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What it Cost to be Adopted by Michele Merritt | VISIBLE Magazine
The New York Times (NYT) recently published a piece, “ What I Spent to Adopt My Child,” which was part of the larger series, “ The Price of Modern Parenting.” In this story, three sets of adoptive parents were featured, highlighting the varying costs of adoption. While the practical aims were arguably simple — to inform potential adoptive parents about the monetary costs they can expect to incur should they choose to adopt — the story sparked considerable outrage among adoptees and birth parents.[1] How, one might wonder, could such a seemingly innocuous article on parenting stir such controversy? The answer lies with a systematic problem inherent in nearly all mainstream media accounts of adoption, namely, the glaring omission of the adoptee perspective. Ironically, the very children adoption purportedly ‘saves’ are rarely offered a seat at the table when it comes to discussing adoption. The reason for this, I argue, is that adoptee narratives overwhelmingly undermine the dominant worldview of adoption as a ‘win-win’ or an unqualified good. Instead, adoptees often provide much darker, more painful, and traumatic stories. They are difficult truths that adoptive parents do not want to hear. They are stories that the adoption industry outright refuses to acknowledge.
