Wind In My Head: Paper Chase
Wind In My Head
Monday, October 22, 2007
Paper Chase
Once again, I am convinced I shouldn't read the Straits Times but this time, to be fair to them, I'd just be shooting the messenger. Apparently there has been a dip in the number of people wanting to adopt kids. Some cite the stringent checks for their reason not to do so. I think that's silly because it's a necessary thing to be stringent with those who want to adopt. You do want to make sure that the people adopting the kid will be suitable parents for the kid and even then, I have heard of adoptive parents who ignore and neglect the adopted kid after they actually succeed in having one for themselves.What got to me was the type of questions they asked during the Home Study which wouldn't prevent or sieve out the aforementioned type of parents. According to the article, though one should probably take it with a pinch of salt, one of the questions asked was what child rearing books they had read and had they gone for any parenting courses. This was where I rolled my eyes and got annoyed. Especially because this came after my experience of having to provide inconsequential certification for a job application.
What is it with this society and book based qualification? From my limited experience, book based information about child or in my case baby rearing isn't all that helpful. It serves to do nothing but force you to think that this is the only way to do things. It's rigid and it makes one feel like a total failure for not being able follow it to a T. And parenting courses? Once again, most of the time worthy of all the eye rolling one could probably muster. So why insist? If one is going to spend 6 weeks doing a Home Study with them, wouldn't just speaking to them and getting a feel of who they really are be a better measure? I'm guessing the interviewer is trained and has enough human intuitiveness to actually judge the worthiness of potential parents. I would trust a worthy person's gut instinct and intuition more than the fact that the potential parents had attended all the courses and read all the parenting books under the sun.
That's the problem with our society I think. The inherent lack of trust at anything intangible and intrinsic. Everything needs to be measurable and everything needs to be quantifiable. The problem is most things that matter aren't. Whether I'm worthy for a job doesn't depend on the fact that I've had impeccable results since I started taking board and national exams. Whether a couple is worthy of adopting a child has very little to do with whether they read and attend the right courses. Like I see in my work place and like I've seen by merely obsserving the world, the best qualified people in the world to do a job half the time aren't the ones that do the job best.
When will our society ever learn that?
Sigh.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Child adoption, Employment practices
Ondine tossed this thought in at 08:14
2 thoughts...
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At 10:17 am
jac00 said... I wonder what system we have as well. I personally have met a gay couple who are bringing up an adopted boy. Apparently they were able to adopt the kid because one of their sisters registered herself claiming to adopt the child as her own.
I wonder what orientation will the boy has when he grows up.-
At 12:29 pm
Tym said...
jac00 > I think the boy will have a human orientation --- pretty good, neh?
Ondine's point is: "Whether a couple is worthy of adopting a child has very little to do with whether they read and attend the right courses" --- or, I would add, whether they are straight or gay.