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Originally Posted by BigV
What's really important is that it matters to that kid.
I'm reminded of the story about the fella standing on the beach after a big storm. The beach is covered with starfish, and with the sun rising and the tide falling, slow certain death awaits the starfish. So this fella is bending over, picking up a starfish, and chucking it back into the sea, again and again and again. There's another guy, he watches for a while, he sees that there's no way these starfish are going to be saved, and he walks up to the fella and asks:
"Why are you doing this? I doesn't matter what you do, thousands of these starfish are going to die."
The first guy pauses to listen, then returns to his task. He picks up another starfish and wings it back into the sea. He decides to answer the question and says:
"Because it mattered to that one."
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Cool story, seriously, and I agree with it.
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Originally Posted by BigV
Adopting a child from overseas, or a child that is, for some reason, a less desirable candidate for adoption, is in almost every circumstance, a Good Thing. Or adopting any child. There are exceptions, sometimes horrid, evil exceptions, (no link), but they're far, far rarer that the other end of the spectrum where a family is enlarged by one (or more),
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I'm not sure of your point here, but It's getting to the point where it is easier and safer to adopt from a foreign country than to adopt here. Many of the children here are castoff by by their DNA donors because they have habits that have given the child a huge case of baggage to look forward to when they're older. Also the hoops that adopters have to go through, and not all of them are unwarranted, can be arduous, additionally, if you're not a soon-to-be buclear family it can take you out of the running before the gunshot.
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Originally Posted by BigV
That's just wrong thinking. Your opinion, sure, whatever. There's a big difference between talk on a college campus about "fixing the problems of those poor people" and action in the form of welcoming a child into one's family. Big difference. Talk's cheap (especially around here), but acting, doing this, I can't imagine the motivation for such a big lifelong, lifechanging event is about "fixing the problems of those poor people".
I see motivations like love for children, family dominating the decision making process. I am not an adoptee, or and adopter, so I can't say from first hand experience. But if I were to adopt, I mean, if we were to adopt a child, it would be because of our love for kids and each other and our family.
The truth of the statement that you can't save the world, or even a part closer to you than a part farther away is **not** sufficient reason to try to save a part you can.
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Wrong thinking? Possibly. But the talk I heard on campus in one instance was from a political science instructor as he and his wife went through the motions of adopting a child from China*. That's not hearsay or conjecture. I'm quite willing to bet that they will love and care for the child regardless of their motivations for going outside of the country to get her.
The problems that I see are:
1) the difficulty and capriciousness of the American adoption system
2) the history of the adoptee children or DNA donors (drugs, insanty, usually both)
3) the growing numbers of children with these problems
4) people's unwillingness to help these children
Each of those problems requires a different solution.
* Edit: That fact that it is easier to work with
China, and to fly back and forth repeatedly and so on says a lot about problem number one.