One of the readers of my Inhabiting the Grey Area post left a link to this film, for which I am so grateful. (Thank you, Heather.) It documents an Ethiopian adoption process, both before the adoption takes place and for four years afterwards. The filmmaker followed the Ethiopian and adoptive families, and I found a lot of it to be alarming. It made me cry, it made me shake with anger, it renewed my commitment to fighting for the kind of connection that I believe both of my daughters and their Ethiopian families deserve.
I'd love to discuss the film here on Finding Magnolia. It's a little over an hour and a half long, so there's a bit of a time commitment, but I hope that you'll watch it and share your thoughts.
There are many thoughts I have about things that occurred in this film, but for now I'd just like to touch on Masho's experiences. This type of story is why I blog about the difficulties we walk through with Zinashi. I felt, watching the film, that Masho's adoptive parents never connected with her story or her grief. We have worked with Zinashi to help her with a lot of behaviors that stem from her grief and her fear. The key to parenting through the hard times has been remembering where she has been and what she has suffered, and that while we are working hard, she is working even harder. Can you imagine being told that your parents are just going to the store and then being left at the orphanage to be adopted by a new family? Can you imagine what kind of fear would arise out of that and stay with you, on top of already facing enormous losses and a change of culture? And yet it seemed that neither Masho's adoptive family or psychiatrists/psychologists acknowledged this or acted in a way that honored it. It makes me sad, and it makes me angry, and it makes me want to work harder both as a parent and as a voice for children whose stories are forgotten.
Now I'll open it up for your thoughts. As always, I ask that you please be respectful with your comments. I'd love it if I didn't have to delete any comments this time. I know that our regular readers are a kind and respectful bunch, so I'm not talking to any of you fine folks.
There's a lot to discuss here, so if it seems there are some topics that might be better served with a separate post, I'll do that. I'll also be participating as much as possible, but please forgive me if there's a delay in my responses.
I'd love to discuss the film here on Finding Magnolia. It's a little over an hour and a half long, so there's a bit of a time commitment, but I hope that you'll watch it and share your thoughts.
There are many thoughts I have about things that occurred in this film, but for now I'd just like to touch on Masho's experiences. This type of story is why I blog about the difficulties we walk through with Zinashi. I felt, watching the film, that Masho's adoptive parents never connected with her story or her grief. We have worked with Zinashi to help her with a lot of behaviors that stem from her grief and her fear. The key to parenting through the hard times has been remembering where she has been and what she has suffered, and that while we are working hard, she is working even harder. Can you imagine being told that your parents are just going to the store and then being left at the orphanage to be adopted by a new family? Can you imagine what kind of fear would arise out of that and stay with you, on top of already facing enormous losses and a change of culture? And yet it seemed that neither Masho's adoptive family or psychiatrists/psychologists acknowledged this or acted in a way that honored it. It makes me sad, and it makes me angry, and it makes me want to work harder both as a parent and as a voice for children whose stories are forgotten.
Now I'll open it up for your thoughts. As always, I ask that you please be respectful with your comments. I'd love it if I didn't have to delete any comments this time. I know that our regular readers are a kind and respectful bunch, so I'm not talking to any of you fine folks.
There's a lot to discuss here, so if it seems there are some topics that might be better served with a separate post, I'll do that. I'll also be participating as much as possible, but please forgive me if there's a delay in my responses.
I am so happy to see someone discussing this film. I saw a shortened version on Norwegian television last week, and it was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the exact version you are linking to, but does it have the scene at the dinner table where Masho is asked to leave the table because she makes (for me) un-noticable movement with her head, which her adoptive mother interprets as a sign of her deep seated resistance? That, to me, is child abuse, especially when you do it to a child that may have trauma related to going hungry.
I am looking foreward to seeing the discussion this generates, and I am happy to see that someone else reacted as strongly as I did.
I didn't understand that either! Why does it matter if she's making a tiny movement with her head? Be the grownup and just accept it and move on. I felt like her manners were unusually good, to be honest. I couldn't believe it when they sent her away from the table!
DeleteThis film was very upsetting.
DeleteI felt the same way as you say above. What head motion? and how is that a bid deal when the child is dealing with so much in her life. The adoptive parents seemed to have really unreasonable expectations (of both adoption but also of how Masho should behave). As someone says below in the comments it seems that the adoptive parent's love was conditional. They kept setting up take it or leave it scenarios that are so very inappropriate. Masho was just a little girl, especially you can see this in the scene where where she is telling them that she is leaving, she is just so little and scared.
The other thing I wondered about is why they didn't try to learn a few words in Masho's language so in the first few days they could have some understanding of what she was saying? Did you and Jarod do this? Maybe it is too difficult but at least that might be a small way to connect?
Anyway, thank you for sharing the film. Very powerful.
I was thinking about the take it or leave it scenarios and how those are different from what we do in our home - there are certainly some times that it's appropriate (for instance, if it is a cold night and we are going somewhere special, we require a jacket before we leave, or we just don't leave), but I think the key is that it's never in relation to whether or not our children get love and connection and affection. It's also never about doing things perfectly. The expectations for Masho's behavior were completely unrealistic, not just for a child who has experienced trauma, but for any child in her developmental stage.
