Since I’m interested in international adoption, of course many of my wry friends clogged my in-box with that Onion Magazine article, the tongue-in-cheek romp about fictional adoptive mother breaking her arm patting herself on the back for giving “a real home, in a real country” to “My Daughter, the Most Beautiful Child in the Third World.” (the title unfortunately says it all).
What it did point out funny-painfully is a problem of adoptive (and prospective adoptive parents like myself) not seeing too far beyond our own myopic wishes for a child…and, a certain look-at-me-I’m-cool, vibe, as if a child were some kind of really neat ethnic handbag. This is no one’s fault, but societal forces, including our own celebrity culture, foment these kinds of superficial, if not ignorant and arrogantly first-world, attitudes.
A healthy attitude toward international/transracial adoption is more than merely watching your language, i.e., not referring do your adopted child, as “my brown kid” or not using the N- word, or the dreaded Asian C-word, etc., etc. Just decorating your child’s room with culturally appropriate doo-dads does not automatically make you ethnically or culturally sensitive, either. I like Sandra, our international adoption blogger’s suggestion: EDUCATE YOURSELF.
International adoption sits at the intersection of first-world/third-world. Of course it does. Just think for a moment what it would be like if Japan or Germany started raising “those poor little white American orphans”–there’s something a bit awry with this, is there not?
I was visiting friends in Portland, Oregon, and found this wonderful magazine, World Pulse, which is published there. According to their mission statement, the magazine “addresses the under-representation of women and children in the international news media  as subjects, reporters, quoted experts, and decision makers. By emphasizing these vital perspectives, we restore balance to global problem-solving dialogues and encourage a more inclusive worldview that embraces the ideas, opinions, and knowledge of women and children worldwide. Our new approach to world issues reassesses global priorities, broadens common notions of leadership, and consistently returns to a central question  ‘is this working for our children?’”
Adoption, especially as I’ve seen it with my experience with the Korean birth mothers, is primarily a women’s issue. This magazine, for all its slimness, does a comprehensive take on some of the most pressing issues affected women–including birth mothers–today. Some of the articles they’ve run have included one on African orphans, an interview with Marianne Pearl (her husband Daniel Pearl was the reporter who was killed in Pakistan).
Plus, the issue I had featured a wonderful article, “Mother’s Milk
The latest scientific research and holistic thought on issues impacting public health and healing.” Talk about an issue near and dear to my heart. I also liked their “For My Homeland” series: “Literary essays that convey the emotions, memories, or connotations related to a particular place on earth.”
Their website is www.worldpulsemagazine.com, and you can download a sample issue. With all the slick magazines out there, this one is a small, real, gem. EDUCATE YOURSELF!
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