I watched The Amazing Race for the first time last night.  I am generally not a fan of reality TV and rarely, if ever, watch these kinds of shows but I have to admit that I got pulled into the game last night and found myself rooting for Tammy and her brother Victor as they valiantly tried to jump off of a three meter diving board and hit the water at the same time. (they finally gave that up and decided to swim instead!)

This week’s episode found the contestants navigating the streets of Beijing, without benefit of a translator.  If you have ever travelled in China without a translator, you can relate to just how difficult this can be.  Difficult yes, not impossible.

The teams, with the exception of Tammy and Victor who speak Mandarin, stuggled to communicate with the various taxi drivers and others who helped get them to their destinations.  Granted, it was likely frustrating and stressful.  After all they weren’t ordinary tourists simply seeing the sights they are competing for $1,ooo,ooo. 

However, one team let that frustration bubble over into racism.

This team was visibly upset when they had difficulty communicating.  It was as if they expected a cab driver in Beijing to speak English and were pissed off to find that he didn’t-can you say Ugly American?.

I might have been able to slough this off as the stress of the game.  However, in the previews for the next week’s show was quoted as saying, “this is why I didn’t want to come to China-it sucks.”  It struck me that it under stress that we show our true colors. 

Sure, we can say the right things when we are in control but when the going gets tough our filters are strained and deeply hidden feelings and biases surface.  And yes, we Americans are arrogant.  We do expect everyone to speak English.  We do expect that things work as they do in the United States.  And when that doesn’t happen we get pissed off.  Irrational? Yes.  Arrogant? Yes.  Racist? You bet. And on national TV no less!

I am just glad that my Chinese-born daughter didn’t see this show.  And I hope that everyone realizes that the comments and attitudes of the contestants don’t reflect China or the Chinese-but they do tell a disturbing story about the contestants.  So if you see something similar while watching TV with your kids you can take a great leap forward by discussing the existence and dangers  of biases and stereotypes.  You can help break the cycle.

With Respect,

Deb

PS: here’s a tip-look for a young person when you need an English speaker in China.  Kis are taught both Mandarin and English in school!

Susan Boyle-Before               -Susan Boyle-After

                    Lin Miaoke-seen but not heard             Yang Peiyi, heard but not seen

 Ok, you can admit it.  When you saw Susan Boyle walk on stage you rolled your eyes and thought, “oh my God, what is she doing?”  Of course, that attitude came crashing down the minute she opened her mouth.  Like the judges-and everyone who saw Susan Boyle get on that ”Britians Got Talent” stage you let your pre-conceived ideas of what an entertainer looks like color your judgement. 

Ironically, we are the same people that reacted with distaste when we discovered that Lin Miaoke was actually lip-synching during the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.  Apparently, someone decided that the actual singer, Yang Peiyi, wasn’t cute enough to be seen and heard!

If, as adults, this dicotomy is diffult to grapple with imagine what it does to our kids.  We tell them not to judge people by the way they look, yet they see adults doing it all the time.  They feel our outrage when a child is penalized because she isn’t cute enough to be seen but is talented enough to be heard. Yet when Susan Boyle stands on a stage we quickly judge that she can’t be talented.

We tell our kids don’t judge books by their covers when in fact we do judge books by their covers.  If we didn’t, then publishers wouldn’t spend enormous quantities of money on designing book covers!  We also judge people by the way they look, sound, smell or other cues that may or may not indicate what they are really like or what talents lay hidden beneath the surface.  We are in fact, human.

So rather than telling our kids not to judge the proverbial book by its cover and holding them to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, perhaps we should be teaching our kids to do something that they can succeed at.  Maybe the message for our kids is to be aware of our immediate judgements-note them and then put them aside until we have had a chance to get to know the person better.

Maybe, just maybe, our kids will be able to suspend judgement-positive or negative-until they have more information.

Maybe, just maybe-we adults should try to model that behavior….or at least be consistent.  If we are appalled that Yang Peiyi didn’t get a fair shake because she wasn’t cute enough then we should be equally appalled that Susan Boyle didn’t get a fair shake initially either.

How do you model accepting and respectful behavior for your kids?

With gratitude,

Deb

 Little Rubina probably thought she was the luckiest girl on Earth when she was cast in the Oscar-winning movie Slum Dog Millionaire.  For sure, the experience was worth its weight in gold but she would never, ever anticipate that the experience would mean that she was worth her weight in gold.

