Once again, this adoptive mom is pissing me off.

[CannedSoup]

Is it typical to start adopted kids in school so soon after bringing them home? It seems overwhelming.

I am an adoptive mom and NO, it is not typical or recommended to start a child at school so soon. This woman is out of her mind and has no business adopting children. She does not sit and watch tv because she does not understand the language. Maybe if someone, like her mother, took the time and energy to play with her in a way she understands and teach her the new language, she would begin to feel like she belongs and thrive. But that would be hard.

[GenerationCedarchip]

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....

Sadly, there's also an element of racism to adoption in the US. The vast majority of people seeking to adopt are white. Most will not adopt black children(unless they're adopting from Africa). On the adopting from Africa thing, I have a friend from college who is what most here would consider fundie lite. They adopted from Ethiopia and folks in their church were going on and on about what a blessing it was they rescued these kids. Another couple in the same church adopted two African-American sisters from foster care, and the reaction from church as, "Well, you don't know what these kids have been exposed to. Who knows what they might bring around our kids, etc..."

Makes me :angry-screaming:

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

Sadly, there's also an element of racism to adoption in the US. The vast majority of people seeking to adopt are white. Most will not adopt black children(unless they're adopting from Africa). On the adopting from Africa thing, I have a friend from college who is what most here would consider fundie lite. They adopted from Ethiopia and folks in their church were going on and on about what a blessing it was they rescued these kids. Another couple in the same church adopted two African-American sisters from foster care, and the reaction from church as, "Well, you don't know what these kids have been exposed to. Who knows what they might bring around our kids, etc..."

Makes me :angry-screaming:

Exactly this. It is not only racism because, as you mention, many of these folks are willing to adopt children of color from other nations. It is a specific racism rooted in a deep suspicion of African-American people and their culture, values, etc. as perceived by American whites. It goes very deep and is incredibly insidious. (See: Obama, Barack.)

[SoybeanQueen]

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!

With international adoption, the rules are mostly whatever the other country requires, and it varies. In the u.S., the culture in the private infant adoption industry tends toward open adoptions. Some form of contact post-adoption is pretty much the norm. Potential adoptive parents who want a completely closed adoption tend to have a longer wait. International adoption nearly always provides a closed adoption. That isn't to say everyone who adopts internationally does it because it's probably going to be closed. However, the people I know (and that's quite a few, since I'm an adoptive parent myself, and talk often with other adoptive families) who prefer to pretend there's no such thing as a birth family all gravitate to international adoption.

As for the gratefulness, you're right. It's not fair to expect it from the kids, and that sets everyone up for disappointment. I wish all adoptive parents in the U.S., especially those who want to adopt older kids, were required to take the same types of classes required for foster care adoptions.

Edited to say that for our homestudy and applications, which we prepared for both foster care and private domestic adoption, we needed a state background check, an FBI background check, fingerprints, sex offender registry checks for any family member over age 11, child abuse registry checks, about 8 weeks of classes to start, 5 references, financial statements, health forms for entire family, HIV tests for adults, and Tb tests for everyone. There were rules about how many children in the home and how much bedroom space each child needed to have, plus all of the normal stuff about having chemicals locked up and other safety precautions.

[SoybeanQueen]

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.

There is some evidence of similar shadiness in China, particularly with kids from rural villages. After all, the fine for having a second child doesn't earn nearly as much for the local government as kidnapping him or her and earning the hefty foreign adoption fees. The new American family is simply told that the baby was abandoned at the orphanage gate.

[SoybeanQueen]

Another couple in the same church adopted two African-American sisters from foster care, and the reaction from church as, "Well, you don't know what these kids have been exposed to. Who knows what they might bring around our kids, etc..."

Makes me :angry-screaming:

Oh, yuck. Three of my kids came to us through foster care. All of them are white, but we get the same kind of reaction. Sadly, I think that's a foster care thing, judging the kids for the sins of their biological families. Of course, what they've been through can result in lots of unpleasant behaviors, so I understand the fears some. It definitely makes me feel ill, though, to hear people speak as though foster kids are inherently bad or wrong. Whatever happened is rarely their fault.

