"Trendiness" II

Stacy (and others)~ I appreciate your opinions. Stacy is the only one who left her comment in the comment section, the rest PM'd me.

Although you may have read it that way, I don't have an "aversion to people who adopt because it is promoted at their church" per se--but I do believe that it is a great source of the "trend" and I believe that trend will fade. The future will tell.

I can appreciate the woman in Stacy's example and am hoping that the "love" of her child as an individual person will far outweigh the woman's goal of performing a charitable act and that the young girl can truly become a respected member of her family. Now, truthfully and sadly, in this young girl's situation, to be a charity case in a family who cares for her and educates her is probably a huge step up from her current living situation and hope for the future. But whether one version of a person's life is better than another version of their life is unknown and not for me to decide.

And, to set the record straight, I don't really have a problem with children (bio or adopted by the way) appreciating and being thankful for their parents who have loved and cared for them. I appreciate and am thankful for my mother who cared and raised me and I hope someday my kids (bio and adopted) appreciate and are thankful for me and DH as parents. I very much appreciate them for being good kids.

I met a man recently (it was a weird work situation and I had to see him a number of times over a few mos). He and his wife had adopted 4 Native American children. He was very proud of them and was telling me about their various accomplishments. It was obvious that he cared for them. He also told me, repeatedly, that adopting them was the only "charitable" "humanitarian" and "good" thing he had ever done. To me, it seemed that the appreciation of his own good deed outweighed the love he had for the children. Selfish love = personal gain. I don't think that's the right reason for adopting.

But, I don't want to/get to/have to decide who can adopt and who can't based upon whether or not their reasons are the "right" ones. So, this is just my opinion. Others may differ, and that's OK.

ADOPTING IS THE NEW BLACK

Interesting. Apparantly this is a new tshirt being put out by Urban Outfitters. I've never bought anything there, never even been in one of the stores.

Recently, the existence of this tshirt has caused quite a stir on the online IA groups. I was intrigued that some people thought it was "racist" --at first they didn't understand that "the new black" meant fashionable --really had to chuckle on that one!! Anyway. Once that was cleared up it still appeared that the overwhelming majority thought the tshirt was horrible, awful, and over the top offensive. I guess I'm in the mini-minority here. It just doesn't have that effect on me.

Like it or not, IA has become part of the mainstream--quite suddenly really. And, its not primarily because its been going on with Korean adoptions since the 50s and thousands upon thousands of families have been created this way. Its because of Angelina Jolie, not her really, but the media's preoccupation with selling magazines that keep certain people in the public eye so that mega rich corporate movie studios can get people to go to the movies and buy the DVDs and they can make even more MONEY!!!!

On another group, someone made the very accurate point that all of this media frenzy is very effective. How long ago was it that Paris What's-She-Do?? Hilton started carrying around a little dog in her purse. People and US and all the other fun to read mags had pix of it. Suddenly, little tiny purse dogs were all the rage. Target has a whole aisle devoted to cute little doggie items and accessories to go along with the pets. The onslaught of media coverage was very effective and started a huge "trend" --the trend is waning now. I see that Paris now is dragging around a new kind of creature in her bag. Hopefully all the little dogs who were bred and adopted are now still being cared for carefully and not abused or dropped off at the local shelter. Little dogs, particularly chihuahuas are a lot of work.

Definition of "trendy" from dictionary.com:
1. of, in, or pertaining to the latest trend or style.
2. following the latest trends or fashions; up-to-date or chic: the trendy young generation.
3. appealing to faddish taste: a trendy hotel. –noun
4. a trendy person, place, object, or idea.
[Origin: 1960–65]

I know some will blast me for this, but I think IA has become a bit "trendy" --it is in "style" and commonplace to many due to the media and celebrity involvement. I know for a fact that there are people who are adopting for what I will call "THE WRONG REASONS" --on this blog I get to say what "THE WRONG REASONS" are because, well, its my blog. The wrong reason is:

As a charity project --complete with church-sponsored save-an-orphan spaghetti dinner fund raisers. These are the same people who believe and say to others of China "they kill their girls there" and want to feel good about themselves about doing this charitable thing and want to be seen as saving part of the world through their actions (I'm sorry if this hurts someone's feelings but YUCK!!!)

This, my cyber friends, is the trendy part.

Now, if you disagree with my statement you are more than welcome to write in your own blog about how my reason is "wrong" --my reason for anyone who is still reading or even cares is:

Because we want to add a member to our family

And, for the record, I believe quite strongly that the majority of people adopting do so for this reason, the right reason. They have had fertility issues, they chose adoption because they believe that they don't need to give birth to a child in order to have a child, etc. But at the core is the desire to parent and not to do a charitable act.

To those "trendy" adopters who are entering this process due to the "trend" I really hope that somewhere along the way, sooner rather than later, you get with the program. Because when your kid disappoints and frustrates you (which will happen I guarantee at some point in time cuz well, they're people) you're going to be pretty unhappy that they're not more appreciative of your charitable act.

As far as the "trend" for IA --I believe it too will pass. Eventually, AJ with or without Brad will complete her little family, people will move onto something else to talk and think about. There will be fewer links on the front page of msn.com to IA sites. People will look into it and think, wow!! that's a lot of work!

But, there will always be people who want to build their families and add a new member for whom adoption is the answer and they will do research and finally be led to IA.

Families will still be made this way but, it won't be "trendy"

Found this on someone else's blog (Thanks Nicole) --thought it was fun. Copy, paste and complete then send me a link if you want.

A is for age:
40 --but I will be 41 in about a month

B is for Beer:
Don't drink, used to, liked Corona with a lime :-)

C is for Career:
Attorney

D is for my Dog's Name:
Cat only, Delilah

E is for Essential Item I Use Everyday:
Internet!

F is for Favorite T.V. Show:
I'm a TV junkie so I have lots of fav's but I think my current fav is Rome--I love that show!

G is for Favorite Game:
To play: Scrabble; to watch: basketball

H is for Hometown:
Rancho Cucamonga

I is for Instruments I Play:
Piano a little bit

J is for Favorite Juice:
Cranberry anything

K is for Whose Butt I’d Like To Kick:
George Bush aka the Shrub (baby bush LOL!) --I hated Bush when hating Bush wasn't cool

L is for the Last Place I Ate:
Besides home?? Rambertos --hole in the wall mexican food

M is for Marriage:
Married 21 years

N is for my Name:
Susan

O is for Overnight Hospital Stays:
Other than when the kids were born, I was hospitalized twice as a kid for concussions

P is for People I was With Today:
work people

Q is for Quote:
"What goes around, comes around"

R is for Biggest Regret:
Not having more bio kids when I was younger and not adopting sooner.

S is for Sport:
Shopping???

T is for Time I Woke Up Today:
6:00, 6:10, 6:20, 6:30 --then I got up

U is for Current Underwear:
White --so boring

V is for Vegetable You Love:
Pretty much all except zucchini --ick!

W is for Worst Habit:
Is grumpiness a habit? If not, then maybe biting my nails

X is for X-rays I Have Had:
Many. But I think we should change X to "X is for most memorable kiss" --you can just visualize if you want.

Y is for Yummy Food You Ate Today:
Breakfast burritos

Z is for Zodiac:
Gemini

Today is Sunday. Referrals, such as they were, came out last Monday (I think. I'm kinda losing track of days here). I finally feel up to (capable of??) posting. As anyone in the China adoption world probably knows, this April batch only covered 2 days, Oct 25 and Oct 26, 2005. To say that it was a kick in the gut would be putting in mildly. This wait has been very painful but this referral batch was truly the low point. I'm not much of a crier, never have been, but this one got to me. To wait and wait is tough but to wait for something with an semi expected date that moves exponentially further and further away on a monthly basis is surely some form of torture.

When I first saw the referral batch, I was numb. I mean truly when is the last time that anything positive has happened as far as the adoption goes?? We sent off our dossier on 1/20/06, we were logged in about 3 weeks later on 2/13/06. I have been telling myself we would have a referral in about 12 mos for just over 14 mos now. How can this possibly be happening?? The only thing that makes me feel better is looking at the line behind us. Honestly, those people who are being logged in now must have a lot of faith in the process. There are 111 more LIDs ahead of us but people continue to be logged in everyday. I can't imagine if my LID was 4/16/07. Imagine trying to do the count down starting at 545 LIDs ahead of you? In the last 13 mos, CCAA has only covered 5 mos of LIDs, if they continue at that same rate we should have our referral in less than a year. If they continue at that rate those logged in today might not see the face of their child until 2011!!! (Gulp!!!)

Anyway, on the bright side, many families were formed with this last batch. Looking at the pix of those little babies makes the wait a little more bearable (and I mean a little). So here they are:

Mia
Ruby Mei
Zoey
Milana Ling
Elysa Xiaolang
Lauren Ming
Reagan
Teagan
Clara Beth
Samantha
Audrey
Lola
Marnina
Chun baby
Madelyn
Sophie Elizabeth
Meili
Cameron--boy
Savanah
Geordyn Belle
Marissa