Local foundation stresses the benefits of adoption

JAKARTA (JP): An orphanage which has been arranging adoptions for decades is still trying to educate people that foster parents' love is not inferior.

A foster parent's bond with a child can be stronger than a natural parent's if the foster parent has been in daily contact with the child for several years.

But those who have fostered a child from the Sayap Ibu Foundation, established on Sept. 30, 1955, still try as hard as possible to pose as natural parents to their children and to the public, the foundation's chairwoman, Trusti Mulyono, said.

"Once legal formalities are over, they (the children) move immediately to their new homes," Trusti said yesterday during a modest celebration of the foundation's 41st anniversary. Johana S. Nasution, who established the foundation and is an advisor to 11 others, attended the celebration.

Trusti said a foster mother said her "heart was thumping when she was trapped in a traffic jam in front of the foundation". The mother was so nervous that the child, who was staring at the building, asked to go back, Trusti said.

Out of an average 40 adoptions a year, one in three are to foreigners, Trusti said.

But it is Indonesians who seem less willing to abide by the government's strict adoption rules.

For an adoption to be granted, several government bodies must approve it before it is formally settled in court, "this makes adoption a public affair," Trusti said.

This contradicts the intention of the parents-to-be, who wish to hide the fact that the child is not really theirs.

"The motive is so different for foreigners," Trusti said: "Foreigners will even take disabled children, and the children and parents stay in touch with the foundation."

It is frequently reported that people not wanting adopted children to know of them as foster parents seek abandoned babies straight from consenting midwives, Trusti said. In these cases, birth certificates do not bear the name of the children's blood- parents, but those of the man and woman posing as natural parents.

"A common excuse is pity for the child, who may feel unwanted if the child knows he or she is adopted," Trusti said.

But legal, strict, adoption procedures avoid unwanted pain in the future, she said.

As children are likely to know their origins from other sources, the foundation's staff tell new parents that they must tell the children of their origins.

Some 20 adults, formerly adopted children, have returned in rage and tears to the foundation, demanding to meet their real parents after they found out they were adopted, Trusti said.

Trusti said an architectural student became suspicious when she found that her blood type did not match her parents'.

When she interrogated her mother she found she had been adopted from Sayap Ibu, and she concluded that all her life she had been cheated.

The staff promised to trace her parents. The student was shocked to find she was born in prison to a domestic servant who had served time for several thefts. Her father is unknown.

The blood-mother and child agreed to a meet, which was cordial, Trusti said.

Trusti said the student then loved her adopted mother even more. "We convinced her that she was chosen out of so many others. How could she study at the university if she was not?"

"There is something more precious about the love of an adopted child," Trusti said. "There is not only love for the parent, but a feeling of gratitude."

The incident proves, Trusti said, that even a real mother's love does not grow in a day.

Apart from educating the public on the need to acknowledge adoption status and go through proper procedures, the staff also face what they say is the public's misperception that all neglected children should belong to the foundation.

"We now have five children suffering from hydrocephalus," Trusti said. Almost all were sent from the state-owned Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital. The foundation is not equipped with the necessary facilities and does not have trained people to handle children who are suffering pain, staff members said.

Trusti hopes that homes or dormitories can be set up for disabled children who are over five years old.

"There are many schools here for the disabled, but most of them only accept children whose families can pay for them," she said. (anr)