[Hane]

Exactly this. It is not only racism because, as you mention, many of these folks are willing to adopt children of color from other nations. It is a specific racism rooted in a deep suspicion of African-American people and their culture, values, etc. as perceived by American whites. It goes very deep and is incredibly insidious. (See: Obama, Barack.)

Back in the '70s, in certain parts of the US, certain African-American social workers were extremely vocal in their opposition to adoption of black children by white parents. There were claims that white parents couldn't possibly honor a black child's ethnic identity and heritage. I remember having read a magazine article in which black adoptees with white parents were interviewed. The adoptees' attitude toward their adoptive parents was a sort of damning with faint praise, stressing that they'd never felt as if they completely belonged. My ex and his then-wife (both Caucasian) looked into adopting an African-American child and were flatly rejected. When they asked the African-American social worker whether that meant that there were ample numbers of prospective African-American adoptive families for the child, the social worker hung up on them.

In Connecticut, back in the '50s and '60s, friends of our family were long-term foster parents for three of their kids. We heard some ugly stories in which foster parents hoped to adopt the kids they were caring for, but "the system" was slanted in favor of keeping the kids in foster care and making adoption difficult or impossible for parents who were otherwise qualified. In some cases, foster parents who were too vocal in their objections had children transferred away from their care and into other homes. When our friends learned that one of their foster daughters had been abused in a now-closed "training school" for kids with disabilties, they were warned to keep their mouths shut, lest they lose all three of their long-term foster kids.

I wish to God I were making these horrendous stories up, and pray that the situation has changed in the decades since.

[patsymae]

"I wish to God I were making these horrendous stories up, and pray that the situation has changed in the decades since."

It has, and not for the better. It has become lucrative for states to provide children in foster care to hopeful adoptive parents (of whom there are many, given the lack of "available" white infants) rather than work toward reunification of families. Google "kentucky adoption scandal" for just one instance.

[BlackHawk]

"I wish to God I were making these horrendous stories up, and pray that the situation has changed in the decades since."

It has, and not for the better. It has become lucrative for states to provide children in foster care to hopeful adoptive parents (of whom there are many, given the lack of "available" white infants) rather than work toward reunification of families. Google "kentucky adoption scandal" for just one instance.

I am on my nook so please forgive typos and odd formatting. I googled ky adoption scandal and i obviously do not see what you are talking about. Care to share?

[Curious]

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.

They did mention that at the end of the show about adoptions being closed for a period of time and now requiring DNA from mother and child. They show said there are still ways to bypass those restrictions though :(

Which again made me think of shady "christian" adoptions

[OkToBeTakei]

With international adoption, the rules are mostly whatever the other country requires, and it varies. In the u.S., the culture in the private infant adoption industry tends toward open adoptions. Some form of contact post-adoption is pretty much the norm. Potential adoptive parents who want a completely closed adoption tend to have a longer wait. International adoption nearly always provides a closed adoption. That isn't to say everyone who adopts internationally does it because it's probably going to be closed. However, the people I know (and that's quite a few, since I'm an adoptive parent myself, and talk often with other adoptive families) who prefer to pretend there's no such thing as a birth family all gravitate to international adoption.

As for the gratefulness, you're right. It's not fair to expect it from the kids, and that sets everyone up for disappointment. I wish all adoptive parents in the U.S., especially those who want to adopt older kids, were required to take the same types of classes required for foster care adoptions.

Edited to say that for our homestudy and applications, which we prepared for both foster care and private domestic adoption, we needed a state background check, an FBI background check, fingerprints, sex offender registry checks for any family member over age 11, child abuse registry checks, about 8 weeks of classes to start, 5 references, financial statements, health forms for entire family, HIV tests for adults, and Tb tests for everyone. There were rules about how many children in the home and how much bedroom space each child needed to have, plus all of the normal stuff about having chemicals locked up and other safety precautions.

