Adoption from China, Facial Deformities and Criminal Records

Stories about the new, stricter Chinese adoption rules have been all over the media lately. I don't closely follow international adoption news, but I've heard some people express surprise at what a big, mainstream story this has turned out to be. See here for a sample.

Here's a summary of exclusions:

- single mothers
- very obese (BMI over 40)
- over 50
- take antidepressants
- criminal records
- severe facial deformities

That last one doesn't get reported a lot in these news, and it's odd.

Many of the older special needs children in Chinese orphanages have cleft lips and palates. A lot of the adoptive parents on SoA are adopting special needs children, and the topic came up as to why there are so many children with cleft lips there; it has a genetic component but is also related to the environmental effects of industrial pollution. Most people in the US have enough money or medical benefits to get restorative surgery for facial deformities, so they probably wouldn't be eliminated, but it's still a weird rule; you'd think having their own facial deformity would make an adoptive parent more sensitive to the needs of an adopted child with a facial deformity.

Perhaps the rationale was that people with facial deformities are more likely to have a lower socioeconomic status and less resources to raise children. There's a kernel of truth in that. I remember a radio story about a woman who didn't have any teeth or money to get dentures; she worked for Wal-Mart for a long time, and although she always got great feedback on her job performance, they kept her in the backroom away from higher-paying customer-facing jobs because her smile wasn't good enough.

Many countries' programs have too many restrictions for us. This is one of the reasons we're not adopting internationally, although it's definitely not the most important one. I talked about these reasons in an earlier post, Adoption from Foster Care and Saving a Child. One restriction that would exclude us is length of time married. My husband and I just got married a few months ago, in September, although we've been living together for five years. Another restriction is needing a clean record. I guess I should come clean about that!

My husband has a felony conviction from when he was 18, which is almost half a lifetime ago. I don't know the exact name, but it's something like Possession of a Really Hippie Drug (shrooms) with Intent to Sell. At one point he'd made a deal to join the Navy to get out from under the charge, and he aced the ASVAB but got rejected for being too skinny (I showed a coworker his picture once, and she used a great Southernism to describe him: "that's a long tall drink of water!"). He ended up doing several years of probation, and has been spotless since then.

That was one of the first issues I raised at our agency. They told us it wouldn't be a big deal at all. Everyone's application was looked at on a case-by-case basis, but the real red-flag convictions were:

- recent crimes
- violent crimes
- crimes involving children
- a recurring pattern of crimes, like a DUI every 6 months

We did have to write a short special statement as part of the application, "My Criminal Record and What I Learned From It." My husband wanted to end it with "I learned I wasn't a very good criminal". I thought that sounded a bit snarky so I changed it to "I learned to always follow the law".

He was right though, he would have made a terrible criminal. The stories he likes to tell of teenage drug-dealing in small-town Georgia are fall-down rolling-on-the-floor hilarious.

We recently visited a childhood friend of his back in that small town who hadn't learned his lesson. I was going to do a separate post about that, but it's honestly too depressing and I've posted about so many sad things lately. The friend disappeared into meth addiction for ten years and just resurfaced a few months ago, with a wife and two kids, although he still does it occasionally "just to keep the edge off". My husband wants to give him moral support over the phone and with occasional visits, but we've both agreed we won't have him coming anywhere near our house.

Anyway, I like the more individualized approach to criminal records our agency uses. I think that's a very common approach in the foster care system, although I'm sure it differs a lot from county to county. A bar against any kind of criminal record will disproportionately exclude people from lower classes. I don't mean to imply that poor people are all criminals, simply that a large proportion of teenagers and young people of all classes do stupid things, especially involving drugs; it's just that the rich ones get caught and convicted a whole lot less than the poor ones.