Joyce Maynard's cautionary tale
I stumbled onto this today - Joyce Maynard Announces Failure of Her Adoptive Family. I then followed the link provided to her website, and read this.
My head isn't really able to wrap itself around it all yet. Suffice it to say that no one wins in this story, no one. I wonder if those girls will ever be able to live without fearing the loss of people they love. Who could, after so much of it?
Everything that frustrates me about adoption as we know it is here, most of all a poor country's lack of support for its people, the resources of the rich to the rescue. I don't know if anything could have been done in Ethiopia to help keep this family together, which in Maynard's letter turns out to have a living father (health unclear) and older brothers. But I do know that we have to stop looking to adoption as the best solution. Our material wealth should never be held in balance against a poor family.
The voices that are missing are those of the girls. They're too young to be speaking about their experiences, and may never wish to do so - after all, they owe nothing to the system that has further disrupted their difficult lives. I just hope they are able to come through this experience whole. If maybe someday they share their thoughts with the world, I'm sure everyone would learn from them, no matter our personal views on the rightness or wrongness of what was done to them.
There were a slew of comments, I only read a few and found the good ones outweighed the eye-rollers for a change. I'd be interested in your thoughts, too./
My head isn't really able to wrap itself around it all yet. Suffice it to say that no one wins in this story, no one. I wonder if those girls will ever be able to live without fearing the loss of people they love. Who could, after so much of it?
Everything that frustrates me about adoption as we know it is here, most of all a poor country's lack of support for its people, the resources of the rich to the rescue. I don't know if anything could have been done in Ethiopia to help keep this family together, which in Maynard's letter turns out to have a living father (health unclear) and older brothers. But I do know that we have to stop looking to adoption as the best solution. Our material wealth should never be held in balance against a poor family.
The voices that are missing are those of the girls. They're too young to be speaking about their experiences, and may never wish to do so - after all, they owe nothing to the system that has further disrupted their difficult lives. I just hope they are able to come through this experience whole. If maybe someday they share their thoughts with the world, I'm sure everyone would learn from them, no matter our personal views on the rightness or wrongness of what was done to them.
There were a slew of comments, I only read a few and found the good ones outweighed the eye-rollers for a change. I'd be interested in your thoughts, too./
Comments
But the adoption, in the first place? Born of a hideous intercourse between self-indulgence, and a want of new material for a book or two. That's my suspicion, not my knowledge.
There's a lot of self-indulgence in adoption, no question about it. Our generally self-indulgent society is certainly one cause - after all, if you can find a doctor to help you get pregnant in your 50s or 60s, why not adopt then, too?
Sad.
Came over to say thank you for joining A Real Adoption Blog Hop, though this post sombered the exclamation mark I would have put on the end of that. You've shared a sobering reality that exists in adoption unfortunately.
Thanks for commenting, Sharla. Someone must have signed me up, but I'm glad they did, I'm in. Will need to catch up on the details :)