Orphans

5-29-08
Warning: This post is a downer. And there aren't even any photos.
There are a lot of children who are not orphans being put up for adoption. That is okay. Many are abandoned by their parents who cannot let their children watch them waste away from disease. There are widowed mothers who cannot find work and who need to remarry to survive, but cannot do so with children from their former marriage, and they relinquish their children so everyone can survive. There are children brought to the orphanage by an extended family member, who has tried very hard for months or years to care for the child, but just cannot manage it. And there are a lot of very young babies that are brought to the orphanage by impoverished mothers who cannot care for them and want them to have a future they cannot provide. It sucks, but I can make sense of it. Many of these scenarios happen right here in this country as well. But there is one that doesn’t.

This week the latest waiting child information came out to all the families at our agency. It was a little boy around my son’s age (we can’t give out any identifying information so I have to be vague). He’s considered a “waiting child” because there aren’t any families with dossiers completed that are currently approved through their home study to adopt a boy of this age. There were two photos of this little guy, he’s adorable. One of them showed him with his mother. You can plainly see she loves him. She has cared for him for his whole life. She has raised him during what many experts claim are the most influential years of his life. But now that his father has abandoned him, she cannot support him, and is relinquishing him for adoption. I cannot even fathom her pain.

I have to wonder, did she realize when she brought him to the orphanage that he would be “adoptable”, or was she just trying to make sure he got fed? Did she know he would be going to a new family in a far away country and very possibly never see her again? Granted, she was made aware of all of these issues long before he became a “waiting child”, Ethiopia runs a very ethical adoption court. They absolutely protect the best interests of the child, the rights of the child and the rights of the birth parents above all else. There is no money to be skimmed off the adoptions for illegitimate purposes, there is an immediate investigation when anything seems amiss, and this mother can still stop adoption proceedings at any time.

But she isn’t, and she most likely won’t. And the fact that this is her only option is appalling to me. Really, for lack of money she will say goodbye to a child she has raised forever. In this country we’ll pay $440 a head for every child a welfare recipient pops out, food stamps, medical vouchers, bus passes, free pre-school, free daycare, subsidized housing, I’m sure there’s more. And this woman is losing her only child in order to insure he can eat tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, if anyone is considering adopting him I think that’s fabulous. I think his mother will find comfort and peace in knowing a family (that by the way has worked their butt off to adopt a child) is going to take her son in and love him as their own and protect him and help him reach his full potential.

Sponsorship programs (not that there are any available to this particular mother and child) keep kids with their parents, and promoting those programs and helping them expand is as important as orphan care. Because without funding to help families stay together, we just end up with more orphans. And no orphanage staff will love this child like his mother already does.

I don’t know if the $25-40 a month that most sponsorship programs cost would be enough to keep this particular boy with his mom and provide him food, shelter and an education. I doubt it, most can only provide some supplemental food. I wish it were that simple but I'm afraid it isn't. At this point I’m pretty sure there aren’t any programs available to them anyway. But there should be. I have sponsored kids for a few years now, and I never really thought about the possibility that them being sponsored could be making the difference between them having a home and a family and them being relinquished to an orphanage. It sure makes it easier to continue committing that money to them each month though. Can you imagine if the difference between keeping your child and relinquishing them was less than $50 a month?