ever-fixed mark

From the BBC:

Circumcision can cut the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual men by 50%, results from two African trials show…. Dr Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV/Aids department of the World Health Organization told the BBC the results were a “significant scientific advance” but were not a magic bullet and would never replace existing prevention strategies.

I finally got my first roll of film developed from my “new” Zeiss Ikon. I bought the thing completely ignorant of its condition, and even if the camera turned out to be in working order, I expected it would take me awhile to get used to the manual format. I do have manual controls on my 35mm, but on that camera there is a light meter that calculates the effect of different aperture/shutter speed combinations, and when you look through the viewfinder the picture looks all fuzzy if it’s not in focus, features not available on the Ikon.

Here’s the first picture I took, in a pub in Notting Hill where I loaded up the film. I was trying to figure out how to trip the shutter (you have to reset it every time you advance the film). I set the shutter, turned around in my seat, and snapped this picture. On the print, the light does a really nice halo effect, and the people’s faces are very clear. There’s also a nice interplay of light and shadow on the wood furniture. On the digitized version, much of that is lost, but I kind of like this photo anyway.

This picture of Westminster was my next effort. The composition isn’t perfect–there’s way too much going on–but the tree branches are nice and sharp.

Finally, here’s the rainbow picture I took with the new Holga. Holga color film often produces a ’70’s-like coloration that I was expecting, but didn’t get, here.

Verdict: The new cameras are great. The old photographer has to do some work.

We have decided to have some additional work done on our house–replacing an ugly kitchen floor and a decrepit foyer ceiling. The contractors have been hard at it for several days, and those days have been more disruptive than four months of the attic renovation. The kitchen cabinets are in the dining room, the kitchen table is in the foyer, and my sanity is out the window. I go to pour a cup of juice and I don’t know where to turn, except to retreat into the fantasy world of fiction.

So meanwhile, back in Our Mutual Friend, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin have not been able to adopt their orphan after all because he has inconveniently died while his grandmother was reconsidering her decision. (Oh my God, our social worker was right after all!) He expires according to the Victorian tradition, angelic to the last, bequeathing his favorite toy to another hospital inmate with his dying breath. With her hopes thus dashed, Mrs. Boffin decides she had been selfish to want an infant, a “pretty plaything,” to adopt, and thinks it would be more charitable to take in an older child, who is less likely to be placed and thus in more need of help. She settles upon a teenage “love child,” who works in a laundry and bears the unfortunate appellation of “Sloppy.”

At first I thought it was sweet of Mrs. Boffin to take in an older “special needs” child. Then when I thought about it a bit I was a little bothered by her characterization of her second adoption as a case where she could “do the most good.” Was she creating a family, or patronizing a charity? I was also disturbed by her decription of an infant as a “pretty plaything.” Did she think he wouldn’t grow up, have problems, cause trouble on his own? Are there good motivations for adopting and bad ones?

A week or two ago, Mimi Smartypants linked to a Yahoo group set up to discuss “adoption disruption.” (Bear with me–there is a connection here.) Disruption, for the uninitiated, means “giving them up to other parents.” A number of Smartypants readers (me included) clicked over and read some of the discussions. A subset of those readers (not me) entered the fray and challenged these people on their desire to give up their children. The discussion got ugly, and eventually access was restricted to members only.

I read as much as I could stand with a mixture of horror and interest. Some people told terrible stories of teenage adoptees molesting or assaulting siblings. Others described what seemed to be typical attachment issues. Some wanted to “re-home” children that had been with them for years; others had only been there for months. Some of the kids had been adopted internationally, but most had been adopted domestically. Some people who had formerly “disrupted” an adoption had successfully adopted children afterwards.

Common themes: The adoptive parents had been “lied to” by the placement agency, and weren’t aware of the extent of a child’s issues. The adopted child’s needs were interfering with the lives of the other siblings. The child just wasn’t a good fit. The child had attachment issues and acted out with the first family who tried to give him a home, but once he had gotten that out of his system was fine with the second family. In most cases there was a mixture of adopted and biological children in the home; in a surprising number cases the children were very close in age, or the adopted kids had been adopted out of birth order.

