The Lost Daughters of China: Adopted Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past

by Evans, Karin

  Not long after the initial controversy, writer Amy Tan traveled to Beijing with her eighty-year-old mother. One part of her itinerary included an evening of discussion and support for China’s orphanages, an event sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce to benefit the Wisconsin-based Philip Hayden Foundation. Before his untimely death, Hayden, a young teacher in China, had devoted much time and energy to the cause of Chinese orphanages.

  On this festive night, banners—HELP ORPHANS and LOVE CHILDREN—were hung on the walls, and a large contingent of Beijing’s expatriate community, plus the directors of two of China’s state-run orphanages, had gathered. But before the dinner got under way, a cadre of officials from the public security bureau came on the scene, took down the banners, and announced that certain permits were not in place. No speeches would be allowed. Tan, the intended keynote speaker, was left without a podium.10

  Conditions in orphanages remained just another piece of the puzzle surrounding China’s daughters. If there were institutions like Kelly’s former home, with a compassionate director and caretakers who dressed the babies in new shoes, there were by other accounts state institutions that were still dirt poor—struggling to care for children in facilities that lacked heat or running water. It was also true that many, if not most, of the orphanages that dealt with foreigners were in a sense “model” orphanages, receiving additional funds with which to buy medicine, clothing, and toys.

  Anyone who sees the numbers of girls remaining, their futures stretching out without hopes of families or homes, naturally wants to do all that’s possible to get the children out, or to at least make life in the orphanages a happier prospect. Fortunately, more and more advocates, both inside China and out, were soon working to improve conditions.

  All along, too, mixed with even the saddest reports had been individual and heroic acts of kindness—the Chinese foster mother who loves her child as her own and then hands her tearfully to an American mother; the officials who struggle against bureaucratic obstacles to get the children out of the institutions and into families; the adoption agency workers who bargain behind the scenes, negotiating futures for so many little ones.

  An adoptive mother and former pediatric nurse said of her daughter’s orphanage, “I knew there was a commitment they were putting into the children so that they would be safe enough and healthy enough to have a better life. I have absolutely no disappointment toward the Chinese government, toward Chinese families, or toward her Chinese mom. I’m just incredibly thankful that they made this decision, that they chose to save her.”

  If one takes into consideration the historic reluctance of the Chinese government to expose itself to criticism, the entire foreign adoption program has been an exemplary move on the part of the People’s Republic. In terms of human rights, there is probably no more sensitive issue the nation could allow to be scrutinized than happens each time a Westerner comes to China and flies home with a Chinese child. It’s no wonder that in many places the relationship between foreigners—even those intending to be helpful—and the Chinese authorities became temporarily strained after the adverse publicity a few years back.

  The fact that any number of orphanages had saved so many children so well was the positive side of a mixed picture.

  Add to that picture another factor—foreign adoptive families themselves. Most have asked for healthy babies, as young as possible. It’s a natural desire, but it unintentionally fosters a kind of two-tier system, encouraging institutions to place the youngest, strongest, and most appealing children in the adoptable pool. Although many parents over the years have been more than willing to accept children with unexpected and serious health challenges, others have not, and many welfare directors have come to expect that foreigners want healthy children only; that those who take children with special needs do so only because they have been required to. If more adopting parents were willing to accept children with health problems, in fact asked for children who needed some help, more of those children might be given the boost they need to survive. What makes most sense for the children, of course, is to get those who are most frail out of the institution first.

  Sickly children, older children, or disabled children are hard to place. That’s true when it comes to adoption within the United States and it’s true within China. But while few Chinese families who might want to adopt a child have the resources to deal with major medical problems, many Americans do.

  Most of the children adopted from China have, in fact, been amazingly healthy, given their time spent in institutional care. Despite problems here and there—a few of them admittedly serious—several U.S. pediatricians who’ve seen a good sampling of the group have pronounced them a pretty healthy bunch, all in all.11 “I have heard of some wonderful nutrition in the orphanages,” said our own pediatrician. “At one place, they cooked rice until it is a gruel (jook, or congee) and they added lamb bones, which provided valuable minerals, and a touch of soy for the sodium. It’s perfect for the children.” Other pediatricians who’ve worked with children from Chinese orphanages say, overall, their condition has been impressive, that they have not suffered the physical or psychological ill effects seen in some institutionalized children from Eastern Europe, for instance. Although some infants have had developmental delays, most have quickly made up for lost time. According to one preliminary survey, even most children described as “special needs” had tended to have medical problems that varied from minor to nonexistent. But a minority of special-needs children have had additional, undisclosed problems. One thing remained certain: The more resources that flowed into the orphanages, the more children could be offered a good chance at life.

