Once again, this adoptive mom is pissing me off.

[LilMissMetaphor]

She just decided to go private. I guess because she wants to wail some more about how HARD this is and only have her hand patted in response.

[HeckBound]

With all due respect, I doubt Russia is going to hold the line on these new adoption restriction, since - thanks to desperate American families - the country is offloading all of their defective children to the US. The US, where healthcare dollars are tight and access is sketchy. Where local school systems are stressed by providing the "services" handicapped children in the US are "entitled to". I don't see a downside here.

Porknbeans links to another blog of parents who have serially adopted from China like putting together a Beanie Baby collection. Not surprisingly, go back to the toxic, dysfunctional well often enough and things can go bad. Then they want pats on the back and consolation for considering "disruption".

Adoptive parents want to be seen in the same light as natural parents. So tell me...when you give birth to a kid who's not working out....where's the opportunity to disrupt? There is none. Suck it up, adoptive parents and join the rest of us

[chaotic life]

Most of us DO suck it up. Most of us DO NOT consider our children disposable, no matter what their struggles are. Most of us DESPITE women like this who so easily throw away children that the average Joe looks at US and thinks WE are somehow confused that the concept of adoption means FOREVER.

I would rather lay down my LIFE than throw away one of my children. I work with a social worker whose 14 year old son is in a sex offender treatment program. He is not considered safe to come HOME because of what he's done, but there is NO consideration that they will walk away from him and no longer consider him their son simply because he was adopted. They continue to work to be an active part of his life, even though they have been forced to place him out of the home for everyone's safety. They also pay child support for him in treatment, and have no intention of stopping either. They are part of his treatment team, visit him regularily, have active and consistent phone contact with him, and continue to hope he will make better choices for his life than what he has thus far.

MOST adoptive parents are NOT confused. Jerks who think children are disposable give all adoptions a bad name and most of us only see OUR CHILDREN, not the history that brought them into our hearts and homes. We just tend to not sit around bemoaning about our kids and how badly we want to be done with them either.

[micatite]

[quoteI don't know what the issue with these adopted kids being "loud" is. Another blogger just posted about how her family is having a hard time with their newest arrival, and I was reading at the blogs of some of her commenters and they were all complaining about how exhausted they were, trying to look after their eleventy-million blessings and a common theme was that the new kids are LOUD. L-O-U-D. What the fuck? Of all the things you might decide you need to instantly "fix" or "train" as soon as you get on American soil, why would the volume at which the kid speaks be the first thing? Are these parents allergic to noise? What's the big deal?

]

[dianapavelovna]

Porknbeans links to another blog of parents who have serially adopted from China like putting together a Beanie Baby collection. Not surprisingly, go back to the toxic, dysfunctional well often enough and things can go bad. Then they want pats on the back and consolation for considering "disruption".

Are you talking about the Mulvahills? (theresnoplacelikehome-family.blogspot.com/) We were snarking on them over in the child collectors thread, and their latest post is just AWWWWESOME. :roll:

[NurseNell]

Adoptive parents want to be seen in the same light as natural parents. So tell me...when you give birth to a kid who's not working out....where's the opportunity to disrupt? There is none. Suck it up, adoptive parents and join the rest of us

Actually natural parents have been known to disrupt, they either place the kids in foster care or give them up for adoption. I know a family whose 4 adopted children were all given up by their natural parents because they could not deal with their children's special needs. These were voluntary relinquishments, not court ordered ones. The youngest child was about 16 months, the oldest about 8 y.o.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

It's completely dishonoring to want to forget and ignore that nationality is part of who an international adoptee IS. I mourned the loss of my boys accents. I am tremendously sad that my child from India no longer shakes his head side to side nor does his randomly create bindis anymore. I cannot hold onto those mannerisms but I can respect that they will never *not* be immigrants with a full history and homeland that lives in their hearts still.

I hope the "like" button comes relatively soon because I cannot like or appreciate this comment enough.

What bugs me about so many of the serial-adoption-from-China blogs is not only that they don't seem to bother learning a word of Chinese, but that they seem to have no clue that despite all their "colorblind" dreams to the contrary, their kids are going to grow up as Asian-Americans in the US and deal with some things that probably the parents have no experience with, AND have to do it without the benefit of a parent who knows what that's like. With transracial adoptees in particular there will be the extra awkwardness of other Asians or Asian-Americans they meet later in life assuming they grew up with Asian parents and with certain cultural things at home or ties to a community, which they (in these specific blogger situations) aren't going to have. And it's a big deal, or at least something that can't just be waved off with a happy "well, they're American now!!"

