Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the international community swiftly stepped in to offer generous amounts of humanitarian aid. Part of the aid efforts included thousands of adoptions of orphaned Haitian children. American families alone adopted 1,090 Haitian orphans.
But what impoverished Haitians found to be a charitable and appropriate response to the plight of their orphans, the Japanese reject as unsettling and unseemly.
“I have been receiving many strange emails, from mostly U.S., and was asked, ‘I want girl, less than 6 months old, healthy child,’ Tazuru Ogaway, director of the Japanese adoption agency Across Japan, told FoxNews.com. “I honestly tell you such a kind of emails makes Japanese people very uncomfortable, because for us, sound like someone who are looking for ‘what I want’ from our terrible disaster.
Though an ostensibly ungracious response, this 'thanks, but no thanks' reaction makes perfect sense. Wouldn't we find it off-putting if France or Hong Kong offered to adopt a mass of orphaned American children? Martha Osborne, spokeswoman for the adoption advocacy website RainbowKids.com, offers a similar explanation:
“You see that in developing nations, there’s no outlet for these children and the people left in the wake of the disaster are completely impoverished and unable to care for them, and in that case even extended relatives often say that the best case for the child is to be adopted because there are no resources,” Osborne told FoxNews.com. “But in Japan that’s just not the case, it’s a fully developed nation that’s capable of caring for its own children.”
Osborne said a dwindling population, as well as strong family ties in the country, makes adoption fairly unnecessary, because children who can’t be cared for by their parents are usually taken in by other relatives.
“I don’t believe there’s going to be a true orphan situation in Japan in the wake of this disaster. I do not believe that there are going to be children without any ties to relatives…that extended family system is going to consider that child their child,” she said.
Help is desperately needed in the wake of Japan's natural disasters. Just not this particular type of help.
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Dec '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
There are days when I might welcome France, or Hong Kong, offering me a deal on some or all of our boys. Today is not one of those, but I reserve the right to instigate some localized disaster, on some days.
Nov '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Adoption is an alien idea to the Japanese, anyway. Oddly enough, because of that, there actually is a small international adoption program from Japan--because the Japanese seldom adopt. A good friend of mine lives in Japan and married a Japanese woman. She found our adoption rather odd, and she has spent a fair amount of time in the US and is more familiar with Western ideas than many Japanese people.
May '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Japan should suggest that its orphans might have trace amounts of radioactivity; then the Americans will go away.
This disaster has not been America's finest hour.
Jan '11
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Unless there's a serious push by the Japanese to 'take care of their own' and come to the rescue of thousands of small children who will need a parent to raise them, I think the gestures by would-be adopting families are entirely appropriate. Just because the would-be adopting families are pursuing their self-interests in the wake of a natural disaster/tragedy, I see no reason for the children -- who would no doubt benefit from a loving home -- to bare the brunt of some cultural pride issues. Better a foreign loving family who's up for the job than some domestically-located family who adopts out of guilt and comes into the arrangement with reservations.
Jun '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
I'm a bit creeped out by that myself. I know folks who are adopting Haitian orphans. I am thrilled for them but Japan is not Haiti, nor is it China, which is not as careful of its children.
May '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
With Japan's notoriously minuscule rate of procreation it's surprising they had children to orphan. In 2004 the fertility rate was 1.2888 live births per adult female. This nation is literally dying of a self-inflected wound. If domestic adoption could be encouraged, these children need to stay in Japan.
Oct '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Japan is an aging society. They need all the young people to stay japanese.
Sep '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Some of this (perhaps a lot) is motivated by "disaster chic". "My baby was adopted/saved from the ______ disaster" "ooooh...ahaaaa...how cute!"
Nov '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Now you've crossed a line for me. The world is full of people who don't understand adoptive parents and who attribute people's earnest desire to have and love a child to all kinds of selfish motives. Well, people are imperfect, so I guess you may delve deep into an adoptive parent's heart and find some flaws. However, I would venture to guess that there are many more people who have bio kids for all kinds of flawed and selfish reasons than there are people who are willing and able to go through the substantial investment of time, effort, and money required to bring home an adoptive child for the sake of "chic." Do you have any idea how hard it is to adopt a child?
Sep '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Lucy Pevensie
Now you've crossed a line for me. The world is full of people who don't understand adoptive parents and who attribute people's earnest desire to have and love a child to all kinds of selfish motives. Well, people are imperfect, so I guess you may delve deep into an adoptive parent's heart and find some flaws. Do you have any idea how hard it is to adopt a child? · Mar 23 at 6:26am
You are right. I overstated this aspect and I'm guilty here of being callous and insensitive. I just wondered why, when there is the ability, albeit difficult, to adopt babies from all over the world, why some apparently decide to turn their search to wherever the latest disater is. The simple explanation is they see an opportunity and they want to help an orphaned child, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Jul '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Lucy Pevensie
Now you've crossed a line for me. The world is full of people who don't understand adoptive parents and who attribute people's earnest desire to have and love a child to all kinds of selfish motives.
Ms. Pevensie, I understand your support of adoptive parents, but I think what leads to the feelings of Mr. Ogaway and others is that the prospective parents did not offer their homes for children in need, but specifically requested a certain gender, age, health, nationality, etc. For me personally, making a request like that sounds more like someone who is shopping than someone looking to save a young life from the miseries of growing up without parents. I am sure that most adoptive parents are completely and singularly devoted to the well being of the children that they take in, but that's not the way they are coming off in this case, if Mr. Ogaway's reports are accurate.
Nov '10
Re: Japan Creeped Out By Americans Seeking to Adopt Japanese Orphans
Humza Ahmad
Lucy Pevensie
Ms. Pevensie, I understand your support of adoptive parents, but I think what leads to the feelings of Mr. Ogaway and others is that the prospective parents did not offer their homes for children in need, but specifically requested a certain gender, age, health, nationality, etc. For me personally, making a request like that sounds more like someone who is shopping than someone looking to save a young life from the miseries of growing up without parents. I am sure that most adoptive parents are completely and singularly devoted to the well being of the children that they take in, but that's not the way they are coming off in this case, if Mr. Ogaway's reports are accurate.
Sorry, I had forgotten that bit when Franco wrote his post. Nevertheless, the article only really says Mr. Ogaway got one such email; one hopes the rest were not like that. Also, in fairness to myself for being defensive, it sounded as though Franco was referring to people who adopted Haitian orphans as well. I know that Haitian adoptees are usually at least 2 years old and seldom completely healthy.
Edited on Mar 23, 2011 at 2:54pm