Gwenyth Paltrow has one. So does Angelina Jolie, U2's Bono, Meg Ryan, and Mia Farrow. Now Madonna wants one too. No, I'm not talking about the latest Dior sunglasses or Fendi purse (although I'm sure it would look fab on Bono)---the "in" accessory lately seems to be African orphans.
And this is entirely a good thing.
The previous paragraph was meant to be sarcastic---however the media, and several adoption activists, genuinely seem to feel that the motivation behind celebrity adoptions is positive PR. This is ridiculous. Although I am no starry-eyed celeb fanatic, I can admire their desire to share an immense fortune with those less fortunate, and to adopt a child who would face a miserable, and likely short, life without intervention.
Then, why are groups attempting to bar the adoption of a Malawi boy by Madonna?
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Even the boy's father has given his blessing, and is happy that his boy will receive a better life than he could provide. After his wife died, he placed his son in an orphanage.
"This is our child, and we made the decision that Madonna take him because we wish him a good life. No one will stop that," Yohane Banda told Reuters earlier this week.
Madonna has released an open letter to the public and the media, trying to make clear her good intentions.
My husband and I began the adoption process many months prior to our trip to Malawi. I did not wish to disclose my intentions to the world prior to the adoption happening as this is a private family matter. After learning that there were over one million orphans in Malawi, it was my wish to open up our home and help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and in many cases death, as well as expand our family.
Nevertheless, we have gone about the adoption procedure according to the law like anyone else who adopts a child. Reports to the contrary are totally inaccurate. The procedure includes an l8 month evaluation period after which time we hope to make this adoption permanent. This was not a decision or commitment that my family or I take lightly.
By my estimation, the reason for all the hubbub is that Madonna was allowed to adopt the child without having lived in Malawi for the 18 month trial period. However, given that this detail would have provided an insurmountable obstacle to the adoption of the child by Madonna (who travels, tours, and resides in a few locales), it seems entirely reasonable that this trial period take place outside of Malawi, yet still occur. Each adoption shold be evaluated by authorities on a case-by-case basis; Madonna broke no rules or bent any law, rather she worked with officials to try to make the adoption successful and amenable to all parties.
However, I believe wonder if the above "reason" isn't the real reason at all, but rather something much darker. Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Huffington Post suggests as much in an opinion piece published yesterday.
The unstated, and more contemptible, reason groups scream about the adoption is the archaic notion that a white, especially a wealthy white celebrity, is abysmally culturally clueless when it comes to raising a black child, or worse, they'll whitewash their black identity, and tout white values (whatever they may be).
Thirty years ago when it was not considered politically incorrect to say such things, the National Association of Black Social Workers gruffly branded the adoption of black children by whites, genocide. The group later dropped the inflammatory, over the top rhetoric, and talked about kinship, extended family ties, preserving cultural identity, and strengthening family relations, to beg more black families to adopt black babies. Despite the syrupy sounding positive spin, the message is still pretty much the same. That whites and non-blacks should butt out when it comes to adopting black babies, and that a black home is the best, indeed the only place, that a black child should be.
What makes this notion even more wrongheaded and ridiculous, is that the crisis is not just one in which African babies are shunned in America, African-American orphans are too. There are more than a half million children in foster care homes in America. Nearly forty percent of them are African-American children. They stay in foster care homes on average a year longer than white children.
Countless studies have shown that the race of the adopting parent has little to do with whether an adopted child matures into a healthy, emotionally secure, adult. The key is that the home must be a loving, nurturing, and financially stable home. There is also little evidence that black children raised by white parents suffer permanent racial or cultural identity amnesia. Race and racism is still alive and well enough in enough places in American society to insure that black children can't or won't forget that they're black.
Sorry for the long quote, but I thought it was thought-provoking and I wanted to include as much as possible. To me, the bottom line is this: Is Madonna helping the child, and providing a better life for him? The answer is obviously yes, and this concern should be at the forefront, rather than a by-line. The amount of vitriol produced by an otherwise "good deed" in not in line with a mere bending of the rules, and it saddens me to think that racism may underlie the protests.
