So a little while ago we went to an all-day class called "Our Rainbow Families," which was for families adopting transracially, internationally, or both. Parts of it were great and parts of it were lame. It was divided into a series of different hourlong presentations.
Most of the ones that involved adoptive parents talking about their experiences were interesting, but came off a bit self-congratulatory and smug. I don't know why people go to a country like China and are shocked, shocked to find that orphans live in poverty. One comment was made that an office building where a meeting took place was so run down it was "like something from the projects." Um, yes, I imagine it's exactly like something from the projects. Huge chunks of the planet struggle with poverty that's even harsher than US-style poverty (which is plenty harsh), even with an economic miracle in progress. It seems to me that parents adopting internationally should have some respect & sympathy for the economic reality of their chosen country.
Another (non-China) parent adopted a baby who had bad diarrhea that continued for a month after she brought him home - turned out to be lactose intolerance. She mostly said positive things but she was upset that the diarrhea wasn't disclosed on the baby's referral health report.
It was just little stuff but overall the tone of the parents made us uncomfortable.
The adoptees panel was better - very informative. The speakers were young women who'd been adopted internationally. One gal was adopted from Korea and had a lot of interesting things to say about her expeirence of racism, her search for her Korean mother, and developing a Korean-American identity. She said that she wishes she'd learned Korean, but as a kid she didn't want to have to go to class so her parents didn't make her. She said it would have been different if the whole family was going to learn it (she had 2 brothers who were not Korean) but she didn't want to do it on her own. That got us thinking about the whole language thing.
We're not very good at languages. But when I think of all the cultural activities we could push our future daughter into enroll our future daughter in, language education seems like the most valuable. Chinese dance is great for making a girl feel cool and special, but it won't necessarily help her connect with other Chinese or Chinese-American people. Whereas being able to go to China and talk to people will be huge. Or even just walking around Chinatown on the weekend and being able to read the signs and chit-chat with folks who haven't learned English yet. So we've decided we are going to make sure she learns Chinese as a second language (not sure yet if Mandarin or Cantonese--will have to see what's spoken in her native province and then see if that makes sense from a practical standpoint). But we're going to learn it too - badly I'm sure, but we want to be able to say a few things in Chinese by the time we go, and we want to learn with her as the years go by.
The other thing we're going to start before we go over there (and heaven knows we have plenty of time, we're not even LID yet) is Tai Chi. We're too old and fat for Shaolin Kung Fu, but we're hoping the kid will want to pursue it because we love martial arts and various famliy members practice Aikido, Karate, and what have you. We figure it'll be better if we all pursue Chinese cultural stuff together, rather than hang a little sign on her that says "Chinese."
We had a lot of vague notions rattling around our heads about how to teach our future child about Chinese culture without making her feel alienated, and hearing this particular gal talk really helped us in our thinking. So that was very useful.
The other two useful parts were a pediatrician who talked about how to evaluate a medical report and generally how to assess a child's health when they're in an orphanage. He had some useful tips about what kind of med kit to bring with you when you travel.
Our favorite part of the whole thing was a very impressive developmental psychologist who specializes in the effects of orphanage life. She does assessments for one of the local hospitals and we're definitely going to bring our future kid to her. She herself spent the first 5 years of her life in a Korean orphanage, so a lot of the dire things she was saying were tempered by the fact that she's standing up there, with a PhD, obviously having caught up despite the long time in the orphanage. (other than height, possibly-she was quite petite) She showed video of 3 kids with different levels of developmental problems and then showed the same kids after 6 months of therapy, and they'd all improved dramatically. Overall it was a great session, pointing out the likely problems in motor and cognitive development and what the solutions to those problems are. No horror stories, just a lot of good informative stuff. So that was really terrific and made up for some of the crappier sections.
Lastly, the chairs were SO HARD that by the end of the day you could see everyone shifting their butts around trying in vain to get comfortable. But they had cookies and snacks, and those were good. So not such a bad day after all, but we were glad to finish it. This was the last requirement for our home study, and we did it a few weeks ago, so we're hoping the finished report will be arriving soon.
