This is a small story about a few friends of mine that I wrote up to publicize the sadness around international adoption.
There has always been controversy when it comes to adopting children from foreign countries, and with Russia being the second most adopted from country next to China, with Russia at about 6000 per year, there is still much negitive publicity around Russian adoption. Such as commentators stating that a $10,000 price tag for many adoptions equate to an exporting of children. As well as the negitive publicity of the very few instances of abuse that in some cases have led to the death of innocent children.
So should foreign adoptions be considered as a last resort? Society has been taught to believe that we should take care of those in our own back yard, when the world is our back yard.
A family went to Tula, a small town in Russia and was pleasantly surprised to see the orphanage was clean, well equipped and well staffed. Being that their first experience was in an orphanage in St. Petersburg several years before where the conditions were pretty dire. In Tula they adopted a little girl named Anna, and since then they have had a happily-ever-after life.
That’s an example of the vast majority of Russian adoptions not talked about in the media as it just isn’t what most Americans would consider news worthy. The only ones that ever seem to come to light are the less than one percent of adoptions that go bad, resulting in child abuse or neglect. While the sad truth is, even under negligent care here in the United States, the conditions are still far better than what can be seen in many of Russia’s poor orphanages for children. Through Emails and Blogs seems to be the only way to get out the positive message to those families who are seeking foreign children for adoption from Russia or other countries. The issue is certainly a worthy one, and the adoption of Russian children has been a major new trend since 1995. American families now adopt more children from Russia than any other country except China. Yet the questions still remains; what can we do or should we do with the number of Russian children in orphanages that continue to rise daily? The estimates are around 700,000. Many believe we need more families to adopt Russian children while others think we should forgo helping other countries. People are curious about experiences, especially from those who have adopted more than once and they need to be shared. Questions like; how easy or difficult was it? What problems or obstacles did you have to overcome? And what was the time frame are just a few.
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GarykPatton