Janine's Project Question #5

5. How much do you feel the general public knows (or doesn’t know) about the importance of adoption/international adoption?

I think that awareness about adoption in general and particularly International and Chinese adoption is increasing due to media attention (Oprah, News stories, Angelina Jolie, Steven Curtis Chapman....) Also, since more Chinese children are adopted to America than any other country, people are seeing Chinese adoptive families in the public more and more. When we visited Knott's Berry Farm last year, I counted three families with Chinese daughters. We had 1 family with a Chinese daughter at our condo in San Diego. We even saw a family with two Chinese daughters when we went to Mexico. They are everywhere and I hope that my daughter will see them as well and know that she isn't the only asian kid in America that has white parents.

Of course there are people who don't understand why someone would spend the money (about $22,000 if you are wondering) and travel halfway around the world for a child when there are plenty of children right here in our own country in need of homes. That is true but our daughter is in China and there isn't much that we can do about that (except go and get her of course!).

A family at church has adopted a boy from China and has had people ask why they would choose to bring China's problems here. I assume that they were referring to the one-child policy. I can't personally put an end to the policy and solve that problem but I can give a child a home that needs one and that is what we plan to do. These girls are abandoned anonymously by mothers who love them and have no choice. I think that some people think that they are sold and/or that the mothers are led to relinquish them with the prospect of financial gain. This is simply not the case.