[KarynB]

Originally Posted by AutumnMom

Quote: "To you it is inconsequential if the parents are any colour - to them it isn't. To your kid it won't be either."

Excuse me Karyn but I didn't know you were a fortune teller. How do YOU know what MY child will feel like and what will matter to her 5 or 10 years from now? If you think that ALL adopted children or ALL adopted Ethiopian children have the SAME issues then you need to redo your home study classes or go read up on the Internet about adopted children. All children are different period end of story. Some may have the same issues others may not. To give a blanket statement like that about MY child shows how out of touch you truly are.
In my extended family there are a plethora of children that are adopted and of different ethnicity's not one of these children have issues about their race. (FYI the ages range from adults to 2). Yes some children will have issues with their identity and the different ethnicity's of their parents ~ some will not. It depends on a myriad of components: where the child was raised, the parents attitude, extended family, and the child itself, etc. etc.

You make it sound as if we are pillaging Ethiopia of their children and if you do feel that way then why did you adopt from this country if you are doing these people such a disservice? I don't understand ~ on one hand you want to adopt there but yet with the other fist you are waving that it is OH SO wrong to do so.
If the Ethiopian government feels that it is that wrong to allow their children to be adopted to people outside of the country then by all means they should close its adoptions to people outside of the country. But you or I are not going to make that decision ~ that is up to Ethiopia.
As my original post stated I meant no disrespect to Ethiopia and still do not. They are a people that have endured and deserve the worlds utmost respect. All I was saying I think that it is a shame that some people in Ethiopia view adoption outside of the country as a NEGATIVE thing and all do to skin color.

Ok, I'll take this one at a time. But, I do think you seemed to have missed my point entirely.

I am not talking about all adopted children having issues, I said race/colour etc will matter to them. Will it matter to each child in the same degree? probably not, but it WILL matter. Here is an excerpt from a great article I just read (Black Children, White Houses by Jen Greaves) that sums it up:

"It's such an outrageous finding (white parents trying to "ignore colour in their kids) that it sounds like a joke. Stephen Colbert's dimwitted white-guy alter ego has a joke like this, when he says on The Colbert Report, always in the most ridiculous of situations: "As you know, I don't see color." The joke is funny
because in so many ways it's true. Plenty of white people don't see color. We refuse to look at it, prefer not to see too much difference, because difference almost always makes us feel bad by comparison."

And I didn't say it was wrong to adopt from Ethiopia (and my fist actually isn't shaking, that would make it hard to type) or any other country, I said I think it is understandable that Ethiopians feel very sensitive and even resentful that their children need to leave the country or languish in orphanages.

And, some adoptive parents DO act as if it their right to these children (not saying you, just some in the general sense). And it's not. In many cases, adoption occurs because of extreme poverty - and that is an unfair and unjust situation that needs to be rectified - and we all hold responsibility for that. In the mean time, these children don't deserve to sit on shelves in orphanages while the rest of the world gets its act together. But Africa doesn't need me or anyone else to "save" it, nor will it benefit much from the Western world continuing to pander to it.

And to me what was most offensive in your post was the line about "whites" adopting "their" children - they ARE their children (no parenthesis needed)!!!! Especially in African, and in this case Ethiopian culture, where most do truly see all children as a part of the community - the spirit of Ubuntu - and the loss of one child is a loss to the whole community/village/country.