It’s about the racist fee structure under which we adopted Madison and how I won’t keep this from her. I wrote it after a friend of mine said she would NOT tell her child that his adoption cost less because he is of African descent. I didn’t want to get into an argument about the fee structure, (which I think should be replaced by sliding scale based on adoptive parent income) or whether or not we should have used an agency that uses them (because it’s a moot point) but I wanted to discuss whether or not people think they should tell their kids. Actually I don’t want to argue that either so much as I want people to think about it and decide for themselves. Nobody’s gonna be able to change my mind — Madison will know at some point though I can’t say when or how because she’s four and she ain’t gonna know tomorrow. I just know that I won’t keep it from her. Why? I’ll tell you:

  1. Because it’s true. So much of the yucky parts of adoption are whitewashed purportedly to save feelings and I don’t think it does anyone any favors. My daughter has a right to her whole history. I’d have to shred all of our adoption papers, disguise the name of our agency and delete blog posts like these — in other words, lie — to keep the truth from her and I won’t do that.
  2. Because it’s out there. Other people in our lives know about the fee structure (we told Pennie sometime during that first year because it occurred to me that she likely didn’t know). I’d rather she find out in the appropriate context than overheard someone mentioning it to me or asking about it.
  3. Because I’m an activist. I write about this stuff. I talk about this stuff. I’d have to be a different person to keep my adoption reform thinking from my kids and I’m not that person. I want my children to think critically about the adoption industry just like I want them to think critically about other institutions. I want them to understand early on that they are not a reflection of other people’s ideas about their histories and experiences. Children are a commodity in adoption — there’s no hiding that.

I said this on a comment at ARP, but to my mind keeping this from her would be the same as not telling a daughter adopted from China about how the one-child policy is impacted by sexism. Ugly? Hard to talk about? Yes, but true and part of their histories, part of their stories.

I don’t want my daughter hearing about racist fee structures somewhere else and being afraid to ask me if her adoption cost less. Or worse yet, catching me in a lie about it.

Deesha, a woman I admire and respect, said, “My standard is this: If she finds out the truth, would she feel cheated or lied to, or feel as if some part of who she is has been withheld or misrepresented? If not, then it’s not part of her story. The fee structure issue (though this was not part of our experience) would fail this test.”

If it were me, I would feel cheated and lied to. Absolutely. Absolutely absolutely absolutely. It’s her history and this argument that this part of the adoption (signing the checks) is only my history isn’t true. Those are her adoption records put away in the keepsake box and they say right there how much the adoption cost. We saved the agency brochures and applications because they belong to her.

I feel like we folks in control of other people’s adoption stories have hidden the truth way too long in a misguided attempt to “protect” our kids. But when we do this we forget that they won’t always be kids and that they have a right to know the way that the machinations of other people have dictated the course of their lives.

I don’t know how or when it’ll come up but I expect that it will. And when it does, I’m going to tell the truth.

(For the record, every agency we contacted in Columbus used a racist fee structure and we knew we wanted to adopt from a local agency to up our chances of having a fully open adoption so that’s how we ended up there.)

Bookmark
SubscribeBloglinesDiggdel.icio.usFacebookStumbleUponTechnorati

Related posts