The give-and-take between the Smartypants readers and the message board members got pretty heated, as you can imagine. One of the “re-homing” women made a fair attempt to explain the issues. The thing that resonated most with me was her claim that adoptive parents of infants could not understand the environment of older-child adoption. She said that adoption agencies EXPECT that a certain number of children will be re-homed; that it’s common that a first adoption doesn’t work out, but the next one does. She said that a second placement is sometime necessary for the well-being of all concerned.

I was still not completely convinced. It sounded to me that these people were considering adoption kind of like foster placement–a situation that could be changed if the kids didn’t live up to the rules of the house. Whereas I have always considered adoption to be a permanent state, unless I become such a negligent parent that the state terminates my parental rights. No matter what happens, no matter how sick they are, no matter how rough it gets, I’m stuck with them. I mean, a kid I went to college with killed his mother with a fraternity paddle, and she was still his mother. One hopes for better, of course.

I am acutely aware, though, that it’s easy for me to say, because my kids have been extremely healthy. Also, my kids have been my kids since they were babies; if they later develop awful teenage issues, I’ll have years of bonding to fall back on. I haven’t selflessly volunteered to parent a special needs child. Could I really condemn someone who has stepped up, only to think twice?

Yes, I think I can. With great compassion for their suffering, I condemn them nonetheless. I am being extremely judgmental, but we can’t have this. Adoptive parents cannot renege on their contracts with their adoptive children unless they are physically and mentally incapable of caring for them. And if they are in a state where they have to place their adoptive child for re-adoption, then they should have to place all their other children, biological and adopted, for “re-homing” as well.

I can imagine how hard it must be to care for a disturbed child or even a child with a mild attachment disorder, but it’s up to the parents to judge what they can handle and make their decisions accordingly. If you know that a teenager has witnessed his mother’s murder and has some behavioral issues, you have to think twice before bringing him to live among your four younger children. If you have a one-year-old, you need to think seriously about how wise it is to adopt an eighteen-month-old who has been institutionalized most of his life. I’m not saying that you couldn’t adopt happily in those situations, but you have to go into it being willing to accept that child into your home as your son or daughter, someone you nurture and protect on an equal footing with your other children.

Reading the stories on that board, I questioned the motivations that some people had for adopting. This quote from the author of an “adoption dissolution” guide really solidified my impressions (emphasis mine):

For years, I never mentioned the fact that I had suffered through two disruptions. . . . But over the years, I have learned that I have every reason to feel pride about my personal stats. I have attempted to adopt 11 times, all high risk children with special needs, most of them older children who had spent a lot of time in the system. Some of these were highly questionable matches that the adoption agency should have steered me away from, in favor of a child whose needs I could better meet. But I trusted the agency too much. I expected it to be infallible. From what I have learned about disruption risk and large family dynamics, it is almost miraculous that 9 of these adoptions have been successful and only 2 disrupted. I believe that adoptive parents who try everything before giving up, and who only give up when safety concerns force them to, should have no regrets either. They should hold their heads up high. Supermom, after all, is a mythical being.

She lost two, but she helped nine. Pretty good average, right? Not for the two kids who lost their “forever family” twice in one lifetime, and probably not for each of the nine remaining “high risk special needs” children who have to compete for family resources with eight other high-risk siblings. Why is this woman adopting, anyway–to create a family or a school? I suspect that she, like Mrs. Boffin in the book, thinks of adoption as a mission to save a child.

I don’t believe anyone should adopt as charity. If you want to do good, volunteer as a big brother or sister or write a check. There are millions of ways to help kids, all of them admirable. But don’t adopt a troubled child because it’s admirable. Only adopt if you can be a true mother or father.

Please.

A few years ago, my (Irish) sister-in-law gave Aitch a green t-shirt that said “Irish Prince.” I kept in the drawer for awhile. It was too big for him, but that’s not really the reason. First, I try to avoid “prince” and “princess”-themed gear. This is my child; I’m raising him, not worshipping him. More importantly, though, I didn’t want to turn my baby into a walking ethnic joke, which is what the ironic contrast between the Irish shirt and his Asian features seemed to suggest.

Coming up on St. Patrick’s Day 2007, Aitch is big enough to fit into the t-shirt. Today, the kids were invited to wear green to celebrate the holiday early. I thought about putting the shirt on him, and all that it implies. Then I suddenly remembered “Lisa.”

