Heebie, I think what Natilo might have been highlighting as astonishingly offensive was not the differential pricing but the labeling of the categories: "Traditional" vs. African American or Special Needs.
Or, at least, that's the part that is astonishingly offensive to me. As opposed to the differential pricing, which is just ordinarily depressingly offensive.
Maybe? Is their ill-considered attempt to be tactful really worse than the underlying racial and physical discrimination that they're trying to game?
As I've said before, on a state and federal level (so not so much for infant adoptions but from foster care) the designation is special needs/hard to place, so probably all of my kids would have qualified as having special needs in our state, but they also all qualify as hard-to-place because they're non-white and 2 or older. (I should look this up; possibly it's over 2 and Selah wouldn't count, but whatever, point stands.)
That said, it's not terribly hard to place black or biracial babies with white families and I think the real problem is how adoption agencies make money. There are drastic problems in the foster care system, but I want a Halfordismo salt-the-earth approach to private adoptions that would change the dynamics and take the profit motive out of the picture. There is a whole lot of really gross stuff that goes on.
Oh, and I definitely think there are families going for the cheapest baby who are absolutely not equipped to parent transracially. I've seen some online and in the real world, but I have no idea how to judge what percentage they might be. It's really sad, though, and something that upsets me a lot. When I do foster trainings, I make a point of reminding people that you're not a bad person if you choose to care for children who look like you, because it really is one more thing. (And we're in the middle of Mara's regular placement anniversary/birthday meltdown season, so believe me, I hear a lot about how far from ideal it is for her to have a white mom, even one she adores.)
Yeah, the word "traditional" fits very closely with the idea "blacks aren't real Americans / don't belong here" that's always lurking.
I do know somebody who adopted some "high risk kids" ;2 sets of siblings).
Despite being upper-income types, part of the deal was that the kids got to stay on MassHealth (Medicaid/ S-CHIP). It covered services that their kids needed that their private insurance wouldn't. Single-payer would solve this, but in the interim, a deal like this would make it much easier to take on the responsibility.
I want a Halfordismo salt-the-earth approach to private adoptions that would change the dynamics and take the profit motive out of the picture.
I'm not sure what this implies - can you unpack? Like ban private adoptions and decuple public funding?
but I want a Halfordismo salt-the-earth approach to private adoptions that would change the dynamics and take the profit motive out of the picture.
This, I don't understand why it's not the case already. The idea that legal parenting responsibility for a child can be transferred from one person to another through the agency of any entity that's considering anything but the best interests of the child is bizarre.
Click a state here to see the definitions of special needs/hard-to-place and what post-adoption support subsidies are available. I know I've mentioned this before because I showed the chart with figures for the whole country that really drive home how much this varies. Even from foster care, people who adoption very young children or white children (so not hard-to-place or with special needs) often end up not able to keep the children's Medicaid cards like we do and not receiving any state subsidy or even services like therapy after the adoption is final.
So, there's an opportunity for arbitrage.
So now we know understand this lyrical choice in Oliver!
One boy,
Boy for sale.
He's going cheap.
Only seven guineas.
That -- or thereabouts.
Small boy...
Rather pale..
7: I have to go do PTO stuff I've been putting off in like 20 seconds, but the short version of my reforms:
- Give all adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Make it at age 18 or whatever, but stop acting like illegitimacy or having been placed for adoption are shameful secrets the person they matter to most must never know about.
- Stop letting agencies fly pregnant women to Utah specifically to disenfranchise the baby's fathers.
- Disallow/discourage pre-birth matching in which prospective adoptive parents pay the expectant mothers' housing/medical costs, making her feel that she owes them the baby.
- Discourage/disallow a lot of coercive behavior toward expectant mothers, specifically the Birth Mother Good Mother propaganda the anti-abortion movement has created to try to pressure (white) women into thinking that they're failures if they choose to parent.
- Get rid of pricing differentials and either have people pay on a scale based on what they're able to pay or just get rid of it altogether, but lawyers and agency directors should not be getting rich off adoptions. (But I'm not in favor of people getting rich anyway, so don't necessarily listen to me.)
I know the justification for having black babies cost less is that the white cost is the "real" cost and agencies just have to pull in money from elsewhere to subsidize what they lose on black babies, but I think that's super-bogus and that there's no need for adoption to be as expensive as it is except that people do get rich from it and it's turning babies into commodities.
