The homestudy was the easy part

My friends who haven't adopted always whistle a little at the bureaucracy. All that paperwork. All those requirements to satisfy. All that mailbox watching as hopeful parents await word on whether they can move on to the next overly complicated step.

For most people, I think it's the idea of the homestudy that is the most daunting. A stranger comes into your house, interviews you about every aspect of your life and personality, and decides whether you are qualified to be parents.

You open all those things that most of us take for granted as private matters - our bank statements, tax returns, medical files, how we feel about our own parents, siblings, children, discipline, partners in parenthood.

I even cleaned and organized all my junk drawers and closets for our first homestudy, certain that, under the cold eye of a social worker, we would fail based on the number of loose nails that had filtered to the bottom of one of my kitchen drawers. (Actually, it wasn't a safety hazard, since the drawer was ordinarily too full to open anyway.)

But you know what I've discovered after completing one adoption and undertaking another?

The scrutiny of a homestudy is nothing compared to the scrutiny you will receive from other parents who have adopted.

Check out American Family's last two posts and the comments they generated, and you will see what I mean.

You can't swing a cat in the adoption community without smacking someone who will tell you (often unsolicited) The Right Way to name your child, dress your child, choose a community in which to make a home for your chid, educate your child, put your child to sleep, feed your child, instill in your child a positive racial identity and sense of cultural heritage.

If you belong to any of the adoption Yahoo groups, where "IMHO" means "you fucking whore, you're ruining your children's lives," you know what I'm talking about.

I think the pitbullishness of some of these conversations springs from the fact that most of us feel a little insecure about how we decide to do things. I mean, just being a parent is hard enough. When every decision you make as a parent is further scrutinized, dissected and judged, it's enough to make a person feel insecure. It's also like living in a whole community of mothers-in-law.

That insecurity can be a really positive thing when it is an honest self-evaluation that leads to more research, more education and more focus on doing what seems to be right for your child.

On the other hand, insecurity can be a really destructive thing when people feel their grasp is so tentative that the only way to hold on to their values is to swat down everyone else's.

I wish we could all back off a little. Take a breather. Maybe make some popsicles.

Of course, if you're not raising your Chinese daughter on 15 acres in the Northeast with three dogs, six chickens, a brother 14 years her senior and one of these, you're probably ruining her life.

Whore.

Comments

[veronica]

I read some angry stream of posts somewhere a while back where all these people judged some ordinary white adoptive parents for wanting to take their Chinese daughter to Chinatown. Everyone kept tossing around the word "appalled." It was creepy how out of proportion the reaction was to an innocuous idea. Extremely judgmental. You have my sympathies.

[Jenn]

"If you belong to any of the adoption Yahoo groups, where 'IMHO' means 'you fucking whore, you're ruining your children's lives,' you know what I'm talking about."

Actually, you could remove the word "adoption yahoo groups" and substitute, well, pretty much any message board or blog where people are going to have different ideas... "IMHO" seems to mean "it may be fine for you, but I am smarter than you and there's no way I would eat that/go there for vacation/buy that car/raise my kid that way" or pretty much anything else that sparks opinions. You are so right, it's all about insecurity. And what are we more insecure of than the choices we make when it comes to our kids?

[Genevieve]

Have you read Anne Tyler's "Digging To America"? (my apologies if you've already written about it on your blog - I'm new here and didn't look at previous posts) The main plot in the novel concerns two families whose adopted Korean babies arrive on the same plane, and how this coincidence leads one mother to constantly criticize how the other mother is raising her daughter. (There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it.)

[Mrs Figby]

Wow. Rarely have I heard of such a close description of how I'm raising my Chinese daughter. Except mine is Northwest, 20 acres, 7 chickens, 4 cats, a dog, and 15 alpacas, two much-older brothers and...um...a Mazda minivan. Still, pretty damned close.

I guess that means I pass.

[The Mumbler]

Seems someone could use a little soap in their mouths!
How about a nice post about that hot shot husband of yours!

[angela marie]

I think all those hoops are the exact reason my sister is scared about the whole adoption process. Not that I blame her.

IMHO.

(I have my nose in the air as I type that.)

[Cara]

I happened upon your post, and I just have to comment. Ignore the snobs; they are missing the point. I work with kids in foster care, and I can assure you that adoptive kids need only two things. Love and security. If you can provide that, you will always have me in your corner. Anything else is the details. (And, no, I'm not sitting here thinking "why don't they adopt an American child who needs them?" - At least I assume you're adopting internationally, from the post. - There are hundreds of perfectly good reasons for deciding on international adoption.)

PS - What in the world is IMHO?