[ripples]

I welcome other adoptees', particularly international adoptees' views, on the question: expenses of search/reunion - who should foot the bill?

Currently the Australian government review of overseas adoptions has recommended that the government 'facilitate arrangements for international adoptees in Australia to return to their country of origin if requested' (but not pay for travel expenses). If you'd like to read the report, search for Australian Government Attorney-General's Department and within their site, click on Intercountry Adoption to find the report titled, "Overseas Adoption in Australia". The bit about financial rebates is listed on page 21. And within the report I read with interest the fact that the Australia, USA, Denmark and Sweden governments offer(ed) tax rebates to adoptive parents for some of the costs incurred in international adoption.

I think that if adoptive parents receive a tax rebate for their expenses why can't adoptees?

Now pardon me while I vent/muse. After several months of reflection on my own search and reunion and the huge financial costs I've incurred, a part of me feels like I've had to 'pay' for the costs to recover something (my sense of self, my cultural heritage, etc that was 'taken away' from me without my consent. I DO realize that via my adoption I have definintely gained a lot of wonderful things. However, another part of me does feel that I lost things that I had no say in losing. I sort of feel like I was entered into a 'one-way ticket' (literally and symbollically) and now the onus is on me for 'buying back' my 'return leg' of my journey.

Similarly, I think it's interesting that the South Korean government, after much pressuring from Korean adoptee advocacy groups such as Global Overseas Adoptees Link (GOAL), provides assistance for Korean overseas adoptees to return to their birthland to learn Korean language. To me, that's the tiny but significant beginning of governmental and societal recognition of the losses that we international adoptees incur.

OK, OK. I also recognise that similarly people (adopted or not) who've ended up with asthma at birth (as a result of health circumstances that they had no say in at birth) also face footing the bill of their own healing and recovery later on in life.

I realize that in the big picture of 'life' that we gain some things, we lose some things, and that ultimately one of the challenges is to somehow eventually be at peace with it all. Nevertheless, I'm curious to hear what other adoptees, particularly international adoptees, think about possible reimbursement of search/reunion expenses. I know I'm just dreaming, but still, I am curious to hear from y'all.

[TheFoxx]

I'm speaking from the perspective of an adoptive mother but I have every intention of footing the bill if and when my son is ready to search (he's 3 now) for his first family.