Lisa was one of my few Jewish classmates in high school. I grew up in Pennsylvania Dutch country, populated by descendants of German immigrants, and there were very few Jews that publicly identified as such, but Lisa was open about her culture. She showed pictures of her bat mitzvah and talked about what her family did for Seder and told us about traveling to Israel. Her last name was obviously ethnic.

So on St. Patrick’s Day, when she showed up in a green t-shirt with green ribbons in her hair and a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” button, we thought it was a joke. One of the teachers kidded her about being Irish for the day, and she responded, “But I am Irish.”

It turns out that she was born to Irish parents, both raised Catholic, but her parents divorced and her mother remarried a Jewish man. Both mother and daughter converted, and Lisa took her stepfather’s name. She had never mentioned this before; I guess the St. Patrick’s Day costume was her way of sharing the rest of her story.

So I decided that having my little Korean boy wear an “Irish Prince” t-shirt couldn’t be an ethnic joke, because he himself — Korean features, Irish last name — was not an ethnic joke. And I put the t-shirt on him this morning.

Most of the other kids were wearing shades of green, but one of the three adopted Chinese girls in his class was wearing a nearly identical t-shirt that said, “I’m so cute, I must be Irish.”

Oy vey.

A few months ago I wrote a post about a new law denying infants born under emergency Medicaid coverage automatic continuing care under Medicaid. Parents of newborns would have to make a special application to get them coverage after birth, submitting a birth certificate as proof of citizenship. The government saw this as a reasonable demand. I argued, based on my experiences getting a birth certificate for Aitch, that many parents would be too hampered by bureaucracy to comply with this request, and many newborns would go uninsured during critical months.

Since I wrote that post, I applied three times to the government for a temporary tax ID for Minor and have been denied twice, giving me even more first-hand knowledge of how inconsistent government offices are when it comes to applying policies.

Well, it turns out it’s not just immigrant parents of newborns who have a hard time laying their hands on birth certificates to apply to Medicaid. Non-immigrant adults have also had their Medicaid applications denied because they can’t comply with the new regulations (registration required). At least seven states have reported sharp drops in Medicaid recipients, and they attribute the decline to the new regulations.

To increase the level of difficulty, the New York Times reports, “Some state officials say the Bush administration went beyond the law in some ways, for example, by requiring people to submit original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency.”

The article contains predictable anecdotes of surgery delayed, asthma medications not received, pregnant women delaying pre-natal visits, etc. while they fight their way through the bureaucracy: first, locating the right birth certificate, and then applying anew for Medicaid.

It’s hard to believe that the birth certificate is the gold standard for proof of citizenship. Over the past five years I’ve requested birth certificates multiple times for Husband and myself, and once for Aitch. Aitch’s was very difficult to obtain, but I was able to get Husband’s easily by pretending to be him over the internet and paying handsomely for the order and the postage using my credit card. I now have a collection of birth certificates, some original and some copies, some with raised seals and some without, some that look like they were filled out on a daisy wheel Selectric, and some that look like they were printed on a laser printer. By what standard would any government official be able to tell that one was invalid?

This morning, six time zones ago, I was practicing my German on the cabbie, and I told him I had two adopted children. He asked, “Konnten Sie nicht sein eigene Kinder haben?” —somewhat ungrammatically, for he was not a native speaker either, but I knew what he meant. He meant, “Couldn’t you have children of your own?” and I responded reflexively but with equal disdain for cases and endings, “Sie sind meine eigene Kinder!” As I’m sure you can guess, I meant “They are my own children!” I was proud that I could generate politically correct (if not grammatically correct) adopt-speak in two languages.

Coincidentally, a few hours later I was reading Our Mutual Friend on the plane, and two characters in the book who were interested in adopting a child were involved in a similar conversation. ” ‘I think,’ said Mr. Milvey, ‘that you have never had a child of your own, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin?’ ” Of course, they just responded, “Never,” without taking umbrage, and resumed the search for a child.

Dickens recounts their difficulties:

Either an eligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost always happened) or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too much accustomed to the streets, or too likely to run away; or, it was found impossible to complete the philanthropic transaction without buying the orphan. For, the instant it became known that anybody wanted the orphan, up started some affectionate relative of the orphan who put a price upon the orphan’s head. The suddenness of an orphan’s rise in the market was not to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He would be at five thousand per cent. discount out at nurse making a mud pie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would go up to five thousand per cent. premium before noon. The market was “rigged” in various artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents boldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with them. Geniuine orphan-stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the market. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that [agents for Mr. and Mrs. Boffin] were coming down the court, orphan scrip would be instantly concealed, and production refused, save on the condition usually stated by the brokers as “a gallon of beer.” Likewise, fluctuations of a wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan-holders keeping back, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the uniform principle at the root of all these various operations was bargain and sale, and that principle could not be recognized by [the prospective parents].

