Uh...something missing here

WashingtonPost.com is running this graphic from the AP with an article on adoptive parents' concerns about their children's health in the wake of the Chinese tainted formula problem.

The graphic, you'll note, is headlined "Adoptions Steadily Decreasing," and notes that the number of international adoptions by US parents has declined since the peak in 2004.

But there's nothing in the graphic, or the article, that so much as hints at why. Readers are left to draw their own conclusions.

The reason, of course, is that some sending countries have tightened requirements or even shut down for periods since 2004, resulting in fewer completed adoptions.

But if you didn't know much about international adoption, would that even occur to you? You might make any number of assumptions -- lack of interest, lack of children needing homes, whatever.

Not helpful, AP!

(OTOH, look at that number for 2008 from Vietnam: 751 adoptions before Vietnam shut its doors this fall. And one of the 751, thank God, was Owen!)

As a matter of fact, Owen does go with my shoes and purse

Aaargh, aaargh, aargh.

Thank you, Adoptive Families magazine, for tipping me off to this column, "Adopting Asian Kids Becoming Latest Fad," in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review earlier this summer. Thank you for raising my blood pressure to dangerous levels. And thank you for calling the columnist, Mike Seate, a major tool in this month's "Thumbs-Down" feature.

Seate rebukes adoptive parents who provide forever homes for children from Asia instead of adopting domestically -- and even questions whether we want to be parents or make a fashion statement.

"Since when did Asian children become 'must have' fashion accessories for upper middle-class Americans?," he writes. "Along with Calloway golf clubs and season tickets to football games, paying $30,000 to $40,000 to adopt an exotic baby is suddenly viewed as the most chic purchase this side of a pair of Manolo Blahnik pumps."

Where to start? To call my child "a chic purchase" makes me foam at the mouth.

Also, dude, WTF? When I finally held Owen in my arms for the first time, do you think I was thinking of my friends R and MED, the Queens of Accessorizing, and saying, "Top this, bitches!"

The Tribune-Review was apparently deluged with angry letters from adoptive parents, but in a follow-up blog entry, Seate was unrepentant. "There is no, and let me repeat, no reason that any American family should be looking outside our own borders for kids to adopt," he wrote.

As if only children living in this country are deserving of families.

As if Owen shouldn't be here with me.

I've heard Seate's criticism before -- I've been asked "why are you going to Vietnam when there are children to adopt here?" It's a mildly annoying question -- with its underlying "buy American" assumption -- when it comes from a stranger or acquaintance, but it's infuriating when it comes from a newspaper columnist. You don't even need Google; just type in adoption.com, and in under 10 minutes you'd get an overview of domestic vs. international adoption, and maybe, if you had half a brain, you'd think, "Ah, so the processes are so vastly different that one might be more suitable for one person than another."

And you'd be able to report adoption expenses accurately.

That is, unless you are incredibly lazy. Or you have some kind of nasty personal agenda that precludes you from respecting others' choices and from having even a teensy bit of compassion for the millions of children worldwide who need homes.

Because let's face it, it's far more entertaining to write crap like, "if people really wanted to adopt children because of a desire to become parents, they'd just adopt babies, not fashion statements."

Seate had two opportunities in these columns to tell us how many children he's adopted, but was silent on that point. In my experience, it's always the case that the only people who judge you for your adoption choices never have adopted themselves.

I'd rant some more, but my little fashion statement is crying and needs his mommy and a bottle. Sheesh, if I wanted a trendy accessory, why didn't I just get a Hermes scarf? A Hermes scarf would never throw a temper tantrum at IKEA, like Owen did this afternoon.

Parenting magazine gets schooled

I have a hate-hate relationship with Parenting magazine. I find their refusal to acknowledge more than one path to motherhood irritating, and their constant reminders to readers to feel not-good-enough infuriating. Every article, no matter how far removed from pregnancy the topic, includes references to pregnancy or to pre- or post-pregnancy bodies. Uh...not relevant to everyone!

Plus, the very first issue I ever picked up, when I felt like my paperwork was progressing enough to allow me to think of myself as a parent-to-be, included the debate question, "Should single women be allowed to adopt?"

I fired off a nasty letter for the un-welcome welcome. Allowed to adopt? By whom? And what's it to ya if we do?

I'm assuming the question was code for "should gays be allowed to be parents?", but in my letter to the editors, I asked if they planned future debates on who should be "allowed" to have children. Let's just go down the list: single/poor/black/Latina/gay?

I was only half-joking, but Parenting magazine apparently takes seriously the issue of who should be "allowed" to join the mommy club.

Which brings me to April's debate question. In which Parenting received a vigorous smackdown on its corresponding message board.

"Should a woman be able to use fertility treatments to get pregnant if she already has kids?"

Apparently, it never occurred to the editors that the only way some women can get pregnant is through fertility treatments. The editors, it seemed, live in a land of secondary infertility only, presumably developing after a woman has cranked out a few cherubs the "natural" way. They didn't have enough understanding of infertility (one-pathway-to-motherhood, remember?) to realize that they were asking, "Should women with primary infertility only be allowed to have one child?"

Let's hope they learned a lesson (and a mid-way post from an editor seems to indicate that the fog is lifting a smidge) from the outpouring on the discussion boards.

But really, what a bone-headed question! Can't wait to see how they handle the results box in the May issue.