  In the decade following our first trip to a Chinese orphanage there has been a transformation in China’s social welfare institutions for children. The Chinese government has undertaken national fund drives for the country’s homeless children, and various other Chinese entities have stepped in as well, upgrading facilities, increasing efforts to improve the standards of care. In some places, China’s building boom extended to the orphanages, with new, showcase institutions going up, new play equipment sparkling on the grounds. With help, institutions began adding programs that emphasized close ties between children and caregivers, and the replication, as much as possible, of a family atmosphere.

  For years now, a number of foreign organizations have also been active. As the adoption movement gained momentum, many families in the United States and other countries, blessed by children from China and unable to forget those left behind, began initiating further help. In fact, one of the most profound results of the Chinese adoption movement has been the activism of adoptive families who have raised funds and acted to improve conditions for the children who remain in China. Early on, the Families with Children from China group became active; the Foundation for Chinese orphanages raised money for needed supplies, from antibiotics to clothes dryers to toys, and provided funds for foster parent programs and medical assistance. The Families with Children from China charitable initiatives have generously supported foster-care programs, given tuition for a wide range of students from institutions, helped special-needs children, provided playgrounds, paid for washing machines and other needed equipment, and donated surgical and medical care. (For a list of charities supporting China’s orphanages, see the Families with Children from China website, www.fwcc.org.)

  “While FCC is primarily an organization that serves American adoptive families, we care deeply about the children who remain in Chinese orphanages,” David Youtz told a 2002 Congressional-Executive Commission on the subject of China’s institutionalized children. Youtz, then president of Families with Children from China of Greater New York, and an adoptive father, told the committee, “Adoption of children from China into American families is one of the most successful examples of cooperation between our two countries. Despite the ups and downs in the relationship between Washington and Beijing, the adoption process has moved ahead with quiet and life-changing effec
tiveness. The adoption process and conditions in orphanages are one area where China has made impressive and enduring progress, which should be recognized and applauded.”

  The Amity Foundation, a Christian social service and relief agency, which had worked in the Nanjing area for a decade or more, continued to assist by supplying medicine, equipment, and toys. The organization also provided stipends for “Amity grandmas,” personal caregivers for the babies, and for retired nurses, doctors, and teachers to help the children. The Hayden Foundation funded cleft palate surgeries, and other groups offered medical help as well.

  It soon became clear to many of those involved that providing foster care—placing children in temporary homes, or hiring “aunties” or “grandmas,” including some who would take the children home with them at night—would be the most compassionate way to help the children left behind, and with help from many sources, a number of orphanages began to have such programs.

  Over time, as more and more adoptive children settled into new homes, such efforts continued to expand. Some of the donations to Chinese orphanages soon came with handwritten notes from little adopted girls in America, or Ireland, or Denmark, sending heartfelt good wishes to their sisters in China’s institutions.

  One woman blessed with a daughter from China had a moment of inspiration that in the next decade was to change the lives of thousands and thousands of children in Chinese welfare institutions. In 1998, Jenny Bowen was in California looking out the window, watching her daughter Maya play in the yard, when she realized how her daughter, who had come home weak and lagging in development, had, with the care of a family, blossomed into a normal, healthy, happy kid.

  Couldn’t there be a way to get some of that love and care to the rest of the little ones waiting (some waiting forever) in China’s institutions, Bowen wondered. She couldn’t stop thinking about all the other little girls who hadn’t gotten out of the orphanage, and who might not. One was a two-year-old who had had surgery for a benign brain tumor and had lost control of her bladder as a result. All day long this child sat, docilely, on a towel, watching everything that went on around her. “I wanted to find a way to give something back,” says Bowen. “I knew in that moment what I was going to do with the rest on my life.” She realized that the girls who stayed behind needed schooling. Even those few children who eventually were sent to school outside the institutions tended not to do well because they lacked any kind of preparation. The babies needed someone to hold them, play with them, on a daily basis.

  In that moment, the nonprofit foundation called Half the Sky was born. Bowen, who was then a screenwriter and film producer, her cinematographer husband, Richard, and several other adoptive families put together a joint Chinese American venture that combined the talents and concerns of Chinese and American people, including Chinese women involved in the China Population Welfare Foundation (a nongovernmental organization that offered bootstrap help to impoverished women), Chinese and American scholars, Chinese social welfare officials, and early childhood educators and child development specialists.

  Half the Sky Foundation began in 1998 by launching Little Sisters preschool programs in two orphanages, plus a Baby Sisters infant nurture program to provide nannies for children younger than eighteen months. The preschool teachers were trained in the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood development, and the programs also offered preparation for a regular Chinese school curriculum for girls so they could go on to school outside the orphanage. Bowen hoped that the first teachers would go on to train others and that eventually the foundation might provide early education and infant nurture for the children in hundreds of orphanages—reaching as many children as possible.