DeleteAs far as language is concerned, we learned some key phrases in Amharic to use with Zinashi, and I think it made all the difference. We had a friend say them aloud for us on video so we could refer back to them on our laptop when we were unsure of pronunciation. Zinashi actually spoke another language as her first language, but had picked up enough Amharic to be fairly fluent while in orphanage care. So we were able to use what we knew to figure out a lot of situations, although I'll admit it wasn't perfect, but it worked well enough to at least help us all be more comfortable with one another.
This makes me so sad for those children. And I hope it shows you just how well you are doing with Zinashi. I wanted to scoop up Masho and take her home with me. The poor child. I agree with Maria about the abuse. The way they handled her and treated Masho was not right from the start. By the end of the film there was no life behind her eyes. That breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the discussions that come from this! Thank you for sharing!
It is, indeed, heartbreaking. I wanted to scoop her up, too. I wanted (want, present tense, actually) so much more for her.
DeleteI love that you are talking about this. My husband and I watched last week and I am drafting a post for our blog too...it broke my heart. I can't imagine the pain for Masho, for her family in Ethiopia, for Robba, and even for her adoptive family. I just kept saying to my husband over and over, I am so glad that we really prepared for the worst when our son joined our family and were so amazingly blessed and surprised with how he responded to intentional therapeutic parenting but oh the pain for him, for his relatives in ET, and I can't imagine how it would have unfolded if we were as unprepared and in denial as the family and counselors in the movie seemed...I'm at work, but will have much more to say later...
ReplyDelete"[U]nprepared and in denial" - that is exactly the right way to describe them.
DeleteI just need to repeat these sentences which need to be shouted from the rooftops:
ReplyDelete"I felt, watching the film, that Masho's adoptive parents never connected with her story or her grief. We have worked with Zinashi to help her with a lot of behaviors that stem from her grief and her fear. The key to parenting through the hard times has been remembering where she has been and what she has suffered, and that while we are working hard, she is working even harder. Can you imagine being told that your parents are just going to the store and then being left at the orphanage to be adopted by a new family? Can you imagine what kind of fear would arise out of that and stay with you, on top of already facing enormous losses and a change of culture? And yet it seemed that neither Masho's adoptive family or psychiatrists/psychologists acknowledged this or acted in a way that honored it. It makes me sad, and it makes me angry, and it makes me want to work harder both as a parent and as a voice for children whose stories are forgotten."
We live in a trauma-denying world. When someone has a problem, they are labelled sick or ill, and the problem is compounded when they're a powerless child. We only think about the present moment, not the pain and suffering that is at the root at the problem. This is because moral ambiguity and the possibility of exploitation is too difficult a reality to face, so we deny it. It's so, so important for you to talk about your empathy for Zinashi and to tell stories like this so that we can make empowering connections, both at home and internationally, rather than ones that only increase the pain everyone is trying to address. More when I finish watching the documentary...
I agree that we live in a trauma-denying world. There are so many voices out there urging us to be more happy, but what use is that if there is such great grief? It will never work. I do wish for my children to be happy, but first I wish for healing and for peace. It's easier to just gloss over the past and look for the surface emotion of happiness, and if it's not there, blame the victim, and I think that's the trap a lot of people fall into. We want results too fast.
DeleteI decided to see the youtube-movie as well as the docomentary version I had all ready seen, and I noticed some things the Norwegian version had that this version did not.
ReplyDeleteOne is a scene where the adoptive parents tell the film maker how hurt and angry Masho is, and that she frequently tells them that she wants to go back to where she was born. Which tells me that they know on an intellectual level what she has been through, though they seem completely incapable of using this knowledge in their parenting.
The other is a scene where the adoptive mother tells the camera that she sometimes wonders if her daughter is being cursed and possessed by her family in Ethiopia (I kid you not!)
But, what I really was hoping, was that some of you adoptive parents could write something about how you would handle these reactions from a newly adopted child. I would be really interested to hear from someone with some experience in this situation.
Cursed and possessed? OMG.
DeleteI will gladly do a blog post regarding how I would handle Masho's reactions, as we've had some similar behaviors in our own home. My blanket statement is that we always always ALWAYS come back to love. If we've had a knock-down, drag-out round of struggle, it always ends with, "I love you no matter what." Kids who are hurting need to hear that they are loved regardless of their behaviors.
That sounds about right to me. I would also really like to hear what you do right in the middle of a strong reaction. I didn't feel that these parents did it right, but I couldn't really put my finger on what exactly I would have done in their situation.
