Once again, this adoptive mom is pissing me off.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Why should anyone be allowed to adopt 5 kids with special needs at once, especially from a country that doesnt speak English? Its hard enough to help one child adjust to having a new home and a new family in a country where everything is different, let alone five of them. Theyre probably going to have trouble coping, and then blame the kids for not being perfect and adjusting instantly, instead of themselves for taking on more than they can handle.

Thats not parenting, its child hoarding.

[kb2]

For some people, that's standard, but most people have dialectic or linguistic variants. Linzi's "slurred speech" could be absolutely normal for her area of China - I've seen English kids bewildered at Scottish kids speaking Scots.

This, so much. I learned some Chinese phrases by going to China, and what I learned had the dialect of the area. So I learned the phrase, "thank you," spelled xie xie in Mandarin, pronounced "shih-uh shih-uh," by everyone in the area I stayed in, but pronounced "see-ah see-ah" in the Shanghai area. (Disclaimer--I'm not great at pronunciation, so those may be wrong pronunciations no matter where in China you are located, but the pronunciations were that different.) So I meet people that learned Chinese in a classroom sometimes, and when they hear how I speak it they always tell me, "That's completely wrong," (and it actually might be completely wrong) but they think the "right" way is the dialect they learned, not just my tones or vowels. And I could tell while I was there that there were multiple accents and also multiple speeds of speaking when we visited different parts of the country.

[Dollypeeps]

When families go through a professional facilitator or agency, the new families are vetted. Generally, they are required to at least provide a copy of their most recent homestudy report AND if the child is moving across state lines they must go through ICPC. Children dumped into fostercare also have a vetting process BUT they are at risk for all that can happen in fostercare. Most families attempt to avoid fostercare because you can be charged with child abandonment AND if the state is angry enough they can take custody of all of your children and require you to prove you are safe to have the other children returned, even the biological children in the home.

Because of what CPS can do, and the fact that facilitators and agencies can often require the family to pay for all fees in moving child to a new home, a lot of families prefer to just do it themselves. When a family does it independently, how well the new family is vetted is entirely dependent upon the family disrupting the adoption in the first place.

I am now horrified at this and anyone can get a child through disrupting now that's scary.

Our son's first family did ZERO vetting. *We* vetted them and him, but they never once attempted to determine if we were safe or who we claimed to be. Our own lawyer vetted us, the courts are vetting us, but the first family never even asked, much less cared.

Good on you for this.

[moodygirl86]

JFC, if your real life persona is anything like the one you show us on FJ, I agree with everyone else that you'd make an excellent mother and any kid would be lucky to have you, whether by birth or adopted.

[chaotic life]

Good on you for this.

We did not go into this looking to adopt a child. I intended to do what I have done dozens of times in the past, to provide peer support to an adoptive family in crisis and try to prevent a disruption. That was not a possible option and ultimately we exercised our legal options to protect our son. However, I never believed that an accidental adoption was anything but a myth until this year and this accidental adoption.

I DO judge families who re-home their children. I judge because I have stood here four times. I have faced an entire gamult of things you could not have anticipated nor understood you would face and NEVER did I walk away from my children. We always maintained the hard and fast outlook that you have no more control over imperfections and human fraility of children you adopt than children you birth. You deal with what issues your children have and you stand beside them, end of discussion.

[Carla Bruni]

Good god, that woman :evil: Sounds like she's just collecting pretty Chinese girls.

I was going to ask about limits on the number of kids you can adopt, but then did a quick Google search instead and happened upon this: forums.adoption.com/parenting-large-families/284259-how-many-kids-you-allowed-foster-adopt.html - I'm horrified just reading through the posts and the signatures, I'm sure there's much more on that forum that I'm scared of even touching. It's like hoarding, it really is.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Ah yes, that blog. Sometime last year I went on a Chinese adoption blog reading binge (sparked by a thread here where people were horrified at food terms being used for kids) and this one disturbed me already. It's just so... fetishizing. The Ancient Chinese Saying, that awful "hey it's Asian!!" triangle font, I just don't even know.

(All this completely aside from the current issue, which I agree is mighty disturbing.)

And yes, where did this latest kid come from? China is a huge country, with a variety of dialects in it, and a variety of pronunciations even of "standard" Mandarin. The kid hadn't been to much school yet if any, and someone with a Taiwan accent is going to sound strange to the kid anyway. But she understood HIM, even if she speaks in what to him is a weird sounding dialect (or even if she legitimately has a speech impediment) so that should tell them something. Heck, she understood him where her adoptive family obviously can't (since they don't speak Chinese of ANY KIND) and so maybe they should think about that for a while.

[JesusFightClub]

I feel reassured! Thanks guys!

