Inter-Country Adoption: Practical Experiences

156 Pages·1992·0.47 MB·English

by  M. Humphrey

Inter-country adoption

Over the past twenty years, the growing shortage of adoptable infants in
Britain and the United States has resulted in a number of couples obtaining
their family from abroad, although the effort needed to acquire such a child
from another country is enormous. So what exactly are the costs, hazards
and emotional difficulties involved, and why do some couples feel that this
is their only chance of becoming adoptive parents?
Inter-country Adoption charts the experiences of eight couples who
between them have adopted eleven children, ranging in age from four
months to seven years, from South America, India and Sri Lanka. The main
emphasis of these first-hand accounts is on the events leading up to the
decision to adopt from abroad and on the obstacle course which followed
and which involved dealing with the authorities in Britain and in the child’s
country of origin. The final two chapters are by an academic social worker
and a parliamentary campaigner, who examine the legal and ethical
considerations of inter-country adoption.
This is a lively and highly readable book and will be of great value to
social workers, social-policy makers, lawyers and to the general reader
with an interest in adoption.
Michael Humphrey has worked closely with the National Association for
the Childless and is Reader Emeritus in Psychology at the University of
London. Heather Humphrey is a research assistant in the Department of
Mental Health Sciences at St George’s Hospital Medical School.

Inter-country adoption

Practical experiences
Edited by
Michael Humphrey and
Heather Humphrey

Tavistock/Routledge
London and New York
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1993 Michael Humphrey, the collection as a whole;
each author, the individual chapters.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Inter-country adoption: practical experiences/edited by
Michael Humphrey and Heather Humphrey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Intercountry adoption. 2. Intercountry adoption—
Great Britain—Case studies. I. Humphrey, Michael.
II. Humphrey, Heather.
HV875.5.I65 1993
362.7¢34–dc20 92–11712
CIP
ISBN 0-415-08742-2 (Print Edition)
0-415-05210-6 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-02979-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-15996-9 (Glassbook Format)
Contents

Introduction 1
1 From San Salvador to Hackney 12
Claire and Andrew Astachnowicz
2 Two little jungle flowers 27
Robert and Maureen Checketts
3 Columbia to the rescue 32
Elizabeth and Simon Day
4 Aeroplanes and epidurals 48
Susan and Wally Freeman
5 Brazilian bounty 61
John and Mary Hunt
6 Favourite bedtime stories 79
Barbara Mostyn
7 Eventually…and so to Sri Lanka 98
Audrey and David Wilson
8 The empty nest 107
Karina and John Woodford
9 Inter-country adoption: in whose best interest? 119
John Triseliotis
10 Inter-country adoption: a view from the House of Commons 138
Peter Thurnham, MP
Index 147