DeleteObviously you shouldn't write anything about Zinashi's specific experiences. I was thinking that using this movie as a starting point would be a good way to discuss specifics, considering the fact that Masho's experiences have already been broadcast to a larger audience, and thus a more specific discussion of this situation would not be as exposing as if someone where to give the details of their own children online. (I'm not sure I manage to formulate this argument in a sensible way. Please let me know if it reads all wrong to anyone)
What saddens me the most is when Mosha can clearly hear her adoptive mother offering her brother candy and she is left alone in her room. Her adoptive parents seem so attached to her brother, yet seem unable to understand Mosha. I think Mosha could thrive but she needs to be understood and for the adults around her to acknowledge the grief and trauma she's been through. Unfortunately nobody around her seems to be willing to do the work that it would take to connect with her, which leaves me feeling so sad
ReplyDeleteSorry for spelling Masho's name wrong, wasn't concentrating on my typing enough, apologies!
DeleteI agree that it seems no one is willing to do the work, or at least that they are unwilling to do the kind of work they need to do. Compliance does not mean healing.
DeleteMy children are not adopted, but not a day goes by that I don't feel lucky to have my children, and to love my children. And when things have been crazy and hectic and hard, I will remember how incredibly fortunate I am that, by accident of circumstance and society, I am able to care for and keep my children.
ReplyDeleteWatching the film, I felt as though I were watching the slow dismantling of a human being, helpless to prevent it, knowing it had already happened. The anger and despair were so strong it was hard to keep watching, but I also felt in some way it was important to bear witness to this suffering, for Masho, and for her birth family.
I am angry that her adoptive family was not prepared for the emotional labor that parenting these children would require, and angrier that they were not willing to commit once they found out. I am angry that they were so concerned with "winning" battles and forcing compliance. I am angry that they showed Masho that love is only meted out as a reward for compliant behavior. "You know the price," they would say. I am angry that their need to control her was so much greater than their need to love her, and that their social worker reinforced that message. I am angry that both they and the social worker condescendingly (and wrongly) decided that Masho had never known love, or rules, or physical affection before, thus labeling her as damaged goods and absolving themselves of all responsibility for her emotional well-being. I am angry that, having never been a mother to Masho, she tells her "You will not have a new mother again."
I picture my own bright, beautiful, shining, loving children, and then I picture something or someone methodically trampling that until there's nothing left. Every family deserves to stay together if they wish, and every child deserves to be loved, even - especially - when that is hard.
"Every family deserves to stay together if they wish, and every child deserves to be loved, even - especially - when that is hard."
DeleteYES, YES, YES.
Oh my god, I am outraged. Let me start off by saying that this film was beautifully done, a powerful work of witnessing. The way that it opens, and you don't really understand until the end, affected me deeply. And the way that the filmmakers held back and explained little made me feel like I could share Moshu's confusion--I didn't understand what was going on, the reason for her abandonment, and I could not make sense of the rules of her new home. One of the most moving scenes for me was after Moshu has been tyrannically disciplined for LOOKING at her Mummy at dinner, and she stars, vacant, past the camera. This is a far cry from the enraged toddler who screamed for her mother and tried to tear apart what was around her. She seems to have become so thoroughly traumatized. This shot is placed in contrast with her biological mother in Ethiopia, finally succumbing to her despair and grief outside the adoption agency, throwing her bag and showing God her tears. Moshu's Ethiopian mother expresses the rage and despair and bitter grief that Moshu is forbidden from even hinting at. No, not only do Moshu's adoptive parents not allow the child to hint at her grief, they insist that she love them, that she joyfully *make them love her*! That seems to be the only standard that will be good enough. Other commenters have wisely noted already the fact that the social worker fails to point out that Moshu may have felt safe, loved, and happy in Ethiopia, and *that* is why she is so deeply unhappy. I think this points to a central problem at the heart of international adoption--the rhetoric of saviors and saved. We so want to believe that a child in a poor country has nothing to lose.
ReplyDeleteI so desperately want Moshu to feel compassion and empathy. I hope her caregivers now demand that Moshu's parents face the trauma she experienced and develop compassion for her; and that they get the love they need for themselves elsewhere so that they don't demand it from a child who has no reason at all to bestow it freely on them. They owe this to Moshu, there is still time for them to deeply apologize to her. And I so deeply hope Moshu can return to visit her parents in Ethiopia. This film showed me how incredibly important it is that you plan to return with your daughters every other year. How healing and empowering for everyone involved to be so brave and committed to doing this, and yet also, so necessary. I worry though that Moshu wouldn't be in any position to benefit from the tumult of visiting Ethiopia again since she has been so utterly abandoned and traumatized. She has no one now to fully witness her experience and to advocate for her and to earn her trust. This is so devastating. (same Anon commenter from above)
My apologies for misspelling Masho's name repeatedly...given the subject matter it feels especially insensitive for me to have gotten her name wrong and not to have been more careful. I wrote quickly because of the intense emotions stirred up by watching this.
DeleteI hope the same things you do, but from what the film showed of the parents and counselors, I don't have high hopes. But maybe this film will be the catalyst for help for Masho. There is a group that is trying to reunite her with her family in Ethiopia, and that may be the best thing, though I imagine she will need a lot of extra help to process all that has happened to her.
