Interesting Links for 19-2-2011

[andrewducker]

• Race not to be a factor in adoption any more. (I didn't realise it was! WTF?)
  (tags: race uk adoption children)
• HENJ: Ikea's guide to building your own Stonehenge
  (tags: funny ikea infographics stonehenge)
• How couples recover after an argument stems from their infant relationships
  (tags: relationships argument childhood psychology)

Comments

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Well, the traditional model of adoption was 'this baby is now Your Child, you don't have to tell them about their birth parents, you don't have to tell them they're adopted.' That doesn't work if the baby is black and the parents are white.

[andrewducker]

Or has red hair (if the parents don't) or has blue eyes when the parents don't.

Under the current model you end up with children not being adopted because the adoption agencies are waiting for parents that are of the same race. I'd rather that they got placed with parents.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I'm not defending it, I just thought your 'WTF, OMG, why on earth would they do that' was a bit dim.

Also, it may not be a very PC thing to say, but I think it is genuinely easier for kids when they're placed with people of the same race. I'd rather see people be adopted than people not be adopted, and I'd much rather the world was more colourblind than it is, and more accepting of non-standard relationships. And I think that there shouldn't be a blanket race restriction. And I think the world is much more accepting of different family structures now than it was 20 years ago. Still, if you're a family with a white kid and black parents, the depressing fact is that you will spend much more of your time explaining that you're adopted than if you're a black kid with black parents, and I don't think that helps people get on with their lives.

[Hair colour and eye colour and stuff are all weird recessive gene things anyway]

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

And it also depends how you think of religion and culture: you can see why someone might prefer their child raised to continue how they'd been brought up for the first N years of their life (if they're not an infant, or sometimes even if they are).

But I agree both that it's understandable why anyone would have preferred that, and that it's wrong to stick to it now if you have children who need to be adopted and parents who want to take them.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I think it's wrong to have it as a deal breaker. But in a hypothetical world with an infinite supply of adoptive parents of all races (all of whom are precisely equal in all qualities except race), I think I'd place children with parents of the same race. Which obviously means I think race should be a factor in finding adoptive parents. Not a dealbreaker, not necessarilly even a large factor. But something that should be considered. I wonder if that's Bad? I wonder if that's an unusual view on my fiends list?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I would agree. Although I mean, in our current society I would do so -- in a hypothetical future utopian colour-blind society, I don't know to what extent it'd be right to maintain cultures, and to what extent to treat people equally irrespective of them.

[andrewducker]

I don't consider it bad.

I think that in today's society it will make people's lives easier.

But then I also think that tomorrow's society would be better if there was more mixing.

So I think I'd let the parents decide. And if they wanted a child that matched them (as I suspect most do) then that would be fine, and if they found a child they would love who didn't look the same as them, then they'd clearly be the kinds of people who would help their child deal with it.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I think you're right that tomorrow's society would be better if there was more mixing, and I think I agree with you 99%.

But I do think there is a difference between something you chose to do yourself that will make tomorrow's society better, even though you know it will have a cost to you (eg chosing to go into a career dominated by the other sex) and something that we make other people do because we know it'll make tomorrow's society better, even though it will have a cost to them.

Notice the parallel to the family court situation, which rules in the best interests of the child, not what is fairest, or what would minimise hurt to all parties involved in the case, or what is best for society as a whole.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I knew about the race restriction in adoption and always thought it was bad and outdated; glad it's going.

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Interracial adoption is controversial not least because of the danger that white parents will be subconsciously racist at their non-white kid and cause the poor thing to grow up with internal self-hatred (and similar maladjustment problems.) But it's a two-edged sword because of the wait time problems, so which way will be least harmful is always in some debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_adoption