News outlets all over the world are reporting that Rubina’s father is trying to sell her-that’s right, SELL her.  And her price has increased since Slum Dog won the award.

Of course, Rubina’s father has denied the allegations-including the one that reports he increased her price, saying she is ’special. She is an Oscar girl’.

We may never know the truth but what we do know is that the price to Rubina is incalcuable and it is potentially devastating to others as well.  

Why?

We are seeing human-trafficing splashed across the pages of our newspapers and as lead stories on other news outlets-under the guise of adoption!

Put yourself in the shoes of a child who was adopted-and who saw or heard about this story.  Can you imagine the pain that he/she may feel.  Maybe he/she would wonder whether or not he/she was bought and sold-no different than a transaction they might see in a supermarket.  No matter how secure he/she might be in your love the mere suggestion of this kind of exchange could be devastating to a child-especially one that wonders about how and why he/she came to be available for adoption.

Human trafficking is as horrendously wrong as legal and legitimate adoption is spectaularly right.  The problem is when one gets confused with the other. 

Let’s make sure that we keep them straight.  You might also consider the similarities and differences between Rubina’s situation and the ongoing Madonna/Malawi saga! 

Forget the tagline “Is it live or is it Memorex?”  The new mantra is “Is it adoption or is it human-trafficking?”

Whatever you decide,  you are going to have to tell your kids.

With Respect,

Deb

Earlier this month Saturday Night Live parodied Angelina Jolie and Madonna’s family formation tactics

This SNL skit really bugged me.  Adoption is not about ’saving the world one tiny exotic baby at a time’ it is about forming loving families.  I truly hope that the Jolie-Pitt kids and Madonna’s son never see their parents parodied like this.  Kids don’t want to be rescued, they want to be LOVED.

Can you imagine how the kids would feel if they saw these ‘funny’ skits? And even if the kids knew the score what message do these kinds of satire send to other kids about adoption and the children who join their families via adoption.

How would you feel?

How would your kids feel?

Think about that.

With Respect,

Deb

www.adoptingsmart.com

   Our guide, Liu (aka Jason) in Chengdu, PRC

In a hearing to discuss Senate Bill 362 Betty Brown, a representative from Texas has suggested that Asia Americans should change their “names that are easier for Americans to deal with.”   

Senate Bill 362 focuses on restrictive voter ID requirements. According to a member an Asian America advocacy group “people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and identifying themselves because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on identification cards.” Apparently, poll workers have some difficulty finding the names on the voter rolls.

“Representative Brown’s comments made clear that she lacks an understanding of Asian American cultures and that she in fact undervalues other cultures,” said OCA Executive Director George Wu. “It is unacceptable that Representative Brown believes that the burden should be placed upon individual voters to make it easier on poll workers to ensure that the voters get to exercise their right to vote, rather than expecting that the burden lay with the government to do its job correctly,” said Terry Ao, director of Census & Voting Programs at the Asian American Justice Center.  “Participation in the democratic process should unite all Americans; we should be seeking ways to encourage more voters, not inventing excuses to deny citizens their constitutional right to vote.”Interestingly, it is not just Representative Brown who thinks that Americans aren’t bright enough to use a person’s given name.    

How do you feel when you look at these powerful images of things that can’t be recovered? 

With luck, they will make you stop and think of the things we can recover.  Today would be a great day to reach out to someone who has been on your mind but for whatever reason you have been hesitant to connect with.  

Real friends can always be recovered-either spiritually or physically.  What a great lesson to teach your children.

With Respect,

Deb

It has been a long time since we have been blogging.  We have Facebooked, MySpaced and Twittered.  We have even traveled to Asia and back.  But blogging? No way.  No how.

 But now, we are back.  A little older.  A little wiser.  Even a little humbler.

Using your feedback, we are going to continue to do what we did well and can what didn’t work.  We are going to try and inject some more humor and take ourselves less seriously.  Sure, we are still going to spark controversy where we can just to keep things lively.  You can count on us for that. 

We will cover a range of topics-adoption, bullying, character education, racism, diversity, bias, education, family, and culture to name a few through our unique filter. 

Yes, we are going to help provide you some cool tools to help you navigate the sometimes stormy waters of parenting, with a view toward raising confident, hip and resilient kids ready to inherit their place in a global world. 

So thanks for hanging in there while we got ourselves together.

