Sitting alone in my living room in my favorite chair, alone in the house I cried. Watching the documentary, Wo Ai Ni,(I Love You) Mommy on PBS a deep sadness shrouded me.
This is a documentary on transracial adoption and it follows the Sadowsky family who adopts an 8 year old girl from China. The film maker Stephania Wang-Breal, follows Mrs. Sadowsky as she travels to China to meet and bring back their new daughter to the United States.
In an interview on the PBS website,(http://video.pbs.org/video/1579183817/), Donna Sadowsky, the mother of the Sadowsky family states, “We documented this trip to show the cultural assimilation that happens when children come in to the United States with a foreign language or coming from other countries.”
To Mrs. Sadowsky even after seeing the documentary she is very excited and proud of how she is portrayed and sees the films as a great way to show others that it is possible to adopt older children internationally and that the adoption of older children can be successful.
I wonder if Mrs. Sadowsky and I saw the same film.
What gave her so much joy made so very sad.
At their initial meeting, the 8 year old adoptee, instantaneously loses her Chinese name, Sui Yong, which is replaced with Faith Sadowsky and the new Faith seems overwhelmed and in shock. From this point on frame by frame the painful process of stripping everything Chinese from this darling 8 year begins.
Immediately, Mrs. Sadowsky introduces flash cards to help teach Faith her new language. Time after time, Faith is exhausted but Mrs. Sadowsky keeps pushing her to learn more English. It is evident that Faith is expected to become an English speaking American and the thought of the Sadowsky’s learning any Chinese or doing anything to accommodate Faith’s culture never blips on the Sadowsky radar. They do enroll Faith in Chinese classes but they don’t seem to stop the melting of Chinese from Faith’s mind.
Early on over and over Faith is made responsible when there is a breakdown in communication. In Mrs. Sadowsky’s mind, it is Faith who is choosing not to communicate in her new language purposely refusing to speak.
The misunderstandings are often cleared up with the help of the film maker, who often acts as a translator.
Later in the film, as Mrs. Sadowsky, is watching Faith at her swim lessons, she retells another joyful moment. She explains that now after Faith has been in the United States for 8 months, her Chinese is disappearing and the frequent phone calls to China to talk to her foster family are less frequent. It is becoming more and more difficult for Faith to speak Chinese with her foster family and in frustration, after a recent phone call with her foster family, to her mother’s sinister delight, Faith says she doesn’t like the Foster family anymore.
One more layer gone.
Walking away from this film, I felt bad for Mrs. Sadowsky because I was convinced that once she saw the completed film she would easily see the same film I did and she would realize how sad it was to watch the “assimilation” of her daughter. What was even sadder was watching the post film interview of Mrs. Sadowsky. The fact that she missed the obvious message and slant by the film maker was sad.
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For those that missed it, the video can be viewed on the PBS site. Just click on this link, Wo Ai Ni Mommy
I agree… I thought this film was excruciating and showed absolutely no insight. So painful. What will “Faith” feel when she watches this film as an adult? I can barely stand to think about it.
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My husband and I watched this the other night. It was really hard to watch and my observations were similar to yours.
I’m ordering your book today, by the way. We are foster parents who are also open to adoption.
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I cried and cried during this film. It would make me throw up if my child said they wanted to go back to China and hated living here–it didn’t even seem to effect the mom. The whole flash card thing was eerie. The look on mom’s face was of disgust. Did she not realize how this little girl may be feeling? Why didn’t she even want to learn any Chinese? They did enroll her in Chinese school. . . but it didn’t seem to happen until after about 2 years. . . why didn’t they do that right away? We have adopted trans-racially, twice, and have three adopted children. It kind of reaffirmed our efforts to maintain a very open relationship with our children’s first parents–no matter how difficult or complicated things may be. I felt a lot of pain and hurt for that little girl. I would love to believe that my children will never have this kind of pain, but I know they will. My hope is that they can come to me for comfort and support.
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I must agree with you wholeheartedly. I don’t think a moments thought was given to the heartbreak or sadness that these children such as Sui Yong must experience. Within 2 minutes she lost her Chinese identity. I never saw them celebrate or try to teach her Chinese culture or holidays. They quickly removed any vestige of her entire heritage. You can say what you like, but imagine growing up in a white Jewish world as a Chinese girl. As a foster parent, I was saddened by the idea that the adoptive mother joyfully and yes, almost sinisterly celebrated the fact that Faith got into an argument with her Chinese foster sister because she could not speak to her. You see them enroll her in Chinese school at the beginning, but obviously she did not continue to go and was probably not encouraged to go.
I watched this woman, time and time again, speak loudly and harshly to her Chinese-speaking only child in English and wondered “How could she possibly know what you are saying?” They refused to get a translator because it was deemed a “crutch” and took away the only possible way their daughter could have understood what was being said around her. I thought it was interesting that the Mother spoke of how nice it was to, once again, be around people who spoke English… but never makes a single concession for her Chinese daughter who is surrounded by people who might as well be from another planet. I also was sad at the end of this movie. Yes, a child was adopted…. but she lost much of who she was in the process.
Cherie
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I haven’t seen the documentary, but am astounded by what I have heard of it.
