A funny thing happened to me recently - I was thrust into my Utopia when I least expected it and wasn’t prepared for it. And it was meant to happen exactly that way because no other way would I have appreciated it and recognized it like I have.

I’ve spent most of the last 10 years with a vision of exactly what kind of life I wanted if I could design that life myself. I know it’s good to have goals and dreaming is ok too but the problem is that all this dreaming distracted me from reality and also I’m not very patient. I like to make this happen NOW. Later might never come. I was so busy dreaming about what I didn’t have that I failed to enjoy what I did have. Which was a lot. That said, I’m not sure I could have ever truly enjoyed it because all of ::that:: isn’t who I am, it isn’t what I want and it doesn’t make happiness magically appear.

The day that Tony called to tell me he lost his job was the first day of my Utopia. I hated that job - oh how I hated that job - with a passion that had a life of its own. I hated how they treated my husband from day one: if we weren’t already unemployed and desperate for ANY job, there is no way he would have taken that job. But as it were, we WERE desperate (and of course they knew that) and so it was better than nothing. It was meant to be temporary until he could find something more well-suited for our family but it turned out to be both more temporary and more long-lasting than expected. The Job will not be missed.

I could sum up the life lessons I’ve learned in the last few years with a number of cliches about how life is how we live it and not how much money we have. Those are the kinds of things that are easy to proclaim when you have no money but for a long time I felt this sort of mismatch with our life and my inner joy. I often - OFTEN - thought back on a time in life that Dalton fondly refers to as the “frozen pizza rolls” days where our total annual income was $9000. We were broker than broke for a family of 4 but damn I was happy. And I was a good Mom - a really GOOD Mom. And I was healthy in ways that I haven’t really resembled in years. Of course we tend to idealize the past, I know it wasn’t my Utopia but the point is that I have always felt a certain joy about being free from the social encumbrances that come with money. One of those biggest encumbrances, for the vast majority of people, is that your time is no longer your own. You have no freedom, no flexibility, no opportunities for illness, exhaustion or just time off to enjoy life. You are owned by those who pay you. Where is the joy in that?!

I think one of the things that instantly attracted me to Vietnam was that the people had so little but were overfull with joy. I wanted that. That is my Utopia.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to live on $9000/year. There are things that ARE important to me that DO cost money: my home, our cars, my children’s extra curricular activities. But there are also things that are so important to me that I have now that I didn’t have two weeks ago: namely, my husband’s presence. I love having him here, my kids love having him here, he loves to be here. I love being able to go to the zoo at 10am on a weekday, as a family. I love being able to travel, even if it means sleeping in a tent to afford it. I love being able to get up and take a walk…..alone. Plus I am also spoiled: I love it when my husband brings me passion tea lemonades at lunchtime and tells me to go take a nap in the middle of the day and catch up on last night’s tv that I was way too exhausted to stay awake through. I love that he can sit outside and work while the kids swim in the pool and if he gets hot, he can jump in too. I love, most of all, seeing my husband working hard on things that truly matter, achieving things that he would have and could have never achieved had he been stuck in the cubicle hell and being validated for his talents instead of recriminated for them.

Tony has worked from home in the past and it was nice but not like this. I didn’t have the appreciation I do now. I took for granted almost all of the perks. Once things changed I made those sorts of deals you made with yourself, God, whomever. I said “If I ever get the chance again, I will be a better wife, a better mother, I will use the time to take better care of myself.” So that’s why the very first thing I did on the very first morning after Tony lost his job was to wake up and go out walking. I bartered for more time and I won, I was going to make good on my promise. Granted it has only been about 10 days but I think we both spend time daily reflecting and appreciating what we have gained from this loss. I feel so blessed, so privileged. And that was something I most definitely never really *felt* before.

And one final note on personal growth. I’m such a control freak, especially about money and finances. I would not ordinarily say this is a bad thing but it is not always a good thing. I think when you are so hung up with making things perfect, you lose your perspective. You lose relativity about what perfection really is. You forget that Life truly really honestly does just Go On whether you are in control and everything is perfect or not. And you can hang on for the ride and have faith and trust in those you love and in life itself or you can freak the hell out and try to make sense of it all and try to make it all fixed yesterday. You can probably guess which one of those two scenarios I resembled 10 days ago and which I really feel I am today.

Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility. In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness. That is very important. Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances.
- Dahli Lama

One of the bad habits I’m trying very hard to break is the whole “We’re broke” sob story. First of all, broke is relative and its insulting to say we are broke after having visited Vietnam and seen what little even monetarily wealthy people have. Second, we are rich in ways that aren’t reflected in our bank account and at the moment, those riches feel like Utopia. I feel like I won the lotto. I found my inner peace.

I love Christmas (could you tell?). I’m not a Christian so Christmas might mean something different for my family but this post is going to be about abundance and guilt-free holiday celebrating.

Every year we plan all year, we save all year. I don’t believe in charging the holiday so it requires conscious pre-planning all year long. Some years that’s a lot more work than other’s.  We are good all year, we don’t indulge our kids often, if ever. I shop sales and resales. I scope out craigslist and our local classifieds for bargains. The kids have to earn any money they want for things they want to buy. They pretty much hate that they don’t get an allowance but its important to me that they learn that life isn’t about gimmes and freebies - things must be earned and earning things involves working and effort. Sometimes this means they go without something they really want becuase they really want to earn it even less than they really want to own it. Life gives us that option too.

Christmas, though, is the one time of year when we can let it all go and live in excess. We bake crazy amounts of sweets and eat them all. We make rich, decadent meals and eat them all. We buy a bazillion gifts and open them all. We decorate our houses with incredible lights and decorations, inside and out. Not environmentally conscious at all, huh?

Yet there is this aire of guilt that sort of permeates the Christmas season. Did we give our kids too many gifts? Too much sugar? Take in too many calories? Where do they sell the compact fluorescent Christmas lights? How do we give to others to balance it all out? How do we teach our kids that the holidays are about giving, not receiving? How do we make Christmas not about the “stuff”?

My husband retold me this story he heard this Christmas season that I believe was told to him with the goal of relaying a certain message: a family saved all year for a down-payment on a new house and gave that as a gift to their family for Christmas. Their teenage child was unhappy that this was all she got for Christmas, spoiled brat that she was, right? So she was sent to work a homeless shelter for *perspective*. That’ll teach her for wanting a nice CD under the tree or maybe a new sweater. Ungrateful child. These stories are all so common this time of year. We are all not supposed to want a thing, we are supposed to be happy and thankful for what we have which is, apparently, impossible to do while also enjoying being the recipient of gifts.

What I heard in the retelling of this story is how this new house probably wouldn’t have been considered “Christmas” at all if they finalized the purchase of the house in, say, June. And how bizarre it is that adults expect kids to feign gratitude for adult decisions that deeply impact their lives. Maybe the kid was perfectly happy in her current house and neighborhood and school and how maybe what she needed was not a new house but something more personally beneficial and a lot less expensive! Maybe it was the parents who needed some perspective here. Regardless I’m willing to bet the “lesson” of working in the homeless shelter was lost entirely on the teen as it relates to the rest of her life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the end result was the exact opposite of what was intended.

A small aside - we adults should also be careful about predicting the expectations and experiences of our children. Children don’t see life through adult eyes and sometimes we adults see a lot more of a situation on a very different level than a child. I remember when we were going to Vietnam we were warned by several people that we should expect our children to undergo a deep level of culture shock and that they would likely be very disturbed by what they saw and experienced and it would alter the way they viewed life. It would be one of “those” lessons - like the homeless shelter experience. Except that my kids didn’t experience any culture shock at all. And they found the entire experience to be exactly what they needed but not in the ways expected. They wanted to stay forever and move to Vietnam. Even now, they get “homesick”, they want to go back any chance they get. So much for “perspective”. Maybe its that they are not blind to poverty in their everyday world? Maybe its that where we ethnocentric American Adults see poverty, a child might see simplicity, happiness and beauty. I like to think its their inner Buddhist nature But back to the subject….

On Christmas morning before I even peeked out my bedroom door I read the most excellent article on this topic written by the brilliant Brett Paesel in the latest issue of Wondertime mag (I’d link but the article isn’t on the website so pick up a copy or, better yet, subscribe!). She makes the case for indulgence that I’ve been trying to put into words for years.

So, paraphrasing her article, here is what I have to say: indulge in abundance. Celebrate the gifts of the season. Celebrate your blessings. Celebrate your family. Eat ALOT. Share gifts. Do things YOUR way. Shun the guilt. It is *ONE* day of the entire 365 days in the year. One day. Why do we make ourselves feel so sick over one day when we could better put that energy into changing how we live the other 364 days of the year? Why do we focus on what message we are sending our kids this day but not a single other day? Sure we sort of give lip service to doing more, being better, teaching our kids through example. But not like this one day a year! Abundance is celebration, it’s appreciation and magic and love and joy and freedom from the responsibilities to ourselves, our kids and our world that burden us the rest of the year.

