Oops indeed. Just back from a trip in southern China, I see that, as several helpful readers have pointed out, my post a couple of days ago about the new adoption rules was, er, recycled, to put it politely. I had written it on a different computer and thought for some confused reason that it hadn’t been posted. Anyway, I have been planning to post an update on the impact of the rules and will do so soon. Meanwhile, even though it’s a repeat, I’ll leave it up as a number of people have commented. And speaking of those comments, several readers pointed out quite correctly that the reason so many people adopt from China is because the legal and administrative procedures are clear and well established. The last thing any adoptive parent wants is for some issue to surface after the child has become a member of their family that might take the child away again. I might also point out that kids are almost always better off being adopted than growing up in orphanages. Not that most institutions aren’t well run in China (there are a few exceptions still but I’ll come to that in another post). But growing up in a family is always going to be better for any child’s physical and mental development. That’s why, although they seem sensible on the surface, the new rules are a disappointment because they will bar people from adopting who no doubt would have made fine parents. And, while attitudes to adoption in China are changing, there are still substantial cultural barriers to the practice. That means that kids will grow up in orphanages instead of families. And that’s not good.
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