CARRIE STAMBAUGH: The family worth waiting for 2/5/10

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February 4, 2010

Anonymous The Daily Independent Thu Feb 04, 2010, 11:37 PM EST

A decade after the Korean War, orphanages on the Korean peninsula continued to overflow with abandoned and orphaned children.

Their plight moved my grandparents, who had long been donating to a charity operating one of those homes. Then one day, my grandmother has often told me, the agency called to ask if the couple would consider adopting one of those children.

Although they already had six of their own ranging in age at that time from about 7 to 24, they agreed almost immediately. In doing so, my grandparents became one of the first families in Cincinnati to adopt a foreign-born child.

Forty years before celebrities like Madonna and Angelina Jolie made adopting children from war-torn or poverty-stricken countries trendy, my aunt arrived in the U.S. She was about 4 and spoke no English.

Since then, my extended family has repeatedly often grown through adoptions, both foreign and domestic.

My family is extremely close-knit and we grew up playing with one another almost every day, spent every holiday no matter how minor together and even took vacations together. We remain close even now.

Some of us didn’t even know all who had been adopted until we reached adulthood. Then, the only difference knowing made was to make us feel even more blessed.

Now, I’m seeing a third generation of adoption that is both foreign and domestic. My husband and I both have friends who have adopted or are waiting for that phone call telling them they will finally become parents.

I guess that’s why I’m so troubled by the news this week out of Haiti concerning the Americans being held on alleged child trafficking charges.

The group, members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho, claim they were trying to take 33 earthquake orphans out of the country to an orphanage from which they could later be adopted by Americans.

Just imagine if any of those children — many of whom it has now been reported have families that thought they were being taken to a school in the Dominican Republic — had been allowed to leave the country and later been adopted. Think of the chaos.

Similar events have occurred in Africa, Samoa and throughout Asia.

When this happens, not only does the child suffer, but both sets of parents and extended families will suffer immeasurable heartbreak as well.

Agencies dealing in adoption — whether here in the states or in foreign lands — need to be closely regulated and held to the strictest levels of accountability and transparency. If they don’t, they should be severely punished.

I am familiar with the horror stories of long waits and dump trucks full of paperwork for adoptive parents to fill out now, but I would bet if asked anyone would tell you it’s worth waiting a little longer to ensure a new “forever family” is the only family a child is longing for.

CARRIE STAMBAUGH can be reached at cstambaugh@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.

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