I was worried I'd be a hopeless mum. Tell you what though I would NOT give up on a kid even if I am not the most conventional of mums. It was so sad hearing the story of Linzi, who sounds like a lovely child with some delays and possible issues, but really a kid any mum would be happy to have.

Because she doesn't fit "perfect docile Chinese child" pattern she gets the boot? If I was American I'd fucking well take her on. Big deal she's got a few dodgy habits, so do I. I swear like a bastard, drink too much, am an insomniac, wear terrible clothes and have been known to both get in trouble with coppers and scratch my arse in public, once simultaneously. ;)

Everyone's got a relaxing behaviour. I sing (badly) to calm myself down. How is that different to saying the same word over and over again? I can sing the same song 12 times in a row if I'm stressed. If Linzi is stressed, which would be totally understandable, she might say the same word loads of times. S' alright, just if it helps, get on with it and don't worry your wee self. I don't know what the mum was expecting but what the fuck. Child you adopt from Chinese orphanage has issues, hold the front page.

I don't understand these hoarding mums! CB, that was a terrifying journey through a mindset there. "I have eleventy hundred kids but I want more". :shock:

Seriously, a person has 9 kids but wants 12? That is just kid-collecting. If you have a big family, NP, but those people just seem to want more and more - for the status or something.

[Coconut Flan]

I got an email awhile ago about the family I mentioned above. He's back with the two special needs kids. As far as I know none of the other children have special needs although one of the bio kids had to have heart surgery shortly after birth. He seems to be a normal two to three year old now.

The email was from a friend of theirs asking several of us to prepare frozen meals for them to last until about the end of the month.

I'd like to think that they will stop now, but since the last three pregnancies have been less than six months from having a baby to conception, I'm doubting it. And yes she breast feeds on demand. It obviously hasn't worked well contraceptively for them. To think I thought they were close to done or should have been done at number 7.

[SoybeanQueen]

Peeing themselves or shitting their pants, it's not evil. It's a way of saying "Right, look, I got nothing, but a bit of control and a bit of aggression". Listening to that talk and letting them get it out is better than punishing them for doing it. It can be sorted, if not easily, but it can be done.

The kid is not at fault. It's a case of trying to cope.

QFT. I'm thankful that my biggest RAD kiddo has only done the poo-art thing once. You're exactly right, though. It's something he can control. I didn't yell. I didn't punish. He did, however, need to clean the bathroom. Twice, because he made such a mess, and others wanted to know it was really clean. I think we were lucky, but it only took him that one time to realize it wasn't going to inconvenience anyone but himself.

[SoybeanQueen]

I'm not that familiar with RAD, but is a kid pooping in their clothes a sign of it? That was the one thing those one parents mentioned as a sign the child had RAD.

These poor children.

RAD has as many manifestations as there are kids with RAD. :/ Pooping themselves on purpose can be a sign. I've only dealt with that once. Mine attempt control in many other ways that are currently making me CRAZY. I love them. Truly. But they are on my last nerve this week.

[lilith]

I got an email awhile ago about the family I mentioned above. He's back with the two special needs kids. As far as I know none of the other children have special needs although one of the bio kids had to have heart surgery shortly after birth. He seems to be a normal two to three year old now.

The email was from a friend of theirs asking several of us to prepare frozen meals for them to last until about the end of the month.

I'd like to think that they will stop now, but since the last three pregnancies have been less than six months from having a baby to conception, I'm doubting it. And yes she breast feeds on demand. It obviously hasn't worked well contraceptively for them. To think I thought they were close to done or should have been done at number 7.

Demand breast feeding and co sleeping as effective contraception is a myth that needs to be demolished. Loudly and often.

As a mother of two children 13months apart it's a bit of a pet issue of mine. I co sleep and feed on demand and do child led weaning that doesn't usually start til around seven or eight months and I still had three babies in four years.

Demand feeding and cosleeping can stop a mother ovulating. But not always, and it's less common than ever now most mothers in the western world have adequate nutrition.

It is not something to rely on. I always look at Zsuzsanna and think the reason it works so consistently for her and the PP must be that they don't have a whole lot of sex.

[chaotic life]

I adopted one who was diagnosed autistic and I was not so lucky for the poop issues to be a short-term problem, despite requiring him to clean it himself (he was terrible at cleaning it, someone had to clean after him without him seeing it for it to make ANY impression on him).

It honestly wasn't until he got his autism diagnosis and we discovered that the search for autism and poop garners over 1 million google hits that we realized it was totally related to his autism, much longer before we could just ignore it and accept that this was who he was and nothing was going to change this habit that long pre-dated us.

