Customer Reviews

Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kay Johnson has written that rare book-a detailed look at and analysis of Chinese governmental policy that tells you what actually happens as a result of that policy. This book is important, not only to adoptive families, but also to those who study China and try to understand the real life implications for policies that affect the world's most populous country.

For adoptive families, Kay Johnson has provided an invaluable insight into the circumstances that led to children being available for foreign families. Stripped of the emotional overlay that accompanies so many books about adoption, Kay Johnson fearlessly examines her own preconceptions to get closer to the truth by talking to birth parents, spending time with orphanage officials and pouring over statistics. Kay Johnson shows us what happened, what changed and what could change in the future.

While I personally hope that there will be an international adoption program in place for many years, I am also respectful of Kay Johnson's belief that children are best off being adopted in their birth countries. The children in China's orphanages have been helped enormously by both the international adoption program and by better domestic adoption policies. Kay Johnson, almost alone of the authors and journalists who write about Chinese adoption, recognizes the contributions of the adoptive families to the orphanages as well as recognizing other contributions that have dramatically improved the care of children whose welfare is overseen by the orphanages.

This book offers a unique insight both for those who erroneously leap on the orphanages as a token of the depravity of the Chinese and for those whose choice to adopt in China has given them a life-altering link to a country halfway around the globe.

Every adoptive parent should take the opportunity this book provides to understand more fully the lives of their children before those children belonged to an adoptive family. A lot of this book is surprising and unsettling, but a thorough reading will help adoptive parents make sense of the miracle that ocurred when they traveled to China for a first look at a small person they would love for the rest of their lives.

Reviewed by the author of "At Home in This World, a China Adoption Story" (EMK Press, 2003):

"Wanting A Daughter, Needing A Son" is a snapshot in time of the socio-political circumstances leading to the abandonment and international adoption of thousands of China's daughters. The facts and statistics that Dr. Johnson cites as part of her research, reflect a complex Catch-22 of a patrilineal society moving from desperate economic survival towards prosperity, and of population laws and policies that are unevenly policed and out of sync with the current emotional lives of Chinese parents.

"Wanting A Daughter, Needing A Son" is not a band-aid; it's truth won't banish our children's feelings of loss, or give adoptive parents the kind of explanations that would allow us to put a loving or heroic spin on the sad act of abandonment. But Dr Johnson's important work broadens the China adoption picture, gives it depth, and hands us the knowledge our children will eventually need in order to comprehend the complicated facets of their own Chinese/American/adoptee identity. Kay Ann Johnson's research uncovers the surprising fact that many thousands of abandoned Chinese babies actually do find happy homes (legally and illegally) within their own communities, despite our previous understanding of the one-child policy and domestic Chinese adoption. In an added twist, our children may someday realize that they have "adoptee peers" in China, who grew up in loving families with Chinese adoptive parents, and without the associated alienation of cross-cultural, trans-racial adoption that our China girls and boys must learn to live with here in the USA.

Dr. Johnson's interviews and statistics also tell us that the majority of our children most likely have a sibling or two living in China with our child's family of origin- bittersweet data that may someday provide a genetic connection for adult adoptees seeking birth information. I am appreciative of Dr. Johnson's illuminating research on a subject so close to my heart, and grateful to have her book to share with my daughters in the future. "Wanting A Daughter, Needing A Son" will be a solid resource for them in teen- and adulthood, and will help them to intellectually understand the time and place, cultural mentality, and forces of power that spun their young lives halfway around the world.

This is an excellent work on the population control and adoption policies of communist China. Very detailed and very educational. Explored the causes of abandonment and posited some unexpected conclusions about this issue. One of the best books I have read in a long time.

The only criticism I have is that the author seems to go to great lengths to show that Chinese society has come to value daughters in a way that it did not do so in the past (thus, the book's title). The author asserts that, after having a first son (who will be relied upon for social security in the old age of his parents), Chinese families are more than willing to accept and value a daughter as a second child. However, while there are certainly parents who will make this claim (perhaps because it would be shameful to claim otherwise), the fact remains that almost every infant abandoned in China and almost every child living (and dying) in a Chinese orphanage is a girl. This hardly reflects a new-found appreciation of the value of girls. And the fact remains that more sons will result in more old-age security for the parents. Chinese parents who value one son for the security he can offer will value two sons for the added security.

If you have been touched by adoption from China or just have an interest in China or its population control policies, then this book is worth its weight in gold. Kay Ann Johnson has done a wonderful job.

I am a graduate student studying the One Child Policy, orphanges, and abandonment in China. I found this book to be very informative. It provided many statistics, which I found useful, and gave new insight into the topic of abandonment. The author's research is fairly limited - she interview ~750 families, but was suggestive nonetheless. Because the book is a compliation of essays, it is pretty repetitive. I would be interested in more academic works on this subject from Johnson.

