Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption

Fiona Bowie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415303507
• eBook ISBN: 9781134411771
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Adoption is currently subject to a great deal of media scrutiny. High-profile cases of international adoption via the internet and other unofficial routes, have drawn attention to the relative ease with which children can be obtained on the global circuit, and have brought about legislation which regulates the exchange of children within and between countries. However a scarcity of research into cross-cultural attitudes to child-rearing, and a wider lack of awareness of cultural difference in adoptive contexts, has meant that the assumptions underlying Western childcare policy are seldom examined or made explicit.

These articles look at adoption practices from Africa, Oceania, Asia and Central America, including examples of societies in which children are routinely separated from their biological parents or passed through several foster families. Showing the range and flexibility of the child-rearing practices that approximate to the Western term 'adoption', they demonstrate the benefits of a cross-cultural appreciation of family life, and allow a broader understanding of the varied relationships that exist between children and adoptive parents.

Part I
Africa

Chapter 3

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“The real parents are the foster parents”

Social parenthood among the Baatombu in Northern Benin

Erdmute Alber

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Introduction

In recent years, new kinship theories have revived the argument that kinship cannot be understood as biologically based social relations, but as social relations of belonging often expressed by metaphors coming from the biological arena.¹ As kinship relations that are not necessarily grounded upon biological relations, adoption and fosterage seem to be good examples to test the validity of that argument. One research possibility is to study the process of “kinning” (Howell 2003), which means to thematize the way in which a kinship relation is built up, which symbols and metaphors for this new relation of belonging are found and, finally, how an attempt is made to make adoptive relationships resemble biological ones. Studies of adoption in Europe and America have shown how much effort adoptive parents put into “naturalizing” relations with their adopted children.

This strong desire to naturalize adoptive relations can be interpreted as a consequence of the fact that adoption and fosterage in Euro-America² are seen as neither ordinary nor mainstream. The norms concerning good and “right” parenthood are oriented to the biological parents, who should ideally fulfill the roles of social and juridical parents as well. Another belief is that parental changes, for example from biological to foster parents, could damage a child’s psychological health.

In contrast to these ideas and beliefs, this chapter talks about people who have a completely different vision of parenthood. Among the Baatombu in Northern Benin, West Africa, at least in rural situations, fosterage is not the exception but the norm. People think that biological parents are less able than foster parents to provide a good education for their children. The Baatombu therefore find it very reasonable to give their children to other persons to be fostered, without any negative connotations. To the contrary, people trying to prevent their biological children being taken by others are seen as bad.

Esther Goody’s research on social parenthood in Ghana (1982) shows that West Africa is one of the regions of the world in which social parenthood and different forms of fosterage are particularly common. According to Hillary Page (1989), among some ethnic groups in the Ivory Coast around 50 percent of children between ten and thirteen do not grow up with their biological parents.³ Even in this West African context, where fostering is a very common phenomenon, Baatombu norms and behavior appear extreme, going so far as to make invisible or even deny biological parenthood. People try to demonstrate that the foster parents are the real, potent and preferred parents. It is possible that such attitudes are more widespread, but that little research attention has been paid to the phenomenon.

Adoption and fosterage: terminological questions

Esther Goody makes a terminological distinction between different forms of social parenthood (1982: 7ff.) She argued that in order to carry the burden of social reproduction it can be rational for a society to share the tasks between different kinds of parents, the biological and the social. Goody outlined five different functions of parenthood, which in many societies are shared between biological and social parents: first bearing and begetting, second, status entitlements and rearing reciprocities, then nurturance, training and sponsorship. If other persons than the biological parents fulfill some of these functions, then she would call them “social parents”.

Of all the possible social parents, she would call “adoptive parents” only those people who take all parental functions beside the first one, which cannot be transferred. As African children normally do not change their names even if they stay their whole childhood with social parents and merely visit the biological parents, she refers to them as foster rather than adopted children. This definition obviously leads to new terminological problems: “social parenthood” may be understood in a very broad sense, including all the persons who have “functions” in the daily life of children. Roost Vischer (1997) for example, following Goody, calls “social parenthood” the phenomenon that people other than the biological parents take temporary care of children, watch them in the absence of the parents or even educate them if they are playing with their children. Thus, the distinction between “parent” and “non-parent” can, following that definition, become very fluid. Even in Europe, in societies which emphasize biological parenthood, and in which parents have an educational monopoly over “their” children, other individuals such as babysitters, neighbors, teachers and grandparents have some limited responsibility for them.