There are some bloggers out there who are great exceptions to this and a breath of fresh air, but so many of the ones linked here are just... hard to read.

[Emme]

With all due respect, I doubt Russia is going to hold the line on these new adoption restriction, since - thanks to desperate American families - the country is offloading all of their defective children to the US. The US, where healthcare dollars are tight and access is sketchy. Where local school systems are stressed by providing the "services" handicapped children in the US are "entitled to". I don't see a downside here.

Porknbeans links to another blog of parents who have serially adopted from China like putting together a Beanie Baby collection. Not surprisingly, go back to the toxic, dysfunctional well often enough and things can go bad. Then they want pats on the back and consolation for considering "disruption".

Adoptive parents want to be seen in the same light as natural parents. So tell me...when you give birth to a kid who's not working out....where's the opportunity to disrupt? There is none. Suck it up, adoptive parents and join the rest of us

Kids are dying. A LOT of kids. The teens that age out live on the streets, end up being prostitutes or drug addicts or killing themselves. That's why it's a downside. Kids with special needs have no life there. At all. It's just wrong.

Also, defective? No. They're not defective, and that's rude to say.

[chaotic life]

Adeye from No Greater Joy mom has had to put her 14 year old in the hospital at homecoming. The child is refusing to eat or drink. There absolutely can be a downside. You cannot take a child that who has known nothing but deprivation, starvation and neglect and miraculously "save" them. Sometimes, the shock of that change can and does kill the child. There is a downside and there is a risk. You cannot save the world. There's not enough of every adoptive parent, and sometimes our efforts just create more problems and mess.

Its sort of like the US food aid we send out to needy areas of the world. We subsidize our farmers AND send desperately need food to areas where starvation is rampant. No downside, right? Wrong. We sent culturally insensitive food sources to areas of the world where we ended up disrupting the complete protien source people were eating (beans and corn tortillas= complete protien but flour tortillas = significant nutritional deficiet) AND often the food aid is simply siezed by corrupt governments and frauds who turn around and sell it to the people it was meant to help.

[JesusFightClub]

I hope the "like" button comes relatively soon because I cannot like or appreciate this comment enough.

What bugs me about so many of the serial-adoption-from-China blogs is not only that they don't seem to bother learning a word of Chinese, but that they seem to have no clue that despite all their "colorblind" dreams to the contrary, their kids are going to grow up as Asian-Americans in the US and deal with some things that probably the parents have no experience with, AND have to do it without the benefit of a parent who knows what that's like. With transracial adoptees in particular there will be the extra awkwardness of other Asians or Asian-Americans they meet later in life assuming they grew up with Asian parents and with certain cultural things at home or ties to a community, which they (in these specific blogger situations) aren't going to have. And it's a big deal, or at least something that can't just be waved off with a happy "well, they're American now!!"

There are some bloggers out there who are great exceptions to this and a breath of fresh air, but so many of the ones linked here are just... hard to read.

QFT, both of you.

Why don't the parents learn Chinese? At least a wee bit? Why not send their kids to Chinese school? Why change their names (the Chinese people I've known chose their own names)?

Show respect for their children's background and culture. They aren't white Americans. Stop kidding on they are.

[Emme]

Adeye from No Greater Joy mom has had to put her 14 year old in the hospital at homecoming. The child is refusing to eat or drink. There absolutely can be a downside. You cannot take a child that who has known nothing but deprivation, starvation and neglect and miraculously "save" them. Sometimes, the shock of that change can and does kill the child. There is a downside and there is a risk. You cannot save the world. There's not enough of every adoptive parent, and sometimes our efforts just create more problems and mess.

Its sort of like the US food aid we send out to needy areas of the world. We subsidize our farmers AND send desperately need food to areas where starvation is rampant. No downside, right? Wrong. We sent culturally insensitive food sources to areas of the world where we ended up disrupting the complete protien source people were eating (beans and corn tortillas= complete protien but flour tortillas = significant nutritional deficiet) AND often the food aid is simply siezed by corrupt governments and frauds who turn around and sell it to the people it was meant to help.

