Vander Veen Vander Veen

My wife and I are happy liberals and this fact no doubt colors our views of governments and their roles in adoption. Indeed, the vast majority of dealings with both the US and Colombian governments have been clear, relatively concise, and (gasp) actually efficient. My memories of the Atlanta branch of the Department of Homeland Security sometimes gets confused with a visit to see Santa’s workshop. The men and women were jovial, happily joking with our girls, and then bestowing the ultimate American gift – citizenship – all in the course of about 15 minutes.

In short, I’m not one to razz on the government. Particularly when I’m acutely conscience of the fact that one government (Colombia) rescued my daughters from a crappy situation and another government (my own) made it possible for me bring them home (with well defined procedures and generous tax credits).

Still, I wanted to write one gripe post because, well, it’s kind of funny.

The one area of government we haven’t had much success is social security. The first time we visited SS we ran into two problems:

1. Our adoption decree was in Spanish and – for crying out loud this is Cincinnati – no one could read Spanish.
2. The girls citizenship papers hadn’t arrived yet.

#2 was the main problem. So after waiting for some 3 hours (with the girls, who at that point were still in their “can’t sit still” phase) we left without any numbers.

I promptly forgot about it.

Suddenly it’s January and I started to think about filing taxes. Filing taxes requires social security numbers. Last Friday we got a snow day and (correctly) assumed this would be a good time to not have to deal with a crowd.

We got to the window and were asked for the adoption decree. Now social security’s website says you don’t need an adoption decree – and figuring the problems we had from last time – we brought their birth certificates that have their new names and Ren and I listed as their parents (the proof that they are ours). We argued over this for a good 30 minutes but I had the print out from the web and was able to prove the point.

Then we ran into the curse of the last name.

My last name is too long. In fact, when I write it it’s usually 2 Vs with a slash because it just takes too long for a signature.

It is custom in Latin American countries for a child to take the father’s last name and mother’s (maiden) last name. For example, if Renee and I were native to Colombia our childrens’ full name would be Monice and Kelly Martin (Ren’s maiden) Vander Veen (…or possibly Vander Veen Martin…it gets a bit confusing).

Consequently, when the powers that be changed Monica and Kelly’s last name they looked at Renee’s last name (per her passport) and my last name (per passport) and gave our children their new last name:

Monica and Kelly Vander Veen Vander Veen.

That’s 23 characters if you count the spaces.

When the Department of Homeland Security entered in Monica’s last name they put “Vander Veen Vander Veen” (but not, for some reason, Kelly’s). That’s how she is listed in their database. The database that Social Security checks against.

The problem is that Social Security’s database maxes out at 14 characters for last names (I know – what dumb a$$ programed that database). Thus Vander Veen Va does not equal Vander Veen Vander Veen and thus more paperwork, and more time, is required to verify that Monica is an American and can get her social security number.

Arrgghh. Foiled by a long last name! And some government incompetency.

Here’s hoping that we’ll get the number before April 15.