Introduction

This collection of ‘travellers’ tales’ had its origins in a meeting of the
executive committee of the National Association for the Childless (NAC)
some four years before it finally came to fruition. In Birmingham on a grey
Saturday afternoon we were debating what could be done about the dearth
of information on inter-country adoption, which was of interest to some of
our membership. Though but a fanciful notion for most, we knew that it
had been sought or contemplated by some and achieved by a brave few. A
detailed fact sheet was proposed as a minimal aim at this stage, but it was
thought that a series of first-hand accounts might be more illuminating as a
basis for action. Thus the idea for this book was born.
As prospective editors, we were lucky in that some thirty members
(mostly married couples) who had adopted from abroad were serving as
contacts. We acquired a list of names, addresses and telephone numbers
from which we selected those who lived within easy visiting range of our
Surrey home. In the event not all could be contacted, and there were some
who for various reasons were unable or unwilling to publish their story. We
finally had to settle for no more than eight contributors, three of whom
were already known to us through the committee. All but one of the
remainder were on our list, the exception being a couple who sportingly
agreed to take over from friends who were doubtful of their capacity to
meet our requirements (mistakenly, we suspect).
The Woodfords were unusual in at least one other respect. All the
others had been childless prior to adopting, sometimes for many years.
Karina had two nearly adult children from her first marriage but did not
want her second marriage to remain childless, especially as her new
husband had lost two children in the course of his first marriage. So she
was profoundly grateful to her friends for steering them towards Brazil,
which had provided a child for two other couples in our small series. She
could not at first think of an apt title for her contribution, but her eventual
2 Inter-country adoption
choice of ‘The empty nest’ is a reminder that the pain of childlessness
can take many forms. For some men and women the end of active
parenting after twenty or twenty-five years (or possibly longer) may
come as an unexpected relief, regardless of the presence or prospect of
grandchildren. However, a new partnership may have a wonderfully
rejuvenating effect.
Adoption too can bring more than the expected bonus. A subsequent
child of the marriage is actually much less common than folklore would
suggest, yet it happened quite speedily for two of our couples. And if
we discount the single woman and two other women who had
undergone a hysterectomy, a 40 per cent incidence of belated fertility is
quite remarkable. Call it coincidence if you like, and it would be
unethical as well as unrealistic to treat the child adopted from any
source as a fertility charm, but those who have virtually given up hope
can be in for a pleasant surprise. The prospects are of course brighter
for the woman who has found it harder to carry to term than to
conceive, as may be inferred from Susie Freeman’s lively account of
her repeated miscarriages.
The effort needed to aquire a child from abroad is not to be under-
estimated. It is also far from cheap, in that it may easily cost at least as
much as half the price of a new medium-sized car (to quote from John
Hunt, who has compiled guide-lines for the benefit of like-minded
couples). This may seem a lot of money, yet as Hunt points out it may be
more cost effective than several cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and is
also more likely to commend itself to bank managers, particularly as
compared with a car loan! Much of this expense comes in the form of
travel and subsistence, although legal and administrative charges
(including the inescapable ‘home study’) are usually far from negligible.
This may help to explain the preponderance of middle-class couples not
only in our own experience but almost certainly among inter-country
adopters in general. They need to be able to afford the air ticket and much
else besides. Moreover, they need also to be able to ‘work the system’,
which calls for more than just material resources.
NAC has a strong middle-class bias, yet only a tiny minority of its
members are known to have taken the plunge—the list of thirty contacts,
for example, accounted for only about 1 per cent of the membership at the
time that it was compiled. Roughly 50 per cent of the total membership
could be classified as middle class in terms of the husband’s occupation,
but it could be that at least 90 per cent of inter-country adopters (as
compared with only 30–40 per cent of ‘ordinary’ adopters) fall into that
category. This is why we were keen to include a working-class couple (the
Introduction 3
Checketts), even if it meant having to compete with the distractions of their
rich family life as we elicited their story by word of mouth. Furthermore,
what they may have lacked in wealth and education they more than made
up for in human qualities.
Interestingly, only the Checketts and Barbara Mostyn found the stamina
for a second overseas visit to complete their family, from Sri Lanka and
India respectively. The couple who adopted from El Salvador (the
Astachnowiczs) acquired their two children simultaneously, although as
the youngest contributors in our series they may indeed mean business
when they speak now of looking for a third child from abroad. As
mentioned above, two couples were subsequently blessed with an
unexpected child of their marriage, one of them with the help of IVF.
Another two couples (Day and Woodford) had found it hard to reconcile
themselves to a one-child family, although the Days were almost past the
point of no return once their son had started school. Even in the days when
adoption was much easier in Britain, there was always a marked tendency
for adopters to content themselves with an only child, often with some
misgivings on account of the supposed disadvantages. For those who must
now look further afield to adopt it must be tempting to settle for a singleton
unless they are lucky enough to pick up a pigeon pair, which is officially
frowned upon. There is obviously something to be said for ‘geriatric’
parenthood in terms of maturity and financial stability; yet a common
effect of delayed parenthood—be it voluntary or involuntary—is failure to
provide the first child with a sibling. The reasons for this are not hard to
find, but it cannot be denied that the adoptee may stand to gain from shared
status within the family.
THE FUTURE OF INTER-COUNTRY ADOPTION
There can be no doubt that inter-country adoption has grown in
popularity over the past decade. (We may note, for instance, that only
one of our informants had adopted before 1980, in this case from
Thailand. When ultimately she decided to withdraw from our project it
was through expressed concern for the sensitivities of her adolescent
daughters.) It can surely be seen as a recent phenomenon in Britain,
even if the concept has been familiar for much longer. An informal
network of interested parties was established in November 1986 under
the banner of STORK; and the Romanian coup d’état in December
1989, which turned the spotlight on large numbers of grossly neglected
children in local orphanages, has given inter-country adoption a higher