I'm not saying there's not a downside to adoption (trust me, I know that there can be downsides), I took the previous poster's comment to mean that there's no downside to this ban in Russia, which I vehemently disagree with. If that's not what she's trying to say, then disregard my comment.

I'm with you CL on the food aid thing, we need to be working with farmers in countries where starvation is rampant and helping find ways for THEM to produce their own food/resources/find clean water. I think that working within countries where we adopt is important, but in the meantime, I'm not going to stand by and not do anything just because the problem is large. I believe in attacking a problem from multiple angles. Adopt, but also help instate change that will enable more families to parent their children, and reduce the number of orphans.

[chaotic life]

You are correct. Adoption can NEVER be a viable option for the majority of children in any country. Russia has used US adoptions as an option to cover their lack of social services for children for years. All this ban does is point out that adoption only EVER addressed a small minority of children in any country, even at the volume that Americans adopted from Russia.

One country that has TRULY worked towards domestic reforms is India. They were once one of the TOP nations placing children in the US. It's not that things are by any stretch perfect there now. However, the primary reason India adoptions have dropped internationally is because the Indian government has put domestic adoptions as a top priority. Indians now adopt Indian children at a higher rate than Americans and other nations used to adopt them. Except for the significant special needs, children in Indian MUST be available for domestic adoption *before* they are ever eligible for international adoption.

The programs working to provide education and support for children about to age out of orphanages is a HUGE benefit. Russia is more than free to close adoptions to the US if they want. They needed to do something other than simply house children in orphanages when their own families are too dangerous for them to remain at home. If they are going to close one of the only options they have utilized, then they are going to have to address the problem more throughly from a domestic standpoint.

[Emme]

You are correct. Adoption can NEVER be a viable option for the majority of children in any country. Russia has used US adoptions as an option to cover their lack of social services for children for years. All this ban does is point out that adoption only EVER addressed a small minority of children in any country, even at the volume that Americans adopted from Russia.

One country that has TRULY worked towards domestic reforms is India. They were once one of the TOP nations placing children in the US. It's not that things are by any stretch perfect there now. However, the primary reason India adoptions have dropped internationally is because the Indian government has put domestic adoptions as a top priority. Indians now adopt Indian children at a higher rate than Americans and other nations used to adopt them. Except for the significant special needs, children in Indian MUST be available for domestic adoption *before* they are ever eligible for international adoption.

The programs working to provide education and support for children about to age out of orphanages is a HUGE benefit. Russia is more than free to close adoptions to the US if they want. They needed to do something other than simply house children in orphanages when their own families are too dangerous for them to remain at home. If they are going to close one of the only options they have utilized, then they are going to have to address the problem more throughly from a domestic standpoint.

YES! This, times a thousand. I wouldn't be so heartbroken if these kids had hope for a future after they aged out. But they often don't, and it is SO heartbreaking.

[SoybeanQueen]

the country is offloading all of their defective children to the US.

Defective is not a descriptor for humans, and especially not children. My children have special needs. They are not defective. They are wonderful and unique and, yes, challenging. Don't use disgusting terminology like that, please.

Adoptive parents want to be seen in the same light as natural parents. So tell me...when you give birth to a kid who's not working out....where's the opportunity to disrupt? There is none. Suck it up, adoptive parents and join the rest of us

The foster system? It's full of kids who "didn't work out" in their birth family. Some of them are my kids now.

Once an adoption is final, disruption is no different than a birth family relinquishing their rights. The option is always there. It's just that most parents, whether original or adoptive, do suck it up, as you say, so the option isn't a familiar one to most people.

[Emme]

Defective is not a descriptor for humans, and especially not children. My children have special needs. They are not defective. They are wonderful and unique and, yes, challenging. Don't use disgusting terminology like that, please.

The foster system? It's full of kids who "didn't work out" in their birth family. Some of them are my kids now.

Once an adoption is final, disruption is no different than a birth family relinquishing their rights. The option is always there. It's just that most parents, whether original or adoptive, do suck it up, as you say, so the option isn't a familiar one to most people.

Yes, to all of this. If there was a high-fiving smiley I would post it, but I don't see one.

[LilMissMetaphor]

Christie just posted this picture on FB, about the girls going somewhere for spring break, with no Linzi. One of her commenters asked where she was and Christie didn't respond.

