Compost Studios

When China recently changed its guidelines governing foreign adoption, it generated a lot of discussion in the U.S., the primary adoption destination for abandoned Chinese babies. China will no longer accept as adoptive parents those who are single, overweight, have been treated for depression, are over the age of 50, married less than two years, or divorced and remarried for less than five years. There's plenty of speculation on what's really driving these changes but the official line out of China is that they're meant to protect the children and speed up the adoption process for "well qualified" parents.

In the U.S., the newspaper I read in Virginia tracked the story of a middle class couple as they went through a foreign adoption. I was expecting a heartwarming story when I began following the series. Early on, there was nothing noteworthy about the couple except for the fact that they were adopting three older children at once (biological siblings), from Russia or a former Soviet Bloc nation (I don't remember precisely). A reporter followed them through the process and continued to cover the story even after the children entered their home.

Shortly after the children arrived, it became clear this couple might be dealing with some real mental health issues. The woman was clearly obsessive-compulsive, having every MINUTE of EVERY DAY planned down precisely for herself and every member of the family. She had an elaborate system to keep everyone on her extremely detailed schedule. I think it even involved bells. She also had an equally rigid plan for "how their life was going to be" long term.

The children had only been with the family a short time when the husband, the breadwinner, unexpectedly quit his well paying job because HE wanted to stay home with the kids too. This was not in HER plan and the tensions in the story were palpable. The family quickly fell into extreme financial hardships, and when the series of stories ended, they were selling their very nice home and preparing to move to Florida to look for work. They did not have any contacts there or any specific leads; they were going there because they'd once been to Disneyworld and it seemed like a good place to live.

In that last story before the move, the woman was carefully digging up one or more jars from her backyard where she'd buried the "remains" of her miscarriages. Oy. Can anyone envision a happy ending to this? Do these people sound rational and stable to you? Is this a good home for those kids? Who decides?

When single Angelina Jolie adopts children from Cambodia and Ethiopia, the public deems her mature, unselfish, and saintly--a GOOD parent. With an Oscar on her shelf, no one worries about her past mental health issues, addictions, history of cutting, or bizarre behaviors. When Madonna and her husband, who already have two children, seek to adopt a child from Malawi, she is deemed selfish, egotistical, and BAD. She's adopting the wrong way for the wrong reasons.

When the UK restricted access to fertility treatments provided by their National Health Service with the intent of putting limited resources toward the cases most likely to yield successful pregnancies, there was quite a lot of outrage as many couples saw their chances of having a child evaporate because of their age.

And yet when a 60-something-year-old woman receives extensive medical treatments and gives birth to a child, few people applaud. The words "unnatural," "selfish," "ridiculous" enter into the conversation. There's a sense that something has gone WRONG in the world. It is socially acceptable for old men to conceive children with their young wives, but old women are scorned when they have children.

So who draws the line and where do we draw it? When are we too old to be considered good parents? When are we too fat? Which health issues are acceptable and which ones are not? Who has the best marriage? Who offers the best home, the best future, the best prospects to a child?

When placing orphans, everyone looks at the parents and tries to evaluate what will be best for the child. Yet it appears that more often than not, who gets or doesn't get fertility treatments has nothing to do with what will be best for a child but whether the parents have the money to pay for the treatment. So many people and so much money controls this corner of the reproductive universe while the rest of it runs out of control.

Day after day, biological children are born for many reasons and no reason at all. They arrive wanted and unwanted to married and unmarried parents; rich, poor, and middle class; healthy and unhealthy; happily married or not. Good circumstances, bad circumstances, and all the grey area in between. It's all left to chance. Biological kids get what they get in life, and only when things go terribly wrong does anyone intervene. Parents have lots of rights regarding their kids. Kids have very few rights regarding their parents.

The only common thread in this whole rambling discourse? EVERYONE believes they have a right to have a child if they want one.

But do they?

January 18, 2007