Let’s Talk About Race…

Last weekend, R. and I traveled down to the big city to attend an adoption workshop, presented by a well-regarded adoption and diversity consultant, on the subject of race. Jane Brown, the consultant, is a member of our FCC group here in AZ (she lives here) and is the mother of eight children–five adopted transracially, including a daughter from China–but conducts most of her workshops for adults (for aparents and educators) and “playshops” (for kids adopted transracially) elsewhere across the U.S. I thought I would summarize her main points about raising healthy transracially / transnationally-adopted children and supplement these points with excerpts from some of her emails on the subject.

Although she covers a lot of ground, Jane Brown’s two biggest points are:

1) our children are not Asian, but Asian-American, and we need to find ways to encourage their sense of self-worth as Asian-Americans. (In other words, teaching our daughters some words of Mandarin and celebrating the Autumn Moon Festival every year by eating moon cakes isn’t going to cut it when it comes to promoting healthy identity formation.)

2) we need to surround our children with a diverse community–both in terms of their peer group at their schools, but also in terms of OUR peer group, in OUR homes. We need to demonstrate to our transracially adopted daughter or son that our own adult friends and acquaintances represent a wide spectrum of racial diversity in order for her or him to draw the conclusion that she or he is neither isolated in / inferior to white culture, nor is she or he being exoticized by white culture.

Here is Jane Brown’s own words on the subject. It’s too long to make all her points here today, so I’ll continue this thread over several days. She is responding in this case to a child who was taunted at school for being Chinese American. Please note that when you see the pronoun “I” that it is not SBird herself speaking in this case…

“One of the things that [our kids] need are ADULT role models of color–and not just some who match them racially and ethnically. They need to meet and get to know adults of African American heritage, Hispanic heritage, Native American heritage, bi- and multi-racial heritage, in order to figure out who they can be as persons of color who live in the USA. They need, as well, to WANT to be like those people–and not horrified by the idea that they are Not White and won’t ever be able to shed their skin. They deserve to know that adults of color are warm, interesting, likeable people who are not all that different from the White adults they know, but that they DO struggle with some of the same experiences [as our children do] and have come out feeling pride in who they are, and include the child as like them–a part of their subgroup. They need to be acknowledged and welcomed by those adult–to have regular experiences with them personally, rather than just seeing a few of them at cultural events, or in a store, or in front of a Chinese language class. That does NOT help children to feel an affinity with adults of color–in this case, with Chinese or Chinese American adults–which is what they need. They do NOT need to “other” them and decide that they are not like them, have nothing in common with them. These need to be people who are regularly in their lives–who come into their homes and into whose homes they are welcomed. You cannot get healthy racial identity from White parents, White teachers, and other White adults, White children, or even from other adopted children who match you racially. Nor can you get it from occasional opportunities–like getting to meet Chinese teachers at a Chinese New Year celebration or heritage camp.

Our children need to know that ‘their people’ and other people of color have made worthwhile contributions to our country and society. Also, that these contributions are not glossed over, but are really recognized and valued by those around them–their parents, teachers, schoolmates. They need to see ‘their people’ in AMERICAN history, literature studies, etc…They need to have a positive association with other Asian AMERICANS–not with Chinese people living in China, nor recent immigrants who have not yet melded into American society, for our kids are Chinese Americans now–not Chinese any longer. They need to form a coalition with people who look like them–to know that they belong to and with that group–and that it is a worthwhile group TO be a part of.

Most of all, they need to be immersed in racially diverse schools. I do not mean to come across as threatening or judgemental, but I am going to flat out be honest that there is no way a child of color being raised by White parents is going to develop healthy racial identity if he or she is the only child of color in his/her classroom or school, or the only child of his/her race in a classroom or school. In that situation, we are going to have to admit to ourselves that our child is going to continue to feel “different” regardless of whether there is ever another racialized incident, whether the other kids (and the teachers) accept and like our child, and whether everyone in the school preaches racial diversity as the ideal. It’s not about whether our kids are teased or not, accepted (by White kids) or not, liked or not–it’s about whether they see themselves as normal or not.”

