Adoption Articles

Articles about adoption, orphanages, and China in general obviously immediately catch my attention now. I came across these two articles in the NY Times recently, and I thought they were interesting.

This first article addresses some of the new restrictions that China has placed on potential adopters, and the supposed effect this is and will have on the number of children being adopted. The author suggests, as I have thought, that the slow-down in adoptions in the recent 18+ months is due more to politics than to an actual "baby shortage", or more people wanting to adopt than there are babies to adopt. According to the US State Department, there was a decrease of 18% in 2006 in the number of Americans who adopted from China. And although China does not publish how many children are in orphanages waiting to be adopted, there is not a slow-down in the applications.

The second article is about a young girl, adopted by Jewish parents, who has integrated into their Jewish traditions and is grappling with her identity. Although she looks Chinese, she is practicing the Jewish traditions and acts very American. (And incidentally, their family structure would be precluded from adopting through China under the new guidelines. But that is a whole other topic.) This is something we'll eventually have to deal with, especially already being a multi-cultural family. She'll look Chinese, speak Spanish with a Puerto Rican accent, and have an American father. Sounds like an identity crisis in the making to me.