My parents adopted my sister from Russia about 20 years ago. At the time, Russian law only allowed foreign adoptions if the child had a physical or mental disability. My sister had a crossed eye, that was sufficient to allow her out of the country. She is now 22 years old, going to college, and living a happy, healthy life. Some friends of my parents adopted two children from the same orphanage, a brother and sister. The brother had serious issues - trying to kill his parents and run away at 6 years old type thing. They eventually placed him in the home of parents with no other children who were looking for a child like that to care for, I lost track of the story after that. The sister is also leading a normal, ostensibly happy life, though.

There is an incredible story of this nature on This American Life (this episode is very hard for parents to listen to, but very beautiful)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/317/u...

Yeah, it's the kind of thing that requires almost all of one's attention on.

> China and Russia would often give severely challenged children to US adoptive parents

About 2 years ago I was watching a documentary about china-to-america adoptions on japanese television. While the point was never explicitly raised, the viewer could not help but notice that most or all of the children up for adoption - no interested chinese parents having being found - were, and there's no nice way to say this, quite physically unattractive, developmentally challenged, or both.

The program showed American couples arriving to claim their new family member and I was struck by how unwitting they seemed. I got the impression they simply did not have enough experience with asian children to realise that their adoptive child had, to put it brutally, a pretty poor genotype, with a host of physical and behavioural ramifications.

I'm currently in China now adopting my fourth child. I would not agree with this comment, although obviously I'm biased. When you adopt you have the choice between accepting a child that is healthy and one with special needs. Sometimes these needs are severe, sometimes minor. If you accept a child with special needs, the wait for placement can be much quicker. That is what we did and our child has a minor issue that can be corrected with cosmetic-level surgery. In my opinion, that is nothing. But to be clear, there are perfectly healthy children open for adoption as well.

I've seen multiple people now talk about how unprepared the adoptive parents seemed to be. From my view, this is the minority. We are currently at the end of our stay and are at a hotel with maybe 10-15 other families. Every one we've spoken to were very prepared and knew what they were getting into.

Well, I'd certainly never pretend to have the first-hand experience you have! I was only reporting my impressions from a TV documentary, 2 years ago. I don't even remember which area it was, or the program's name. You obviously seem to know what you're doing; maybe my impressions were incorrect, or the program spun it that way.

As for the kids - don't get me wrong, plenty were healthy; but they did not conform to normal asian notions of physical attractiveness. The unavoidable conclusion was that the chinese adoptive parents, who had first choice, cared greatly about this factor, whereas the americans either couldn't tell or didn't care.

> It's not that they will paper over problems a child has; if you read other sources they will outright lie. I also recall reading, unfortunately an article that I can no longer find, that China and Russia would often give severely challenged children to US adoptive parents.

Yes they would lie. Shortcuts are taken at every step, bribes are paid. [Well I speak about the situation 10 years ago]. So some shadiness and cutting corners happens form both ends. American parents know they are paying bribes and cutting corners in the "process". I know of a case 10 years ago. They snuck the baby out of Russia by bribing. Bribed officials and people all through the chain. I was told there would not be another way. That child turnout to have issues. Not as severe but it sure put a tremendous strain on that family.

Anyway back to lies. I don't know if Russia or those other countries have laws to only give severely challenged kids to US parents. I think many orphanages do that individually because they think those children would have a better chance at a good life in America. Americans (at least a decade ago, when I was able to better compare) were seen as having unlimited resources and big hearts. They were the only ones who would adopt children with those issues. And by enlarge American families felt (feel?) the same, they feel they can provide and take care of a child with special needs. Some are aware of what they are getting into but many, don't but think they can handle it. That is when it becomes very dangerous.