To be continued tomorrow.

The Nerves, oh, the nerves…

We have a bit of an update, adoption-wise…

We have been officially released from Agency #1 this week, as the CCAA handed over our dossier to their Beijing office, which had it couriered over to Agency #2’s Beijing office on Tuesday. Hopefully, Ming (Agency #2’s Beijing contact) will also take it back to the CCAA this week so that it can be registered under the auspices of Agency #2 and sent to the SN room at the CCAA, but we haven’t heard if that’s happened or not yet.

It’s a very minor part of the whole process, but it was amazing to think that the CCAA had their hands on our dossier this week, and that it isn’t getting lost in some dark corner of despair for months on end. Someone on the SN board with an LOI of 10-22-06 got their TA on Monday. Can you believe it? We were LOI on 10-11-06, so it’s clear that they just take ‘em and process ‘em in no particularly coherent order in the SN room. I am back to hoping we might really travel in January.

Which brings us to The Nerves part of this post. We are beginning to have a case of The Nerves here at The Nest. I am worried that the transition between agencies (and having our dossier physically removed from the CCAA and then resubmitted) will mean our dossier will lose its original DTC/LID dates, which could jeopardize some of our paperwork. R.’s medical forms are a year old next week (they must be under a year old when submitted) and the fingerprints have already aged six months, but they must be under that when submitted. So, if the CCAA counts this transition as a brand new submission, then we are sort of up a creek. This is what I worry about lying awake at three a.m.

R., on the other hand, worries about this:

This is our Build-@-Bear which is actually a rabbit with big, floppy ears that I love. Build-@-Bear is the company where you can pick a stuffed animal, dress him or her (or not), and then tape a message with your own voices that gets stuffed inside the arm so that when your child hugs the animal, they get to hear your voices. We wanted to include one in our care package to Emerson when the time comes, so that she can get used to the sound of our voices. Both R. and I spoke, in both Mandarin and English, for 10 seconds into the phone to make the recording. We said hello, and that we were her mama and baba, and that we loved her.

So, what’s the problem?

Well, I had a hard time choosing an outfit that a little girl might like. I didn’t want any of the multitude of mini-skirts and short shirts and cut jeans that they offered, especially since this is going to the SWI in China in a care package. I was searching for a dress. The denim dress was sold out. The only one I could find for the damn rabbit was this:

Think Moulin Rouge, circa 1890. Velvet. Red and Purple. Oh, yeah. Basically the definition of the word garish.

Now R. is calling it the “strumpet rabbit.” Or sometimes just “The Strumpet.” Er, whatever. But it was enough to nix that plan. I went back to the site and ordered some jeans and a flowered T-shirt. I’m not sure why I’m committed to the anthropomorphization of the poor rabbit in any case, but I am.

BUT. It gets better. Last night, R. and I went out to celebrate our transition to Agency #2 by having dinner at the local Chinese restaurant in town. They have one of those standard paper placemats with the Chinese zodiac imprinted on it, and so we discover that Emme Lu is a rooster. The Rabbit is her opposite. Beware of the rabbit, Emme Lu!

I make the huge mistake at that point of mentioning to R. that the CCAA takes into consideration the parents’ zodiac signs when matching NSN children. They take it seriously and don’t match children’s files with parents’ dossiers who have a zodiac clash.

So, now, R. is convinced that if we send the rabbit with our voices in it to Emme Lu in a care package, that the CCAA will disrupt our adoption because we chose to send her the evil opposite sign to the rooster.

Bad rabbit.

See what I mean about nerves?

I was going to write about the Adoption Workshop on Race I Attended Friday Night, but Instead I am Going To Do Nic’s MeMe…

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?

Camping really takes it out of you.

2. How much cash do you have on you?

Some change.

3. What word rhymes with “DOOR”?

Porfavor.