As the spouse of a foster care worker, maybe I was a bit more educated on the subject than the average adoptive parent going into the process, but I cannot understand how some adoptive parents could be so clueless to the needs of their kids. Even if the Sadowsky’s adoption agency provided zero instruction on loss, attachment and the impact of ripping a child away from everything they know, isn’t there a dose of common sense that kicks in?
My son was born in Ethiopia. We brought him to the United States at 7 months of age. Despite his relatively young age, my wife and I still lost weeks of sleep to make sure the trauma from this transition was minimized. We immersed ourselves into what our son might be feeling due to the loss of his first mother, his nanny who raised him for 4 months, the loss of the sights, smells, foods, language and people who loved him during his first 7 months. We educated the people around us, so they would understand our actions. We sought out and continue to seek out his story, which often explains much about his behaviors and will help him in the future. This isn’t all covered in training, but isn’t some of this common decency? I cannot imagine what it would have been like if my son was older and spoke Amharic or some other Ethiopian language. I would have felt obligated to learn HIS language, not the other way around.
I am sure we still made mistakes and will continue to make them. I surely do not post here to pat myself on the back, but instead to say that the actions of the Sadowsky family seem so foreign to me. I can also say that their actions (or lack there of) would be seen as neglect and cruel by all of the adoptive parents I know.
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I’m so happy that there are adoptive parents like you out there who are open to feedback. The scariest thing about the mom in this film is how defensive and angry she’s been about the feedback she’s received.
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Kevin, I guess this is why we have people like you who can educate us on the way our child might feel. I can see where this mother is coming from. She might think she is saving this child by bring her here…”The Land of the Free”. Helping her become” Americanized”. Not realizing that she is stripping her of all that she is. The little person that she has already become. This is the mistakes that mothers make all the time. Thinking we know best and trying to save our children from the world! Unknowing that in this process we are also stripping little pieces or big chunks away of our children DNA makeup. Which can in turn have our child grow up and not feel comfortable in their own skin. Kevin… help educate us mothers out here who are only trying to do what we know Best. Help us see through the eyes of our children. So, we can help them feel comfortable in their skin.
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Sadly, in our “enlightened” age some parents still think their job is to mold and shape their children. Children are not modeling clay; they are individuals who are not the same as their parents. My heart goes out to that little girl and to all the children who are not treated with the love, compassion, and respect they deserve.
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Kevin, you and I did see the same film. My husband and I were also in tears and anger. Now, I had a friend point out that ‘they’ can edit things like this…I will tell you, we have adopted four times from China, once from here, two that time, and we are in process for another Chinese adoption. You have hit the nail on the head. The end of the film left me in tears.
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So I haven’t seen the movie, I did however see the trailer. My impression was that it’s purpose was to encourage adoption, and adoption of older children. That’s a good thing right? Bearing in mind that in order to accomplish the purpose most documentaries like this leave out any sense of “gray” areas. They become a “look at what a wonderful thing this person did” kind of thing, an overly glorified fairy tale.
But despite this I still feel like throwing a dissenting voice into the mix, albeit an uneducated one since I did not see the actual film. What future did the child have in China? She was in a foster family, but the foster family wasn’t going to adopt her… So while I agree it’s wrong/sad to “strip” a child of her culture, what is the priority? Is it to provide a child a family despite their cultural differences or maintain a child’s culture in which she has no hope of a future in? I know, I know, it doesn’t have to be either one or the other. . . but some of the comments make it sound like it is.
I guess in the end I’m kind of picking a fight. How could a parent adequately provide a child a link to a culture that is literally on the other side of the world? In most cases WE are going to fall far short. The end result is not ever going to be a Chinese or Ethiopian adult living in America, it’s going to be an American with Chinese or Ethiopian heritage. Is it really about connecting our children to their past or preparing our children for how their new world is going to accept them, perhaps a bit of both?
Kevin how would you have advised this mother in proceeding with her Cultural Connection Plan?
-Erika
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Based on Kevin’s description, I think it is the lack of compassion for the child in transitioning her to the United States that has people so upset, especially considering her age. It isn’t that the child should not have been adopted; it is the description of the assimilation with such force that gets people worked up.
“How could a parent adequately provide a child a link to a culture that is literally on the other side of the world? “
Maybe we cannot provide an adequate link to their culture. While I hate to promote a narrative about “saving” a child, I think you are correct in that culture does come second to basic needs.
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Erika,
I recently had a conversation with several Asian adult adoptees and they joked that Asian adoptees are often seen as “the other white meat;” meaning many parents adopt Asian children and just assume they can raise them as if they are white. This is what Mrs. Sadowsky, in my opinion was doing. I think her definition of assimilate is “to make white.”
The Sadowsky’s plan for Sui Yong should have been to HAVE a cultural plan. It doesn’t appear they had one or desired to have one. There was a huge void in their pre-adoption care and instruction.
Moving forward, I am not sure. Subtly she has been taught that her culture is unimportant and bad so now trying to immerse her in that will be met with so much resistance and also confusion. I hate to say it but at this point I don’t know what they can do to help her now.
I wonder if the Sadowskys are more typical than atypical. Now here is my question to everyone else.
Do you think the Sadowskys are just a result of slanted video editing or are there really TRA parents like this?
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Erika, while China is on the other side of the world, Chinese American people are not. There are communities of Chinese Americans that can be connected with right here in the U.S. What makes the Jewish American culture more privileged and more “American” than the Chinese American culture.
