption from the perspective of a black single mother wanting to adopt a white baby. Personally, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I was surprised to read the comments after the article and see so many objections--and not the kind of objections you might think. Very interesting, especially when filtered through the lens of South Africa's racial history.

--And more on transracial adoption...Dallas Cowboys' All-Pro linebacker DeMarcus Ware and his wife recently adopted a beautiful baby girl. Nothing too extraordinary there, but this story seems to be getting an unusual amount of press (does the New York Times send out a reporter for every pro-athlete's child?). I can't help but wonder if it's because the Wares are African-American, and their baby appears to be white. (Actually, I think the baby looks biracial, but everyone on the Internet seems to assume the baby is white, and I can't find a factual description one way or the other.)

For the record, I'm very happy for the Wares (especially after reading their story), and I think it's terrific that they're providing a loving, Christian family for this child. They seem like really neat people. But what's strange (and potentially problematic) is the press coverage--none of the legitimate news articles about this story mention the baby's race, but they all include pictures. It's like race is the proverbial elephant in the room that journalists refuse to deal with directly, yet they make sure to prominently insert that picture. To what end, I wonder? I'd be curious to know what other people make of this press coverage (at least one other person thinks it's kind of strange, too...).

--And finally, this article: "Adopting Ethiopian Orphans May Not Be The Best Solution." It gets mentioned here for its sheer "No Duh!" quality, as well as having the unabashed idiocy to imply that more people are adopting Ethiopian children because of Angeline Jolie. Yes, it really does say that. Now, I will go vomit quietly in the corner and marvel at what passes for journalism anymore. (For a more specific, less vomit-y response to this article, check out Mummy Heart's blog post.)