Disaster Highlights Plight of Japanese Orphans
Honestly, there are times I just want to choke and give up.
It's all so stinkin' complicated, and my brain and heart just feel like they're going to explode when I read articles like the one above.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I give up: "Disaster Highlights Plight of Japanese Orphans"
Honestly, there are times I just want to choke and give up.
It's all so stinkin' complicated, and my brain and heart just feel like they're going to explode when I read articles like the one above.
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7 comments:
(Delurking and waving hello) Yes, I hear you. As solution seekers, it's human nature to tend to want to find THE answer, but I am constantly humbled by reminders that one size does not fit all.
I have heard of a Japanese couple who wanted to adopt a girl in a Japanese orphanage being unable to b/c the girl's aunt refused to allow it. The girl's parents had relinquished their rights, but the aunt, who didn't want to actually take care of the girl, refused to allow the adoption. I'm puzzled that people can stop an adoption of one of their relatives on the basis of their potentially suffering social stigma when they have no real interest in the child themselves.
They have no real interest in the child as a child, but the potential as an adult who will be able to maintain them later on is the attraction. This was a very hard article to digest on so many levels. I hear you girl.
I read the article and while I feel for the children, I also see where the Japanese culture is being totally ignored. Social stigma has been, for thousands of years, something that can make or break even the most remote family members. It can prevent a marriage or create a marriage; create an opportunity or take one away. Again, I feel for the children, but the facts are that the children that are adopted are stigmatized even more than the family would be for allowing it. Foster care, in truly appropriate settings may be the answer.... but to act as if Western style adoption is the answer, that is beyond insensitive, it is ignorant.
Sadly it all comes down to money. Will the family members allow fostering? Or will they see this as a possible loss to their potential future earners? I think for anything to change there has to be an a movement. I hope the Japanese people find it in their hearts to step up to some change. My hope is that Japan will allow these orphans to be fostered in Japan with a Japanese family when their own family members do not want them for cultural and stigma reasons. I think it would be more humane for the kids.
@Yoli, while I would like to believe that would be the honorable thing to do, as a survivor of the foster care system in the U.S., I can say definitively that fostering systems world wide have proven to be more destructive than is feasible. Adoption, however, is not the answer either... there must be a better way to go... there has to be. I hope, for the sake of children that come from a unique culture, the children remain within that country and culture.
I believe that in the worlds of foster care and adoption, they are only shades of grey and that the best that any of us can hope for is to inflict as little damage as possible. sigh.
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