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China to undesireables: We’ll send our orphans elsewhere, thanks.

Jill

The level of antagonism toward less-than-perfect families and people never ceases to amaze me. China has decided that children who are in need of being adopted can only be placed in “ideal” homes with “ideal” parents. Who can’t adopt?

-Single people
-Obese people (people with a BMI higher than 40)
-Parents over 50
-People who use medication for anxiety or depression (because obviously, it would be better to give children to people who don’t use the medication necessary to treat their illnesses)
-People with AIDS or cancer
-The physically disabled
-People who have less than a high school education
-Couples who have been married for fewer than two years
-Couples who have more than two divorces between them
-People who have been divorced, and have been re-married for fewer than five years
-Anyone with a net worth less than $80,000
-Any family wherein the income level per household member is less than $10,000

Not even Brad and Angelina would qualify.

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24 thoughts on China to undesireables: We’ll send our orphans elsewhere, thanks.

  3. It seems like there’s racial/cultural issues too…

    The articles says the restrictions are for foreign parents, and come in response to the fact that there are more foreign applicants then there are orphans in China.

    That that many people are looking to take kids out of your country and culture would be a little disconcerting, I have to say.

    Of course, these rules seem draconian and unproductive. To be honest, that’s kind of what I expect from communist governments.

  4. Why do you hate Brangelina?! OMG, Lauren, you are just totally jealous and stuff because she is so beaufitul and i love her and they are the greatest couple EVER so you can STFU and quit being a HATER and stop being so JEALOUS because they are the SHIZNIT and that little baby is just so ADORABLE and that’s why you hate them because you hate BABIEZ.

  5. That that many people are looking to take kids out of your country and culture would be a little disconcerting, I have to say.

    part why so many foreigners try to adopt Chinese babies was precisely b/c they were so open in their adoption policy. I used to really want a Chinese baby b/c I prefer girls and I don’t know if I will ever get married. Of course, I don’t know if I will ever want kids either, since I still don’t like them, but that’s beside the point.

    Anyway, certain aspects of Chinese culture result in a glut of unwanted girl babies, so I’m not boo-hooing removing a few from it.

  6. Right. Plus, you know, the whole one-child policy doesn’t exactly help if the Chinese authorities are honestly concerned about raising their own kids in the country.

  7. I’m a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. There are a surfeit of potential adoptive parents available for the number of Chinese orphans available for adoption. So the Chinese put some criteria in place to narrow down the pool of applicants, criteria that Westerners aren’t really happy with but at least have the virtue of being internally consistent — they’re looking for parents who are likely to be healthy, financially and emotionally secure, with stable family structures. These aren’t criteria I’d accept (for the most part) if the adoptions were taking place in the US — but this is China, and we can’t expect that our own cultural expectations would apply.

    But here’s the part that’s making me uncomfortable — while potential adoptive parents who were looking for babies in China are angry that they may now be disqualified on the basis of health, weight, what have you, they’re not really examining their own criteria for seeking a child from China. That article hints at it — orphaned babies from China are healthier and more well-cared for than kids in some other countries that have lower barriers to adoption. So, you’re looking for a healthy infant who won’t suffer in the long term from neglect (Rumanian orphans being a particularly horrifying example of this kind of thing), but you object to being scrutinized on a similar basis yourself?

  8. So the Chinese put some criteria in place to narrow down the pool of applicants, criteria that Westerners aren’t really happy with but at least have the virtue of being internally consistent — they’re looking for parents who are likely to be healthy, financially and emotionally secure, with stable family structures.

    I should add that they’re trying to make this determination from 10,000 miles away. So, a bit different than your state adoption agency, which can send out a social worker for a home visit.

  9. i see the logic there, i really do.

    but it’s weird & hard to read something like that & not take it personally (which is dumb, i know) but still it’s like hearing “the government of china thinks i shouldn’t be a parent because i’m on anti-depressants”.

  10. But… I think some of those stipulations make sense. Like the AIDS/Cancer one: do you really want the kid to be orphaned TWICE? Serial brides/grooms will be endangering the child by routinely bringing in strangers and busting up the family. And as for the salary rule: kids are expensive, and they need to know that you can afford them.

    If you want to have kids the old-fashioned way, nobody can say anything to you if you’re broke or on medication or anything like that. (Which is why we have abused children and orphans in the first place.) I think it makes sense to impose SOME rules on adoption. We can’t do anything about you being BORN into a crappy family, but we can try to make sure you’re not placed in one.

  11. The whole Chinese baby adoption thing gets to me because where I live, it’s TRENDY for white middle class wannabe do-gooders to have adopted Chinese babies, trendy like buying an LV purse or having an iPod. And in no way should children ever be commodities. There is also the race/culture baggage, too.
    However, while it may be ideal in some cases to place a child with the same race/ethnic group parents, to me the most important thing is that a child has a good home. I can’t bear the thought of a child languishing in the foster system or an orphanage, without any security or structure, while we quibble about the proper ethnicity of would be adoptive parents.
    It is worth mentioning (if this is the NYT article) that China does not have a glut of babies. In fact the number of applications outnumbers the available babies. So if people really want to be humanitarians and provide homes for orphans/abandoned children, they should go to another country (or, hell, even within this one) to adopt. If they are just waitlisting themselves in China because they want a CHINESE baby, cos it’s trendy, rather than because it’s a child in need, that’s stupid and really crappy.

