I’m overwhelmed by the response to my piece in @TheAtlantic about our family’s adoption experience. I spent much of yesterday just trying to keep track of the various critiques and reactions. Here are a few follow-up thoughts. (Thread) theatlantic.com/family/archive…
First, it’s uncanny how many of the replies to my first tweet about the piece echo the attacks on transracial adoption that I outline in my essay. There are many good comments, but also concern about whether I’m “woke” enough to parent my daughter:
Second, I’m puzzled by how many people are claiming I “equated” racist alt-right threats with attacks from the left. I do no such thing. I specifically say the racist right “exceeded” the left and made me wish for the days of attacks from the left. It’s right there in the piece.
Third, I don’t deny the existence of abuses in international adoption. I mention their existence in the piece. What I question is the casting of aspersions on adoptive parents, or the adoption movement itself. Accountability is good. Adoptive parents want an ethical movement.
Fourth, one thing I didn’t get to in the piece — people often speak about identity issues like we’re in a college course, not real life. Adoptive parents loving traumatized kids often have to deal with much, much more basic issues.
Fifth, to take one example, how much does identity matter when you’re holding a baby who has barely been held for the first eighteen months of his life? There are massive issues from the lack of human touch that you have to deal with way, way before you’re thinking about race.
Sixth, critics often speak of alternatives to adoption as if they’re readily available, will clearly work better for the kids, or if adoptive parents adopt _instead of_ supporting policies and ministries that are engaged in systemic reform.
Seventh, in my experience it’s both/and — families adopt and they want to see nations develop alternatives to adoption and to adopt policies and reforms that make such desperate need increasingly rare.
Finally, let’s just note that all this is incredibly complicated. But I maintain that dysfunctions in our culture - often centered around race - are making life for too many adoptive families unnecessarily more difficult. And that’s a shame.