4. Favorite Planet:

I’m with Nic on this one…I’m more into stars. Antares is my favorite star. It is the orange nebulous one in the constellation Scorpius, right where the scorpion’s heart would be. That is so way cool. It even looks orange with the naked eye. Antares means “war,” and all the stars in Scorpius have Arabic or Sumerian names, so I wrote a poem about Scorpius that ended up being about Iraq and the numwits way that Bushie has destroyed all possibility for tolerance in the Middle East. And our reputation to boot.

5. Who is the 4th person on the missed call list on your cell phone?

Well, I just checked, and it says Restricted. This is very fascinating to me. All the missed calls around it are from Mr. SBird. I have no idea who Restricted is.

6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?

Pachabel’s Canon is my ring tone.

7. What shirt are you wearing?

White Brooks Brothers no-wrinkle man’s-style shirt.

8. Do you “label” yourself?

Absolutely.

9. Name the brand of shoes you are currently wearing?

JCrew.

10. Bright or dark room?

It’s late, the sun is going down, it’s not so bright.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?

She is a wacky and kind person who raises the cutest little beasties.

12. What does your watch look like?

Silver link Swiss Army with a candy-apple-red face.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?

Camping with Mr. SBird on top of the mountain.

14. What did your last message you received on your phone say?

It was from my fertility clinic wanting to know whether I was going to participate in an IVF in January or not (I told them last June to call me closer to the end of the year). Not.

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?

20 miles away, in town.

16. What’s a word you say a lot?

Fascinating.

17. Who told you s/he loved you last?

Mr. SBird.

18. Last furry thing you touched?

My dog Gus. He and I are mostly inseparable.

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?

None. (do vitamins count? I’ve taken vitamins.)

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed?

We still have some rolls from our trip to Italy last year.

21. Favorite age you have been so far?

I always claim that 24 was really, really good.

22. Your worst enemy?

Time. To a poet, Time is always the spoiler.

23. What is your current desktop picture?

My daughter, Emme Lu, in her “I AM A BEE” photoshop picture.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?

“What are you doing?” (To my dog, Gus, currently chewing some paper or another on my office floor.) *Update: it was the manila envelope that holds my student evaluations that I need to hand out to my students in two weeks. Good doggy.

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be?

The right answer is probably something like: flying because then I could make MORE than a million bucks off of it.

But I am an immediate gratification kind of gal, so, in truth, I would probably take the money.

26. Do you like someone?

Yes.

27. The last song you listened to?

“Black Cadillac” by Roseanne Cash. *Update: “How to Save a Life” by The Fray.

28. What time of day were you born?

8:40 PM Pacific Time.

29. What is your favorite number?

8.

30. Where did you live in 1987?

South Hadley, Massachusetts.

31. Are you jealous of anyone?

All the time.

32. Is anyone jealous of you?

I don’t find that that’s an emotion easily or readily expressed, so I don’t know.

33. Where were you when 9/11 happened?

At home before leaving to teach. I slept in an extra 30 minutes that morning because my dog, Spot, had been skunked the night before, and I was up until all hours on the 10th washing him in vinegar and tomato juice in our tiny little bathtub. I watch the Today Show religiously, but I hadn’t turned it on that morning because I was still so sleepy, but I called my neighbor who was already at work to let her know that she had a skunk in her driveway, and she was crying and semi-hysterical on the phone. That’s when I turned on the TV.

34. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?

Curse a fucking blue streak. Think about karma. Do vending machines have a next life?

35. Do you consider yourself kind?

When it’s warranted.

36. If you had to get a tatoo where would it be?

Ankle.

37. If you could be fluent in any other language what would it be?

Mandarin. I lost my near-fluency in French years ago, but it would also be a nice thing to have back.

38. Would you move for the person you loved?

I’ve already done it. And I plan to do it again–for Emme Lu.

39. Are you touchy feely?

No. I suspect people who are. I am skeptical by nature.

40. What’s your life motto?

Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.

