"Mercy Mercy" Ethiopian Adoption Documentary Discussion

Please watch this!

and an interview with the documentary filmmaker

This documentary needs to be seen, wrestled with, and seriously taken to heart.

It is heartbreakingly unbelieveable as it follows the journey of two small children Masho and Robba from Ethiopia to their new life in Denmark, their family in Ethiopia, and their Danish family in the years following their international adoption.

If you have a child who joined your family through adoption I think that you must see this, and if you don't have a family who joined your family through adoption...I still think that you need to see this. It is hard to watch, but it is important. Parenting is hard, therapeutic parenting is even harder, therapeutically parenting a child who has gone through the trauma of adoption is harder still.

This is not my son's story, this is not our story, but this is a true story...and an important story...and one that should be shouted from the rooftops as parents consider adoption.

Adoption is beautiful, hard, ugly, painful, joyful, and amazing...but the hard and the ugly are real.

In the adoption process, there are dramatic inequities, heartwrenching loss, devastating miscommunications, willful denials, political and financial power struggles.  The process is complicated and opaque and very, very vulnerable to exploitation.

And in the middle of this complicated, vulnerable process are powerless children and poverty-stricken families struggling with devastating, life-altering circumstances and decisions.  There are adoptive families with expectations for reciprocal love, the joy of parenthood, and visions of what their new family will look like, be like. And there are scared, TERRIFIED, traumatized children.

Reality can be a harsh wake-up call.

Think about this if it was your child...the sweet 4 year old one snuggled up against you...think about it through her eyes.

What if you told your 4 year old child one day that you were going to the store but never came back.

And then she was "kidnapped" by a black (or any other race different than hers) couple she had never met...in fact, she'd never even seen a black person before.

And she was taken on an airplane to another country with a different language, customs, food, smells, people...everything.

Would you expect her to love this black kidnapper family right away? What about four years later?

Here's the thing.

In our world, if 4 years later your child was still resisting loving her kidnappers we would call her "strong" "spirited" "feisty" "a survivor".  If she was adapting to life with them, even if not affectionately, we would call her "resilient" "strong" "able to overcome"...

So at worst, based on the film, Masho was strong, resilient, and able to overcome.  But, based on the film (and I will acknowledge that there could be more that was not shown, but it really doesn't seem like it) Masho does not seem to have a severe attachment disorder.  Also, she clearly had a strong and loving attachment with her Ethiopian family for her first 4 years which research would suggest means that she has a stronger likelyhood to form a strong and healthy attachment again.

She was failed by her adoptive family and by the "psychologist".  They seem to have been uninformed, unprepared, in denial, and utterly at a loss as to how to parent a child who has been through unimaginable circumstances.

My heart breaks for this little girl whose childhood has been annihilated.

My heart breaks for her family in Ethiopia who relinquished her out of love when they thought they were dying and now, although they are alive, did not received any of the legally required post-placement reports and were treated with complete disregard by agency and government officials.

My heart breaks for Robba who has surely been impacted by the cruel and perplexing treatment of his sister.

My heartbreaks for the Danish family who clearly were woefully unprepared to become parents through adoption.

Here is my question:
Now that you have seen what adoption can look like (it was so telling how cavalier the government officials and agency staff were towards the adoptive family, and how as the years progressed agency staff got more and more uncomfortable with the cameras) what are you going to do?

I believe that there are children for whom international adoption is the best option, but I also believe that it is not the best option for many children who are placed for adoption...and that international adoption requires exponentially more resources than other care options like family preservation, in country adoption, fostercare, etc.

One of the popular adoption verses that floats around "adoption circles" is "Once our eyes are opened we can not pretend we don't know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know, and holds us responsible to act" Proverbs 24:12

Now our eyes are opened...what are we going to do?

I think that before we will know what to do, we need to wrestle with these ugly, uncomfortable truths.

There are some great discussions popping up online about this.  Although I am sure it will highlight my very special but tiny ("hi mom!") readership I am putting up my first ever link up.  Please continue the conversation on your blog (and/or in the comments) and link it here.