  12. Brangelina are disgusting WHAT ABOUT JEN those asshol3z dumped her angie is a homewrecker i miss you jen i love you its ok about vince he was a basterd anyways LOLZOMFGBBQWTF????!!!!

  13. Before we go too much farther here, let’s clear up a misunderstanding:

    Of course, these rules seem draconian and unproductive. To be honest, that’s kind of what I expect from communist governments.

    The Chinese government is no longer communist (assuming it ever was to begin with). Yes, the Communist Party still controls Chinese politics, and yes it’s ridiculously authoritarian, but it ceased being communist quite awhile back. China’s economy is more or less capitalist these days, and i seem to recall reading a rather amusing article in the New York Times a couple of months ago that said that history textbooks in China no longer make great note of the revolution.

  14. Kim,
    I hope you are not implying that being poor or on medication is indication that you will abandon your children or be an abusive parent.
    “We” cannot do anything about children being born into crappy families unless “we” first decide what constitutes crappiness in the first place, a thing on which there is little agreement.

  15. Picking up on what Exangelena said, not only are there more Americans wanting Chinese babies than Chinese babies available for them, in the past few years the number of domestic couples looking to adopt has skyrocketed. Middle-class couples who can’t get around the one-child rule but want to RAISE more than one child have embraced the idea of adoption, and in many cases were sent to the back of the line by orphanage authorities, behind foreign couples.

    There’s been some quite negative publicity about the whole issue, with middle-class Chinese families who are willing to adopt and are prosperous feeling like babies are being sold overseas for the foreign exchange. It doesn’t look good. Now, chances are with the poverty in rural China domestic middle-class adopters (financially secure, well-educated, less tied to traditional ideas regarding the relative worth of sons and daughters) aren’t going to soak up the whole supply of baby girls. But internal adoption may take a biggish chunk, which means the government can safely get super-picky with international adopters. Capitalism, baby: it’s all about the asymmetries between supply and demand.

    Incidentally, a fair number of non-white American-born babies are adopted internationally !!!!! Mostly black babies going to families in Canada and Western Europe. The number of babies exported to non-American families each year is roughly equivalent to the number being imported from the Second and Third World by American families.

  16. The marriage requirement is absolutely rediculous. I have no intention of ever getting married, but hope to some day (when I am more financially and emotionally able to) adopt a child. I guess I will not be good enough by these standards.

    Also, another restriction that was mentioned on CNN was no “facial deformities”. Yeah…you know, can’t have any UGLY parents. That is so much worse than living in an orphanage.

    Hopefully these new limitations will encourage willing adopters to seek children in need elsewhere – somewhere not as “trendy” as China. From what I hear US adoptions are incredibly difficult to negotiate so for many people, foreign adoptions are a good alternative.

  17. Yeah…you know, can’t have any UGLY parents. That is so much worse than living in an orphanage.

    The point is that they won’t be living in an orphanage. There are more people who want to adopt Chinese babies than there are Chinese babies to be adopted. This is their way of narrowing down the list of applicants. I certainly don’t agree that that list reflects the necessary criteria for being a fit parent, but I don’t really care. I can sleep just fine at night knowing that the Chinese government wouldn’t let me adopt a baby there because I’m unmarried, on antidepressants, and have a negative net worth (damn student loans). And anyone else who doesn’t meet the criteria who is dead set on adopting a Chinese baby should wake up and realize that there are plenty of alternatives.

  18. in the past few years the number of domestic couples looking to adopt has skyrocketed. Middle-class couples who can’t get around the one-child rule but want to RAISE more than one child have embraced the idea of adoption, and in many cases were sent to the back of the line by orphanage authorities, behind foreign couples.

    This is awesome news.

    There’s been some quite negative publicity about the whole issue, with middle-class Chinese families who are willing to adopt and are prosperous feeling like babies are being sold overseas for the foreign exchange. It doesn’t look good.

    Yes, it really doesn’t look good.

    Incidentally, a fair number of non-white American-born babies are adopted internationally !!!!! Mostly black babies going to families in Canada and Western Europe. The number of babies exported to non-American families each year is roughly equivalent to the number being imported from the Second and Third World by American families.

    Wow.

  20. My husband and I were discussing adoption, at one point, and the tone of the discussion on some of the mailing lists and forums used by would-be adoptive parents is horrifying. At least, it was horrifying to us. Some people feel they’re entitled to children, simply because they want them – and since being raised in the US by a white family is so obviously “superior,” some of these people are quite aghast at the thought that “their” little Chinese girls might get raised by Chinese families!

  22. We can’t do anything about you being BORN into a crappy family

    Certainly: we can take you away from those poor, previously-married crappy parents and give you to a nice stable white rich family.

    Nice bit with the rhetorical trick, but it’s kind of an oldie. “We must have SOME rules”–well, duh, yes, but now you need to take the next step of explaining why we should have THESE rules.

  23. Certainly: we can take you away from those poor, previously-married crappy parents and give you to a nice stable white rich family.

    The Chinese are going to come take you away from your birth family?

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