(with thanks to John Lennon)

41. Name three things you have on at all times?

My wedding band and the ring R. gave me for our third anniversary–but only because I can’t get it off. They are the only things that go in the shower with me. So, that’s only two. I also wear a necklace almost all other times that has the name “Emerson” stamped on a gold dogtag, and two little gold circles with my and the hubby’s initials stamped on them. I actually wore that in the shower this morning, come to think of it.

42. What is your favorite city/town?

Venice, Italy.

43. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?

Fair Trade organic dark chocolate bars, at church this morning.

44. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper and mailed it?

Yesterday. I am a card and letter person.

45. Can you change the oil on a car?

My father made me learn to diagram an engine before he would let me drive. Lawn mower engine first, then a car engine. So, in theory, yes. But I choose not to.

46. Your first love: What is the last thing you heard about him/her?

That he is building a new house where his parent’s house used to be in my hometown. He has three daughters, and his wife is one of a set of twins. I would think it would be weird to be married to a twin.

47. How far back do you know about your ancestry?

On one side, all the way back to the 1600s. Supposedly, my ancestor was William Penn’s first mate on the boat that brought them to Pennsylvania.

48. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy?

My 40th birthday in September in Las Vegas. I wore a gray silk dress and heels. Heels=fancy, in my book.

49. Does anything hurt on your body right now?

On my upper back, in between my shoulders.

50. Have you been burned by love?

I’m divorced, so it sort of goes with the territory.

A Foot In Both Worlds

Over on RQ, they are discussing the new requirements being put into effect by the CCAA, including those that will affect SN exclusively. There is much talk in the comment section about all the disruptions that seem to accompany SN adoptions, which appears to be in response to the RQ’s comment that she hears about more disruptions in connection with SN adoptions than with NSN adoptions. Many of the (NSN) aparents who read and comment on RQ advocate increased education for parents planning to adopt SN, and some suggest that SN kids should only go to parents who have documented experience caretaking for the type of SN that they are hoping to be approved for. They are honest about their own limitations, and their mantra is that they speak with the best interests of the children in mind.

Over on my SN boards, they are discussing the RQ post with a mixture of bemused resignation and irritation. These are women who have often adopted multiple times from the waiting child program, and some of them have taken the toughest of the tough cases to place: the missing-both-legs cases; the dwarfism; the blind-and-deaf; the severe cerebral palsy. Some members have joined the boards more recently, having switched from NSN to SN (that group includes me!). There are families there with one or two SN kids; there are many families of four, five, six, and–yes–even seven SN kids, adopted from China or elsewhere and China. These women clearly devote their lives to parenting kids who would otherwise be shunned and isolated, or–in the best-case scenarios–merely cared for inadequately, because of their conditions. I mention that because these boards are lit up with women who are not by any stretch of the imagination dabblers in SN parenting or dabblers in adoptive parenting–although some of them clearly think that the NSN aparents are.

Why do I bring all this up? I find myself in the interesting spot of straddling these two worlds–the NSN aparent world and the SN aparent world–and I am here to tell you that what looks like internecine squabbling might instead be something closer to a culture gap, because these two worlds are not the same. I mean, really not the same. As in, two-distinct-subcultures-of-the-international-adoption-community-not-the-same. They have their own languages; they have their own icons, their own heroes, and their own best blog buddies (for instance, the SN boards radically distrust the RQ); they have their own resources; they even have their own agencies (those agencies considered at the top of the NSN game are SHUNNED by the SN community, who prefer a couple of very small, very “insider” agencies that are known for extreme advocacy on the part of both children and clients. When I read about a NSN aparent praising a large China-only agency with the words, “I would never go anywhere else for an adoption,” I have to smile, knowing that this aparent’s conviction would be mightily challenged if they but set foot with that opinion on a SN board.)

