The Newsweek article about Peggy Hilt and When Adoption Goes Wrong was one thing…but not to be outdone, Time Magazine prints “Can An Adopted Child Be Returned?” I’ve got to admit (very tongue-in-cheek) that we’ve asked that question around here before.

Truth is, adoptions can be dissolved, and there are lots of reasons that they are. It’s not a simple process, and I’ve not known anyone who did it lightly, because it is so difficult. So, despite all the hefty accusations against the Dutch diplomat Raymond Poeteray, and his wife Meta, I’m still wondering what the “real” story is. And I will never know what went on behind the closed doors of their household…but then again, neither will any of the other reporters, bloggers or other “judges” who are calling the Poeterays monsters, evil and crying out for their heads.

I mean, after all, they adopted this child as an infant (at 4 months) and now they are claiming that she has “severe form of fear of emotional attachment”. According to an “expert” in the Time article :

"My gut feeling is it's just an excuse," says Law Chi-kwong, an associate professor of social work at the University of Hong Kong. "That only happens when the adoption took place when the child is already six or seven years old. It would not happen to a child they raised for several years, raised in the family."

Hmmm…if only this were true. Let me think…LuLu’s been in our family for nine years, after being adopted at 20 months. No one here ever punches holes in the drywall, screams cuss words on the front lawn or scratches our arms, yet she does all these things. Did she learn them from us, the family who has raised her for several years? Don’t you hate it when the experts start a sentence with “my gut feeling…”? These may be the same experts who questioned the parents’ “gut feeling” that something was wrong early on.

Now, before you accuse me of blaming this poor child, I most certainly am NOT! Jade didn’t ask to have emotional problems (or whatever it is that is wrong) any more than LuLu did. But then, neither did the Poeterays. And while what seems like the whole world is expressing outrage at these evil people who would take a child from her Asian culture and not even have the decency to process her Dutch citizenship, and then claim that “medical experts” advise them to place her out of the home, I just can’t join the lynch mob.

There’s something that’s unbalanced about this story. There has to be another side. Nobody in the public eye would make such a drastic move if there wasn’t something dire going on in their household. After all, the Poeterays had nannies to care for the children, right? If it was truly that the child was a bit distant or that the parents didn’t care much for her, couldn’t they just keep her within the household, with hired caregivers?

Why place her out of their home? Why now? We’ll never know.

The family has asked for privacy and understanding, and they have gotten neither. The entire world now has them under the microscope and has decided that it is all these parents’ fault…and that placing the child in a safe system/situation to find an appropriate home for her is somehow a despicable act.

Perhaps before my experience with traumatized children and the effects of attachment disorder on families I would have demonized these people as well. After all, I totally agree that adopted children can’t be returned, like the wrong purchase at Walmart. But then again, what is never mentioned in articles like these, is how truly difficult it is to place the child outside of your home (i.e. give them back). So, my “gut feeling” is that only the most desperate of parents in the most desperate of situations would go down this path, especially when they had so much politically to lose on top of their family’s distress.

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