Be careful about non-academic works written on this subject... they are often a lot of "fluff" based on emotions and rumors, instead of fact. If you are looking for a book to educate yourself and your adopted daughter on China's population policy consequences, then this book would give you an accurate picture.

There has been a lot of news articles recently (3/2006) about Chinese orphanages that are buying/stealing children for sale to American parents. I wonder how the author would consider this in future books?

I just finished my "first read" of "Wanting a Daughter, Needing a
Son" and am utterly impressed. I say "first
read" because I find it to be an excellent reference book that is just so full of incredible information that it would be difficult to comprehend/process it all in one reading. Of all the
articles and books that I have read to attempt to have a great,
accurate knowledge base of information for the day when my daughter who was adopted in China asks
BIG QUESTIONS about her past, THIS is THE book. I am TOTALLY in awe,
and MORE THAN GRATEFUL to the "academics" among adoptive parents
whose diligent and dedicated work will benefit ALL of our adopted
children from China. You MUST get a copy of this book to have on hand, even if the statistical info isn't currently the kind of literature that holds your attention.

After deciding to adopt, I knew I had to learn as much as I could before formally beginning the process. Kay Ann Johnson's book provided me with a factual, and very touching, explanation of why and how China has come to have such an alarming number of female orphans. She opened my eyes to the powerful social and political forces at work in China. This clear and very well written book touched my heart and helped me to understand the reasons for female child abandonment. More importantly, it showed me that the Chinese DO love their daughters. Johnson's book has made me extremely comfortable with my decision to adopt from China. Even if you have already adopted from China, this book will help explain the circumstances that have brought you and your child together.

Wonderful book that I am suggesting to all family members that they read in order to better understand the situation in China. GREATLY improves understanding of the realities of life in China and the pressures that lead to abandonment.

There is no question that this book is academic in tone. It was written by an academic, Dr. Kay Johnson. It contains extremely important information and analysis, and the criticism that it is "academic" is not fair. I'd urge all with an interest in the topic to read Kay Johnson's book, along with the Karin Evans book. Incidentally, Kay Johnson is doing very important and useful work on the ground in China, to try to bring better lives to AIDS orphans.

excellent source for future parents of Chinese adopted children or for the children themselves! I do not know of any other source of information going so deep into the history and facts about Chinese foundlings

The review written by "Disappointed" on Feb. 23, 2004 really embarrasses me on behalf of Chinese adoptive families everywhere. We Americans (or Westerners in general) are NOT the only hope for the abandoned girls of China.

Why does Disappointed appear to be so angry with adoptive parents in China, or with Kay Ann Johnson for talking about in-country adoption? I don't think the book is trying to promote domestic adoption as if it doesn't already exist, and as a replacement for international adoption. Johnson shows that it's been happening for quite a while, and that these families suffer all sorts of discrimination and obstacles because they adopted foundlings outside the social welfare system.

I think Johnson is just saying that there are hundreds of thousands of adoptive families in China, far far more than the rest of us who have adopted, and that these families and their adopted daughters deserve better than they are now getting from their government. Johnson isn't facilitating these adoptions, but Disappointed seems to blame her, and would question the love a Chinese woman can have for the baby she finds on her doorstep.

What's embarrassing is the entitlement and me-centeredness in Disappointment's note. Does she really believe that she is superior to a Chinese adoptive parent? Encouraging full citizenship for Chinese girls adopted domestically and encouraging a change in the law so that more Chinese parents can adopt legally does not make Johnson the enemy of international adoption; she is an adoptive parent herself.

I'm always appalled by people like Disappointed who say it's not about "the material and educational advantages that many of our daughters enjoy" when that's EXACTLY what they think it's about. Yes, we all deeply and sincerely want our children, and we can give them much besides family and love, but we can't give them a life within their birth culture, free from the complications of being an Asian Adoptee in a White World.

So Disappointed had to deal with endless bureaucracy and travel half way around the world to have a daughter. Was that really so hard? Should that really be a deciding factor in who might want these girls more? Does it compare to what her counterparts in China have to put up with, when they decide to adopt and raise a foundling? Her tone seems to declare "I'm better than that woman in China, because all she did was open her door, while I had to do paperwork!"

Johnson has tremendous empathy and compassion for adoptive families in China, who by and large have a much harder road than we do. Disappointed would do well to cultivate some of that empathy and compassion herself. Every minute of every day I am thankful for my daughters, but I just can't let myself think, the way Disappointed does, that I am somehow more entitled than anyone else or able to want them more than anyone else, least of all the adoptive families in China who endure far more than we do in order to have their daughters.