It is preparing a child about how their new world is going to treat them ~ a world that is also racist. Where’s the preparation her family is giving her? It is about connecting to the future ~ a future that may include Faith wanting to travel to her homeland or look for her birth family or visit her foster family. And damnit, she should not have to deal with having to relearn the Chinese language when is is an adult when she could continue to retains it throughout her childhood and teenage years. This child is 7 years old. That’s just pure laziness on the part of the family and fear on part of the child.
Educationally and scientifically, we know bilingualism is better for kids all around. WHY do Americans insist on being so lazy? Why aren’t we teaching second languages to kids in school when they are young? Other countries do this. Why are we so far behind educationally and socially in this respect?
A mother who has previously adopted a child from China makes no effort to learn even upon adopting a second child. What’s going on there?
When families blend together and become stepfamilies different traditions, languages, etc come to one household. Why can’t the same be done in international adoption?
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Erika…
Understanding that you did not see the whole film and perhaps that you have not been a “foster” child, where I have… I would gently say that for this young Chinese girl…. her foster mother was her Momma. Her foster sister was her sister. She was taken from everything familiar with her and even during her stay at the hotel in China with a woman someone told her was her new Mother, she was forced to work on flashcards to learn English. Oddly enough, I noticed her flashcards were in both English and Chinese and yet her foster mother made no effort to learn her daughter’s language at the same time. This would have made it kind of a “give and take” situation instead of “we need you to be like us”. I have been a foster child… and truthfully, it was not all that much different at times than being adopted. I had foster mothers who didn’t care much and I had a foster mother who loved me and cared for me as if I were her own. I loved it there and mourned the loss of it when my adoptive parents decided to take us in. Luckily for me, my two homes were half a mile apart and my new parents had no issue with me remaining connected to my foster mother.
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I still have not seen the movie… but have asked around and those that DID see this movie felt much the same as Kevin did… VERY sad. LOL now I don’t want to see the movie at all! It is sad about the language.. we’re trying our best to teach our kiddo some of her native language. I have cards all over the place with translated words for things like Look, Shoes, Let’s Go, I Love you, Daughter… She won’t be able to have a conversation in the country of her birth WHEN we go back to visit but we’ve at least got a foot in the door, shown her that her country of birth is something we’re proud of. Her birth culture is celebrated on the walls of our house, the music we listen to and the books that we read. Heaven help the first immigrant from her birth country I come accross, I’ll be all over them! Probably scare them away.
Sadly I feel as though none of this is enough, and there in lies the problem. I don’t think life growing up in a care center would be better for my daughter and In-country adoption was not available to her. I’ll give in to the idea that fostercare isn’t as bad… I wish my daughter had the opportunity, and I wish this child in the movie had the opportunity to STAY and be adopted by her foster family.. but the reality is My child, this child didn’t have the opportunity. So where does this leave us as parents? As always doing the best we can with what we’ve got. You better believe we’re going to stumble along the way. And so..
Thank you SO SO SO much for all those that responded to my post. I LOVE the dialogue, Love when people streach me and challenge me. Keep it up!!
-Erika
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i completly agree with you i recently saw the trailer and traveled to Europe and what i noticed is everyone ,even children are at least bilingual and i think it would do Americans a great deal to add that to its education system. im 19 yrs old and might not have the right to judge on raising children since i dont have any and im practically one myself in my mothers eyes but i do feel that the mother shouldve learned the language and somehow pushed the girl to be billingual i cant imagine waking up one day and having my name stripped away the main form of identity and to go home with strangers that look nothing like me. i havent seen the movie but the trailer itself made me said you here all these good things about tranracial adoption how the kids will have a better life and though thats true at what cost? to see the childs hurt the girl is 8 she’s not dumb for her to say she’s rather go back to her foster family than with her new”forever family” says a great deal:(
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So much grief here, and loss. I would hardly say she “blossomed” at the end- she acclimated and survived, in a way that makes non-adoptive families very comfortable, but the rest of us cringe.
The gift this movie gives all of us is a forum to have the discussion in a very public way. Mrs. Sadowsky will hear from us, and although she will be stunned, she will eventually get an education in what went wrong. I have to say I take huge issue with her agency– I don’t believe she read and ignored the information– I don’t think she got it. She was so terrified her daughter would not acclimate that she washed the Chinese out of her, and that could not have happened if she were educated on the pain this causes.
My faith, however, is in Faith/Sui Yong. She is a bright, articulate and resourceful little girl, and she experienced very healthy love in her early life (and love with her current family, if misguided). She’s found a bond with her adoptive father, and she will have the tools to get to her truth in her adulthood, and reconnect with this family and her sister from China. This is her journey, and she will learn, too, and take comfort later that there was a world of people out there who cried for her, got angry for her, and cheered for her. We will hear from her again.
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I have not seen the film or the interview yet. One thing I will say though is that although this mother’s efforts may seem pushy or forceful, I would probably give her credit for attempting to make some things easier for her adopted daughter. Children at that age — 3rd grade — can be exceedingly mean and hurtful when another child seems ‘different’ to them. I am a strong believer in bilingual/multilingual education, however, the name of the game in the USA is English and it is actually extremely important that an older international adoptee in the U.S. learn the language as fast as she/he can. If the mother truly strips the child of her culture and identity — that’s a different story. One that I won’t comment on until I have seen the film.