DeleteI also want to chime in from experience that even children who have been in orphanages often have people who love and miss them. I work with an orphanage in a country that makes foreign adoption almost impossible, and these kids are LOVED. They would still be better off in a family, because even the best institutional staff can't give them a family experience. But I honestly believe that Masho would have been better off in an orphanage like the one I work with than with these heartless people. Love is the most crucial thing - just because you have money doesn't mean you are saving the child.
DeleteI am so moved by this documentary. Masho's face haunts my thoughts. I felt so angry, so much despair, such horror. One of the commenters aboved used the phrase "slow dismantling of a human being" and this is exactly right.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that struck me is that this is not a case of a child stolen from her parents. Masho's parents do understand their inability to adequately parent their youngest children( particularly at a point in time where they believed they would die). Even as they desperately search for answers, they are not asking for their children to be returned - though they grieve their loss, they want their children to thrive, to be loved, to succeed.
This is not about the rightness or wrongness of international adoption. This is about the rightness or wrongness of the treatment of a child. Repeatedly the adults ignore the children's right to understand their lives, to make sense of their circumstances, to have their fears heard and their sorrows acknowledged.
This leaves Masho numb, shell shocked, retreating into an animal state of survival which is horrific to watch. I am not sure about Robba, the little boy. Just as the adoptive parents seem to dote on him (because he is easy, not making trouble), the documentary glosses over him. But he too has been hurt, deeply. His feelings also are being left untouched because he is not inconveniently raising them to the surface. This is not justice either.
Every child deserves a voice. I understand that sometimes love is very hard. Even with biological children, sometimes it is hard. With my step children I can see, love is very hard. But a child does not have to make themselves lovable to deserve love, and they do not have to make themselves convenient to deserve a voice. We do have to teach our children how to manage their emotions, to make choices and to acknowledge imperfections in life. We cannot grow up screaming and railing and weeping. But we can feel that way. And it is ok. And we should still be loved.
"This is about the rightness or wrongness of the treatment of a child."
DeleteVery well said.
I hope you don't mind, that I quoted few of your sentences above (I put your Account-Name on it), because you just hit the nail totally. Very beautiful words and thoughts, which I'm going to write to my heart and keep on my mind while raising my own adopted children. Thank you.
DeletePoor Masho! I feel like from the very first night her adoptive parents checked out. They didn't acknowledge or maybe couldn't recognize the pain she was in. If they had they would have better understood the way she was behaving and been more compassionate. I think maybe they just weren't equipped with the information or tools they needed to give Masho the unconditional, unending love she needed. They expected her to forget and be a sweet, halt little girl. As a mother of a 2 year old, I have found she acts out even when I work more hours than normal and I'm still there everyday. They're just too little to process things.
ReplyDeleteThat social worker or whoever it was that visited did a huge disservice to Masho. He should have recognized and then told her parents that she was obviously crying out for help. She needs love and open talks about what she's feeling and the things she's been through. Not distance, not to be "reserved. "
And her biological parents. I'm so sad for them too. You could tell the decision to give up their children was out of desperation and was heartbreaking for them. I feel like they were given half truths through the whole process and all they wanted was what was best for their kids. I just pray that everyone involved can find some peace over this whole situation. And especially for all the kids out there in positions they didn't ask to be in, without the love and support they need to thrive.
The list of people who did a disservice to Masho (and to Robba, too) in this film is long. I agree that her parents weren't prepared, and the professional that visited the home did nothing good for her. I've watched this twice now, and from what I gather, when he said there was an attachment disorder, he had only talked to the parents, not observed Masho herself. That is all kinds of wrong.
DeleteI found their reasoning about the possible attachment disorder to be completely backwards. Let's ASSUME Masho has an attachment disorder and restrict the love and compassion she gets, and then take it from there!?
DeleteHow about assuming she was reacting completely appropriately considering her circumstances, and treating her like a grieving and confused girl in need of love? And if a long term effort (like several years worth) down that road doesn't give any results, THEN you can start thinking about attachment disorders.
When starting of the assumption that there is something permantently wrong with her, how did they imagine things could have turned out any differently?
There was just so much miscommunication, right from the start. The adoptive parents decided it would make their flight difficult if the bio parents said goodbye to the children at the airport, and so they "understood" that the bio parents took the dinner together as a final goodbye. They were so presumptuous in the way they viewed the children's lives in Ethiopia. The scene where the father is yelling at his daughter to get her pen, take a pen, hurry to school? Not the picture of a parent too sick to care and parent that the Danish parents were painting of them at all.
ReplyDeleteThey took this little girl, ruined her, and then ripped her away from her biological brother. Ugh.
Miscommunication and presumption: that sums up a lot of it.
