11/07/09: Fat People and Hague Tidbits

First, I mentioned "Hague" in a prior post. Basically, Hague is a certification, etc, and I am not sure if it has weight requirements with it but I do know that children need more shots as a result. And parents have to do way more paperwork. We are NOT Hague. Thankfully. We are pre-Hague. Along with a lot of other changes, in May of 2007, China put new qualification rules into place. This covers number of years married, health issues and mental "episodes" (eg depression) of the parents.

And... The big thing for supersized Americans is BMI. Body Mass Index. This measures how Fat you are. If you have a BMI of 40%, you are ineligible for adoption. There was a lot of protest around this on the adoption boards from the Americans. Most of the Europeans didn't have much to say about it. Which to me was no surprise. But you have to consider that 30% is over weight and up to 40% is morbidly obese. I don't know what above 40% is but I bet it's near-death's-door-obese. And guess who has an obesity issue? Yah. Americans.

So, given that, it gives you a good perspective of what the Americans on the message boards are protesting. I seriously doubt they know what they are protesting. My perspective is, we are adopting China's children, and China absolutely should have the right to decide who can and cannot adopt. They are protecting their children. We assume that fatter people are unhealthier and can die earlier. Or fat people tend to raise fat children. Etc etc etc.

And the difference in thinking between Americans and Asians was stark. Most of the Asians were "meh... So what... China is right...". The Americans were really indignant about children's rights, parents rights, freedom, how wrong it is to limit adoptive parents, etc etc etc. The divide is pretty big. And neither side could convince the other. Where do I stand? Other than the basic tenets of the right to the pursuit of happiness, as a child, I was told my only rights were conveyed upon me by my parents as long as I lived under their roof and that my only job is to be a good student. Yah. I'm totally Asian. So I kept my mouth shut! LOL!

So yesterday, we were at the clinic and Joseph emails me. "Pre-Hague." And I look around and sure enough, there sat a married couple with their son. Each one was the same size - Large. As in HUGE. Humongoids. Yah. They could fill a piano box. Seriously. They were the biggest adoptive parents that I've seen by a wide margin. The kid looked like he was about 2 years old and very active. In the face, the kid also looked just like the father. It really is amazing how similar the kids look like the parents.

Anyway, I just hope their kid doesn't get fat. If anything, I hope he makes them runs around and lose weight. And maybe, they will live long enough to see their grandchildren.