The other problem of Goody’s terminology is that, concentrating on the functionalist perspective, she is not able to answer the question how societies interpret the different forms of parenthood. One cannot differentiate between societies that transfer nearly all responsibilities to social parents and understand them as the real and important persons in children’s lives, and those in which foster parents play a much more limited role. It is possible to identify some forms “between” adoption and fosterage in Goody’s sense. Even among the Baatombu I have observed a whole spectrum of different forms of what she would call fostering, which can hardly be subsumed under a single term. As Baatombu foster children always retain the clan name of their biological father, I follow Goody in calling their practices “fosterage”, although the emic meaning seems to me in most cases to be better understood as “adoption”. Independently from the question of whether one should call these practices “fosterage” or “adoption” it should become clear from my “thick description” how and why Baatombu let their children “circulate”.⁴

First I describe the traditional – that means in this context, the old and in many villages still current – practices of child fosterage. Second, I outline some underlying concepts and norms. Third, I show how these concepts and practices have undergone a process of transformation that has brought about changes in the modes of circulation of children without making these practices disappear.⁵

The Baatombu are part of the multi-ethnic Borgu region in northeastern Benin and in north-western Nigeria. They share the land with other peasant groups, mainly Boko and Mokolle, with the pastoralist Fulani herders and with Muslim traders, called Dendi or Wangara. Today their major cash crop is cotton. Since about 1960, a strong migrational tendency can be observed towards the big cities in the south of Benin, mainly Cotonou, as well as a tendency to migrate within the Borgu towards the capital Parakou and other urban centers.⁶

Traditional forms of child fosterage in rural Baatombu areas

It is still common in Baatombu villages not to let children grow up with their biological parents. This practice has been widespread. Among more than 150 older people I have spoken to during my field trips, I have only spoken with two persons who told me that they stayed during their whole childhood with their biological parents. Usually aunts and uncles, or the classificatory grandparents, “demand a child to live with them”, as the Baatombu say.

It is always a single individual of the same sex who takes the rights and duties of foster parenthood. The child normally moves into the household of the social mother or father aged about three to six. This age is preferred for child fosterage for two reasons, the child is not weaned until about three, and his or her younger biological brother or sister should already be born so that the mother will not stay without a child. It is maintained that the transfer of the child should happen at a young age, before the child would be “knowing”, as the Baatombu say, a change which takes place at around six or seven. Among other things, this implies that events and changes that happen during this period cannot cause fundamental damage to the personality of the child or adult.⁷

The foster parent takes full responsibility, not only to rear the child but also to educate and teach all the gender-specific tasks and roles of a future member of the society. From the moment of transfer there are significant differences between the sexes. Women explained to me numerous practices that should help bind the girl to the social mother, such as special herbs that are put into the bath of the child, songs and conjurations, or small gifts that help to convince the child to follow the new mother. By contrast, men have a different emphasis. They very frequently stress the point that “their” boys follow them without manifesting opposition. They maintain that, except for the donation of new clothes when taking the boy from his biological mother, nothing special has to be done to facilitate the change. Significant gender differences accompany the entire process of social parenthood, which usually extends until marriage.

One effect of this gender-specific form of fosterage is that, in comparison to contemporary Euro-American society, the emotional impact of divorce on children is minimized. As in many societies in the West African–Sudan belt, marriage relations among the Baatombu are rather unstable. It is quite common for a woman to be married several times in her life. Giving away her biological children implies for a woman to be free to change the husband and to enter the new marriage without having to care for biological children from earlier marriages. Starting a new marriage with one or several fostered children should not, and normally does not, cause any problem for the new relationship. Husbands and wives deal independently with “their” social children, and in case of divorce each of them continues to take care of the children in his or her realm of responsibility. Thus, children are used to moving with their social parents, possibly several times during childhood. This is especially so for girls, for it is normally the woman who leaves the household.

The fact that husbands and wives deal independently with “their” social children leads to another important difference between the fosterage of girls by women and the fosterage of boys by men. Everybody takes on those children he or she has the right to claim. Women take children from their clan or their mothers’ families, men from theirs. Married women live in the households of their husbands’ families and have a precarious position there, especially when they are still young. They often have relations of rivalry or competition with other in-married women, and hierarchical relations with the women that belong to their husband’s family. Their biological children – those whom one would call their own from a western perspective – belong to another patrilineal clan and tend to be fostered by others. In this situation, foster children strengthen the position of married women. They are from the same clan as their social mothers, they are also strangers, and they belong exclusively to them. This seems to be the most important reason as to why the fostering of girls in rural areas has not decreased to the same extent as the fostering of boys. It is a way to stabilize the precarious position of young women in the household they have married into.