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I saw the movie, very hard for me to watch for many reasons.
The mom was cold, and even in the end they did not understand and seemed to get upset with what the lady had to say. VERY SAD INDEED.
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I am a white Amom to two young daughters adopted from China. Both of my girls are under 4-years and were toddler age at their adotpion.
This film is being heavily discussed on several China adoption chat groups as well as transracial adoption chat groups. I did learn that the Amom learned some Mandarin before going to China, but shortly before she left for China discovered that her daughter new Cantonese– not Mandarin. Mandarin is the official language in China and is what is taught in schools, but from what I have heard from some friends who are Chinese, if a child has any kind of a visible medical need, they will likely not be allowed to go to public school.
Granted, I would have tried to find an electronic translator that had Cantonese to English, but I am not sure how easily those are to find.
I agree with what others have said, the Amom came across as cold and uncaring. I would have done things differently– I would not have planned to change her name so quickly– I would have given her time and then asked her what she would like to do– have an English name or not and if yes, provide suggestions.
I would have used flashcards to use the pictures to communicate without pushing the English so heavily– I would have also asked for her to tell me how to say the words in Cantonese more of a give-and-take. Maybe the Amom did do this but it wasn’t shown on the film? I tend to think it would have been mentioned, but I don’t recall it being mentioned that the Amom learned some Mandarin either.
My youngest daughter was just under 2-years when we adopted her and she new quite a bit of Mandarin. We were very sad when she quit using Mandarin words– we do use some Mandarin words– but it isn’t the same. Both of my daughters (and I) will be starting Preschool Mandarin classes later this month.
While DH and I were happy to return home at the end of our adoption trip– we were also very sad for our girls–both times– to take them away from their birth country and all its richness. China is a very beautiful country and the people we met– just people in general in the parks and on the street– were very warm and welcoming.
I always find it disheartening when I hear other aparents say they didn’t like China or something disparaging– this is the birth country of our Children (those of us adopting from China)! How do they think these types of comments will effect them?
This post is becoming disjointed– the younger foster sister– on one of the chat groups someone said there is an American family in China adopting her now and that the families plan to get the two girls together. I haven’t seen more posted about it yet.
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I saw the movie, and then followed some links to some discussions that the adoptive mom participated in, and so I can say that I think the film portrayal of the story was somewhat one-sided. For example, the adoptive mom meant to tell her daughter that she could use her Chinese name or a new English name–but the Chinese orphanage workers told her that she had to take the English name. The adoptive mother didn’t find out what had happened until she saw the movie. And the adoptive mom was very eager for the daughter to maintain as much contact as she could with her foster family; the Chinese orphanage workers, in contrast, told her that she must not. Mrs. Sadowsky found that out later also, and was very glad that her daughter had not obeyed the orphanage workers.
She clearly made lots of mistakes; the flashcards and the immediate forcing of English were dreadful, and she obviously didn’t understand much at all about the emotional disruption and attachment issues that needed to be addressed. But I suspect that all of us would find that if you brought a camera into our homes, filmed us non-stop, and selected the wrong clips, we could wind up looking like pretty awful parents.
As far as losing Chinese goes, it is unfortunate, but it seems to be what happens to older international adoptees as well as to older children who move internationally. Kevin, I think you misunderstood the bit at the swimming pool. Mrs. Sadowsky says that she was only happy that her daughter was now feeling some warmth and attachment to her new adoptive little sister, and not at all glad to see a loss of attachment to the foster family.
Finally, I see in a lot of these discussions an interesting irony. People are unhappy that the girl lost her Chinese culture. Yet it is the very Chinese culture (as expressed by the orphanage workers) that told her she must change her name, detach from her foster family, and adapt to her new circumstances. It would not have been at all “Chinese” of her to do otherwise. A culture is more than a language and foodstuffs; it is a whole outlook, and in a weird way, Faith/Sui Yong expressed it by losing it.
Chinese culture also said that this girl–with limb differences and no biological family–was of no worth to anyone. With her disabilities (and without additional medical care, she would have become even more severely crippled over time) she would have aged out of the system and been completely helpless and destitute.
I hope that the result of the film is to make many people look harder at older-child and special-needs adoption, which was Mrs. Sadowsky’s intent. If we could learn from her mistakes and do it better than she did, that’s great.
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Great Post! I think you totally hit the nail on the head about culture in a very important way. It really is impossible to raise a kid in a culture that is not your own, because you can’t really think and show the values of that culture in a consistent way. And often you wouldn’t want to.
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But the truth is when we bring a child of a different culture into America, they ARE going to lose their culture. This film just showed it in hyper speed and with a less warm and fuzzy mom influence than we wished, but it is the fact. My Chinese and Haitian children are SO distant from their original cultures. I can do a few things here, but part of the process of international adoption is that the child loses a LOT. I grieve it, but I never thought going into any of my adoptions that I would be able to keep my children’s heritage completely intact. That is just not in my range of ability. I am a White American woman and all of the CNY celebrations and Black barber shops in the world can’t MAKE this life into THAT life.
And being American isn’t a horrible thing, after all. We have lots of immigrants who keep portions of culture, but become this great amalgamation. It is a balance, to be sure, based on each family’s opinions, each child’s needs, and a lot of other variables.
