EXTRA LESSON – ADOPTION

VOCABULARY

Adoption A. agency A. triad A. attorney A. plan

A. facilitator Birth parent Closed adoption Dossier

Expectant Mother Foster parents Home study

Independent Adoption Private Adoption Hard-to-place

Kinship adoption Legal guardian Open adoption

Placement Readoption Referral Revocation

Transracial adoption Adoptee Age out

There are two main ways to adopt a newborn within the United States: through an
agency or a private attorney. The latter is referred to as an “independent” or “private”
adoption.
International adoption is becoming less common and more difficult, but an accredited
adoption agency or professional can help you navigate the process.
Around the world, thousands of children are growing up in orphanages, group homes and
foster homes with no foreseeable plan to go home to an adoptive family.
If you are exploring the possibility of adopting a child with a different background from
your own, educate yourself on the nuances involved in forming a transracial or transcultural
family.
All adoptive parents must complete a “home study,” the process that will clear your way to
being able to legally adopt.
The adoption process in Brazil is gratuitous and law allows to be realizes by any person
over the 18 age, married or not, since there’s a 16 years difference between them and the
adoptee.

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Almost all children eligible for international adoption today have at least some degree
of special needs — from minor developmental delays due to premature birth or
institutionalization to more moderate health conditions to condi tions requiring lifelong
care.
The process of adopting can be a long, complicated and emotional ride, with far more legal
and financial roadblocks than many people assume.
There are three main paths to adopting in the United States: through the foster care system,
with the help of a local adoption agency or private attorney, and internationally.
Before embarking on an adoption process, you should be clear about your motivations for
doing so.
Adopting abroad has been steadily declining in recent years, thanks to the closure of several
countries’ international adoption programs.

Questions:

1. How is adoption viewed in your country?

2. Do you think any person should be allowed to adopt?
3. What are some of the reasons people adopt children?
4. What’s the hardest age to adopt and why?
5. Is it better to adopt babies, toddlers, kids or teenagers?
6. What celebrities do you know of who adopted a child?
7. What age do you tell your child they are adopted?
8. Who’s more likely to be adopted: boy or girls?
9. What are some of the reasons people give children up for adoption?
10. Why it’s so more difficult to an LGBT couple to adopt than a straight one?
11. Is religion that important when adopting a kid?
12. Should adoptees meet their parents?
13. Do you think adoptees are more problematic to deal with than biological kids are?
14. Is adoption a dangerous thing?
15. Should people be able to decide what type of children they want to adopt? For example:
boy or girl, hair color, age, etc.
16. Would you ever adopt a child?

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Is Kung Fu Panda 2's adoption theme cause for concern?
Adoption is a frequent theme in children's films, but its treatment can give rise to concern.
Recently, some adoptive parents have detected unsympathetic
messages in Tangled, Despicable Me and Hop. Kung Fu Panda 2, however, does its best to
uphold currently orthodox doctrine. So this one shouldn't pose any problems. Should it?

Po, the martially artful bear of the title, grows up as the son of Ping, a noodle shop
proprietor who actually found him in a radish crate. As Ping is a goose, Po ought perhaps to
have questioned his parentage, but didn't. Ping doesn't tell him the truth until he's grown up,
which is of course regrettable, but Ping is pretty embarrassed about this so it's all right.

Once Po realises he's adopted, he's beset by an identity crisis so troubling that it distracts
him from the very important war he's waging to save China from an evil peacock. "Who am
I?'' he asks himself. “Where did I come from?'' To attain the inner peace his kung fu master
tells him is a necessary condition for success, Po must uncover his origins.

He finds the village whence he came and acquires what he thinks are the facts. This enables
him to prevail over the peacock and to rescue the country. At peace with himself at last, he
returns to Ping and embraces him as his true father. Thus, both the necessity for genetic
truth and the primacy of emotional investment are duly asserted.

Barely half a century ago, it was still thought best for adopted children to be denied not only
the details of their biological parentage but also sometimes even the fact of their adoption.
Now, of course, the opposite view prevails. Moreover, there's no doubt that, as they grow
up, most adoptees do want to find out where they came from. Po's example may encourage
children to feel they can attempt this without disrupting their existing familial relationships.

Yet there's a bit more to it than that. Luckily for Po, his quest is successful. Adoptees in the
UK have had the right to see birth records since 1975 and are given help to find out more.
Nonetheless, some will have to live in permanent ignorance of their full background,
especially those adopted from overseas. Po is not only spared such a fate, he enjoys further
good fortune: his history turns out to be just as he might have wished it.

Many adopted children are tormented by the fear that their parents deliberately abandoned
them; this can make them feel worthless. Conveniently, Po learns that his mother did
everything she could to protect him before (apparently) being hunted down by the wicked
peacock's wolves. Some of his human counterparts may end up receiving rather less
welcome tidings.

Other youngsters, beset by the usual adolescent anxieties, convince themselves that contact
with their birth parents will be the answer to their problems. This may be far from the case.

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After all, some will have been adopted from care after parental abuse or neglect. Finding out
the truth could be traumatic.

The Adoption Reunion Handbook quotes Jackie, who found her birth mother after a two-
year search only to discover she had little interest in her daughter. "You think that when you
find your birth relative, they will be everything to you, but it can make things worse: you
can be horribly rejected all over again or find out things about your past or your birth
parents that you don't want to hear ... You can end up feeling like a lesser person, a total
reject."

Some adoptees might do best to leave their backstory unexplored. Certainly, they may no t
all benefit from a storyline that advocates laying it bare in order to find success in life. The
implication that a person's backstory will be comforting may be even less salutary.

The original Kung Fu Panda gives the impression that Po was probably adopted but that this
is no big deal. The new film does get round to proclaiming that it's not where you've come
from that matters but where you're going. Nonetheless, its story conveys a different and less
inspiring message.