Which is to insure that the needs of the child are met? That it is in the best interest of the child?

That sounds like a true labour of love Soybean.

On the other hand others just go pick one from abroad to meet their own needs and bask in the glory others pile on. I do not understand why parents over the age of 50 can adopt 3 year olds and multiple kids. Or 4 or 5 children with special needs when it would appear that even more so the checking you mention would be in the best interest of the children.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

Back in the '70s, in certain parts of the US, certain African-American social workers were extremely vocal in their opposition to adoption of black children by white parents. There were claims that white parents couldn't possibly honor a black child's ethnic identity and heritage. I remember having read a magazine article in which black adoptees with white parents were interviewed. The adoptees' attitude toward their adoptive parents was a sort of damning with faint praise, stressing that they'd never felt as if they completely belonged. My ex and his then-wife (both Caucasian) looked into adopting an African-American child and were flatly rejected. When they asked the African-American social worker whether that meant that there were ample numbers of prospective African-American adoptive families for the child, the social worker hung up on them.

In Connecticut, back in the '50s and '60s, friends of our family were long-term foster parents for three of their kids. We heard some ugly stories in which foster parents hoped to adopt the kids they were caring for, but "the system" was slanted in favor of keeping the kids in foster care and making adoption difficult or impossible for parents who were otherwise qualified. In some cases, foster parents who were too vocal in their objections had children transferred away from their care and into other homes. When our friends learned that one of their foster daughters had been abused in a now-closed "training school" for kids with disabilties, they were warned to keep their mouths shut, lest they lose all three of their long-term foster kids.

I wish to God I were making these horrendous stories up, and pray that the situation has changed in the decades since.

There is that too. I am not making excuses for that attitude (that black kids should not be adopted by white families), but I think probably it was an overreaction to what I mentioned previously - the deep-seated racism and suspicion of African Americans by white folks, even those who are not overtly racist and do not realize that there is some racism inherent in their attitudes. Especially in the 50s, 60s and 70s, I don't think the suspicion that a white family would be adopting a black child in order to "save" or "improve" him or her, or that they would shut the child off from African-American culture, is totally unfounded. I do think that things have changed, a lot, but I say that with great hesitation as a white person.

Honestly, now that I think about it....I don't know that I would be willing to put a black child into a suburban white family in the 1950s either, and it wouldn't be because I was worried about what the child would do to the white kids.

[dianapavelovna]

Back in the '70s, in certain parts of the US, certain African-American social workers were extremely vocal in their opposition to adoption of black children by white parents. There were claims that white parents couldn't possibly honor a black child's ethnic identity and heritage. I remember having read a magazine article in which black adoptees with white parents were interviewed. The adoptees' attitude toward their adoptive parents was a sort of damning with faint praise, stressing that they'd never felt as if they completely belonged. My ex and his then-wife (both Caucasian) looked into adopting an African-American child and were flatly rejected. When they asked the African-American social worker whether that meant that there were ample numbers of prospective African-American adoptive families for the child, the social worker hung up on them.

In Connecticut, back in the '50s and '60s, friends of our family were long-term foster parents for three of their kids. We heard some ugly stories in which foster parents hoped to adopt the kids they were caring for, but "the system" was slanted in favor of keeping the kids in foster care and making adoption difficult or impossible for parents who were otherwise qualified. In some cases, foster parents who were too vocal in their objections had children transferred away from their care and into other homes. When our friends learned that one of their foster daughters had been abused in a now-closed "training school" for kids with disabilties, they were warned to keep their mouths shut, lest they lose all three of their long-term foster kids.

I wish to God I were making these horrendous stories up, and pray that the situation has changed in the decades since.