I hope they haven't farmed her out somewhere. :(

[Petronella7]

Oh, they've dumped her somewhere, you can be sure of that. Either some kind of boot camp or some hardcore "respite" home. The only question is whether they will take her back eventually, or let her stay indefinitely in the adoption underground railroad.

[Curious]

This is sort of off topic because it's not about this family, but I watched a show last night. A dateline or 48 hours or one of those kinds of shows. It was on adoption in Guatemala. The whole time I was watching it, I was thinking about all these people that seem to get kids so easy when other families have to wait years for a child.

Anyway, the show was about how people kidnap kids, including whole sibling groups, and then split them up and put them up for adoption. The "main" case they were profiling was a sibling group of 3 kids that were kidnapped and were being adopted out to American families, who had no idea that the kids were stolen, of course.

They were passing a 5 year old girl off as a 2 year old! She was adorable, as an aside. The family that was to adopt her was really upset, they had been sending her gifts and considered her their daughter. They found out she was kidnapped when someone (I wasn't watching close enough at first) had the littler girl out at a market and she saw her sister and ran over to her and was so happy and whoever had her actually listened to the girls and reported it and they were reunited with their family. At the end of the program, they still hadn't found the 3rd child out of the group, which was sad.

It made me wonder how many of these oh so easy fundy adoptions from other countries are shady like these ones were, though.

[gulag]

She is in constant motion...if she is standing she will rock from foot to

foot, if she is sitting down she will rock back and forth. She also will roll

her hands together and in a circle while repeating the same thing over and

over and over and over...to the extent that it drives me crazy, especially

as I have no idea what she is saying!

She is constantly on the move. She can sit still in the car and occasionally

on the couch, but she does not have the attention span to watch TV, play

video games or DSi games.

The girls are all very disappointed that she can not

play with them and they feel like we are just babysitting her.

I have heard them call her "stupid and crazy" and ask "What are we going to do with her?"

We have reminded them that Tessa and Jordis didn't speak English when they

first came home either. It is frustrating for all of us.

I was told that Ching Ching Da means Gentle?

Idiots. Of course she can't play the video games and watch TV. It's all in English! Everything!

Has anyone ever used a cash machine or gone through the check-out line in a foreign country? You know the little buttons that say "swipe card" and "Yes or No?" You don't know it says that, if you can't read the language!!!!

Does it ever occur to Americans to learn the child's language when they voluntarily acquire children from other countries and cultures? That it's a real benefit over the long term, even when you expect the kid to learn English at lightspeed in a couple of weeks to make it easier for you? That you could easily plan that ahead of time?

She is really rough on everything. I am sure that this is from being in the orphanage and not learning the proper behavior.

Yeah, that's gotta be it. Never mind autism, disability, Down Syndrome, deafness, etc.

Yes, of course, those Chinese would never teach "proper" behavior.

She is definitely spoiled and gets mad if she doesn't get her way.

Hmmm, lemme think...orphanage...spoiled...probably not!

Maybe she's completely frustrated at ZERO communication!?

She is a total clutz. She can fall over her shadow at times.

Better get a pediatrician that speaks Chinese. Fast.

...it is possible that we are not meant to be her family, that it was just our job to get her here so we could help her find the family she was destined to be in..

Massive FAIL. What the hell makes everyone think it's some kind of Divine blessing from God to be American?

I can't even read this anymore. So frustrating. Have we learned nothing at all from Romanian, Vietnam, Korean War adoptions?!

You know what America's terminal flaw is? No sustained learning and history. does not endured. America learns nothing. Knowledge and experiences are not absorbed into culture and delivered to the next successive set of people. Nope, each generation starts from scratch and makes it all up for themselves. Reinventing the wheel, reloading the operating system, over and over and over. Nothing sustains. The only thing that gets passed on is dysfunction.

We are now at a place where very few individuals have heard of Nietzsche or even Carl Sagan. But everyone knows who the Duggars and the Kardashians are. A terrible comment indeed, that the Duggars could ever merit time on Anderson Cooper!

I'm over it.

[Jinderella]

There is something I don't understand. I hope someone can explain this to me. For the last ten years people from my country (in Europe) are adopting a lot of American baby's. Some special needs, but not all of them. The adopted children from the US I know are all Afro-American, I don't know if that's always the case. In my country very few children are being put up for adoption, so I can see why people desparate for a child go to foreign country's. But the US seems to have enough adoptable children to let some go abroad.