It is not a walk in the park to have a child with RAD or significant special needs. I'm not insane to think it's an easy path. You cannot merely love these issues out of kids. It required a lot of effort and education and resources. I would not ever suggest someone adopt a child they felt they were unable to handle before adopting them. However, once you DO adopt a child, you are in the same boat as any parent who gave birth. I don't believe you get a 'do-over' just because you end up discovering something you did NOT prepare for at first.

I truly believe that one of the biggest risks of disruption in adoption is families who approach adoption as a permenable and negotiable situation. If you *think* you retain a right to walk away, then you are like TO walk away at some point.

[Dinorah]

As usual, when these adoption stories come up, I wonder, are US adoption laws really that lax? Because it looks like virtually anyone can adopt. Because where I am people seem to have to jump all sorts of hoops in order to adopt, and we're talking about normal, sane people who want a child to raise. So I don't get how she was able to adopt as many as 6 kids, especially with her fundie motivations and her talk of "egg rolls" and whatnot.

Also, can you really "disrupt" and be okayed to adopt again, just like this?

[adayinthelife]

I think it's super shady to disrupt an international adoption, as the other country specifically approved the first family for that child.

[Sarietty]

I think it's super shady to disrupt an international adoption, as the other country specifically approved the first family for that child.

Especially when the child has living relatives in his home country who consented to adoption by the initial adoptive family. In these cases, there is often an understanding that there will be at least some ongoing contact (updates on how the child is doing, etc). It would be scary, at best, for the home-country relatives to learn that the child was suddenly living with a new family. At worst, the child might lose contact with the relatives entirely, and they would never know what had happened to him.

To add to what others are saying about adopting large numbers of special needs children at once: most people would recognize it as inadvisable to adopt multiple pets at the same time, especially if each of the animals had a history of neglect and abuse. Yet it's rare to see people who adopt children under similar circumstances subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. They're often just regarded as saints.

[valsa]

I think it's super shady to disrupt an international adoption, as the other country specifically approved the first family for that child.

Yes, a lot of these kids eventually go to families that wouldn't have been qualified to adopt from the birth country in the first place.

For instance, in the link someone posted earlier which contains a bunch of situations where children are being disrupted, one of the kids was a girl adopted from Morocco. The thing about adoption from Morocco is that you must either be a Muslim or convert to Islam to qualify to adopt. The ad for her disruption, on the other hand, specifically states there no religious requirement to adopt her. Given how many fundie Christians are adopting "save" these children both in a literal (to them) and religious way, odds are she's probably going to be adopted by Christians who will force her to give up the only religion she's known.

The same thing happens with other families who adopt these kids "second hand". Income minimums, health exclusions (both a big deal with China adoption because their standards are pretty strict), limits on how many minor children can live in the house, and all the other requirements from the countries of origin- these are completely ignored when children are adopted by a second family.

[chaotic life]

Adoption homestudies ask if you have ever been found guilty of child abuse or neglect or ever had your parental rights involuntarily terminated. A voluntary termination does NOT ban you from future adoptions. Keep in mind that someone might place a child for adoption as a teen or young adult and be perfectly competent to adopt children when they are older. Thus, anything you might establish to stop someone who volunarily placed their adopted child into a new family would also bar birthmothers whose life circumstances change later.

Usually the purpose of fostercare convicting the adoptive parents of child abandonment is specifically to bar them from future adoptions. It's extremely rare tha an adoptive family that surrenders their child to fostercare ever serves anything beyond probation. However, that child abandonment conviction will mark any criminl record check and most of the time will prevent them from having ANY future adoptions.

For shady, independent rehoming, no. There's nothing to stop those families from adopting again most of the time. It's likely that if they disclose the disruption that any future homestudy agency would require a full accounting and would need to feel assured that history would not repeat itself. However, without a legal record of what occurred, it's quite easy for a family to omit the information entirely.

Once a child is legally adopted, the parents have all the legal rights as a parent whose child was born to them. It's an important part of the legal process. However, it also allows adoptive parents the right to let their children live out of their home, to move them across state lines, and to even terminate their parental rights and allow someone else to adopt that child.

FWIW, I think it's insane the numbers of families that adopt large groups of unrelated children at once or who adopt in rapid succession. I have never worked with an agency that would even allow that insanity. ONE of the agencies we worked with would allow 2 non-biologically related children to be adopted together. The others only allowed siblings groups to be adopted together. All of them also required at least 6 months between adding children to the home, either by birth or adoption. At least two agencies we've worked with required a full year between placements. There are reasons for those guidelines. The more kids you adopt at once, especially non-biologically related children, and the closer you bring them home the higher the risk of the adoption failing. It can be absolute insanity to bring ONE special needs child (or sibling group) into the home. It's untenable most of the time to bring more in at once or even rapid succession. I've seen a couple of mega-families adding 3-8 children every year for multiple years. That should NOT be permitted. It's just a disaster waiting to happen, imo.