Just because my children wouldn’t fit into their original cultures easily at this point in life doesn’t mean I don’t honor and love where they came from. I’m instilling a lot of pride, but I am not equipped to keep them completely who they would be if they had stayed put. The losses and gains in adoption are many. It is not a perfect thing, but it is a beautifully painful thing.
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In my opinion, it comes down to what type of family you want to be. Are you a family who happens to have a child or color or are you a multicultural family. If you are a multicultural family then you work really hard at including that culture into the family and you don’t ignore the fact that the child is from another culture. It means you raise the child as, in this case, a Chinese American, and I didn’t see much effort put in to that. If that was an editing issue then so be it, but I was responding to the movie I saw. International adoption is out of my scope but I see a lot of similarities with domestic transracial adoption and I think with more pre-adoption support a lot of the things that are overlooked could and should be addressed.
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‘If that was an editing issues then so be it, but I was responding to the movie I saw.’
Exactly. I made this point in my review of the film as well. In the film we witness a deeply traumatized child whose trauma and loss issues are not addressed. Assimilation appears to be the sole priority.
‘Do you think the Sadowskys are just a result of slanted video editing or are there really TRA parents like this?’
Yes, there really are parents like this who are not educated about trauma and loss issues inherent in adoption. Subsequently they are highly reactive to their child’s trauma behaviors (which might ‘appear’ to be tantrums) and impose traditional punishment techniques. Painful to watch unfold.
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I wrote a bit about this movie at Adoption Blogs:
http://transracial.adoptionblogs.com/weblogs/wo-ai-ni-i-love-you-mommy
Briefly, the film only covers Faith’s first year in the US, so the Sadowskys enrolled Faith in Chinese school about 6-8 months after she appeared in the US.
I do think that this film has redeeming qualities – mostly as what NOT to do when you adopt an older child from another country. From the reviews and comments I’ve been reading, most people seem to be angered, at least, by the Sadowskys’ behavior. Hopefully, prospective adoptive parents will see it and feel the same way.
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“Do you think the Sadowskys are just a result of slanted video editing or are there really TRA parents like this?’”
I do not know the Sadowskys and so I cannot say if the perspective most of us get from this film is due to slanted video editing. I would like to think that some of it is due to editing– I know I have also seen TRA parents who are actually like this– I have seen Aparents take away a preferred food (likely a comfort food) from an older child they are adopting because the Afamily said the food “smelled so bad.” This was while in China maybe a week after the new child joined the Afamily.
I was floored.
There are limits to what we, TRAparents, can provide to our kids– but we can at least try– as Kevin has mentioned— develop a plan and execute it.
I try to cook some Chinese meals– as best I can–are they truly authentic– probably not, but I give it my best. As they girls get older we can wrap dumplings and spring rolls together as is the custom in many Chinese homes– as mothers and daughters cooking together is the custom in many cultures.
We use Mandarin for some people and some objects instead of the word in English. Over two years later my oldest daugther, not quite 4-years, who was 16-months at adoption, will refer to herself as both her Chinese nickname and her English name– as do we.
We celebrate Chinese holidays and tend to incorporate some Western into them as well as incorporating some Chinese traditions into our Western holidays; we participate with the girls in a couple routine groups that are led by Chinese American adults.
Some TRAfamilies do not make an effort at all– Sadly.
Has anyone seen the movie, “Adopted?” The parts of the movie about the adult adoptee are heart wrenching. She is not mad or angry in a way that comes across as bitter (suprisingly as I know I would likely be bitter in her shoes)– *just* confused. There are so many scenes that I wanted to yell at her parents.
I don’t want to that kind of a parent– I want to be better– so much better for my daughters. I also know several other TRAfamilies who feel similarly and we support each other and our children.
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This documentary is infuriating. Shame on this family. I’m spitting angry.
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I agree with the majority here, very sad. I also noticed something that no one else has mentioned. At the beginning of the film when the family is talking about why they chose to adopt an older child, the point they listed was because their younger daughter only wanted a “tall sister”. I understand that you want to have the entire family involved in the adoption, but I’m troubled that it appears they did an older child adoption only because their youngest princess did not wish to be dethroned (a normal childhood reaction). There may have been other reasons not listed, but I really feel this family had not considered what it meant to adopt an older child who already felt very connected to her culture. In the end, I think it was in the child’s best interest to be adopted (her options in China were grim) and I feel that the family loves her and wants her to be happy. I just wish they would put themselves in her shoes instead of forcing her into theirs.
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It struck me as strange too – I mean adopting an older child is not something you dive into simply because it would bridge the age gap in the sibling group.
BUT – I heard an interview with Donna in which she stated she was browsing children who needed families for some friends who were considering adoption. She saw Sui Yong, read about her needs and fell for her. That’s how a lot of Afamilies find their children, right? Nothing strange about that.
When we make decisions we often have lots of reasons. The “taller sister” argument was pictured in the documentary. The story of the A-mom seeing her picture was not.
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I just wanted to clarify that I don’t think younger children aren’t connected to their culture, it just not as traumatic for them at the beginning. A younger adopted child will most likely have to deal with the fact that they have lost their culture as they age whereas Faith had to watch her culture slip away from her while she was being told that it was a great thing. The scene where the Mom was so excited that she was rejecting her foster family was bone-chilling.