There's a federal law in place now that prevents placing (or not placing) a child in a foster or adoptive home based solely on race (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Ethnic_Placement_Act). Of course that doesn't prevent people from skirting it sometimes, but it is not supposed to happen. In my job, I see kids placed with families of a different race all the time, but we also have a large number of African-American families who foster and adopt. So things have changed both in terms of the laws around placement and because efforts to recruit families of color have stepped up.

[pookel]

This little girl actually sounds a lot like my son, who's about the same age. He's my biological kid and we've never adopted, so I can't address the adoption issues, but the stimming, throwing fits when things don't go exactly her way, echolalia, and unconcerned attitude about saying goodbye to caregivers sounds just like my Simon. He is on the autism spectrum, and that was the first thing I thought of when I read her description.

He's also sweet, wonderful, loving, funny, fascinating, and MY SON. Even when he's still refusing to try to pee in the potty (at age 5.5), or screaming and throwing chairs because something wasn't done in *exactly the right order*, he's still my special, beloved, frustrating boy. This story breaks my heart, not just because they're treating her like she's disposable, but because they see all these behaviors and attribute them to laziness, selfishness, rudeness, and bad behavior. I want to smack that mom. Kids are not bad people for being who they are. My kid isn't a lesser person than his brother because he's still pooping in diapers in kindergarten, and he's not a better person than his classmates because he's doing 3-digit addition and uses Google independently, either. He's just different. And that's fine. And I love him exactly the way he is and I wouldn't change his personality one bit (no matter how much I wish he'd hurry up and get the potty thing figured out).

[NurseNell]

Which is to insure that the needs of the child are met? That it is in the best interest of the child?

That sounds like a true labour of love Soybean.

On the other hand others just go pick one from abroad to meet their own needs and bask in the glory others pile on. I do not understand why parents over the age of 50 can adopt 3 year olds and multiple kids. Or 4 or 5 children with special needs when it would appear that even more so the checking you mention would be in the best interest of the children.

With international adoption it isn't just the requirements of the other country that have to be met. U.S. requirements have to be met too. You must work with the immigration bureaucracy, neither easy nor fun. The only thing above we didn't have to do was an HIV test, it wasn't in the picture yet. Otherwise we did everyone of those other steps plus the additional steps required by INS. We did not just go to Colombia and "pick one up." Our first wait was a little under 2 years, our 2nd was 3 years. The children were not chosen by us. We had said we'd accept either sex which meant we were offered boys. People love to adopt girls, boys not so much.

I do not understand people over 50 being able to adopt or have technology assisted pregnancies. In Colombia you have to be under 40 to adopt.

[OkToBeTakei]

With international adoption it isn't just the requirements of the other country that have to be met. U.S. requirements have to be met too. You must work with the immigration bureaucracy, neither easy nor fun. The only thing above we didn't have to do was an HIV test, it wasn't in the picture yet. Otherwise we did everyone of those other steps plus the additional steps required by INS. We did not just go to Colombia and "pick one up." Our first wait was a little under 2 years, our 2nd was 3 years. The children were not chosen by us. We had said we'd accept either sex which meant we were offered boys. People love to adopt girls, boys not so much.

I do not understand people over 50 being able to adopt or have technology assisted pregnancies. In Colombia you have to be under 40 to adopt.

Then why has the lady with 11 kids from China who is over 50 allowed to do this?

Why is Adeye allowed to say she has no money but takes on all these needy kids?

Why did they not adopt from their own country?

Sounds like you also had a good and well managed adoption Nell. Also from what I have read here great kids.

I just wondered about these people we discuss. I did look in to it here. Even online every single site pushed me to the social services here. I genuinely believe it is not for me. I wish it was, but the more I read the more I realise I would be wrong for adoption. I tick every box required and some. But it is my need, it is romantic and it would be wrong for me and my family. So I do admire those that do and feel a bit shitty snarking on our 'collectors' but I do wonder if their motivation is not as altruistic as it appears.

[NurseNell]

Then why has the lady with 11 kids from China who is over 50 allowed to do this?