Another area in which blatant racial discrimination is the norm is sex workers' client profile. A good percentage advertise as explicitly refusing to take A-A clients (sometimes qualified to under-40 A-A clients). If we ever get a legal and regulated sex work regime, I wonder what will be the fate of that.
The idea that legal parenting responsibility for a child can be transferred from one person to another through the agency of any entity that's considering anything but the best interests of the child is bizarre.
"Best interests" is a hard one for me. It would have been in my girls' best interests to have their original families healthy enough that they wouldn't have needed to come into foster care in the first place. In one case that would have been fairly trivial, in another maybe close to impossible, and the third is murkier. But I feel like some sort of moral equivalent of "preponderance of the evidence" is a better standard. Certainly lots of people think I can't be their best parent because I'm not straight, and that's a loss they do have to deal with. But it's not about whether Angelina Jolie could be better for them than I am but whether I'm equipped to meet their needs to a socially acceptable level. And the state has said I am, thank goodness.
Okay, now for real writing up some bullshit to get sent home in the newsletter.
The racially discriminatory practices of prostitutes are why Charlie Sheen has been linked to prostitutes so often and Emilio Estevez has not.
14: I once heard a Harvard Law School professor argue that it would be better, essentially, to treat children as the property of their parents. I think that when people are advocating a "best interest of the child" standard, they are really just talking about looking at the interest of the child as opposed to viewing the child as chattel.
Disallow/discourage...
Needs more salt.
Stop letting agencies fly pregnant women to Utah specifically to disenfranchise the baby's fathers.
Wait, what?
Federalism is messed up.
Yeah, traditional is a really bizarre euphemism here. "Traditional" as an opposite of "transracial" would be kind of weird already, but it's really bizarre in this context to assume that all adoptive parents are white. Also, are Hispanics traditional? Are biracial kids African-American?
The different prices don't bother me, for the reason that Devi's Advocate Heebie-Geebie lays out.
It's the word "traditional" makes me cringe.
I don't entirely know what the meaning of my different reactions is.
it's not terribly hard to place black or biracial babies with white families and I think the real problem is how adoption agencies make money.
It's pretty hard in the UK because the law requires that you place adopted kids within their own racial group. The authorities would much rather leave a child in a care home for an extra year or so than place them with a family that didn't match racially. Mainly, those children are blac.k - 20% of children in care are nonwhite, but only 13% of the UK population
Link:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/jul/06/children.communities1
16: was it Bar/tho/let or is there another?
18: I'm not saying Utah's not complicit, and if Utah shaped up, which supposedly is happening, they'd just go to the next-worst state, but there have been egregious cases. I have to go by Halloween candy, but if anyone finds the one where the dad actually filed his paperwork within the ridiculously short legal time limits but the state worker chose not to stamp them as received and the judge ruled that meant they hadn't been received, even though they'd been mailed in time and were sitting on the proper desk.
Oh, I'd also get rid of MEPA, which was explicitly created to make it easier for white parents to adopt children of color, and replace it with something that evaluates prospective parents' cultural competence and willingness to not be raceblind and stupid. Too many agencies (public and private) think MEPA disallows them from even mentioning race let alone making white parents think about internalized racism and white privilege etc., and there's a huge fear of lawsuits here that keeps things far from the good ol' best interests of the child in practice. Also, I know of almost no agencies that are actually doing appropriate diligent recruitment of foster and adoptive parents that look like the children in the pool of foster/adopted children in the area. I know in big cities foster parents are predominately minorities, but that is not true at all in much of the rest of the country even though non-white children are overrepresented in foster care. I know the two other black people who've been foster parents in our county in the 6 years we've been at it, and they've both adopted white kids and closed their homes, which is fine but means that every black kid from our county in that time has ended up somewhere else or with someone non-black, since all three of my girls are from the next county over.
19: Supposedly a lot of private agencies won't work with black prospective adoptive parents because they say that placing parents want white families, which is of course is a chicken-egg thing when that's all they can offer.
And the MEPA law I reference is in response to a policy that was understood to be like the one ajay describes. Both extremes are inadequate responses.
