[Quesita]

I think about Liana’s “parallel life” all the time. What would her life have been if adoption had not been an option for her birthmom?

I’ve lived in Latin America, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Guatemala over the past two decades, and the images in my mind are probably quite accurate.

I know that Liana’s birthmom is an indigenous woman living in an urban slum, stripped of her cultural heritage and community. I think that her mother, (my daughter’s birth grandmother) was displaced during the civil war. I know that my daughter’s birthmom is a street vendor. She sells plastic trinkets to passing cars on the street. She is bright, and in spite of the fact that her mom was unmarried when she was born, she went to school for several years, and is literate. She writes well, with curvy girly script, and she sometimes answers standard questions on bureaucratic forms with a little sarcastic wit. She worked in a factory as a pre-teen and a young teenager, but since her first child was born, she had no option but to abandon her factory work, and beg/sell in the streets along with her kids. She lives in her brother's home with her first two kids. The third child and fourth child, (my daughter) were put up for adoption. The four children have three fathers, one of whom abandoned her when she became pregnant, one of whom is in jail, and another one whom just disappeared. These are the things I know.

I imagine that adoption had not been an option to her, she would have raised Liana. And I think she would have loved her, and cared for her as best she could.

Liana would be on the street with her mom and her half siblings daily. Now that she is two years old, and so mobile, and so charismatic, and follows instructions so well, she would be an excellent beggar. She would have been taught to smile and extend her hand, and passersby would occasionally drop a coin worth a fraction of a quetzal into her little hand. She would probably not wear shoes, and her soft little feet would be hard and callused from long days spent on cobblestone or semi-paved roads. But she would probably earn almost enough to cover the costs of the rice and beans that she would eat. In a few years, when the baby cuteness is gone, her earnings from begging would certainly decrease, but at this age, she would earn well.

If no more children were born, and Liana remained the youngest, perhaps by the time she reached 5 or 6 years of age, the whole family could get more lucrative factory jobs. Fourteen hour days in windowless rooms, the children would do simple assembly or sorting work. Liana has exceptional fine motor skills, and seems to show artistic promise. Perhaps she would do well. Perhaps be promoted and given more complex and well-paying tasks. But Liana is so pretty. I fear that by age 12 or 13, even more lucrative options might present themselves. But she is also very smart. Maybe her intelligence would open up other opportunities.

This is my daughter’s parallel reality, based on what I know. Your children’s parallel realities would be different. Some, many, would have died of dysentery before age five. Others would have been abandoned to the streets very young. I notices when I was in Guatemala to adopt Liana, I saw much fewer street children than I had in the years before Guatemala had become such a popular country for adoptions. Still others might work alongside their families in the infamous Guatemala City dumps. Some might be living with the loving families from whom they were kidnapped. Some would work in the fields of someone else’s land from age four or five. Some would be shining shoes on the streets. A small percentage would spend their lives in institutions.

Yeah. None of it is pretty.

But when we go to the supermarket to buy fruit or coffee or sugar, we are buying products that children just like our own have harvested. Our clothes are assembled by children like our own. Metals that make our coins and inhabit our cell phones are mined by children just like our own. Children like ours die daily from lack of clean water or simple antibiotics.

And I think these are everyone’s problems. Or at least should be.

[Gatos]

Bromcita,

I get my statistics from The World Health Organization. The infant mortality rate for under 5 is at 45%.

For what it's worth, my daughter, now 2 1/2 would most likely be dead had she not been adopted as at 8 months old she contracted an extremely serious and potentially fatal illness that would most likely not have been treated had she stayed with her birthmother.

Would you send your child to a school that had a 45% death rate within the first five years of attendance? Would you do your best to get your child out of such a school? What if the school was your country?