When we talked about the difficulties for a woman living in her husband’s household while she was young, an old woman said to me:

If you are a married woman living at the husband’s and you have your own family, then you will take your thing to hold it (foster it). Even if you have given birth to children with him, you’ll do so. You’ll take the child of your brother, the child of your sister to hold them.⁸

It is worth noting the instances where this woman used and did not use possessive pronouns. In saying “you will take your thing to hold it” she expressed with emphasis that the children of her family (here she used the French term famille, whereas the conversation has been in Baatonum, the local language) were her own, whereas she completely avoided expressing a sense of belonging regarding her biological children, whom she called “children you have given birth with him”. “He” is, of course, the man she was married to at that time. As in the case of her biological children, she did not designate her husband with a possessive pronoun or any other mark of a relation of belonging. But in the case of her clan she used all the possible formulations of designating such a relation: “you’ll have your own family”, “you’ll take your thing”, “the child of your brother, of your sister”.

Fostering children from her own clan – she called them her “own things” in this context – strengthened her position in a household where she continued to be a stranger, a person without the specific relations of belonging which are reserved to one’s own family. She belonged, in a different sense, to the family of her husband, because they would call her “our woman” as the husband could say “my woman”. But she could not do the same. However, “her children” whom she called here “her things”⁹ were the biological children of her brothers or sisters. They belonged exclusively to her, whereas the children to whom she gave birth, which she could never call her “own”, belonged first of all to the family of their father.

The social mother or father has various rights in his or her social children. There is the right to let the child work for her or him. This is especially important for elderly people who very often argue that they foster children in order to have somebody who takes water for them or carries things. In the case of women the fosterage of children is important for having little helpers for the numerous household tasks: cooking, making fire, carrying water, collecting wood, taking care of small children, being sent to neighbors with messages, and so on. Men need a boy to help them do agricultural work. However, child labor is always connected to the idea that a child should be trained to become a good farmer or a good housewife. A woman without a single foster child to send out and, most importantly, belonging in this context exclusively to her is a poor woman.

The fostering person does not only have rights, but duties as well. Possibly the most important (and the most expensive) duty is to give the child his or her first husband or wife. In the case of a girl this implies the payment of the dowry, for a boy, the payment of the brideprice. Marriage is not only considered the termination of childhood, but also the end of belonging to the social parents. The payment of brideprice or dowry sets the child free, and is considered compensation for the work the children have done for their social parents. There is an expression for this context. When talking about marriage French-speaking Baatombu very often use the word libération (liberation) which signifies in the urban context of Benin the big and nowadays quite expensive feast at the end of an apprenticeship. ¹⁰ What is meant by using the term libération for a marriage is that through the marriage a child is liberated from the dependence and relation of belonging to his or her social father or mother. New forms of belonging, especially the woman’s belonging to the family of her husband and the rights they have over her work and reproductive capacity, start when fosterage ends.

There are certain rules about who has the right to demand a child. The first child of a marriage should stay with a person from the clan of the father, an aunt/uncle or a classificatory grandparent. The second child belongs very explicitly to the person who reared the biological mother, i.e. normally her social mother. This relation of belonging is said to be a compensation for the labor and costs the woman had to rear the girl who later on became the mother of the child. And, of course, it is said to be a compensation for the labor the social mother has lost by “setting her child free to marriage”. If the second child is a boy and, therefore, the mother of the woman is unable to foster him herself, she can give him to one of her people, for example one of her sons.¹¹ The third child should go to the family of the father, and the fourth child is the one the biological parents have the right to keep for themselves. These rules do not fully determine foster practices, especially because there are numerous persons who can present themselves as relatives with a right to the child. Instead, the rules serve to legitimize claims. The practices of child fosterage are very flexible, leaving many spaces for individual preferences, personal decisions and, of course, conflicts, which occur mainly when two people present themselves as candidates for fosterage for the same child, or if a family tries indirectly to refuse to give up a child.

Even if somebody tries to deny a particular request for fosterage, which happens from time to time, there is a general consensus that people have the right to “demand a child” and that biological parents do not have the right to refuse such a demand and to keep the child with them. Thus, in order to understand concrete negotiations surrounding the transfer of a child it is necessary to outline general norms of behavior and belonging.

Norms concerning childhood, parenthood and relations of belonging between children and adults

The practice of child fosterage is based upon the idea that biological parents do not “own” their children and make decisions about their lives. Rather, other people have these rights, to some extent. This concept appears in many practices. If, for instance, a visitor enters a Baatombu household and wants to be polite, he or she should address one of the children present in an “educational” way. Educating a child (for example, by telling him or her to greet in a correct way) shows interest and proves that the visitor takes some responsibility for the child. This, in a way, means to consider the child as one’s own. When a child is born people congratulate the relatives, but rarely the biological parents, on the birth of “their” child. Parents express a general demeanor of shame in relation to their biological children in order to demonstrate that they don’t cons...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Jonathan Robert Telfer 8 December 1953–22 September 2002
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Preface
• Glossary of Anthropological Terms
• Kinship Abbreviations and Symbols
• Introduction
• Part I Africa
• Part II Asia and Oceania
• Part III Central and South America
• Part IV Intercountry and Domestic Adoption in the ‘West’