Instead, starting today and each day forward, LIVE the giving. Give to others, volunteer, help out in your community, at your kid’s school, give to a charity, contribute to VVAI, be involved in politics or wherever you feel led to exact change in the lives of others. GIVE. Teach your children to give. Teach them that things must be earned, that money comes from hard work. Teach them that there are those less fortunate and stress that the less fortunate are less fortunate ALL year long, not just during the holidays. Deliver a meal to the elderly. Be careful what your money supports. Buy local. Grow your own garden. Change your bulbs to compact fluorescents as the old incandescents burn out. Once a month participate in a Random Act of Kindness - pick up the tab for a person who is dining alone or the car behind you at Starbucks. Send a gift to a needy family FOR NO REASON in, gasp, APRIL! Anonymously! Send mail and goodies to a soldier in Iraq. LIVE what you want your children to BE.

And next year you can celebrate with abundance ONE day of the year and you won’t have to worry or feel guilty that you are sending the wrong message to your kids. Because truly Christmas is magical and special and kids are not dumb. They will learn from the other 364 days of the year and appreciate the abundance and magic all the more on the one day a year when you can all let loose.

I’ve thought a lot about the issues currently hitting the Vietnam adoption scene right now. I’ve shared my opinion on lists, I defended our decision to post the Embassy statement over at VVAI that ultimately led to the official statement on the Embassy site. I don’t think it’s a mystery how I feel.

Many others with blogs have covered the tough topic very well from just about all angles imaginable. I’m glad to see a Dad speaking out.  Laurie wrote an amazing post about it yesterday. Kelly, sweet quiet Kelly, voiced her opinion as well. This adult adoptees viewpoint was one of the most informative and educational I’ve read. I’ve read the blogs of families who are involved in some current investigations & NOIDs. I’ve read the opinions of people who use these agencies and are defending their choices and their agencies. I’ve read the blogs of people who have listened, who have really heard, and who are making steps toward more ethical adoptions. I’ve talked. I’ve listened. I’ve spent more hours than I have each day online dealing with this stuff. I don’t think there is a lot left to say at this point that hasn’t already been said. Sometimes I just like for this blog to be my safe haven from the rest.

But there are a few things I keep reading that are really bugging me. I want to touch on those things.

1) Why do people let their agency decision define them? Why do people who have chosen an agency that I might consider unethical feel that this is a personal attack against them, as people? Why do people who are waiting and have not even completed an adoption, ever, feel they are qualified or led to defend their agency as if they are defending their husband? Why don’t people realize that an agency is just a business. It is not a friend. It is not a lover. It is not Who You Are. If someone does not consider your agency ethical, they have not Become The Enemy. As soon as you make the agency your ally, your trusted friend who you will defend until the bitter end, you have taken your objectivity away and your ability to rationally reflect on your own experiences or those of others around you.

2) NOIDs are not given out lightly. They are not common. They are not given without serious investigation and reason.  Many families have been lucky and been passed up when honestly they should have at very least been investigated. I have talked to these families who openly admit that their cases were questionable, even to them. The Embassy admits in its recent statement that just becuase a family is home with a baby does not make their adoption ethical. Families get through the cracks. When a family does not, you can bet it is for good cause. It is not a set up, it is not a targeted attack against an agency. Sometimes the government can not disclose all of the details of their investigation but that does not make them guilty of wrong-doing.

3) Paperwork being filled out properly does not make an adoption ethical. It means the paperwork was filled out properly. A child can be abducted and paperwork can be(and has been) falsified and still be 100% correctly filed. That does not make the adoption legal or ethical. There are many reasons I can think of that an investigation would be warranted that have nothing to do with the paperwork submitted.

4) The children are the victims. Period. The levels of pain and trauma these children have endured is something I can not fathom. The levels of pain and trauma these children will continue to experience, no matter what the outcome, is unfathomable. This is a tragedy for them. They are the victims. Not the agencies, despite what they are desperate for their clients to believe. Not the parents, whose needs MUST come secondary to that of the child, although they are in immense pain that most of us will hopefully never have to experience. Not the facilitators whose pockets are padded while they sleep just fine at night. Not the orphanage staff who turn a blind eye as babies are ushered in and out of orphanages in the dark of the night without a paper trail because money speaks more loudly than morality. 