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I just watched the film after reading your review. I have recently adopted an toddler from ethiopia. I feel sick. I don’t want my child to loose himself but how do I stop it? I love him so much and he was not verbal prior to our adoption so language isn’t something he knew but he is the only african child in a family of 6 caucasions. I love everything about him and I want him to love everything about himself. I don’t want him looking at a picture of our family and thinking that he doesn’t belong. He was my child designated for me before the universe was set into motion. How do I make him feel that way?
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In reference to how the Chinese social worker told her to accept her new name and her new mommy – clearly that was wrong. Clearly there needs to be education for that social worker and orphanage. Their job is to contribute to an emotionally healthy transition for the child. That was not emotionally healthy. And no that’s not part of Chinese culture, that’s simply a bad example of social work and adoption practice.
But no matter how the social worker mistranslated, the adoptive mom should not have even introduced the idea of a new name at the first meeting.
Let’s think about this situation for a minute: a 7 year white Jewish American child meets her new Chinese stepmom who upon first meeting the child tells her what her new Chinese name is going to be. (Let’s say the whole family is going to be moving to China.)
Would anyone out there be defending this stepmom’s decision? No. And I think there would be a whole bunch of angry white American folks and Jewish American folks who would be simply furious.
I think what’s underlying the people who are defending Donna’s act is white privilege and the the fact that adopted kids are in some screwed up way seen as “products” and not actual human beings with a history and identity of their own.
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Hey Jen, don’t reverse the scenario into fantasy. Fast forward reality. 7 years from now: Faith keeps her Chinese name, and speaks only Chinese in America.
These children are different enough. Why make them stick out that much more? How cruel is that?
A spoken language doesn’t make a person. The ridicule of children, however, does. She’ll get enough ridicule. Why give kids more reason to point and laugh, make fun of, etc… She’ll look at herself and see she’s different. My daughter does and she’s only three!
You’ll say, “why not leave her in China?”. That’s where the arguement ends. You have NO idea what China is like for girls. You may read one or two articles; but go live there as a 13 year old who “ages out” of the only home (the run down orphanage) they ever knew with sex trafficing at abhorant rates. Go live on the streets where only a few years before the government was putting out lyrics to folk songs proclaiming that women were a lower status than live stock. But then do it with Faith’s handicap or my daughter’s “special need”. Things aren’t as lovely as you’d wish they were in China.
You’re spitting angry? Take that energy and go make a difference in a girl’s life who has NO future.
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I am glad someone else saw it from this point of view. I thought the same thing, and yet I’m in her same boat. I just view the situation differently. I thought she pushed her too hard in many areas, but I also realize that I would look back and do things differently if a camera was following me! My newest son is Chinese. Unfortunately, he speaks a dialect of Mandarin that is hard for Mandarin speakers to understand. Being in the U.S. for 5 months, he is losing his Chinese way too quickly! I don’t want either of my boys to lose their identity. We use the terms Kazakh-American and Chinese-American early on. However, I do find it difficult to live in our “melting pot” and keep their culture alive. It’s harder than you think! But I do completely see your point on this documentary. I think some adoptive parents may have been hesitant to have a derogatory point of view of the film for fear of flaming. Looking forward to reading your blog
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OK. This should end all the discussions here. My daughter was in the same group of girls that were adopted with Faith. We spent an entire week, leading up to our China departure, in the same hotel and same group of adopting families. My family even had the pleasure (and I say “pleasure” with great intent) of traveling a horrifically FAST and death-defying 3-hour minivan ride into Hong Kong to leave for the US. (If Donna is reading this, she is now laughing). We ate together NUMEROUS times, spent afternoons together shopping, got lost in Hong Kong with the Grandpa looking for a good deal on a camera (again, Donna’s laughing)… and let me tell you this:
First off, for those of you who feel that “cookie-cutter international adoptions” exist, you shouldn’t be posting anything anywhere regarding international adoptions. One could read multiple books on the subject and you’d STILL have NO CONCEPT of what it is like and the emotion and the exhaustion involved.
Secondly, this film was a terribly inaccurate portrayal of the family we experienced. This film is bordering on a “hatchet job”. Donna, I’m sorry if you like or approve of the film, I thought it was terrible. The music and editing is not appropriate for the Faith and Donna relationship we know. The choice of music and tone of the narrative voice is inexcusable! Absolutely inexcusable!
Faith was happy. Laughing, adaptable, adorable and had a personality that absolutely sparkled. You can’t fake that personality. And why would she have? To what end? What would Faith gain if she faked a sparkling personality that just radiated from every square inch of her face? That didn’t happen in spite of Donna’s love for her daughter, it happened because of Donna’s love for her daughter.
Here’s a for instance (and this is one of many): on the last night at the White Swan, we went to dinner at Lucy’s. For 30 minutes (and I have this on video. And Donna, if you want this contact me), Faith and another Chinese girl laughed ENDLESSLY with my two biological sons as they cross-taught each other their respective languages. It was the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. You want tears in your eyes?, you should see this.
OK. What about the flash cards? Hey, as a parent, have you ever done something with your kids at the wrong time? You start a project or a speech and subsequently decided, “my child is too tired for this”?
