Me and Madonna

In the April 28th issue of New York magazine, Madonna talked a bit about international adoption. You can read the whole article (its not long) but here are some of the highlights and my comments.

The interviewer commented "You and Angelina Jolie take a lot of flak for your charity work. People say it’s a fad." Madonna responded that its not just celebrities; people are suspicious of people that want to do something good. I'm with you Madonna, I'm an average Joe trying to adopt a kid internationally and people can't understand our motives, why would we want to do a good thing for a child we never met in a communist country on the other side of the world? Because we like to give, we want to help people, we want to help a child that would otherwise have no chance of survival. Sure, in return we get to have a family, something we always wanted. Maybe that is our selfish motive.

Madonna is still dealing with the legal controversy over her adoption of David from Malawi. A British professor coined the term "The Madonna Effect" to describe Westerners who do international adoptions supposedly at the expense of local kids. Madonna responds that there isn't an AIDS crisis in the UK. Sure there are children that need to be adopted in the US and UK, but they are not going to die in an orphanage in America. Good answer, Madonna. We get asked this all the time, why didn't we choose domestic adoption. There are many reasons, but one was that there is a more desperate need in other countries. In reality, what would have happened to David if he had stayed in Africa? I don't know whether he is HIV+ or not (none of my business), but I'm sure the prospects for African orphans is just as bleak if not worse than Vietnamese orphans.

Since Madonna brought up the AIDS crisis in Africa, I find it fair game to mention that there is also an AIDS crisis in Asia. Right now, the USCIS is being a real pain in the rear with everyone that is trying to complete their adoptions from Vietnam. I call it "The George Bush Effect". One friend just wrote to me that CIS is demanding another HIV test for their child, even though she has already been tested 3 times. What's the deal? They also had the same debacle with the incorrect abandonment date in their child's newspaper ad. Well, at least we are not the only ones.