DeleteI kept thinking they must be leaving out the difficult behavior, they must be trying to respect Masho's privacy... but then came that utterly bizarre and downright cruel dinner scene. I could not figure out what the child had done, and obviously neither could the child. She had not eaten in 48 hours?! She looked terrified and shell shocked. Sweet Lord, you'd think they would be doing handstands to get her to eat instead of engaging in these control tactics and then tormenting her by loudly offering her brother candy. I'm sorry. I'm not being very respectful! But... but... did no one give them a hint about adoptive parenting? Okay it is a very, very steep learning curve even when you've done all the prep, although the social worker was equally clueless so I'm guessing the prep they did was useless. The kindest thing I can think is that the APs were losing it and easily triggered themselves because of behavior that was not made clear in the movie. Because the dinner thing couldn't just be about moving her head, that makes no sense. Okay, the mom mentioned 45 minutes of screaming and that is tough. I do know that, personally, first hand, having clocked up to two hours here. But they kept sending her away - they made their affection seem so conditional. Their expectations seem very harsh for children without trauma. When the mother says 'I love this very much and you don't get to break it' - ugh. I've certainly told my son he doesn't get to break things, but I hope never in a way that made it sound like I love the item more than him.(Let her play with the stupid tiger or put it away! Give her a toy that's okay to take outside, don't sit there and criticize every choice she makes. ARGH!) I hope this movie left out a lot. I hope there was more affection shown, more play, more compassion than we saw here. Because this is beyond my comprehension. This is so cold and devoid of nurturing and affection. There must have been some. I don't want to minimize the challenges and pain and exhaustion any AP experiences. My child is not 'easy'. But this was chilling and I hope not really reflective of their day to day parenting because I didn't see any behavior I'd consider unusual in a child adopted at that age.
ReplyDeleteAnd now she's in a home for neglected children? What a cruel contradiction in terms. My heart is breaking for this poor girl. She's lost everyone. Her first family. Her APs. Even her brother. I hope somehow this film's existence helps her get the help she needs to recover from what has been done to her.
And it's bad enough for the professionals to make these assumptions about the parents in Ethiopia, but the APs met them, sat down to dinner, saw them expressing their love for their children. How could they not contradict the assumptions?
And the Ethiopian parents - the completely unnecessary suffering is heartbreaking. All they wanted was post placement reports! How hard is that for anyone to do? Ugh.
I kept thinking the same thing, that they must have been leaving out difficult behavior! But then when the adoptive mother talked about the things she's done, like cutting the window with a crystal or tearing her room apart, I thought, "That's it?" And then I thought that cutting the window was a pretty normal kid thing to do, and I wonder why no one pulled her close when she started to tear apart her room. It seems like they would just let her go and be destructive and not step in to help her regulate. I would think somewhat differently if she were older, as it would be significantly harder to do time in with a bigger kid, but come on! Pick her up and hold her and breathe with her until she's done. Then talk about it, show love, help her make things right. I felt like their expectations were harsh for any children, and to have those expectations for a child who has experienced trauma? Kind of unbelievable. So much of the time I was thinking, "Wow, Masho is really well behaved." Asking if she could help get things out of the car, saying yes when asked to be gentle (and then having her brother attack her with no repercussions), using fork and knife appropriately at dinner, etc. - all these things are things that we work hard on in our house, and here they have those things and don't even get how good they have it.
DeleteRegarding the parents and post placement reports: we found out from Z's family that they never got any. There seems to be a breakdown in communication that they will need to go to the orphanage to get those. But if a family is destitute and cannot afford to go to the orphanage, what then? There has to be a way to get news of children to their families. Of course, there is a way, and that is independent contact. But clearly this adoptive family had no intention of anything of that sort. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
"I would think somewhat differently if she were older, as it would be significantly harder to do time in with a bigger kid, but come on! Pick her up and hold her and breathe with her until she's done."
DeleteI'm not sure it IS more difficult when they're older. We had a child placed with us that raged OFTEN. He was an 11 year old boy, small for his age, but still the size of an average 9-10 year old. The only thing that helped him stop raging was to hold him and rock him until he could stop. Granted, we had to do that on the floor because he was too heavy to be picked up, but it can be done. I've also, as a special ed teacher, had to do the same thing with high school students in a behavior program.
Kelly, I'm so glad for your perspective on this; I've always wondered how this would be handled with an older child. I imagine that some of the training available to special ed teachers would be very helpful to parents helping a child grieve, especially in terms of holding without harming.
DeleteI know what you mean when you feel that there *had* to be some more nurturing and affection than we saw on camera. But I grew up in a household (with biological parents) that had everything materially that we could want, and even kindness, but without any affection or empathy. It's common. And I don't know how adoption agencies can screen for empathy--I'm sure my parents would have been approved, because the inability to empathize and be playful and to be unconditionally affectionate is not obvious--though I wish they would.
ReplyDeleteI think there are psychological profile tests that could be helpful in testing for empathy as well as other important traits in prospective adoptive parents. I took one years ago when applying to an elite nanny agency, and it would have been very hard to skew the findings of the test for something like that by choosing the "right" answers. I would gladly have submitted to that kind of testing pre-adoption.
DeleteThis is a good, actionable idea to circulate among international adoption circles! In addition to the explicit preparation for attachment and trauma issues another commenter mentioned above.
