Adoption and parenthood
While reading news from home, I stumbled across this article: A Child From China. It was the story of an Oklahoman couple who went to China and adopted a baby girl. They mentioned that nearly half of the Chinese orphans up for international adoption are adopted by American couples. They were one of them.
The large majority of these orphans are girls born into rural families who still favor boys. This historic preference (boys can work more, boys can take wives while girls leave the family) coupled with the one-child policy has put pressure on rural families to abandon female children. The author pointed out the irony in that the abandoned girl children who find their way into American and European homes enjoy a lifestyle far above that of the average Chinese boy. Still, this is a great minority.
He waxes a bit too poetically on the idea that these American-raised babies would grow up to become strong, independent American women who would return to the land of their forefathers and change China's culture from within. He fails to see that these cultural tendencies are, like everything else, rooted in practicality. There is a reason there's such a discrepancy between the attitudes of city-dwelling Chinese folk and country-dwelling Chinese folk. The former have no need for manual labor, while the livelihood of the latter depends on it. There is a great disconnect between the two. Even when my parents speak of the peasants, it's as if they were speaking about a different species.
No, if you want to get rid of male favoritism, you will have to get rid of the incentives for favoring males. As long as China's countryside remains dependent on agriculture, the peasants will favor boys.
Reading this article did remind me of a thought I had a while ago, though. I am firm in my adherence to the childfree lifestyle. In other words, I never want to have children. I have no particular inclination towards children or child-rearing and I frankly do not think it is a responsibility I can live up to. To me, parenthood is not an opportunity to mold someone in your image or to guide someone along the "correct" path or to shape someone into an idealized vision of a human being. I see it solely as the responsibility to care for another person. Your reward, if you succeed, is someone who is equipped with the tools to choose their own path, form their own ideas, and lead a life they are content with. It's a difficult task and not one I want to deal with.
However, if there were ever the distant possibility that I would change my mind, I would consider adoption as desirable as pregnancy. In many ways, it is superior. I do not place any premium on my genetic material. There are many children who need adopting. No need to have one of my own when I could just adopt one that's already there and in need of a home.
And frankly, pregnancy is just not something I want to go through.
If it ever came to that, why not one from China? Whatever hypothetical children I could have with my hypothetical partner would always be half Chinese at least, full Chinese at most, so it's not like it'd suffer strange looks or comments. It's not too bad an idea. If it ever came to that.
The large majority of these orphans are girls born into rural families who still favor boys. This historic preference (boys can work more, boys can take wives while girls leave the family) coupled with the one-child policy has put pressure on rural families to abandon female children. The author pointed out the irony in that the abandoned girl children who find their way into American and European homes enjoy a lifestyle far above that of the average Chinese boy. Still, this is a great minority.
He waxes a bit too poetically on the idea that these American-raised babies would grow up to become strong, independent American women who would return to the land of their forefathers and change China's culture from within. He fails to see that these cultural tendencies are, like everything else, rooted in practicality. There is a reason there's such a discrepancy between the attitudes of city-dwelling Chinese folk and country-dwelling Chinese folk. The former have no need for manual labor, while the livelihood of the latter depends on it. There is a great disconnect between the two. Even when my parents speak of the peasants, it's as if they were speaking about a different species.
No, if you want to get rid of male favoritism, you will have to get rid of the incentives for favoring males. As long as China's countryside remains dependent on agriculture, the peasants will favor boys.
Reading this article did remind me of a thought I had a while ago, though. I am firm in my adherence to the childfree lifestyle. In other words, I never want to have children. I have no particular inclination towards children or child-rearing and I frankly do not think it is a responsibility I can live up to. To me, parenthood is not an opportunity to mold someone in your image or to guide someone along the "correct" path or to shape someone into an idealized vision of a human being. I see it solely as the responsibility to care for another person. Your reward, if you succeed, is someone who is equipped with the tools to choose their own path, form their own ideas, and lead a life they are content with. It's a difficult task and not one I want to deal with.
However, if there were ever the distant possibility that I would change my mind, I would consider adoption as desirable as pregnancy. In many ways, it is superior. I do not place any premium on my genetic material. There are many children who need adopting. No need to have one of my own when I could just adopt one that's already there and in need of a home.
And frankly, pregnancy is just not something I want to go through.
If it ever came to that, why not one from China? Whatever hypothetical children I could have with my hypothetical partner would always be half Chinese at least, full Chinese at most, so it's not like it'd suffer strange looks or comments. It's not too bad an idea. If it ever came to that.