Why is Adeye allowed to say she has no money but takes on all these needy kids?

Why did they not adopt from their own country?

Sounds like you also had a good and well managed adoption Nell. Also from what I have read here great kids.

I just wondered about these people we discuss. I did look in to it here. Even online every single site pushed me to the social services here. I genuinely believe it is not for me. I wish it was, but the more I read the more I realise I would be wrong for adoption. I tick every box required and some. But it is my need, it is romantic and it would be wrong for me and my family. So I do admire those that do and feel a bit shitty snarking on our 'collectors' but I do wonder if their motivation is not as altruistic as it appears.

China allows adoption by single and married women over age 50. It is a pet peeve of mine. People over 50 are grandparent age, not parent age. I've seen several who seem very rigid in their expectations. I don't know how she was able to adopt 11 children. I know 2 families locally who waited years to have a second Chinese adoption. And if she's doing it for the kids why no boys? Yes, in China there are more girls available but there are plenty of boys waiting to be adopted also. I can't remember, is the mother of the 11 kids married? If she is I don't know why she doesn't adopt in the U.S. It's much harder to adopt in the U.S. if you are single, and definitely if you are over 50. I have this theory that many (not all) of those who adopt in China do so because it's kind of the in thing to have a Chinese daughter, like a China "doll". I don't for a minute believe some of these collectors, maybe even most, are altruistic at all.

I haven't followed Adeye so I can't comment on her.

I know one family in real life who could be considered collectors. They are LDS, had a large family of bio kids, then started adopting special needs kids. They moved from MA to MN to get better social services benefits and medical care. I think the number they adopted ended up being 8. All were very medically involved kids. Their first one was a Chinese boy whose PhD parents simply could not accept having such an impaired child. The adopters kept his name, as they did with all their other kids who generally came to them over the age of 4 or 5. The bio parents were welcome to having as much contact as they wanted except for one child who had been abused. The adoptive family admitted they did it for the money, they got subsidies for each child and all were on social security disability. They all qualified to have personal care attendants. The father was an author who didn't want a regular job so this is what they did. The kids all got their health care at Gillette Hospital and Clinic, one of the best hospitals in the country for kids with rare syndromes and multiple medical needs. I always felt the kids got excellent care but I did feel they were lacking in love. It wasn't that their adoptive parents weren't good to them, they were, but the home was more like a mini nursing home. And the parents were over 50 with each adoption. With the last and final adoption the father was over 70!

[SoybeanQueen]

On the other hand others just go pick one from abroad to meet their own needs and bask in the glory others pile on. I do not understand why parents over the age of 50 can adopt 3 year olds and multiple kids. Or 4 or 5 children with special needs when it would appear that even more so the checking you mention would be in the best interest of the children.

I think some agencies, and some countries, do make it pretty easy for child collectors like the ones discussed here. Of course, there are a great many parents who go through mountains of paperwork, tons of money, and many months of waiting to bring home their child from another country.

[Curious]

I've never adopted a child, but don't they give you some kind of instruction about letting the child get used to the new home, the settling in period, preparing them for new language and culture...anything? They just grab a kid from another country and drop them in your lap and go Good Luck! and walk away?

We do more than that when we adopt out a dog, FFS. We have a whole thing about the first few weeks (commonly known as the "honeymoon period") where you may not see the dogs true behaviors because (s)he is confused about being in a new place, you may see a regression in housebreaking, a list of dos and don'ts with a brand new rescued dog, resources to help you, phone numbers/email to contact us if you have questions or problems. Plus, we follow up the evening of the placement (via email or phone) and then after about a week, at 3 weeks etc until we are satisfied that the dog and new owner are doing ok. We might even do another home visit if we think it would be necessary to help the dog or owner (that's pretty rare though).