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Children who are not Caucasian are expected to have a sensitivity to race and ethnicity that is not expected of 'white' children, and this expectation is itself a form of stereotyping. My daughter is an Amerindian (Quechua--Peru) and I am Caucasian. Starting at age four, she DID go through a spell when she expressed her unhappiness at the fact that we are different 'colors', but in the end she found other ways to identify with me. She is not unaware of race and racial issues, but race and ethnicity are only a part of what defines her identity. When she was younger, I filled the house with books about Peru and cassettes of Peruvian music. However, the land that she has fallen in love with is England (blame Harry Potter). We have traveled to England twice, and she is eager to return a third time; on the other hand, she has absolutely no interest in visiting Peru. But why should she? I don't have any interest in Russia, my 'fatherland', and her Caucasian classmates don't seem to have any particular interest in the lands of their ancestors. But we are not troubled if a Caucasian child of Russian descent does not embrace all things Russian. I guess only Caucasians can be generic 'Americans'.
I think its great that madonna and other celebrities are adopting..adoption is a wonderful experience. We adopted one of our kids and have always felt it was the best decision we ever made.
But I do see the point that some poeple make regarding the adoption of black babies by white parents. Many white people I've come across have absolutely no clue what it is to be non white in this country. They just don't get it. It takes a special kind of white person to even try to understand it..and even then its still not something they'll ever understand. Kind of like how most who haven't been in combat will never understand how a veteran feels..we can only guess at it, and try to understand it by reading books on the subject or watching movies.
I haven't been following this story at all. However, it does sound outrageous to me. This is not how you help african kids. It is too close to being a blank check to ignore africa by saying you've done your part by rescuing a single african child. It's pointless and it's highly risky as an adoption.
I think the most horrid thing about overseas adoption is the profit factor. It costs a lot of money to "adopt" a child from a foreign country. My wife and I have discussed it and want to adopt our next child. We've looked into several groups, but no matter the country or group, there is a steep adoption fee.
We have a nice house, a good income, and a willingness - but we're not going to be able to come up with the cash to adopt from overseas. That is sad.
Gwenyth Paltrow does NOT have an African orphan. Apple and Moses are certainly her own. Get you gossip right!
Interesting phrase: "Apple and Moses are certainly her own." My daughter would be very surprised to learn that she is not 'my own' child. The whole point of adoption is that the child becomes yours, and you become the child's. Once I was asked, with regard to my daughter, "Is she yours, or is she adopted?" and my answer was "Yes, and yes." Rockafeeler, I assume you meant that "Apple and Moses are certainly her biological children." This is not a trivial distinction. Consider, for example, the increasingly number of families in which some children arrive in the family via birth and others via adoption. As a parent in such a family, you would never want to see a situation in which society tells only the birth children that they are their parents 'own' children, the implication being that the other children are not. This would be the case in Madonna's family if language is chosen that assumes that the child who entered the family via adoption has a different status than the child who entered the family via birth. Again, that would defeat the very idea of adoption.
Thanks for the correction Rockafeeler. Although, now that Gwen thinks that she herself is African (http://tinyurl.com/ym4tfp) perhaps her desire to adopt is lessened. :P
I think the question is not so much that it is a bad thing, but whether there is a better alternative. Would it be so hard for Madonna to simply support his parents so they could raise him? It's not as if she cannot afford it. Yet instead she removes him from his parents - obviously a traumatic experience - so that she gets to have him for herself?
Elf Eye
You are correct to assume that I meant "biological" by "her own." Wearing my biologist hat, pedigree becomes a crucial aspect of many fundamental processes in nature. Studies on kin selection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection) and inclusive fitness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness) have shown us some of the dynamics between parents and offspring and the historical/biological relevance of lineage. Indeed, most cultures traditionally favor marriages between cousins and develop sophisticated rules for determining the best "in family" arrangements. Instances of outside family marriages often occur for political (daughter of chief marries son of rival chief) or social reasons (widowed woman marries man already with a wife to secure protection for her children-this practice was adapted by Islam during the sixth century, a time when adult males were often killed in battles between warring clans).
As a person who has played the role of step dad, I would agree that the distinction between biological children and adopted children should be insignificant in our modern culture. It is interesting to note though, that as adults many adopted go through extensive searches for their biological parents, sometimes to disasterous consequences (http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/Issues/2006-09-28/news/feature_full.html). Yikes.
Also, there's a significant number of people, such as myself around the holidays, who can only fantasize about the possibility of having been adopted.