A superficial read of the two online sites right now might suggest that there’s some sort of competition going on:

The SN boards regularly refer to NSN aparents as “newbies” (even if they’ve adopted NSN before) or patronize them as well-intentioned, but clueless. They characterize NSN adoptions as being more about the aparents (and their dreams of parenthood) than about the kids. They stand by their assessment that many more disruptions take place with NSN adoptions, particularly those that occur back here in the States. They also dismiss the RQ as a rumor-mill and a mere entertainment, even though RQ herself has defined her site several times as a repository for rumors, not a mill for them–the distinction being that she refuses either to manufacture rumors or to refine the ones that she doesn’t trust. And she often turns out to be right, or nearly right, long before a lot of agencies are. The SN people don’t trust her because she is just not “of their world,” and the intricacies of the NSN wait isn’t something they care about.

To most SN aparents that I read on the SN boards, choosing SN because the wait to bring your child home is shorter than NSN represents a perfectly justifiable, reasonable, and even laudable motivation. Their assumption in that regard is that these kids need to get home as fast as possible so their needs can start getting met, and, given that they believe that most NSN kids have textbook SN issues, the extent of which goes largely undiscussed in the NSN world, they aren’t as hung up on the differences. They’ve BTDT on the surgeries and the therapies and don’t see it as the deal-breaker that many NSN aparents do because, well, they’ve BTDT. Psychological hurdle already cleared. They perhaps forget that they, too, went through a process once upon a time to get where they are today.

The NSN aparents commenting on the RQ site did jump on the RQ’s suggestion that more disruptions are SN and lectured for awhile about all the safeguards that should be in place prior to allowing a potential aparent to go SN. To the folks on the SN boards, that “lecture” was laughable. The aparents of SN kids talk regularly about how unprepared most of the NSN aparents are for the “special needs” that they will undoubtedly encounter, including “institutional autism” (the term that’s used on the SN boards for “attachment disorders”–did I mention that there’s a whole new language over there?), developmental delays, and any other “hidden” needs that might not have been acknowledged or discovered yet on the NSN child’s medical report.

What this comes down to for me is that people have a hard time talking to or about people who have made different choices than they have. A lot of time is spent posturing defensively or justifying, rather than trying to learn from each other. I was also a bit disturbed by the “jump on the bandwagon” phenomena that occurred on the RQ comments when she mentioned that “I am hearing of more disruptions than I’ve ever heard of, mostly involving SN children.” As I said above, the SN boards dispute this, but that’s not really my point. What I thought was interesting is that many, many waiting NSN aparents jumped on that bandwagon and rode it for all it’s worth, without really having–in most cases–any firsthand knowledge of any disruptions. Several posters didn’t even know what a “disruption” was, and most of those who did, didn’t seem to realize that once a SN child’s adoption is disrupted, the child doesn’t get a second chance at finding “their true mommy and daddy,” but rather go back to their SWI without ever being listed again by the CCAA.

I appreciate people’s opinions, but I get scared by people who feel the need to lecture without knowing all they can about that which they speak of. It reminds me of that experiment that Opr@h is famous for having conducted on her show, many years ago now…the one where they told the audience that scientists had discovered that blue-eyed people were genetically more intelligent than brown-eyed people, and the blue-eyed audience members jumped on that bandwagon and suddenly became experts at their own intelligence…before being informed that they had just fallen for one of Hitler’s propaganda techniques.

I’m left saying again what I’ve said before: there are going to be bad, ill-informed SN aparents, who are motivated into SN for the wrong reasons, just as there are going to be bad, ill-informed NSN aparents, who are motivated into IA for the wrong reasons. Sweeping generalizations just get you to a weird defensive place, they don’t get you to the truth. And, in the case of international adoption, I think truth is elusive in any case. It’s hard-won, and it’s relative to both the adopting parent or parents and the adoptee, who will, no doubt, redefine what the truth of his or her adoption is on his or her own terms eventually anyway.

Nic’s Questions…

Nicole over at The Moon Is Always Female tagged everybody to do their duty on this meme…I am feeling so BLUE and happy today, that I have obliged:

1) What side of the heart do you draw first?
Right

2) Can you dive without plugging your nose? Yes. I was on the swim team as a kid because I would only participate in individualized sports.

