In the News

US Mother Sends Russian Adopted Boy Back

There's so much to talk about in terms of this latest story surrounding the adopted Russian boy sent back to Russia by his adoptive mother, too much to talk about, really. For me, this is one of those times when I have to work really hard to step back and try and separate my instinctive, gut emotional reactions from a more rational, objective point of view.

Fear of being 'sent back' was never something that I felt personally, but I know other adoptees have said they felt or were explicitly told about. I think that whether that fear was real or imagined before, it is definitely and unfortunately very real now. Even one case of an adoptive parent sending a child back is too many, because gives form to something I think most adoptees have thought about at one time or another, even if only at the most superficial level. We as adoptees know that for one reason or another we were separated, taken, or given away from/by our birth parents, so we know that it is possible for such bonds to be broken. Like I said, I never, ever felt that fear growing up, but I think my first gut reaction to this case was not so much shock that it could happen at all, as much as dismay that it did actually happen in reality and not just in some screwed up imagination/dream world.

In this case, the adoptive mother's and grandmother's actions were wrong on so many levels that I could go on for pages and pages about them. Beyond the inherently dangerous (though not explicitly illegal) act of putting a young child on a plane and hiring a total stranger to pick him up at the other end, there's the glaringly obvious issue of this woman thinking of adoptive motherhood as some sort of trial run that she could simply terminate if it didn't suit her liking. Adoption is no less valid of a way of forming a family, and if prospective adoptive parents are not prepared, at the VERY LEAST, to accept an adopted child at the same level as a biological child, then they should never be allowed anywhere near adoption.

Obviously the agencies, institutions, and various parties involved in this case share the blame as well. Whoever overlooked/didn't pay attention to/neglected to mention the signs of attachment problems and/or other issues in this boy set this whole situation up in the first place. It doesn't excuse the mother's and grandmother's actions, but it does highlight the fact that adoption is a process involving multiple people and parties, and it is not just a simple, cut-and-dry solution to institutionalized care. The details are still quite murky in terms of who told who (or didn't tell) what facts, and we'll probably never know everything because everyone is going to point the finger of blame somewhere else.

As all of this is going on, though, I hope it doesn't go completely unsaid the fact that many (most) adoptive parents do their best in all sorts of circumstances and do NOT treat their children as warehouse goods that can be returned if damaged. Many adoption agencies do everything they can, given cultural differences and government bureaucracies, to educate parents and prepare them to deal with any issues that may arise. There are 'good guys' and 'bad guys' everywhere, and it would be unfair to villify one whole group of people within adoption based solely on this case.