5) If we agree that the children are the victims here and that the tragedy is profound then lets trace that tragedy back and see who it is we can turn to for accountability. Who knew the history of these children? Who has a relationship with the child finders? What kind of paperwork is kept by the orphanage and by the agency? Who was responsible for compiling the child’s dossier and filing it with the IAD? Who was responsible to look over all relative paperwork and check it against other paperwork coming out of the same orphanage for inconsistencies, concerning similarities and errors or omissions? Who was responsible for making sure the orphanage was doing it’s job as was outlined in the licensing agreement between orphanage and agency? I can tell you who was definitely positively  NOT responsible for any one of these important steps: The US Government. So let’s stop the age-old government blame game and start supporting the Embassy and CIS toward the goal of rooting out corruption in the name of the tiny victims.

6) Ignorance is enough to garner sympathy, it is true. Not all of us are Internet-savvy AND adoption savvy enough to even think of logging online for the sole purpose of investigating ethics within any given agency and any given country program. I do have sympathy for those whose trusting nature is taken advantage of. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about ways to be in touch with parents at an early enough stage that they have not even signed on with an agency yet. I don’t know if this is even possible. I think homestudy social workers could play a big part in things if they were to compile a packet of information and online resources to assist in choosing an ethical agency. But as long as “homestudy providers” have “partnerships” where they only refer families to one agency of the 42 (usually agencies who are not ethical, hence their willingness to engage in such partnerships in the first place), this is not going to happen either. So how do we remove ignorance from the equation? How do we empower parents early on in the process?

7) Is there a place for parental accountability? What if a parent (such as all of those PAPs who have not yet adopted but who are vocally and adamantly speaking out  in comments on blogs and on email lists such as AAR in support of their agency during investigations and NOIDs)  knows exactly what the situation looks like but still presses on with questionable agencies? Are those parties to blame as well? Because they employ the agencies and, especially in the face of investigations, their lack of action sends a message to the agency of tolerance for corruption. By cheering them on, they are essentially say “We’ll support you and believe in you no matter what. We will turn on our own government before we turn on you.” See my point number 1!!

8 ) But doesn’t everyone want an ethical adoption? I’ve been accused of suggesting otherwise. I do not have any doubt that every single parent wants an ethical adoption. My question, though, is what importance does a parent place on an ethical adoption in comparison to other aspects of their adoption. Is an ethical adoption more or less important than a fast adoption? Is an ethical adoption more important than an adoption that supports gender selection? Is an ethical adoption more important than an adoption of a child under 6 months old? I don’t deny a parent’s prerogative to place value and importance on these areas that adoptions in Vietnam currently allow a parent to chose. However these things MUST come secondary to a desire for an ethical adoption.

9) I have been accused of not practicing what I preach. However nothing could be further from the truth. Even back before a single agency held a license in 2005 I began researching agencies. I spent countless hours asking questions, reading resources online that discussed what to ask an agency and looking for feedback on APV and a few other online resources. There was little info to go by and what I found out pretty quickly was that, due to the shutdown, mostly the only people who remained to give advice were the agency cheerleaders. Those who had questionable experiences had, by and large, moved on during the shutdown. I chose an agency (ADOPPT) based on nothing but the rave reviews I got. When, after having signed with this agency, I realized they were fraught with corruption - I left. It was not easy. I felt like I was playing with fate. But I left even though I was looking at receiving a referral within a week and traveling very quickly. This time I chose an agency with a facilitator (GT Le) who had a long standing history of adoptions in Vietnam that lacked corruption. This was very important to me. I wouldn’t recommend my agency, I would not use them again. But I don’t doubt GT Le’s commitment to ethics in adoption. I would love to adopt again. I would love a sister for Addison. However if ethics in the current climate dictate that requesting a baby girl would be unwise, I’d have to weigh my desire for a baby girl with my desire to adopt a child. If ethics in the current climate dictate that an ethical adoption means I wait for 2 or more years, then that is a small price to pay for an ethical adoption.  If at the end of the day I can not meet my family’s needs without sacrifices ethics, I will not adopt. Period. At this point, I will be thrilled if the program stays open long enough for me to make these choices.

My sincerest hope is that the new I600 changes will have such a heavy impact on referrals and travel times that it will purge out questionable agencies and their facilitators will find some other way to make their fortune than brokering babies.

I find all of this stuff to be exhausting but the good conversation, the families who are rethinking their choices, the families who are reevaluating their adoption experiences with new eyes - they give me hope.