We joked we were harder to get a dog from than to get a kid, but I didn't think that was actually true. Apparently, in some cases it actually is :(

[boysmom]

I'm 47 and have a biological child who is 8, so I am grandparent age AND parent age. I see no issues with people over 50 adopting, but kids that they could have conceivably given birth to. I have a friend who adopted an 8 yo when she was 55 or so, I think that that was fine. It's actually going very well and the child was in foster care due to abandonment by her mom and horrible crimes against children by her dad. So an adoption success story!

[OkToBeTakei]

I'm 47 and have a biological child who is 8, so I am grandparent age AND parent age. I see no issues with people over 50 adopting, but kids that they could have conceivably given birth to. I have a friend who adopted an 8 yo when she was 55 or so, I think that that was fine. It's actually going very well and the child was in foster care due to abandonment by her mom and horrible crimes against children by her dad. So an adoption success story!

Of course there are success stories. I'm no expert on the adoption thing at all. But the woman I am referencing adopted 11 children ages 3 to 13. She is 51 now not sure how old the husband is. 9 girls 2 boys. A few have medical issues and one in particular sounds like she may always require support. I like her blog and from reading, also her. It's the mechanics of how this works that interests me. She is not done adopting so she says.

[HeckBound]

Didn't the porknbean blog go private at some point? I checked it once just before it closed, and she talked about that little girl like she was a pair of shoes that didn't fit right and needed to be returned. She just have edited comments closely, because they were all very supportive of her heinousness.

[Guest Anonymous]

Didn't the porknbean blog go private at some point? I checked it once just before it closed, and she talked about that little girl like she was a pair of shoes that didn't fit right and needed to be returned. She just have edited comments closely, because they were all very supportive of her heinousness.

She went private in January. She acknowledged her detractors with a long, ranty post saying how she wasn't really going to disrupt the adoption, but was just finding it hard. But now it seems, the youngest child and the blog are both gone. :shock:

[chaotic life]

The training required in preparation for adoption is dependent upon both the state you reside in and the agency you work with. There IS training required. However, it's not always consistent. The answer to how people so advanced in age are adopting is simply--waivers. For children who have trouble finding families, you can apply for a waiver to the requirements. We got a family size waiver when we adopted from India because we had four kids at that point in time and the family size requirement for India was three children.

I've done adoptions in four states now (GOT to stop moving so darn much). The training requirements have been completely varied and inconsistent from state to state. One state our "training" consisted of several conversations with the adoption agency director. *I* did far more research on my own, and it's entirely possible she determined that I had self-educated and waived some greater requirement but we never discussed her having done so. In another state, technically, you had to do the foster training OR something your agency deemed more appropriate. Our worker had us write book summaries for several books on international adoption because none of us felt the foster training was not relevant to our specific adoption. In a third state, we did the foster training but we were doing a foster-adoption. This time, we are doing a private adoption and there has been no training/education requirement BUT the person the court will assign to do the home investigation can order training if they determine we need it. I sincerely doubt they will make that decision, but if they do I will comply like I always have.

That's part of the problem of talking about adoption requirements in the US, it's not determined by the Federal government. When you adopt internationally, then the Feds do have a level of requirements you have to meet, but it's only one level. You always have to meet the state requirements, and they can vary wildly from state to state. If you are adopting across state lines, then you have to meet the requirements for two states. If you are adopting internationally then you have to meet the requirements of the country you are adopting from. I've seen some CRAZY variations between the states I've actually adopted in, I can only imagine how inconsistent the system can get if you compare every single state and country.

FWIW, Guatemala is NOT open to adoptions at this point. It is in fact closed to adoption. When they closed it, they claimed they were going to grandfather the open cases and were going to eventually re-open under new processes. That has NOT been the case. There is a couple hundred cases still in purgatory of incompletion and no new adoptions have been processed since the changes were implemented.

[LilMissMetaphor]

She's posted a second FB pic, no Linzi, and describes all the fun they are having. Someone asked: "Christie- I know you have 6 beautiful daughters, but the photos all show 5 girls........?" She seems to be ignoring the question.