DeleteI was able to get through 15 minutes and then became so tremendously sad. I want to be a part of the solution but feel so helpless.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of a solution for Masho, I'm not sure what will be best, but there are people aware of her situation now who could possibly help her get back to her family in Ethiopia; it is clear that they are capable of providing for her now. If you click through to youtube on the video, there's a little info there.
DeleteIn terms of making sure it doesn't happen to other children and families, there are two things you can do. First, support family preservation efforts; there are many organizations dedicated to keeping families together. Second, if you know someone who is planning to adopt, put them in touch with others who have adopted and know what it's like to help a child work through their grief. I am always ready and willing to speak to people who want to know more about the realities of life as an adoptive family, and you can feel free to give my email address or phone number out.
I know that I need to watch this as an adoptive parent. I need to. I just can't yet.
ReplyDeleteI think there is this huge disconnect in the adoption community, specifically in the religious adoption movement, between being for adoption and being prepared to parent a deeply traumatized child. A previous comment mentioned that another child in this movie had some trauma but didn't show the obvious behavior and we have a child like that - his little heart is hurt, deeply, but he buries beneath smiles and constant perfect behavior. Like "If I'm just always happy and a good boy no one will ever leave me or hurt me ever again." It would be so so easy to just think we got a good one and pat ourselves on the back. But it would be so completely wrong. Instead we have to invest ourselves just as deeply in to parenting his broken heart as we do in to parenting the broken heart of our little girl who screams and rages and can't keep herself regulated when the smallest thing goes outside of what she things is normal or right. But when all the adoption conferences are telling you Jesus wants you to rescue the 147 million orphans, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that this isn't about bringing home a cute baby (that wasn't a dig at your cute baby) who will be super grateful that you adopted them. This is about putting in hard work, probably forever, to help a child grow in to an adult, who can recognize and name and understand their story and emotions.
I will watch this. I really will. But right this second I just don't know if my heart could take it.
Take your time, Kait. It's rough.
DeleteI agree 100% with everything else you said; you are incredibly wise. In regards to the religious adoption movement, I sometimes can't even go there. Of course I believe in adoption; it's how we chose to build our family. But I don't believe it's for everyone. I don't believe that if you just "have a heart for the fatherless," you'll make a good adoptive parent. It takes work. It takes committing to love someone who might not love you back in the way you want them to. It is fantastic and amazing, but it is not all butterflies and rainbows and unicorns. And we all need to be honest about that and help those who do want to adopt to become the kind of parents that their children need.
I couldn't. I got five minutes in and I couldn't bear it. I know these kids, I work with these kids every day, and they crave and need love SO BADLY, I cannot bear to watch this. This is utterly, utterly tragic, that poor girl. My heart breaks for her - I cannot imagine thinking for a second about giving up my two. I honestly feel like these people were abusive, and I guess it just shows that adoptive parents can be abusers too - but there's got to be an answer to that. I have to believe there is.
ReplyDeleteDon't watch the rest of it, Bekka. Your heart gets broken every day by the littles you work with; no need to break it further.
DeleteI could repeat most of what has been said above but I wont. I mentioned the content of this documentary to my partner and he pretty quickly concluded that international adoption is a bad idea because of the lack of honesty/transparency when going through with adoptions. You never know what the situation fully is or if it was essentially human trafficking. How does one ever feel comfortable adopting internationally when this is the case? Not an accusation, I honestly don't understand how to trust the information presented to potential adoptive families or how to morally justify adoption when it's unclear what the situation is. On one hand, those children deserve love regardless of HOW they ended up in an orphanage. On the other, participating in adoptions in countries such as Ethiopia may help encourage human trafficking. So many moral gray areas :\
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest and say that I wouldn't trust the information presented to me as an adoptive parent. If we had known just how rampant the document inconsistencies were, we would have done a full independent investigation of Zinashi's case when we were in Ethiopia with her between court and embassy, and that is what I recommend to families who choose to pursue international adoption, particularly from Ethiopia, now. We did meet with a member of Zinashi's family and took video of the meeting in order to hold all parties accountable, but now we know that to get the full story, we really needed to send someone independent to ask the questions that they were afraid to answer in front of a room full of orphanage staff.
DeleteI did feel that, walking into Elvie's adoption, we would have to be very careful in order to be sure that the child we were adopting needed us and that the family understood what adoption was and wanted that for their child. Her case was incredibly easy to prove because of the rarity of her birth defect; a combination of confirming with doctors that she would need lifelong care that is unavailable in Ethiopia and having the embassy conduct their investigation and report their findings to us was sufficient to answer the questions of ethics in her case. She truly needed a family. That's the bottom line of why we chose to adopt, because there are children who do need families, and we wanted to be a family and felt we could meet the needs of a child with extra challenges.
It's a fine line to walk between making sure that as many children as possible who need families get one while also ensuring that children who do not need a new family can stay right where they are. It's sad and horrible that people would behave unethically when it comes to the needs and rights of a child, but unfortunately, that is reality not just in adoption, but in so many issues in our world. It's inconvenient to face these realities and complications, but it's the only way that justice can be done for children.