Back to the flash cards… that took place in the hotel room. In a Chinese adoption scenario, you don’t wake up fresh in the morning and sit around the hotel room. Typically, if you’re sitting in a hotel room, you’re exhausted from a day of paperwork, standing in line, trying to get things done when you can’t communicate with 99.99% of the people you meet, etc… Donna made a choice to look at flash cards when they were BOTH tired. GIVE HER A BREAK!
BTW, why would anyone expect that a child WOULDN’T lose Chinese language skills living in NEW JERSEY?! They barely speak ENGLISH there! LOL! Just kidding!
Donna and Faith. we love you and cherish the memories. Thank you for helping us through the processes.
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I read these reviews before I saw the film and have to say that I don’t think the mom was as bad as everyone is making her out to be. I really expected worse. Could she have worked harder to transition her daughter… absolutely. Could she have worked harder to help her daughter retain some of her culture… yes. However, I think she did a lot more than I’ve seen other people do. I liked her little comment at the beginning about other families that complain about the “donation” to the orphanage and how it helps the other children. I liked that they found a cultural center and enrolled Faith in lessons.
I think that most of the issues I might have with the mother stem from general personality traits and communication style. She’s just a little bit harsh in general… it wasn’t specific to Faith. Also, I noticed that Faith really seemed to develop that unconditional love/supportive relationship with her father… so it’s not like she didn’t have a reprieve from the harshness of the mother. In general, I think much of the tension came from Faith trying to settle into a new environment where she had to test the boundaries and the mother had to establish limits. That’s difficult for any family and it looks ugly from any outsider’s point of view without seeing the wholes story 24 hours a day. Add that to the major cultural shift and it’s hard to know where one ends and the other starts but it’s clear that they are both factors.
Finally, the thing that bothered me the most was that I felt like a total intruder. There were so many times you could see Faith look at the camera and even push it away. I thought, “this poor child is already trying to get her bearings straight and here she has to do it with the camera intruding upon her privacy!” I wonder how many times the camera’s presence affected a situation because Faith or the mom felt the scrutiny of the camera imposing upon the situation? I think of all the times my son does something out of character when we’re in public and I feel under pressure to respond a certain way that might be different than I would if we were in private. I think they should at least get credit for that!
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I have 2 daughters from China, one adopted non-special needs, one special needs, like the Sadowskys. I do know the Sadowsky’s, their younger daughter attended Mandarin classes with mine. The film is not an accurate portrait of a loving and supportive family, it is a sliver of time out of almost 2 years. Faith is happy and thriving – something that was not going to be her future in China where her disablity would have crippled her and made her an outcast – something her Chinese foster father states in the film. There is a very strong bias against visiable disabilities – and that makes a market for children with disablities- being sold as beggars. Her foster family was not going to adopt her and she would have aged out of the system at 14.
Here are a few things you need to know about international adoption and China in particular.
Subtractive Bi-lingualism. The process of losing your first language while learning a new first language in an un-supported environment (no family member speaking original language .) Common to almost ALL international adoptions of children over the age of 2. This is not ESL. Even older children have a hard time retaining their original language (with support) once they are immersed in another culture. They have to learn to THINK in a new language, not translate. Even children of immigrants frequently lose fluency in their first langauge if there is not support and interaction beyond their own family group. Critical mass for retention is the peer group.
Chinese is not a language – it’s a family of languages with hundreds of mutually un-intelligable dialects. Mandarin is the official langauge, but most people in China learn it as a second language in school. We did learn some Mandarin, and I’ve been told my accent is pretty good. But my older daughter’s caretakers spoke Cantonese – which has 6 tones, http://cantonese.ca/tones.php not the 4 of Mandarin, so our attempts to call her by her nick name were greeted with baffled stares (what is pronounced like”chin” in Mandarin sounds more like “Kah-m” with a sort of of swallowed m in Cantonese – at least to my ears.) Tonal languages are difficult to those who haven’t grown up with it and impossible for those who are tone deaf. I can handle the 4 tones of Mandarin, but I’m not even sure I can accurately hear the all differences among the Cantonese tones. Our second daughter’s home was in an area that our guide, who was fluent in several Chinese dialects, pronounced as “very difficult to speak.” In other words, we weren’t going to find many native speakers in the US, even among the large Chinese population in nearby NYC, and our likelyhood of learning it was nil. FYI those flash cards were in both English and Chinese (the written language is the same for all dialects, it’s how you say it that varies widely.)
Our second daughter had received surgery for her special need in China, but it was at a small regional hospital and not well done by current standards, being largely cosmetic. It was all redone here in the US. She gained the ability to speak understandably for the first time after her third birthday. She never would have been understood in China. And yes, like Faith, her introduction to the US was a constant round of Dr visits, assessments, therapists, and surgery – probably not the ideal bonding experience, or without trauma, but needed.
Abandonment. There is no legal avenue to surrender a child for adoption- that was felt would undermine the Family Planing Policy (commonly know as “One Child”) Except in rare circumstances where a child has no living relatives, most children under care in China were abandoned. As in left on the street. No safe haven. Most non-special needs children are girls due to the prefernce for boys, now creating statistical anomolies (normal male/female ratios are within a range of 4-7%. In some areas of China there are 120 boys to every 100 girls – probably due to selective abortion and infanticide – there are fewer girls by age 5 than at birth.