The foregoing is either hilarious or reprehensible, depending on your sense of humor. I find it pretty funny, thus skilfully handled by Dickens, but would have been outraged if similar sentiments had emerged from, say, the cabbie in plainer language. Funny or not, though, it is quite cutting. The “orphan market,” either explicit or implicitly driven, is what we fear most in adoption.

Eventually, the couple in question find a genuine orphan, a toddler boy, who lives with his aged grandmother. The grandmother recognizes that it would be a good thing for the child to be raised by younger parents and agrees to place the child for adoption. She approves of the Boffins when she meets them, but when the time comes to make her final decision she find she can’t relinquish the child. “I wouldn’t stand in the dear child’s light, not if I had all my life before me instead of a very little of it. But I hope you won’t take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell, for he’s the last living thing left me.” The Boffins kindly don’t pressure her, and they tell her they will be there if she changes her mind. They try to relieve her poverty by offering her some money, but she is too proud to take it, and also, I think, concerned that this charity will bind her in ways she is not yet ready to accept.

It is a very affecting scene, a definite jolt to a heart hardened by the satire that came before it. Leave it to Dickens to make you snort and cry in the same chapter. I’m amazed by how relevant these adoption scenes are to our experiences now.

Last night was gorgeous so I went for a walk to Marienplatz. (I’m in Munich now.) Here, as in other European cities I’ve visited recently, 90% of the infants are reclining in Bugaboo strollers. I’m a little surprised that Europeans–lower salaries, higher cost of living–would spend a gazillion Euros on a stroller, but maybe this is the equivalent of buying one fine piece of designer clothing and wearing it several times a week, as opposed to four cheap schmattas. I’m beginning to come around to this way of thinking, in strollers if not clothes, as it might have made more sense to purchase one reliable multi-functional gazillion dollar stroller than four (count ‘em!) semi-functional, space-hogging strollers. Because they hog space, we frequently leave them out in the rain; and because we leave them out in the rain, they wear out pretty quickly, hence the replacements.

Every Bugaboo I saw last night had its little thermal baby-sac attachment zipped on. And all the children zipped up in those sacs were also wearing snowsuits, hats, mittens, and blankets. It was 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I know it seems colder when it’s expressed in Celsius, but good Lord. Fifty degrees in New England is beach weather! Shoes optional! Strip down the kids and let them play in the sprinkler, practically!

Tomorrrow when I land in Boston, incidentally, it’s going to be 12 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of 5. But if any parents have their babies out for a stroll, those kids still won’t be as bundled up as the little Münchkineren.

God, it feels as though I’ve been away forever. I’m having a fantastic trip, but at the same time I miss the boys so much it hurts.

More gorgeous weather today. I decided to go to Portobello Road market because I’ve been enchanted by it ever since I read Bedknobs and Broomsticks as a child. I didn’t find any enchanted books, but I did buy a rather large piece of costume jewelry: a silver wrist-cuff with large green glass inserts. I’ve noticed an alarming tendency in myself lately toward much bolder accessories than I would have worn when I was younger. I’m afraid this is a natural consequence of aging; as the lily fades, you feel the urge to gild it more aggressively. This is why old ladies wear rhinestone sweatshirts and cocktail rings, and why in ten years I’m likely to be tricking myself out like Isabella Blow.

After I bought the cuff, I wandered down the market toward Notting Hill (one of the worst movies ever, by the way). My eye was drawn to a display of old cameras in the antiques market. I ended up buying a Zeiss Ikon camera circa 1952. I had no idea if it was in proper working condition or what a fair price for such a camera might be, but it was cheap–same price as the Holga, in fact–and I figured it was worth it for the fun of learning to work it. It came with a very cool brown leather case with a neck strap. I had a similar case for my first 35mm camera, which was stolen, and I’ve never been able to find another one since. It’s very handy because you can just unsnap the cover to take a picture, rather than wrestle the camera out of a carrying case whenever you want it.