3) What color is your razor?
Green. It’s a men’s Gillette. I only use men’s razors. They’re better. Trust me.

4) What is your blood-type?
A-. Both my parents are +. When I told my mom I was Rh-, she freaked out. I have had to take a Rhogam shot because of it, which is not fun.

5) Who would you want to be tied to for 24 hours?
Okay, don’t shoot me for being sappy and predictable, but I would have to say my daughter. It’s just that it’s true.

6) What is a rumor someone has spread about you?
That I had two young kids that I kept hidden away in a basement. (R.’s ex to my in-laws. No shit.)

7) How do you feel about carrots?
Fairly indifferent. I don’t not like them. At one point, I ate the pre-washed baby ones a lot.

8) How many chairs at the dining room table?
Six.

9) Which is the best spice girl?

Cumin.

Oh! You mean the Brit singing group. I thought you said, “Which is the best spice, girl?”

10) Do you know what time it is?
Exactly.

11) Do you know all the words to the Fresh Prince song?
I like that Summertime song.

12) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator?
Faint. I have claustrophobia. The last time it struck, I was inside the center of the pyramid at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan. Alone, I might add, because R. decided to climb the outside of the pyramid, while I went to the inner tomb. I had claustrophobia and he had acrophobia and vertigo. Not good decisions all the way around.

13) What’s your favorite kind of gum?
Bazooka.

14)T or F: All’s fair in love and war.
False.

15) Do you have a crush on anyone?
I have friend-crushes these days. Which doesn’t mean I get crushes on my friends. It means I get frushes. And that’s not some scary throat disease.

16) Do you know how to use some words correctly, but not know the meaning?
Solipsistic.

17) Do you like to sleep?
Yes. But not as much as I used to. No napping. Never napping.

18) Do you know which US states don’t use Daylight Savings?
Mine.

19) Do you know the song Total Eclipse of the Heart?
Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit lonely….

20) Do you want a bright yellow ‘06 mustang?
No. The only thing I want bright yellow is a tree.

21) What’s something you’ve always wanted?
A beach house.

22) Do you have hairy legs?
You mean, like right now? No.

Genetically? Ah….yeah.

24) Would you rather swim in the ocean or a lake?
Neither. I only swim in places where I can see my feet in the water.

25) Do you wear a lot of black?
Yes. Not as much as I used to, though, because of the desert. I wear a lot of white in the summer.

26) Describe your hair.
Dark Auburn out of a bottle. A lot of gray if I haven’t seen a bottle in a while. Very thick. Longish. I always wear it up–either in a pony, or a braid, or a clip-bun. Always. I have to make sure it’s got some height in the front (no flat pull-backs), or my giganticus forehead looks funny.

27) Do you have Entomophobia?
No.

28) Are you an adult?

literally? or metaphorically?

29) Where is/are your best friends?

literally? or metaphorically?

30) Do you have a tan?
Not anymore.

31) Are you a television addict?
Yes. It’s my Xanax.

32) Do you enjoy spending time with your mother?
More now than I used to. Growing up, I was much closer to my father.

33) Are you a sugar freak?

No. I am a salt freak, though.

34) Do you like orange juice?
I choose tomato juice if there’s a choice. As far as OJ goes, I hate pulp. With a passion. I mean, if you want to eat the fruit, then eat the fruit. But juice should be JUICE. Not to be gross, but the pulp reminds me of vomit.

35) What sign are you?
Virgo. An angel or a mermaid or a virgin with a harp, depending on your pleasure.

36) What color is your Cell Phone?
Silver.

37) Where do you wish you were right now?

Jiangsu Province, PRC

sitting in a Parisian cafe with a glass of red wine and a good fashion magazine

Bora Bora, in one of those huts that sits out over the water, on top of a crystal-blue lagoon

giving a poetry reading in a little bookshop in the Village

eating blue crabs on a porch on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, looking at the dunes and the sea oats

Just Do It.