Medical Care. Insurance as we know it does not exist in China. You have to pay for your treatment up front. Cost of surgeries is dirt cheap by US standards (my daughter’s 60K surgery here would run about 2K there) BUT you have to have the money and the average income in China is still hovering around $1500 PER YEAR. There is excellent care in the large cities, but much of the population lives in areas where a small clinic may be all there is. Even in the US there are not a lot of specialists able to care for Faith’s condition.
We honor our childrens’ heritage, and are able to get them to the direct experience, living just outsde NYC. But just like the US, it’s a mix of good and bad. And they have experienced the bad, just like kids entrapped in the US foster care system.
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I spoke to the film maker. One of the reasons the film was made was to help adoptive parents realize the kinds of thoughts and feelings that a child goes through. We adopted our daughter at 11 months, and I always have suspected feelings similar to some of what Faith experienced in our daughter…but for her it was all pre-verbal.
For people who adopt children who are too young to verbalize these things, and for those who adopt without the benefit of a translator around for hours and hours and weeks and months, this film was a gift…allowing us to understand some of the things our kids all go through to one extent or another.
Also, it was an eye opener in terms of the Chinese cultural values, and some of the things that our kids may have been told or taught.
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As an adoptive parent, I too was disturbed at the picture this documentary painted of the Sadowsky’s. In fact, I couldn’t watch the whole thing because I couldn’t watch that little girl suffer in her adjustment any more than I already had. That being said, I have never seen/read anything on adoption that reflected my experience accurately. This includes an interview that I gave on the subject where the author decided to put words in my mouth that distorted my experience. There seems to be an agenda that effects how adoption is portrayed and I’m sure there was some of that going on in this documentary.
While many parents do a lot of reading about adoption and the effects on children prior to the actual adoption, and put what they learn into practice, many don’t. I don’t know this family and don’t know what they did or didn’t do.
I do know that pre and post adoption education requirements by states and agencies are not good enough, Especially in the case of transcultural adoption and older child/special needs adoptions. I say this as an adoptive parent of a 27 month old girl from China. I tried (and still do) to educate myself about issues that may affect my daughter, but I wish there was more.
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While I haven’t seen the video, it would strike me that there an awful lot of armchair quarterbacks here. We all know what happens in the editing room and how things viewed out of context can be seen in completely different light. I wonder how any of your families would look when put under a microscope such as this. Did this family do things correctly? …… Probably not. Do they have the best interests of their daughter in mind? I have no doubt they do. We are the proud parents of an 8 year old adopted girl from China and while we did everything in our power to emirs her in her culture, it was completely evident that she didn’t want any part of it She is an extremely happy well adjusted little girl. and when the time is right, and more importantly, if she wants to, we will help her connect with her culture in anyway we can. We are now going back to China for our second daughter, a 5 year old little girl. Will we make mistakes? ……Of course. Will anybody sitting at a computer with an opinion be able to tell me how to raise my family?……. Never.
Cut these people some slack
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Having just watched this video I had to get straight onto computer to find out how Faith is getting on.
I could not believe what I was seeing from her ‘mother’, they way she was treating her. It was like she enjoyed being horrible to her.
Her ‘father’ came across as a loving man and you could see the rapport between them.
This video left me upset to see a child treated like that.
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She needs to get a grip and a clue of cultural sensitivity. She got a lot of negative feedback and closed her fb account. I think she has ocd and is a control freak! Just wait till herteen years and beyond! Grrrhhh.
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She is a mess and has no clue about cultural sensitivity! Also, ocd and a control freak! Her fb account was closed ithink. lots of negative feedback.
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I am simply AMAZED at the extent to which this debate has continued. While there may be disagreements over how Donna handled this adoption and parented with Faith, I am just amazed that anybody would wish to adopt someone from a clearly foreign place and situation. It is so difficult to raise children well, and to do that with additional children not from your home culture is just totally heart-warming. Thank you for all of you for taking the loving and couageous steps to show the rest of the world that compassion and kindness can exist at incredible lengths amidst the persistent ugliness and selfishness that frequently overshadows it.
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This misconception is that because people are critical they are against it. I’m not against international adoption at all but…I do strongly believe transracial adoptions need parents who are very very intentional. Thinking that simply loving a child and ignoring everything else that can come with TRA just isn’t enough. Pointing out what Donna did wrong will hopefully show others what to do right and debunk the myth that you don’t have to be intentional because everything will organically fall into place.
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The challenge of parenting and on top of that, to adopt and, on top of that, to adopt transracially is a tall order for any person and in any case. I am baffled by the language of “wrong” against a person that has chosen to embark on a process that is mired in such complexity as transracial adoptions. Is it possible to be a perfect role model out there for those who have made or will make this difficult choice? I suspect the adoptive mother will get the point about how to preserve the ethnic part of her adopted child from the feedback given. Yet, I wonder if, regardless how much a adoptive mother could aspire for that in the first place, Sui Yong could still choose to be called Faith rather than Sui Yong later on in her life. Ideally, she would appreciate both parts of her. But regardless of the outcome of this debate, she would be the one who has to grapple with ALL parts of her in her life journey. Eventually she will face the reality that to live in America, or to be an American, is to realize that we have ALL come from somewhere else at some point and have chosen to adopt America as our home.
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