The Chinese Adoption Handbook

Adopting a child can be one of life's most rewarding experiences. Unfortunately, complex policies, legal risks, and fewer available children can make a domestic adoption difficult. International adoption offers a solution to parents yearning for a child of their own. American parents are now adopting over 6,000 children a year from China and Korea. John Maclean's The Chinese Adoption Handbook is a comprehensive guide to adopting a child from China and Korea. From pitfalls to practical advice, the rewards to the risks, The Chinese Adoption Handbook leads parents through the international maze, including: How the international adoption process works. How to start the process. What you need to know before traveling to China or Korea. Making the most out of your trip-the inside scoop on customs, hotels, and shopping. The children's homes, the U.S. Consulate visit, and the questions that need to be asked. Medical issues, special adoption doctors, and travel requirements. Post-adoption procedures and much, much more. Practical, accurate, and written with a father's sense of humor, The Chinese Adoption Handbook is the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to adoption from China and Korea.

It's no secret that tens of thousands of Chinese children have been adopted by American parents and that Western aid organizations have invested in helping orphans in China—but why have Chinese authorities allowed this exchange, and what does it reveal about processes of globalization? Countries that allow their vulnerable children to be cared for by outsiders are typically viewed as weaker global players. However, Leslie K. Wang argues that China has turned this notion on its head by outsourcing the care of its unwanted children to attract foreign resources and secure closer ties with Western nations. She demonstrates the two main ways that this "outsourced intimacy" operates as an ongoing transnational exchange: first, through the exportation of mostly healthy girls into Western homes via adoption, and second, through the subsequent importation of first-world actors, resources, and practices into orphanages to care for the mostly special needs youth left behind. Outsourced Children reveals the different care standards offered in Chinese state-run orphanages that were aided by Western humanitarian organizations. Wang explains how such transnational partnerships place marginalized children squarely at the intersection of public and private spheres, state and civil society, and local and global agendas. While Western societies view childhood as an innocent time, unaffected by politics, this book explores how children both symbolize and influence national futures.

'Handbook of Adoption' addresses topics in adoption that reflect the many dimensions of theory, research, development, race adjustment and clinical practice which can affect adoption triad members.

Helping readers to understand Chinese culture, this book is ideal for families of children being adopted from China. It also delves into the adoption process itself and is packed with photos that appeal to both adoptive parents and children.

With more than 4 million Chinese baby girls in orphanages, the number of Americans adopting these orphans is steadily increasing, and this resource for people interested in doing so outlines what to do, where to go, who to see, and how much it costs. Simplifying important information about procedures, forms, and agencies, the guide is also the p...

For anyone involved in, or thinking about, adopting a child from abroad, The International Adoption Handbook is an essential guide. The process of international adoption can sometimes seem complex, frustrating, and endless. This step-by-step guide, which provides the necessary hard facts and information — as well as support through the experiences of the author and others — will help smooth the way. After a general discussion of who may adopt and what restrictions may apply, the book goes into the nitty-gritty of what the process entails: choosing where to adopt and how to go about it; using an agency or facilitator; initiating the home study; assembling a dossier; working with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service; knowing the topes of expenses that can be anticipated; and many other issues. In addition, the book provides up-to-date information on resources, including what is available today on the Internet, information that was previously difficult for adoptive parents to find out on their own. Equally informative are the author's interviews of a number of adoptive families whose stories are interspersed throughout the book. By sharing their experiences, they help to make the process work for others.

With more than 4 million Chinese baby girls in orphanages, the number of Americans adopting these orphans is steadily increasing, and this resource for people interested in doing so outlines what to do, where to go, who to see, and how much it costs. Simplifying important information about procedures, forms, and agencies, the guide is also the personal story of one middle-aged couple's quest to become parents--as well as why and how they made the decision and what went on before, during, and after their trip to China.

In the thirty-five years since China instituted its One-Child Policy, 120,000 children—mostly girls—have left China through international adoption, including 85,000 to the United States. It’s generally assumed that this diaspora is the result of China’s approach to population control, but there is also the underlying belief that the majority of adoptees are daughters because the One-Child Policy often collides with the traditional preference for a son. While there is some truth to this, it does not tell the full story—a story with deep personal resonance to Kay Ann Johnson, a China scholar and mother to an adopted Chinese daughter. Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China’s Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country’s stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed—from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China’s so-called abandoned children have increasingly become “stolen” children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally—but illegally—adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages. The image of the “unwanted daughter” remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China’s Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one’s child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China’s birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.

Considering adopting from China? Mine In China is your guide to everything you need to know to make this dream a reality. Topics include:*Affording adoption*How to choose the right agency for your family*Understanding special needs adoption*How to compile a dossier*Detailed explanations of the steps involved, typical timeframes, and acronyms used*Evaluating the file of a potential child*How to understand your child's name and transition him or her to an American name*Questions to ask when requesting an update on your child*Getting through the early days home*Extensive additional resource recommendationsIn addition, the book includes an extensive travel section to make your trip to China go smoothly.*Travel agent, tour guide, and hotel recommendations*Covering the planes, trains, and automobile possibilities of your journey*Important things to do before you travel*The ultimate packing list*Understanding Chinese culture including what to expect for available food options and how to use an Asian style "squatty potty"

From Adoptive Families magazine, the country’s leading resource on adoption, this warm, authoritative book is full of practical, realistic advice from leading attorneys, doctors, social workers, and psychologists, as well as honest, intimate stories from real parents and children. You Can Adopt answers every question–even the ones you’re afraid to ask: • When should I shift from fertility treatment to adoption? • How do I talk to my spouse about adoption? • Can we find a healthy baby? • Do I need an attorney? An adoption agency? • Can the birth mother take the baby back? • How much will this really cost? How long will it take? • Aren’t all adopted children unhappy? • Can I love a child who “isn’t mine”? • How can I ease the rest of my family into this decision? Complete with checklists and worksheets, You Can Adopt will help make your dreams of family come true.