The word 'Traditional' really is what seems offensive about this to me, but I think part of why that's true is that it's right next to 'African-American'. Even working with their clear assumption that most adoptive parents are going to be/want white children there are less obviously offensive ways of doing that: if the comparison had just been something indicating parents adopting a child of a different race that alone would have probably accomplished the same goal (given their assumptions anyway) and more accurately reflected what I assume their reasoning is.
The fact that they link to their refund policy is kind of hilarious as well, not so much because they have one (there are a lot of fees and it's easy to see someone backing out halfway through the procedure) but because their refund policy is "no". I'm not sure that needed a link to a .pdf file. (The policy is a list of the various fees with "non-refundable" written next to each one.)
All the cultural concerns and so on are valid, and the Guardian article quotes some strong stuff from adults who were transracially adopted as kids, but I have heard far too many horror stories about children in care (via family members who worked in related fields) for my view to be anything other than "Get those kids into some sort of an adopted family as fast as you can. As long as the parents aren't going to abuse the child, the issue of cultural competence and racial background is important if you can manage it, but it comes a long, long way second to the issue of getting them the hell out of the care system." Yes, there may well be negative effects of being a nonwhite kid adopted by white parents , but they are nothing compared to the effects of being a nonwhite kid not adopted by white (or nonwhite) parents.
Maybe they fool people and traditional actually means Native American or something.
The price disparity for special needs doesn't bother me so much, not that different from the state subsidizing special needs because they do require more expensive schooling, medical care, etc. Although I guess some people would say that doing the same for African-American is like reparations or something.
I sort of assume that by "traditional" they mean "matches the parents" - the offensive part is the assumption that white parents are the only parents in town, not that minority kids aren't part of history.
I emailed them to ask what they meant by "traditional".
Given that it's explicitly contrasted with African American, I think it has to mean "White" (with fees for kids who are neither not appearing on the chart).
I sort of assume that by "traditional" they mean "matches the parents"
Judging by the categories available, I think they're pretty obviously using "Traditional" to mean "Non-African American Children without Special Needs".
And that's... really not a good use of that word.
Isn't it a tradition to pretend everyone is white?
29: obviously that's what it means. I just want someone to write back and say "traditional means white".
I like to think of it as meaning something about clothing and decor. "Traditional" children are in little bib overalls in gingham-draped cribs.
with fees for kids who are neither not appearing on the chart
Those come as buy one traditional, get one "neither" free.
22: Jumping in; basically, if it's the case I'm thinking of, Utah has a ridiculous short window in which to file the case, and during the time period in question, the government had switched to a four-day work week, and the following Monday was a holiday. The father sent in the paperwork on time, but they weren't processed till the following week.
That's aside from the fact that most of the adoption agencies really take advantage of the short window to coach expectant mothers to fail to notify the fathers. And like most things here, this is bound up with religious ideas of the family; it's okay to steal people's babies if you're going to give them a good Mormon home, in some circles. But there has been some movement to change the law.
Did anybody else notice that $10,000 is basically 3/5ths of $17,000?
How much do you pay for a basic child?
22, 35: Has to have been this case. Unreal, though at least a slim majority of the Utah Supreme Court decided not to go along with it.
I'm running a nontraditional adoption agency for people seeking tomboys, sissies, and black babies who admire Reagan. I've been trying to find scientifically minded babies who love Jesus, but no luck so far.
"Traditional" probably actually means "White + Asian + Light-Skinned Hispanic", right? They're trying to say "kids you can raise without thinking about race", relying on the history of international adoption which has UMC-normalized the idea of an Asian kid with white parents.
This is mostly off-topic, but I was surprised to learn at a meeting today that it's illegal to explicitly offer a fellowship only to minority applicants, and that when a fellowship that tries to get that message across in the clearest legal way is offered, about half the applicants turn out to be white males.
But maybe it's legal to have a fellowship for nontraditional applicants?
"What about Mexicans? How much for a Mexican kid? And what about the Koreans? Do they come with violins, or are those extra?"
The UK is also weird about not letting older women adopt (or was in the 90's). So I know a woman whose baby died in the NICU after labor that nearly killed her. And she chose to adopt from Latin America--even though she's white--because Roman Catholic. She couldn't adopt a kid from the UK.
