Community and Society Archive
Welcome to Community and Society where you will find the latest thoughts
and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the changing nature of community and
society in America today. What are the challenges and opportunities these changes
represent for the Jewish people in America at the dawn of a new century?
To access the Community and Society Archive, click here.
"The
Future of Family and Tribe," a seminar of CLALs Jewish Public Forum held
January 28-29, 2002 in New York City, brought together a dozen leading thinkers on gender,
gay rights, adoption, reproductive law, bioethics, and aging. eCLAL is
publishing a series of articles based on participants contributions to the
seminar. To view other essays from "The Future of Family and Tribe"
seminar, click here.
This seminar
was part of Exploring the Jewish Futures: A Multidimensional Project On the Future
of Religion,Ethnicity and Civic Engagement. For more information about the
project, click here.
Adam
Pertman participated in "The Future of Family and Tribe" seminar. He is a
journalist, lecturer and consultant on media, family and childrens issues. He is the
author of the groundbreaking book Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is
Transforming America. Pertman was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his writing about
adoption while at The Boston Globe, where he was a senior reporter and editor for
more than two decades. His contribution to the JPF Seminar follows below.
Adoption
in America
By
Adam Pertman
Adoption is
transforming the demographics of American families. My research indicates that between 80
and 100 million Americans have adoption in their immediate families (extending to and
including first cousins). These numbers will increase if current patterns continue. Even
if the numbers level offand there is no indication that they willthe impact of
adoption on this nations families will remain significant for years to come. For
instance, a steadily escalating percentage of all new adoptees are coming from the U.S.
foster care system and from orphanages in other nations. This means that a growing
majority of these boys and girls are not of the same race, ethnicity or nationality as
their predominantly Caucasian parents, and thus that the families of the future will be
the products of much more complicated ethnic and racial mixing than ever before.
I believe that
the intellectual, ethical, cultural and practical implications of the adoption boom are
profound, though they have received little, if any, consideration from serious thinkers or
policy-makers. Like other broad societal shiftsthe decline in traditional,
heterosexual, two-parent homes; the accompanying growth in single, gay, step and other
alternative family models; the impending ascendancy of ethnic and racial minorities to
majority population status across the United Statesadoption will, I believe, help
redefine the institution of family, making it clear that there are many
legitimate ways a family can be formed.
On the broadest
level, I expect we will see expanded research into, and therefore greater understanding
of, the balance between nurture and nature in human development. In part because of the
secrecy and stigma historically attached to adoption, adoptive families have been largely
overlooked in clinical and academic studies. As that changes, we will develop better
insights with a wide range of applications to personal life, medical practice
especially in areas such as new reproductive technology and public policy relating
to vexing issues including infant abandonment.
Adoptions
most dramatic impact, I believe, will be on the lives of individuals and the groups (or
tribes) of which they are a part. In years to come, for instance, virtually
all American children will have among their acquaintances at least one or two adoptees who
dont look anything like their parents. Historically entrenched concepts such as
blood ties or bloodlines, which so often define group belonging,
will assume less and less importance in Americans minds. Indeed, when enough of the
people we all know are not genetically related to their relatives, we are not only likely
to change our opinions but also our laws relating to such processes as inheritance.
New
understandings of immediate familiesof the relations between parents, siblings, and
childrenwill change how we define extended families as well, and the
distinctions within them. In many adoptive families, birth mothers already are perceived
and treated as relatives and, increasingly, the same is becoming true for biological
fathers and siblings as well. In the longer term, I believe, all these blood kin of
adoptees will come to be regarded in much the same way as in-laws are now.
If
adoption shifts our ideas about families, it will also reshape the wider social
realmthe communities and institutions to which families belong. Most families formed
by international adoption over the last decade, for instance, have integrated the culture,
language and customs of their childrens native lands into their own lives. The
complex, important question for the future is how this will reshape our societal
landscape. To what extent will social institutions, such as synagogues, churches, or
schools, follow suit in order to accommodate the needs, desires and demands of those they
serve? Might we see an increasing number of American synagogues, for instance, begin to
integrate rituals that reflect the cultures of, say, China or Guatemala, when enough
synagogue members have adopted children from such places?
I suggest that
social institutions will make such changes to a sizable extent, and that in so doing will
garner publicity that probably will accelerate the trends spread, first into similar
institutions and then into others that adapt the model to suit their own realities. Such
changes are likely to begin slowly, often first when people with significant sway within
institutions (such as rabbis, ministers, teachers, administrators or important financial
donors) who themselves are the parents of adopted children from other ethnicities or races
insist on adjustments in traditional ceremonies.
This is likely
to occur initially in the most progressive institutions (and indeed has already done so in
many without fanfare). Once it does, other institutions will take note of the ways
adoption has reshaped the families they serve. It may be that people within them
increasingly make the case for fairness or comparable treatment
regarding adoptive families, or simply that institutional leaders decide, once the issue
clearly has hit the mainstream, that they need to make changes. And perhaps some leaders
will come to view specific changes as a means of drawing additional members, participants,
consumers, or constituents.
Adoption
has been a secret for most of its history in our country, and it is very hard to learn
anything aboutor fromsecrets. Now, finally, this large and important
phenomenon is emerging from the shadows. It is long past time that we start learning its
lessons. It seems clear to me that social, economic, and cultural analysts should be
studying adoptions role as a matter of courseas they do so many other parts of
society that include far fewer participants and have far fewer effects on all of our
lives.
Despite
what seems an increasing popular recognition of the important role adoption plays in so
many peoples lives, however, interest on the part of institutions that examine our
present and shape our futuremajor think tanks, academic facilities, journalistic
enterprises and other such venueshas remained surprisingly low. But I think and hope
that it is possible that some foundation or other organization will make serious research
into adoption part of a broader mission, for instance the study of alternative families
more generally.
Sometimes,
when I speak to groups around the country about my view of adoptions impact, I am
askedskepticallywhether I truly believe it is having as revolutionary an
effect as I contend. My answer is usually long and full of statistics and arguments. But a
remarkable event occurred recently that has provided me with an example that helps me make
my point more succinctly. Though it comes from a context outside the US, the following
story suggests the kind of developments we can expect to see here as well.
In
February 2002, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a controversial ruling that is
reverberating throughout the world, generating heated debate and certain to have a
permanent impact on the profoundly emotional questionand in Israel, especially, a
crucial legal question linked to the very definition of citizenshipof Who is a
Jew? The court ordered authorities in Israel to recognize conversions performed by
Reform and Conservative rabbis; previously only Orthodox rabbis could carry out the
procedure. People unfamiliar with the issue might not immediately grasp the magnitude of
the ruling, which may seem at first to be merely about the fine points of religious
practice. But the historic import of the case is greater than that. In what sort of case
was this extraordinary judicial ruling rendered? One that involved a child whose parents
had her converted in London, by a non-Orthodox rabbi, during a stopover on the way back to
Israel. The couple was bringing their daughter home from Guatemala, where they had adopted
her.
My
point is this: Adoption is, and will continue to be, connected to sweeping changes we are
only beginning to understand. It reshapes our
families, true, but has the power as well to make us think and act differently about our
institutions, our beliefs, and our nations.
To view other essays from "The Future of Family and
Tribe" seminar, click here.
To join the conversation at Community and Society Talk, click here.
To access the Community and Society Archive, click here.
To receive the Community and Society column by email on a regular basis, complete the
box below: