When we adopted my son (2000) there was a fairly common (but maybe somewhat unknown?) practice of giving an internationally adopted child a “new” birth date to more suitably match his/her retarded physical/social/emotional development caused by years of institutionalization.

Sometimes a kid would end up (on paper) a whole year or 18 months YOUNGER than he/she actually was.

I’m not talking about choosing an approximate birth date when the true/real birth date is unknown (in the cases of ‘abandoned’ children where no known info exists) I’m talking about rebirth(dating) a child knowingly.

I don’t even know if it’s legal in the US to do this to any person (adopted or not) – but I know it has, and probably still does happen, in international adoptions, most likely on the international legal/adoption side of things (i.e. before the child ever reaches US immigration).

Isn’t there (or shouldn’t there be) something about falsifying a birth certificate that is not only ethically wrong, but downright illegal?

I always thought the practice was weird/wrong/uncalled for… and just kinda creepy. How can a parent “rebirth(day)” a child and completely dismiss months and months of his/her life as if they’d never existed?

It seems that giving a child a new birthday is almost like pretending the child is a completely different person – which only adds to negative adoptive parent stereotypes. It proves that the adoptive parents want to dismiss the child’s nature, culture and “original existence” and it will most definitely add to the confusion the adopted will deal with later in life.

While I understand the want of any child’s parent(s) to see their child among peers to whom he/she can relate to on similar levels, I feel the better alternative is to keep the child’s REAL birth date and follow the child’s lead when it comes to schooling, friendships and learning.

Thoughts?