A big thing I hear from liberal friends who've adopted recently is that if they hadn't adopted the baby, it would have gone into foster care and so this was giving the mother meaningful choice. On the other hand, it means that they just paid 30K to be able to adopt a child who was most likely exposed to drugs or alcohol in utero if they're going to be taken into care at birth (and this is true of many other babies placed for adoption nowadays) and thus who may need various sorts of often-expensive intventions in latet life, but at least the baby and mother are spared the horror scenario of the child getting Medicaid and being placed with a trained family while professionals work with the mom to help her regain custody. (And I'm not trying to make foster care look good or seem like I'm encouraging it. I just think this is more adoption agency spin.)
45 - older people, not just women. Last I knew the cutoff was 40.
I didn't look at the website for long, but I thought traditional was contrasted to identified - they talk about the traditional program and the identified program. And then AA and SN were different again.
||
Only a small minority of staff have dressed up for Halloween despite the costume contest our CEO announced. We're not a wacky-antics workplace, thank god.
|>
Should I turn off the porch light to encourage trick-or-treaters? I have a pumpkin with a candle in it, to be traditional.
Around here, the porch light is the sign that you're open for business.
I've been wearing devil horns all day.
No trick-or-treaters here at the office. Just a big buffoon masquerading as a man catching up on his work.
We had the porch light on, but it doesn't much help unfamiliar people navigating the stairs in the dark. We only had 350 or so trick-or-treaters, I'd guess, but it was rainy and very cold and our street isn't fabored because of all the steps. Everyone I know on other streets ran out of candy as usual.
We ran out. Seven bags of candy? No idea how many ToTers that worked out to.
Oh finally home. Jammies and big kids are camping in a friends backyard. I'm beat.
And on our porch, candy bowl is untouched.
We only got three groups of trick or treaters. We were braced for more. Last year we ran out in an hour. This year we're going to have to find some good cocktail recipes that include Reese's cups.
48: Ok, makes sense. The woman/couple I knew was over 40. I think she had her baby in her late 30's and then tried to adopt.
60: Mix with grape schnapps for PB&J shots.
60: The word got out that you aren't a well-stocked household.
I think we'll run out fairly soon. Some pretty good costumes.
Some kid just tried to take a decorative glass thing home. Sorry, no.
None, Which is certainly our median number for the past half-dozen years or so.
Median? You mean half the time you get a negative number of trick-or-treaters?
I predict you will mildly regret having made that comment a short time from now.
I don't regret it, exactly, but I do think I've figured out what you mean.
You mean you get exactly none every year? OTherwise imma hafta go with 66.
I think that must be what he means. Weird way of phrasing it, though.
it's entirely possible that some years, people dump candy on his porch. that would qualify as negative trick or treating in my book.
or they come to his house and unmask him.
69
Or none a majority of the years. If he'd said mean, that would be much weirder.
Oh, yeah, I guess that could work too.
Ugh, knecht, that sounds awful! I had one weird moment when a man said, almost menacingly, "That sure is a pretty baby!" while I had Selah in the carrier, and then he took off his mask, which was also weird. But I think he was just genuinely odd and not trying to scare me or send a message.
73, 74: Yes. It was merely an elliptical way of saying that we only get someone every few years.
In the future, you could say "modal".
I also started to have a fight with Lee about her tendency to ask older teens their age and ask whether adults are too old to trick-or-treat, which she of course claims is "just joking." But they're poor and we're giving them calories, so for Christ's sake shut up and go on with your life! But instead of pushing it, I took over handing out treats and let her go to a friend's party, secure in my role as buzzkill yet again.
I was hoping for adults in Slutty *** costumes, but it didn't happen.
||
Of all the tits on the internet, why do I keep seeing the tits of Vladimir Putin and Chelsea Handler?
|>
83: Maybe you need to be more specific in your google searches.
Wait a minute, knecht's neighbor's prank is pretty funny.
83: I thought her photo was pretty funny.
80, 82: Sexy Mean, Sexy Mode, and Sexy Median would be a good theme for a group.
I do have more to say about adoption if anyone wants to come back to that, but I can tie in something by pointing out that a birthparent activist friend of mine is now being considered mom of the year for the Halloween costume she chose for her baby she's parenting.