Suffering from “Adoption Disappointment?”

This story has been ricocheting around the blogosphere this week, and I’ve been sitting here wordlessly trying to figure out what to say about it. There really are no words. Or others have found better words than what I’ve been able to come up with.

Here’s the summary.

A Dutch diplomat and his wife have given up a seven-year-old South Korean girl they adopted as a baby, saying they had failed to integrate her into their family, consulate officials in Hong Kong said Monday.

The couple, whose names were not released, made the move in the last few months, seven years after they adopted her, a South Korean consulate spokesman told AFP.

“They now have their own children. They decided it was difficult to raise her because of cultural shock. They said she’s not willing to eat their food. That’s one of the reasons. It’s a strange reason,” said the spokesman, who did not want to be named.

“She was raised from a very early age. It’s a very uncommon case. It’s a difficult situation for us to understand,” he said, adding that the couple had adopted the child when the diplomat was working in South Korea.

If you have the stomach to read more, it gets worse, more bizarre and more heartbreaking. I’d recommend reading what Sume has to say.

Resist Racism discusses it here and here. Ungrateful Little Bastard has a thorough listing of documents on the story. Harlow’s Monkey wrote a brilliant response, as usual. And Julia’s post is compassionate, insightful, and devastating.

Edited to add Paula’s incredibly articulate POV. 

One of the links that shocked me the most was this link from Harlow’s Monkey. I stared at it for a long time. I really could not fathom that it was real, and not a spoofy kind of joke from The Onion. But it’s real. If you’re not satisfied with how your adoption turned out, you can seek restitution! Even after forty years!

Sorry, Mom, if you’re suffering from Adoption Disappointment, you’re eight years too late.