[dairyfreelife]

I was thinking more about this and I think this woman ought to learn from some other bloggers who have adopted internationally, including special needs children and dealing with RAD.

smilesandtrials.blogspot.com

myspecialks.com

casselcrew.blogspot.com

Christine and John Reed have adopted 11 children, 5 of whom have special needs, 3 who were older (7 and up) and 3 who came into their family after being disrupted from their previous family. I believe one of the first daughters they adopted, they knew she had some delays, but didn't realize until later that she had FAS.

Frank and Renee Garcia adopted a daughter with Downs Syndrome and she has had some other issues since they brought her home. She has RAD and they have been doing their best to find the best situation for their daughter.

Rick and Kathy Cassel have adopted 5 children and one son has been through some serious issues with RAD.

Point? None of these families are just giving up because things weren't as "planned" or because more issues came up than they had thought. When faced with serious problems, they are doing their best for that child and their family.

[Mama Mia]

That "adoption through disruption" site was one of the saddest things I've seen. Most of those children are described as basically 'normal' children, who just aren't fitting in with the family dynamic, or are too needy - most aren't even described as violent or particularly challenging ! I understand they might be trying to minimize the issues to increase the chances of their being placed .. but still, I can't imagine how they can just be dumped so easily. Horrific.

[BelieveinScience]

I was thinking more about this and I think this woman ought to learn from some other bloggers who have adopted internationally, including special needs children and dealing with RAD.

smilesandtrials.blogspot.com

myspecialks.com

casselcrew.blogspot.com

Christine and John Reed have adopted 11 children, 5 of whom have special needs, 3 who were older (7 and up) and 3 who came into their family after being disrupted from their previous family. I believe one of the first daughters they adopted, they knew she had some delays, but didn't realize until later that she had FAS.

Frank and Renee Garcia adopted a daughter with Downs Syndrome and she has had some other issues since they brought her home. She has RAD and they have been doing their best to find the best situation for their daughter.

Rick and Kathy Cassel have adopted 5 children and one son has been through some serious issues with RAD.

Point? None of these families are just giving up because things weren't as "planned" or because more issues came up than they had thought. When faced with serious problems, they are doing their best for that child and their family.

Renee is not the best example to be using........

[Carla Bruni]

I don't understand these hoarding mums! CB, that was a terrifying journey through a mindset there. "I have eleventy hundred kids but I want more". :shock:

Seriously, a person has 9 kids but wants 12? That is just kid-collecting. If you have a big family, NP, but those people just seem to want more and more - for the status or something.

For real. You'll note they got all excited on that forum when someone said that a sibling group counts as 1 unit of child, so now they can basically specifically seek out sibling groups to up their count while staying within limits. I thought you were supposed to adopt specific kids you fell in love with, not look for ways to game the system and get as many as you could? They're so fucked up.

[veron1que]

For real. You'll note they got all excited on that forum when someone said that a sibling group counts as 1 unit of child, so now they can basically specifically seek out sibling groups to up their count while staying within limits. I thought you were supposed to adopt specific kids you fell in love with, not look for ways to game the system and get as many as you could? They're so fucked up.

That's disturbing and such an unfortunate abuse of the system. The 1 unit of child thing is supposed to be so that the size of a sibling group doesn't hinder their placement due to legalities, not so child-collectors can maximize their number.

[Dysfundamental]

As usual, when these adoption stories come up, I wonder, are US adoption laws really that lax?

Adoption laws in the US are set by each state. Most states have quite strict adoption laws. We were just visiting some friends and their adorable little son, who is adopted. It took them years to go through the process!

International adoptions are not regulated at the national level in any way, and not every state has regulations in place for overseeing international adoptions.

One of the reasons fundie baby hoarders do international adoption, IMO, is because of the lack of regulation.

[SunnyAndrsn]

Oh my god. I should not have read through all that this morning, because now I'm just angry and sad. I had to side-eye so much in those summaries. I hope all these kiddos find good homes with parents who will love and advocate for them.

What's the common theme for all of these children? ADOPTIVE HOME FAILURE related to stupidity. Both the agencies and the adoptive homes are guilty of stupidity. What social worker in their right mind would place multiple adoptive children from a foreign country at the same time in a home with lots of other kids? Can we say recipe for disaster?

We all know what the adoptive homes were thinking--adopt a special snowflake so we earn that special place in heaven.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. Aren't the agencies and social workers supposed to educated families and let them know how wrong and stupid it is to adopt this way?

I wish we were in a position to adopt again after reading these. We have experience with parenting children with a variety of mental health issues, and our son was diagnosed with RAD when he was placed with us at age 11. I just realized that was over 10 years ago--wow time flies!