Are whites adopting Asian children guilty of, well, something?

[Monty]

@andros

Is “because they’re cute” a typical reason people adopt Chinese or other Asian babies?

Given the hurdles a couple must successfully navigate to adopt a child in China, I’m going to have to go with “They’re cute” doesn’t even make it on the radar.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Shodan

Babies are cute - if they weren’t, they wouldn’t survive to be teen agers. “Cute” is the evolutionary bribe they offer when you are up at 4:00am the fourth night running because they pooped out their fifteenth diaper. Are Asian babies more cute than any other kind? I don’t know. My babies are/were cuter than any others. (My mother says so - don’t argue with my mother). I expect people adopt for the same reasons as they get pregnant and give birth, and one of those reasons is that babies are cute.

The reason we adopted internationally (from South Korea) was because a baby became available sooner from SK than the US. We applied to both programs, but there are a lot fewer babies domestically. I suppose we could have adopted an older child or a special needs child, but we didn’t want to. Is that selfish? shrugs - no more so than anyone who gives birth rather than adopting a special needs child. Everyone’s heard the expression from a pregnant couple “we don’t care if it is a boy or a girl as long as it is healthy”. A healthy child is what people want. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it takes a very different mindset to go into parenthood with that knowledge. Maybe it’s a better, less selfish mindset. But I didn’t go into parenthood purely out of altruism. I want to be a daddy, and being a daddy to a ten-year old is different if you didn’t raise him from six months. (I expect).

And WADR the notion that a given genetic background, skin color, or eye shape should determine what culture a person identifies with is, IMO, [del]moose crap[/del] misguided. The only real experience we had was with a local crackpot (I will name him - it’s Elroy Stock, I think he’s dead, and in any case he can go pound sand up the aperation of his hindquarters) who made it his business to comb thru marriage and adoption records looking for people with Western names who adopted children with Asian names. So after we adopted our son I got a ten-page, double-sided, single-spaced letter from him accusing me of being a race traitor, polluting the culture, and various other neo-Nazi gibberish. Presumably - I only got to the bottom of the first page before I pitched it.

So, to those who believe that race should determine culture, he agrees with you. Is that a side you want to be on?

I believe there are a couple of other Dopers who have adopted Asian children. I will let them chime in on their own if they want.
ETA - FWIW, and 28 years ago, if you didn’t specify a preference for boy/girl, you usually got a boy.

Regards,
Shodan

Did your interest and involvement in TKD start before or after the adoption. No judgment just curious. I have a friend who learned Chinese after adopting a Chinese kid and it was really hard because he had no use for the language other than a well intentioned but ultimately temporary (his kid REALLY didn’t want to spend every Saturday learning Chinese and kept responding in English whe4n spoken to in Chinese).

[Damuri_Ajashi]

A couple of points that are mostly anecdotal but might be more than that.

Some Asians are touchy about whites adopting Asians because:

The are embarrassed by how many orphans Asian countries produce and how few of them get adopted domestically.

It kind of reinforces the notion that Whites are the dominant race here in America.

They feel sort of guilty for not adopting Asian kids.

People adopt Asian kids for many reasons:

Healthy Asian orphans are much easier to get. South Korea still operates under and orphanage system and this just makes adoption easier for various reasons.

The One child policy in China meant that well educated middle class women were putting their healthy daughters up for adoption. This was attractive to a lot of people.

South Korean adoptions are largely

[Monty]

@Tigers2B1

Well that person the OP knows said it was. Frankly, I would have said “smart.”

Well, China is an entire country. There are people in China who are quite smart, and then there are people who can’t count to one. Generalizing, even if it “sounds good”, is still generalizing and a mistake.

[Guinastasia]

@What_Exit

Why? I mean no parent should let kids smother everything in ketchup but otherwise you’re both making sweepingly stupid statements about Americans and somewhat racist ones about Asians.

Well, that depends – is the ketchup Heinz? Then it’s okay. Otherwise, no.

[Monty]

@Guinastasia

Well, that depends – is the ketchup Heinz? Then it’s okay. Otherwise, no.

Aside: My younger brother, for his whole life, has used mustard, never ketchup, on his french toast. I’ve tried it and it’s not bad.

[Monty]

@Monty

Aside: My younger brother, for his whole life, has used mustard, never ketchup, on his french toast. I’ve tried it and it’s not bad.

I meant he uses mustard, never syrup or sugar, on his french toast.