I wish it could be as easy (and as hard) as the adoptive parents doing the best they can with the information they are given. But we're not known for making the most ethical decisions when it comes to building our families.
DeleteNatasha, you raise a question that my husband and I grappled with endlessly. We adopted domestically, two little girls who have living and capable birth parents that simply did not want to parent them. They were not neglected. They were not abused. They were not unloved or really even unwanted. Had they remained in their homes of birth they would have been fine. So was our adoption unethical? I don't think so. But that's here, where the options for their birth parents are limitless really. It seems silly to compare that to our sons who came from Uganda.
When we got their referrals and it said no information was known about their biological families, our stomachs sank. We hired private investigators who all told us the same things - after talking to all parties named in the paperwork there was simply not enough to go on to even begin an investigation. Whoever abandoned these two boys did it anonymously and did it that way on purpose. Then those investigators explained how that was a socially acceptable thing in Uganda, the reasons why people do it, and some additional background stories that the parties involved hadn't put in the paperwork that didn't impact our adoption but we will value forever as tiny pieces for our sons (honestly tiny things -like color of the sandals one child was wearing.
So were those adoptions ethical? That's where the grey area comes in. Could there be people in Uganda searching for these boys? Absolutely. We still broadcast about them being found although it was years later. We still tried to locate anyone who might know anything about them. We still searched and found nothing. But someone who is missing them and wanting them back might still be there. We might have torn their family apart in the creation of ours. It is something I continue to struggle with on a daily basis as discussions of ethics circle the internet. I'm glad this questions are being raised.
The truth lives in a grey area though. There ARE kids who need families. Lots of kids in fact. Unfortunately, most of them aren't sweet healthy babies. Most of them are like Elvie and will require lifelong health care. Or they're like my boys and are considered hard to place because they have no social history and they're "older" (at the ancient ages of three and four). Lots of kids who really are older and can confirm that they are orphaned need families. Lots of sibling groups. The problem seems to lie in the fact that people are lining up for healthy young infants and those babies are usually still with their families because mom can still feed them, unless, like Elvie, there are extenuating circumstances.
In the end, like most families, we chose to proceed with our adoptions because we looked at all the facts we had and we went with our instincts. We felt that we had done all we could to support the families in our daughters cases and they did not want to parent. So we took custody. We felt we had done all we could do to locate the families in our sons cases and growing up in an orphanage in Uganda was not ideal when there was a family who wanted them in America, so we brought them home. Should a family in Uganda ever show up and say that our sons are actually their sons we would rejoice that some of their history has been restored to them.
But in the end, we did the best we could do, and we went forward with love and hope. That's really all you can do.
Kait - so well said. We live in a messy world. We can't bury our heads in the sand but we can't turn our backs on these kids. So complicated....
DeleteI agree with everything everyone previously said. I still wake up and have trouble falling back asleep thinking about this sweet girl and the many more out there just like her. My question is about the film makers. Did they know what kind of film they were going to make? I wonder if they thought they were going to make an uplifting piece about international adoption and it turned out completely opposite. I wonder if they were surprised at the outcome? The whole time I kept thinking how they must have been feeling witnessing this "dismantling of a human being" and not being able to stop it.
ReplyDeleteThere is a statement from the filmmaker on the film's website, which sums it up her intentions and her findings very well. The website is: http://mercymercy.dk
DeleteThere's also an interview with the filmmaker here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a0212tRZ-pg Thanks to MamaEthiopia for that link.
The film was so sad, painful to watch. After watching it a few days ago, I still keep seeing Masho's sad,traumatized face and wondering where she is now- if she is still living in a group home, how she is, did the documentary mke a difference in her life? I have questions about the film itself- how much editing was done, etc, etc. Could the Danish parents possibly be as horrible as they appeared to be? And if so, who let them pass a homestudy? Did the filmmakers intervene at all and, if not, why not? It seems as if filming without actually doing something would be akin to videotaping someone being pushed off a subway platform and not trying to help...
ReplyDeleteI've linked to an interview with the filmmaker in my reply to Melissa's comment above; it will answer some of the questions, particularly the one about intervening. Within Denmark, the person that would have been the one to contact about intervention was actually the psychiatrist that gave the bad advice. So there was really no way for the filmmaker to intervene that would have been effective.
DeleteI think that the Danish parents were unprepared, and then once they were in the middle of a difficult situation, they had no idea what to do. From what we see in the film, they don't appear to be very nurturing. I'm not sure if that's true or not. The filmmaker mentions that they had done extensive preparation for adjustment by way of classes and books, but they seemed unable to use that information in the actual scenarios that played out.