Wouldn't it make more sense if American family's adopted American children instead of Chinese and Russian children? I'm not judgmental about it at all, don't misunderstand me please, but an American child seems to be so much more easy. Same language, same culture. I just don't understand....

[gulag]

There is something I don't understand. I hope someone can explain this to me. For the last ten years people from my country (in Europe) are adopting a lot of American baby's. Some special needs, but not all of them. The adopted children from the US I know are all Afro-American, I don't know if that's always the case. In my country very few children are being put up for adoption, so I can see why people desparate for a child go to foreign country's. But the US seems to have enough adoptable children to let some go abroad.

Wouldn't it make more sense if American family's adopted American children instead of Chinese and Russian children? I'm not judgmental about it at all, don't misunderstand me please, but an American child seems to be so much more easy. Same language, same culture. I just don't understand....

1. Qualification standards to adopt are demanding and rigid. Have to pass background. Takes a long time. When Americans can't pass the criteria to adopt in America, or they don't want to complete the long process, they shortcut and go get a baby from another country.

2. A sense of superiority and facetious noblesse oblige. They get credit for taking in an unfortunate soul and blessing them with a new life. Big church thing in the US right now.

[Jinderella]

1. Qualification standards to adopt are demanding and rigid. Have to pass background. Takes a long time. When Americans can't pass the criteria to adopt in America, or they don't want to complete the long process, they shortcut and go get a baby from another country.

2. A sense of superiority and facetious noblesse oblige. They get credit for taking in an unfortunate soul and blessing them with a new life. Big church thing in the US right now.

Thank you! I hadn't considered qualification standard, but that makes sense. Are there no laws about international adoption?

The second part makes me wonder if people are going to expect gratefulness from the children. If so, they are probably going to be very much disappointed! Children should never have to thank their parents for adopting them. It's the parent who are receiving a gift!

[NurseNell]

This is sort of off topic because it's not about this family, but I watched a show last night. A dateline or 48 hours or one of those kinds of shows. It was on adoption in Guatemala. The whole time I was watching it, I was thinking about all these people that seem to get kids so easy when other families have to wait years for a child.

Anyway, the show was about how people kidnap kids, including whole sibling groups, and then split them up and put them up for adoption. The "main" case they were profiling was a sibling group of 3 kids that were kidnapped and were being adopted out to American families, who had no idea that the kids were stolen, of course.

They were passing a 5 year old girl off as a 2 year old! She was adorable, as an aside. The family that was to adopt her was really upset, they had been sending her gifts and considered her their daughter. They found out she was kidnapped when someone (I wasn't watching close enough at first) had the littler girl out at a market and she saw her sister and ran over to her and was so happy and whoever had her actually listened to the girls and reported it and they were reunited with their family. At the end of the program, they still hadn't found the 3rd child out of the group, which was sad.

It made me wonder how many of these oh so easy fundy adoptions from other countries are shady like these ones were, though.

Guatemala was closed for quite awhile due to the scandals there. It is now very difficult to adopt from there. DNA is required from the child and the person claiming to be the mother. I suspect a lot of the African adoptions currently involve similar circumstances. War and poverty always increase the risk of shady adoptions.

[NurseNell]

1. Qualification standards to adopt are demanding and rigid. Have to pass background. Takes a long time. When Americans can't pass the criteria to adopt in America, or they don't want to complete the long process, they shortcut and go get a baby from another country.

2. A sense of superiority and facetious noblesse oblige. They get credit for taking in an unfortunate soul and blessing them with a new life. Big church thing in the US right now.

I have two sons adopted from Colombia. It is just as demanding and rigid to adopt internationally as in the U.S. In fact it's harder to adopt internationally. You need not only a background check but a FBI background check, which isn't required for domestic adoptions. All the requirements for a legal domestic adoption are required plus there are additional requirements. Private domestic adoptions bypass a lot of the requirements. It is still possible to buy a baby on the grey market in the U.S.

I agree on your second statement for many adoptions among fundamental Christians.

[valsa]

Are there no laws about international adoption?

There are laws but unfortunately some adoption agencies are more than willing to overlook major issues in "good Christian families", which I suspect is how a lot of these fundies end up able to adopt a ton of children even without the time, resources, or skill to deal with the special needs adoptees they already have.