  To get it all started, a group of Half the Sky volunteers traveled to China for an East-West work party. They set up the first two Little Sisters preschool programs in social welfare institutions in Hefei (Anhui province) and Changzhou (Jiangsu province). Small girls who’d been adopted from China returned with their parents and helped prepare the classrooms. When the rooms were freshly painted, furnished, and ready, they were filled with developmental toys, art supplies, books, a puppet theater, and probably the most popular addition, a dress-up corner.

  For the Baby Sisters program, a contingent of nannies, local women hired to hold and nurture the tiniest, were trained to provide crucial one-on-one attention. The nannies were older local women; the teachers, recent graduates of teachers’ colleges. Thus, as the institutionalized children were being helped, two other generations of women were affected as well. This seemed the second natural phase in the ongoing improvements in China’s institutions. Whatever extra money came in was devoted first to the buildings, and once the physical plants were in shape, attention could be turned to other improvements—simple human contact and stimulation.

  As Dana Johnson, director of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota, and a member of Half the Sky’s board of directors, observed, studies on children adopted from Romania in 1990 and 1991 showed that children in orphanages were at a very high risk for permanent cognitive loss. Even a few minutes a day of additional attention could make a profound difference in a child’s development.

  The American volunteers found this joint venture with Chinese people from many walks of life, as well as local orphanages, an experience almost beyond words. Said Mary Ebejer of Grand Rapids, Michigan, “China has given us so much with our daughter Anna. I had to come and give something back. The experience showed me that kids need the same things everywhere, whether at home or in an orphanage—sensory experience, stimulation, attention. It gave me a tremendous sense of accomplishment. The hardest part was seeing that not every child will be adopted. But a program like this gives one a legacy of hope.”

  David Howard, who with his wife, Vicki McClay, coordinated the first work parties, commented about “how simple it really was to make a meaningful change.” After the preschools opened, one group of children left the orphanage for the first time ever, on a field trip to a local market. Not one of them knew the name of any of the fruits or vegetables or other foods for sale. But they filled their baskets and went back to the orphanage to learn all about their purchases and to help cook a meal for the first time. Teachers had each child keep a memory book, helping those who’ve lost their pasts to create a personal history they can take with them wherever they go. If a child was adopted, she took her memory book with her.

  In the Baby Sisters program, one infant’s progress report after another showed what a difference personal, loving attention could make: “Her muscles were awfully weak and limp. She did not show interest in toys or people. Now she recognizes toys and actually reaches for them. Whenever she sees her nanny, she smiles. [She] is becoming active and outgoing.”

  In a Half the Sky playroom early on, I watched one of the foundation’s Chinese advisers tenderly wipe one child’s nose while holding another girl in his arms. “These are such good children,” he said. “They just don’t have homes.” The children who had found homes in the United States began to be a subject of growing interest among Chinese officials. Joan Spano, another Half the Sky volunteer, reported, “Often the officials would make the point that adopted children, rather than being utterly lost to China, are ‘little ambassadors,’ putting a human face on a political relationship that is sometimes fraught with tension.”

  Half the Sky’s founder is often asked by Chinese orphanage directors and officials why she and others devote so much attention to children still in China. “Because they are our family,” Jenny Bowen has answered. “Because they are the sisters of our daughters and sons. That makes them our children too. . . . As much as is within our power, we must treat them as our own.” Eventually, Half the Sky expanded its programs to include a Big Sisters program for older girls and a Family Village program to provide permanent foster care for children with special needs.

  Today, Half the Sky, supported by more than thirty thousand adoptive families, continues its work across China.
In 2008, a decade after the founding of this dream at her kitchen table in California, Bowen and countless others involved with Half the Sky had established more than three dozen centers, each with an infant nurture and preschool program. Through the Big Sisters program, they were helping numerous older girls. They’d created a dozen foster Family Villages, where children whose special needs precluded them from being adopted could have lasting family ties. They’d also established special programs for children orphaned by AIDS. In all, some fifteen thousand children, from a few months to twenty-one years old, had been served by the foundation and its core group of supporters—adoptive families of Chinese children. At any given time, some four thousand children were in Half the Sky programs.

  In 2006, when I served on that foundation’s board of directors, I walked into a Half the Sky foster village. Several apartments housed retired couples who were each raising several special-needs children. One couple had four children with various disabilities, including cerebral palsy. Another family was celebrating the birthday of a little girl with a disfigured mouth. I watched as the smiling foster mother set the cake down, five candles blazing, on a table in the apartment’s kitchen, and the children gathered around to sing. The birthday child rocked on tiptoes until the song was over, then blew out the candles while the rest of the kids waited for the cake.