I realize I’m a little late to the whole census discussion as it was discussed by Robyn already. And I’ve read about it on numerous other websites and in the media. The first time I heard the census form had separate categories for biological and adopted children I was surprised but sort of dismissed the issue. I was busy living my life and I pretty much let it roll off my back.
That was until I actually opened the census envelope we received in the mail. I sat down to fill it out and once I saw the actual words on the form I about blew a gasket. It suddenly hit me that this isn’t an issue that can roll off my back. I was furious. I was disgusted. It made me think about how my parents would have had to fill out a similar form when I was a child. I have siblings that came to my family in so many different ways. Why should we be categorized and segmented simply because we are not the biological children of my parents? That’s right, I said it. My parents. They are not my adoptive parents and I am not their adopted child. I am their child. Period. (And don’t get me started on the whole issues of the media identifying children of celebrities as the “adopted” child of so and so. Grrr.)
As I started to cool off a bit from my initial wave of anger I was suddenly re-angered on a whole different level. While my husband and I have not yet adopted a child we are hoping to soon. If we had a child now how would I answer the question?
How is this person related to person 1?
Husband or wife
Biological son or daughter
Adopted son or daughter
Stepson or stepdaughter
I stared at it for a long time. I have this deep down instinct not to lie…especially not on a government form. I believe in civic duty. And I do believe that collection of a variety of information is generally important in our daily lives. But….the longer I looked at the question the more I thought that I would not mark my child as our “adopted son or daughter.” So my options would be to leave it blank or to lie because I refuse to label my child on this issue. Why should I even have to consider either option? And what of the numerous fertility treatment options we considered? Had we decided to go the donor egg route what then would be the truthful answer???
In the end, I’m skeptical of the true benefit of collecting this information on the census form. Yes, I’ve read the explanation of tracking the trends and geographic locations of adoptive families and complying with current law. If there truly is a good reason to collect this data then there must be a better, more accurate way to do it. Perhaps gather the data from existing court records? If the goal is truly to improve the adoption process in this county then the government should work toward a better overall system, such as federal adoption laws that standardize the “industry” and work to eliminate fraud and deception.
In addition to a child which joined my family through adoption, I have a child which joined my family through birth but is not biologically related to me. No answer to the census question is true, so I guess I’ll feel no guilt about failing to answer the question “correctly” for both children.
If it makes you feel any better about not following the rules for their useless and offensive question, try on this bit of semantics for size: All of my children are biological. When some robotics researcher comes up with a non-biological child, I’d love to hear all about it.
Funny, I don’t have any children yet and am waiting for a match, but it totally irked me too. What difference does it make?!?!?!
Yes, I totally agree with Stephanie J. being irked. Just another way for people to dehumanize adoptees. It is like categorizing us along with dogs or cats from the local shelter. To be true part of a family, the government should stay out of it. There should be a decencey police that stike such govenment labels from the system before it is published. Especially since Adoptees still can not get a hold of their own sealed records, even if they are of age. What difference does it make? It makes a huge difference.