And by the way, don’t forget to check out www.adoptingsmart.com!  You-or someone you know will be glad that you did!

With Respect,

Deb

Yesterday was one of the first crisp fall days in New York and so we headed to the Bronx Zoo’s annual “BOO at the Zoo” event.

We had a blast-as we always do at the Zoo. Magic shows, story-telling, sing-a-longs, hay rides and trick-or-treating were just some of the activities.

As the day drew to a close, we wandered in to a tent where John Farrell was hosting a sing-a-long. Towards the end of his performance, he invited all the kids to come up to the front of the room and join hands-which they did. When he invited the adults in the audience to do the same thing-we couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t join hands.

We kind of looked at the person who was sitting next to us and quickly turned away, putting our hands in our laps. There was no hand-holding on our end.

The kids, on the other hand, were having a ball-clasping the hand of the kid next to them without a second thought.

The difference was remarkable.

Now, the adults may have been fearful of germs-after all MRAS is making headlines. And it is scary stuff! Maybe we were uncomfortable with sharing ourselves with a stranger. But maybe we were somehow afraid of each other. This was a very mixed crowd-highly diverse as you would expect in a borough of New York City. Maybe we were afraid-not consciously-that someone elses ethnicity or race would rub off on us.

Whatever the reason, while kids joyfully and without hesitation grabbed anothers hand, the adults were uncomfortable and suspicious.

I wish that the kids’ lack of bias would rub off on us so that we might truly be able to embrace others-without hesitation or judgement. But I do have faith in our kids ability to look past differences and thrive in a multi-cultural world-if we don’t screw it up.

With respect,
Deb

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, there was an article on the front page of the Personal Journal about the relationship between fashion labels and bullying.

Not only do the kids need to have designer clothes to be safe from teasing from other girls-they have to be the right designers! I guess I wasn’t surprised that designer clothes were important statements for kids-I caved in and bought my daughter a pair of UGG boots when the knock off pair didn’t make the grade. What surprised me is the hierarchy of designer duds.

Of course, this in not being helped by the fact that more and more designers are -targeting young girls and girl-to-girl bullying is growing at an alarmingly fast rate. One-third of middle school girls surveyed answered “yes” when they were asked if they had been bullied due to the clothes that they wear.

Many of us use our clothing to reflect how we see ourselves, but as adults we are much less affected (hopefully) by the criticism of others. Many of us have been able to find our sense of style-eclectic, traditional, hip or whatever and live with it.

Our daughters don’t have the luxury of the same point of view. What they wear matters-even in elementary school and becomes a point of differentiation and potential ridicule.

While the brain pool contemplates why fashion is so important to girls’ identities parents are faced with the consequences of fashion bullying.

Beyond lobbying your school for a uniform (a parents dream and a fashionista girl’s nightmare) there are some things you can do:
1. acknowledge that fashion bullying exists-especially for girls

2. Look at the images of fashion in the media-from Angelina’s mom and daughter
matching Chanel bags to Lourdes’ (Madonna’s girl) Juicy Couture sweatsuit.
See what happens to the children who aren’t dressed in designer duds-what
is their race, socio-economic background, etc. Do you and your daughter see any patterns?

3. If it is feasible, get a few designer pieces and help your child
accessorize the pieces she has. It is said that the women in France-arguably among the chicest in the world have a few fabulous outfits and know how to tie a scarf 100 ways.

4. help your child develop her own sense of fashion-what looks good on her
how does she feel when she wears certain clothes, capitalize on what
she thinks she looks good in.

5. Set an example by showing your daughter that you are comfortable with
your style-whatever it is. If you “need” designer clothes just because
they are designer clothes, then this might be a good time to look at that.

And always talk and listen to your kids-ask them how they feel and be supportive. A statement like “I am sorry that you feel that way” goes a lot farther than advice to ignore feelings. “Don’t worry about that” or “You shouldn’t feel that way” are some of the most self-esteem deflating statements in the world.

Remember, fashion bullying is alive and well-just like all other types of bullying and its consequences are just as real, too.

Have a great weekend.

With respect,
Deb

This one is an oldie but a goodie. In fact, after a recent teasing incident this book was read to all the kids in my daughter’s school-followed by a discussion. This book does double duty-it is fun, has beautiful illustrations and packs a powerful message without hitting you over the head.

Take a look at

Giraffes Can’t Dance

and share it with your kids, your kids’ schools and anyone who will listen.!

With respect
Deb