New year, adopted land

U.S. parents exposed their daughters to tradition Sunday afternoon – their children’s Chinese tradition.

In recognition of the first day of the Chinese New Year, parents and their biological and adopted children wandered around River Park Square, where an afternoon of celebration and activities was organized. Toddlers and children dressed in traditional Chinese red floral clothes danced and spun to the music of their native country, participated in craft-making and listened to storytellers as shoppers cooed over their cuteness.

The get-together, organized by the Spokane-area Families with Children from China, was the fifth in the Inland Northwest but first at the downtown mall. It featured seven information booths, including that of the Small World Adoption Programs, which helps connect Spokane families to Chinese children.

“We needed a place that was big enough to accommodate all the families,” said Katharyn Getchell, event coordinator and single mother of a 3-year-old Chinese-born child.

Although parents and children were spread over the atrium’s three levels, the Inland Northwest’s Chinese families group is tight-knit. Kathy Storro, Washington program director of Small World, said the number of families with Chinese children is approaching 300. Adopted children are predominately girls, because sons in China are viewed as providers and are more valued in the culture. Many areas of China have a one-child policy, and families face financial penalties for having a second child. As a result, girls are abandoned so parents can try for a boy.

More than 75 families responded to an invitation to the Spokane New Year’s Party. This year, 4703 in the Chinese calendar, is the Year of the Dog, the 11th in a cycle.

Over the past six years, Storro and her husband, Richard, of Spokane Valley, have adopted twins, who are now 6, a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old.

“It’s a journey that will change your life forever,” Storro said when asked what she tells people contemplating adoption.

Janell Lucas, mother of 4-year-old adopted twins and a biological daughter born months after she and her husband, Mark, returned from China, had the same positive reaction.

“Go for it,” she said. “People’s biggest concern is finance, and it all falls into place.”

The average cost to adopt a child from China is between $18,000 and $20,000. While most girls are adopted as infants or toddlers, Steve Allen and his wife, Carrie, have been presented with a different challenge. The couple are the parents of two biological children, ages 11 and 7, and three girls from China. Their eldest, whom they brought back from Guangdong, China, over Christmas, is 12-year-old Gracie Bailu.

Abandoned as a baby, Gracie lived in an orphanage for 10 years. She had been living in a foster home where she was described as “unadoptable,” Allen said.

The Allens, who on Sunday were handing out literature at the DongGuan Social Welfare Institute display, cut through the bureaucratic red tape and adopted the pre-teen. Her English is extremely limited, but the young girl has excellent tutors. Her father is an English teacher at Mt. Spokane High School. Her mother, a former second-grade teacher, is home-schooling their children.

“For us, you ask yourself, can you love a child that’s not your own?” Allen asked, watching as Gracie played with her 11-year-old sister, Hannah, and 4-year-old sister, Lily.

“I feel like my heart grows with each child. I realized I have a greater capacity to love than I thought I had.”