Read. Think. Vote.

The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived

Did you hear about this list? The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived…Never Lived because they are fictional characters, pop icons, cartoons, symbols, signifiers, and personas.

The list comes from this book.

Here are the top five, counting down:

5. Hamlet

4. Santa Claus (Saint Nick)

3. King Arthur

2. Big Brother

1. The Marlboro Man

The rest of the Top 10 are: (6) Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster [which, by the way, should technically be “Creature”–you heard it straight from an English major’s mouth]; (7) Siegfried; (8) Sherlock Holmes; (9) Romeo and Juliet; (10) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Some other random notables: The Little Engine That Could is #31; Barbie is #43; Nancy Drew is #62; Norman Bates is #75; John Doe is #100; and some of the more notable absences who “almost” made the cut…Holden Caulfield, Tom Joad, Uncle Remus, and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Hmmmmm. I’m glad to see Hamlet up there (sorry–sad, but true), but I’m indifferent to the #1 pick. Here’s the editors’ reasoning, in part, for choosing The Marlboro Man: “By the end of the twenty-first century, the Marlboro Man will have triggered thousands of American deaths. Why not millions? Be patient. Lung cancer takes years to develop–forty years, fifty, sixty. So the kids who started smoking in 1957 are just starting to wheeze into the cancer wards” (277). Thus, it’s the huge literal impact that warrants a #1, I guess. Depressing. It’d be nice to think the human imagination could leave something to the world besides burgeoning cancer wards…like Bambi (#41), ya know?

By the way, despite the fact that The Marlboro Man is a cowboy, “The American Cowboy” also made the list. #19.

So, what do you all think?

You’ve Got Mail…

from China!

See? Isn’t it cool? My heart almost skipped a beat when I saw the stamps.

It has nothing official to do with my adoption, but it does mean a lot to me. I am sponsoring a little girl with special needs in New Day Foster Home in Beijing. Each sponsorship is $35.00 per month and will help cover the cost for 24-hour care, basic medical, food, clothing and early pre-school training. They let you “choose” which child you’d like to sponsor, and then they send you regular emails (and letters!) about his or her progress.

I chose “Adah” (click on Babies on the site) because she was born the same month as Emme Lu, even though their special needs are quite different. It makes me feel like I am closer to Emerson when I can do something proactive for a little girl with special needs in China born in August of 2005.

I have to say I hesitated posting about this because I don’t want to look like I am patting myself on the back and being missmollygollyresidentdogooder. Quite the contrary. If I was honest, I’d have to say I’m doing this for pretty selfish reasons that all have to do with making myself feel better when I am at such a damn far distance from my daughter. It’s sort of like pretend-mommy with a huge dose of transposition thrown in for good measure, which is delusional but all I have right now. So just go with it.

It turns out…I have a chemical addiction to my bloggy friends!

My mom sent me the following article yesterday. In the writing class I’m teaching, we are on the chapter in our text entitled “Projecting Gender,” so I brought it in to read to my students yesterday, too. And, now, I offer it to you–my blog friends–who might understand now, as I think I do, why the blogging community has become a vital part of my health care. (And for the male bloggers with whom I enjoy this community, there’s interesting stuff in here about you, too!)

UCLA Study On Friendship Among Women

By Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are.

By the way, they may do even more. Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It’s a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research–most of it on men–upside down.

Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Bio-Behavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study’s authors. It’s an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight; in fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone–which men produce in high levels when they’re under stress–seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic “aha” moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.

The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.

It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the “tend and befriend” notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol.

There’s no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us live longer. In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%.

Friends are also helping us live better. The Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight!

And that’s not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate.

Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That’s a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends:The Pleasures and Perils of Girls’ and Women’s Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We push them right to the back burner. That’s really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they’re with other women. It’s a very healing experience.

Source: Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T.L., Gurung, R.A.R., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). “Female Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight,” Psychological Review, 107(3): 41-429.