Reply to Changing the name of an internationally adoped child

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You people are so judgmental...

Changing a child's name is common practice in international adoption... whether it's an infant or a 7-year-old, it doesn't make a difference.

Americanization... happens. The child is no longer in his birth country, he can no longer speak his native tongue, he lives in a world of different smells, food, clothes, customs, sometimes even religion... so the name change, in that context, is but one small thing on the top of everything else. How parents approach it is key to how the child takes it.

From a parent's perspective, changing the child's name is an additional way to bond with him or her. It's not about love being conditional; it's about the human process of bonding with a child who did not come out of one's womb and who lived in another part of the world for 7 years.

And the name change is always a very exciting part of adoption, as it marks one's "claiming" by a family. For the child it's like a rite of passage...

"Let her decide whether she wants to change her name" seems to be a recurrent idea. HELLO?! She's 7 YEARS-OLD. Of course she will have an opinion, but chances are high that she will either 1- accept to please her parents; 2- refuse because she is overwhelmed by changes or 3- have an unreasonable idea.

So by all means, if you want to change your child's name, do it.

I am speaking from personal experience. I am adoption an older girl from Ethiopia and intend on taking the same approach.[/quote]

Again, there is a world of difference between changing an adopted infant's name and a 7 year old's.  Furthermore, this idea of "claiming" speaks to the insecurity of adoptive parents, rather than the needs of the child.  You "claim" a child by caring for that child and loving that child, not by erasing the only thing s/he brings with her/him to a new country and life.

I participate in a number of country-specific adoption forums connected to our son's birth country, as well as one that primarily features discussions by adult adoptees, and the lack of awareness of these issues by many people on DCUM really shocks me (those of us who participate in other adoption forums are also aware that we are a minority and that most adoptive families out there "claim" their child and then want little to do with thinking about adoption issues).  We are not by any means "all adoption, all the time" in our family but I personally have learned a lot by listening and continuing to try to learn.

I'd invite those who are parents by international adoption to consider joining a yahoogroup called "International Adopt Talk" that provides the perspective of adult international adoptees -- it might shock some out of their sense of entitlement and cluelessness.  It's a moderated group -- a-parents can only post by permission of the listserv owners.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/International-Adopt-Talk/[/quote]

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