I found Masho's first mother amazing in her consistency (at least on film) of her love and knowledge of her daughter (quite different than the Danish couple's summary of Masho's parents). Even in the Q&A I really found it amazing that the parents (supposedly) wanted to have input into her care in the orphanage because they knew her personality and knew that they could help her (of course, I find the whole situation horrific). Simply looking at the mother and her faithful love and commitment to her daughter really should speak to all of us that come into adoption with preconceptions of first parents that all parents (well most) are the same all over the world and make decisions based off of what they believe to be in the best interest of their child and that no parent (despite their poverty) should ever be assumed (based off of those decisions) to not love their child, or not have bonded with their child, or have abused their child (this comes out in the written information about the film, in the timeline, that there was in interview with the institution's head master saying that he believed Masho had been abused in her first family), or severely neglected their child. To me, the film was wonderful in showing that "even" in poverty situations- love, attachment, commitment, passion, sacrifice, joy in children, playfulness, songs, hopes for a good future, dignity, games--all occur to the same extent everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI.am.sick!!!
ReplyDeleteHaving adopted an angry, violent and very sick child I fought every single day for his heart and his healing. That doesn't make me a saint, it makes me a Momma who chose to adopt a child coming from a painful place.
I am so tired of adoptive parents making this about them and these parents clearly did. It's not about us... if we choose to adopt we decide to love them through thick and thin and do EVERYTHING to help them heal!!
2.5 years later I have a beautiful, loving son who still struggles some days but that loves me, his Daddy and his siblings! I wasn't sure he would ever be able to function in society but he can!!!! He has friends who jump with joy when he enters a room and he goes to school ready to learn and play. Therapy, love, patience and grace healed so much of his heart!!
These parents failed their daughter miserably!!!!!!!!!
I just wanted to comment on the gross misinformation that the Ethiopian family received from their health care provider at the time of their HIV diagnosis. They expected to live only 5 years, so they relinquished their children thinking they would have no parents and be forced to live on the street. This is a terrible error in the age of anti-retroviral therapy. It appeared as though they were taking antiretroviral drugs which can take an HIV diagnosis from a death sentence to a chronic but manageable illness. There is still such stigma surrounding HIV world-wide and not near enough access to education about the illness and available treatment. I was also horrified to watch this film play out. I know nothing of Danish culture. Does anyone have any knowledge about their cultural approaches to discipline and child-rearing? It seemed that the approach the adoptive parents took (and the advice given to them by the professional that entered their home) was just the opposite of everything I've ever read about parenting a traumatized child. I also wonder if the adoptive parents realized that those children entered the orphanage just two months prior to their adoption, such a short and tender time period certainly filled with confusion and deep despair. How tragic that the professional that they called into their home for help gave such wretched advice and based it on the assumption that the children were neglected by their first family (and thus unable to form normal attachments) rather than what seems more obvious to me, that this child was grieving a deep and profound loss. It seemed to me also that the adoptive parents met with the Ethiopian family as a formality, not to learn about them, their preferences, their experiences with their children, approaches to parenting, etc. I would have considered that time a priceless time to gain insight into the children's personalities and preferences, what provides them comfort, their favorite foods, knowledge of their histories (birth, significant events, etc.). What a tremendous opportunity to connect with their first family and establish an open line of communication back to the children's first home. Of my three adopted children, I have met only one of their first families, and I am hopeful that one day we will be able to meet the families of the other two with the sole purpose of connecting with them and allowing our children to be a part of their lives by visiting when we can, sending letters, etc. This film has given me pause, made me think about what assumptions I may bring into parenting my children that may be terrible errors simply because I don't know all that happened prior to their arrival in my home. I bathe my days in prayer for healing for my kids and for wisdom in parenting them. I would love to hear more practical suggestions for helping our traumatized kids. I've educated myself as much as I can, but I feel like sharing in the experiences of others gives me such encouragement.
ReplyDeleteI am not from Denmark, but Norwegian culture is quite similar to Danish, as are all the Scandinavian countries. I can try to answer your question based on that (but bear in mind that some of my answers will be based on an assumption that things work more or less the same as in Norway. Any Danish readers are free to correct me).
DeleteAs in all countries, there are obviously big differences between different families. However, most Norwegians I know would probably react very badly to this treatment of a child. In other words, your reactions can't really be blamed on cultural differences between the Danish family and American viewers.
I do think some of you are missing some cultural or societal nuances when it comes to the professionals that the family interacts with, though. All the Scandinavian countries have public health care, and relatively little private practice as compared with the US. In combination with smaller number of inhabitants (Denmark has approx 5.5 million inhabitants total), there is a lot less of the specialization than I think you have in the states. Though adoptions are not uncommon in Scandinavia, there are simply not enough adoptive families in need of services to get any real adoption specialists. I know of ONE psychologist who specializes in adoptive families in all of Norway.
This means that none of the professionals the family interact with are likely to be adoption specialists or have any special knowledge of adoption. The guy with the stethoscope seems to me to be the general practitioner the family sees for all their basic medical need (pediatricians primarily work in hospitals, pediatric clinics are uncommon), and the psychologist is probably employed by the county. He might work with families in contact with the CPS, but it seems highly unlikely that he has any special training in, or experience with international adoption.