I could have used something like that for the Holga, for example, when I got caught in a sudden rainshower during a walk in Hyde Park. I had to throw the camera into my purse to protect it. Then, when the rain stopped suddenly, and a huge rainbow appeared behind a bunch of little girls riding horses in the park, I almost emptied the whole bag trying to get the camera in time to take what I hope hope hope is a really cool picture. (Rainbows, I know: how trite. But you don’t get to photograph them very often.)

I have spent a small fortune on tube rides and museums here. London seems very expensive, and that is only with me translating everything into the exchange rate that was in effect when I first visited it in the ’80s. I can’t even bear to look up the current value of the dollar compared to the pound, because the guilt over how many starving children I could have fed for the price of one visit to the Cabinet War Rooms would be overwhelming. But by far the most extravagant thing I did today was go to the movies at the Odeon. I had no idea how crowded the theater would be, and I wanted to have a decent seat, so I paid the “Royal Circle” price. It was such an outrageous amount of money for a movie that I’m embarrassed to record it here.

I’m going to have to write it on my ticket stub and send it to Post Secret.

I arrived in London yesterday and checked into a hotel that is so mod it looks like it was designed by Austin Powers. I really need a Mary Quant minidress and white go-go boots to complement it properly. Today my meeting wrapped up by 2:00 p.m. and had the rest of a warm, sunshiny day to explore the city. I have to be in Munich on Monday, so I’ve planned to stay here through the weekend.

I had intended to take advantage of the time to do a kind of photo safari in the city, but I forgot my Holga. As I’ve mentioned before, though, these cameras are cheap they’re practically disposable, so why not just buy another one? So I sauntered into the first photo shop I saw and asked if they carried Holgas.

“There’s only one place I know of in the whole city that carries them,” the clerk said, and made an X on my map. Half an hour on the tube and a short walk later, I had located the place, which turned out to be a gallery that was hosting a show of photos from North Korea. They had a small gift shop with four different kinds of Holgas. I sprang for the model with a built-in flash, because the camera I forgot doesn’t have one, and I might as well diversify. Of course, the shop didn’t sell medium-format film, so the clerk at the gallery suggested a shop that did sell it and put another X on my map. I walked about half a mile and easily found the next shop, where yet another clerk advised me on the best kind of film to buy. Three extremely helpful salespeople in a row; it was a red-letter day for customer service.

I found London pretty easy to navigate. You must understand that I’ve spent so much virtual time in London (via Trollope, Dickens, MI-5, any movie with Colin Firth, etc.) that it’s almost a shock to the system to be here in reality. I’ve been to London half-a-dozen times, but the last trip where I had enough time to play tourist was back in college. (I am not old enough to have worn a real Mary Quant minidress back then, but it was so long ago that Flashdance was a sartorial influence.) So I was quite excited to make this trip and have all this time to explore with my camera.

After I bought the Holga, film, and batteries, it was practically dark, but as I consulted the map I saw I was relatively close to Lincoln’s Inn, so I decided to indulge in a little literary tourism. I just finished Bleak House, in which much of he action takes place at Lincoln’s Inn and Chancery Court. And of course Lincoln’s Inn is a setting for every other novel in English literature that involves a court case (Phineas Finn and P.D. James spring to mind; I’m sure Rumpole of the Bailey was also there, although maybe I’m getting my courts confused). Anyway, all these years I’ve been completely unable to understand what Lincoln’s Inn is all about. There is no American analogy; it seems to be part bar association, part law offices. I was determined to see it, even if it turned out to be a dull office park (or “trading estate,” as they say here).

As I approached the Inns, I spotted a bunch of catering trucks set up for a TV or movie shoot. I tried out my new Holga-plus-flash by taking a shot of a bunch of people who appeared to be actors dressed as Hasidic Jews eating their dinner in a double-decker bus that had been turned into a canteen. Then I made my way through the gates.

It’s wasn’t a dull office park at all, but rather a beautiful campus that looked like an Ivy League college. Many of the windows were uncurtained, and I could see offices cluttered with lawyerly collections of books, some with black robes hanging on the backs of their doors. I took an artsy shot of such a window framed by a wrought iron gate. I’m confident it will turn out like 90% of my Holga shots: a nebulous black shadow.

I can’t wait to shoot some more film tomorrow, when it’s light. I’m glad I bought the camera. It will come in handy when I run into Colin.