Favours Adoption Of Asian Children By N.Z. Couples

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 2

Favours Adoption Of Asian Children By N.Z. Couples

Any New Zealand family wanting to adopt children from overseas and considered suitable should be allowed to do so—no matter what the colour or nationality of the children. This is the view of a Christchurch woman who, with her husband, has adopted two Chinese girls from Hong Kong. Because she wishes to raise her daughters in a “normal environment and without any fuss” she has asked to remain anonymous.

She disputes the findings of a panel which agreed recently that New Zealand was obliged to solve her internal adoption problem before considering the adoption of Asian children.

The discussion was called by the Christchurch branch of the United Nations Association to acknowledge United Nations Children’s Day on June 2. The speakers were Miss P. O’Reilly, and Mesdames W. Oakley, G. Lyall, H. Garrett, N. F. Robinson, G. M. Samson and C. J. Ashley.

The elder of the two girls is four and arrived when she was a year old. The younger, now three, joined the family 18 months ago after coming first to a Chinese family. Because of illness the Chinese foster mother could not care for the child, who was placed in a foster home.

Then Mrs X and her husband were asked by the National Council of Churches if they would like to adopt another Chinese baby. “We were delighted. We wanted another, but did not think we had a chace as there are so many people wanting to adopt these children,” she says.

Mrs X has three sons, aged 15, 13 and 10. They are enchanted with their two sis-

ters and cannot do enough for them.

Both girls have adapted to life in a New Zealand home without problems. One is relatively quiet and gentle, the other is more of a “tom boy.” Both speak English as well, if not better, than many New Zealand children of the same age. They attend a play centre where they have been accepted completely by the other children. Mrs X and her family accepted the girls without question and loved them at first sight From the way the children come to tell their mother the things that any child loves to confide it is obvious that they return her love.

“It is a mistake to go out of your way to look for differences of character and behaviour in foreign children and then attribute it to their foreign ancestry,” says Mrs X. “My own three boys are not at all like each other. I could see the differences when they were still babies. So when I see differences between the girls I know it is because they are different individuals and not because they are Chinese.”

The two girls have generated much interest. Mrs X has had many people say that they, too, would like to adopt

Chinese babies. She was amazed at first by relatives, friends and tradespeople who, when they first saw the girls would exclaim: “They are just the same as us.”

Mrs X is certain that the adoption of more Asian children would not reduce the number of couples wanting to adopt part-Maori babies. In her experience the opposite has happened. She knows one couple who adopted Chinese girls. They were welcomed by the other children in the family. Next the couple adopted a part-Fijian child and now hope to adopt a part-Maori baby. Other couples, who have seen how successfully Chinese babies became part of a family, are now planning to adopt partMaori children. Mrs X has experienced only one instance of discrimination against her daughters and considers it stupid enough to be humorous.

She had given her elder daughter a penny to spend. When in a chemist’s shop, the child asked if it was the shop where she could buy something. A woman, whom Mrs X knew, heard the question and said: “Even at that age they are keen on money.” Mrs X considers that discrimination exists mainly among older people, both white and Chinese. She has heard that some older Chinese did not favour the entry of the children, as they did not want them to become “Europeanised.” Mrs X thinks it likely that her daughters will get “knockbacks” but will be prepared for them. Nevertheless, she feels that people are becoming more tolerant of “forign-looking New Zealanders.”

The couple have not hid-

den the children’s origins from them. The girls have been told that their parents had only boys and wanted girls so a letter was written to Hong Kong asking for girls. The elder girl is already aware that her features are different from those of European children. Their mother tells both girls that they have the features which she and their father wanted in their daughters.

Mrs X considers that her main problem will be explaining to the girls, when they ask, why they were abandoned by their natural mothers. She intends to say that their mothers loved them very much, but thought they would receive better care in an orphanage. DISAGREES

Mrs X does not agree with Mrs Garrett, who said during the panel discussion, that such children would be better off in their own environment, even if that meant they would have less food. Nor does she agree with Mrs Samson, who said the money spent providing for one child in New Zealand would support dozens of children in their own countries.

In the East, boys are still preferred to girls, says Mrs X. Families will do everything to keep their sons, but girls are often abandoned. If the children are lucky they go to a children’s home until they are five, when they are uprooted and sent to another. They stay at the second until old enough to earn a living. Because they have never known individual love often such girls fall prey to the first man who comes along and the next step is prostitution and illegitimate children who, in turn, go to the orphanages. “It’s a vicious circle," says Mrs X.