Once again, this adoptive mom is pissing me off.

[JesusFightClub]

chaotic life, I just want to say you've been an inspiration to me, and I thank you.

[rollmeover]

chaotic life, I just want to say you've been an inspiration to me, and I thank you.

Wholeheartedly agree. I've been so moved by your blog and the awesome love you embody as a mother.

[Carla Bruni]

Re: the Somewhere Behind the Morning woman, does anyone else find it majorly creepy that in her sidebar, she has pictures of her kids under pictures of their dogs and a heading that reads "DON'T BUY PETS- ADOPT THEM! THEY'LL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL!"? WTF, seriously. She doesn't deserve to have children.

P.S. Also, the fixation on Viktor "not looking like" he was described to them is absolutely disgusting. It's absolutely transparent that they just wanted extra special super cute kids all along (the Ethiopian kids happened to fit the bill), and reality was too great of a disappointment. UGH.

[Guest Anonymous]

Re: the Somewhere Behind the Morning woman, does anyone else find it majorly creepy that in her sidebar, she has pictures of her kids under pictures of their dogs and a heading that reads "DON'T BUY PETS- ADOPT THEM! THEY'LL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL!"? WTF, seriously. She doesn't deserve to have children.

P.S. Also, the fixation on Viktor "not looking like" he was described to them is absolutely disgusting. It's absolutely transparent that they just wanted extra special super cute kids all along (the Ethiopian kids happened to fit the bill), and reality was too great of a disappointment. UGH.

Yes, so much WTF on that site, but both those things do stand out. :?

[notablesquid]

How very pro-life of these people to discard children who don't meet their expectations/desires.

It's like a post-adoption 'abortion' to scrub a kid out of their lives.

[Sinister Rouge]

Wholeheartedly agree. I've been so moved by your blog and the awesome love you embody as a mother.

Myself as well. Thank you.

[Dysfundamental]

Chiming in on the chaotic life love.

[dpndetfarm]

How very pro-life of these people to discard children who don't meet their expectations/desires.

It's like a post-adoption 'abortion' to scrub a kid out of their lives.

This is just what I was thinking. Isn't this the same thing as aborting after finding your fetus has a health issue etc. before birth? Of course in my opinion if abortion is bad "disruption" is 100X worse! Actually I think abortion is fine. Disruption is disgusting. If it's not OK to do to a bio child, it's not OK to do with an adopted child.

[jesssnerch]

I also get the feeling that Somewhere Behind the Morning lady was really upset that Victor was attached to other people. "He hugged me goodbye, but kissed his teacher on the lips." Or "He cried while leaving Grandma's rather than the daughter who cries going to Grandma's." Her jealousy is weird.

Also, chaotic life, you're the type of person I wish I was.

[chaotic life]

I would guess that Victor was in fact suffering RAD by the time he was re-homed. The problem with diagnosing a child with RAD if you do no understand well is the reality that almost always RAD is a DYIAD. It takes a dysfunctional primary bond to create RAD. A child abandoned and traumatized will NEVER attach to the primary caregiver who abandons them and leaves them to be traumatized, and in this case nearly die.

The other thing about RAD is the FIRST RULE of adopting anything but a healthy newborn (it's a rule there but not as often has to be employed because infants are biologically easier to attach to in the first place). The first rule of adoption is FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT.

My son did not finally attach to me until this year. As he began to die, he reached out for me and finally truly accepted me as his mother. That did not mean that there was ever any clue to an outsider of that disordered attachment prior to that point. For all of the years he was not attached to me and I knew I was at risk to not attach to him because of that I ACTED with love and attachment at all costs. Is it easy to remain loving and connected to a child who is not attached to you and never reciprocates? No. However, FAS is NOT the only thing that causes attachment disorder. Medical needs children are at higher risk to have attachment issues in the first place. They have a LOT going on, and when you are first "mom" the medical community does not necessarily give you the authority and respect of really being MOM. I've heard it's similiar with NICU babies, but it's definitely the case when you have medical needs that cannot wait until you have gotten to know your child before you must undergo medical care.

This woman KNEW this child had Spina bifida before she adopted him. She had no business expecting a perfect child who would instantly love her. She was a stranger who wasn't safe. The control, the resentment for his medical issues, her anger that he was not what he was portrayed to be (welcome to the world of adoption idiiot) is absolutely sickening. Victor is precisely what you would have expected him to be for the circumstances he was in, to set him UP for control battles and to leave him alone to face the big, wide medical community alone is reprehensible.

The reality is that a new home is probably the only thing that was going to help Victor at this point. I just take serious issue with the focus on blaming Victor and not accepting that there is something severely messed up with herself and what SHE DID TO THAT CHILD.

[Rachel333]

I just read through this entire thread. I don't understand how people can contemplate disruption so quickly, though it doesn't surprise me because I've seen some families I know consider doing the same thing. Biological children can be pretty messed up, too, yet I think most people would be horrified if someone decided to give their six-year-old away because they couldn't deal with his issues (that's what shocked me about that disrupted adoptions page--poor Lucas was adopted at 18 months and now at age 6 they decide they don't want him anymore?).

I couldn't imagine even doing that with pets--it would take something really serious and I would not take it lightly at all. My grandparents went through 3 or 4 pets that they adopted and then a year or two gave away because they moved and didn't want to move the pet or because the pet was a little too active for their tastes. We were all horrified and wanted them to stop adopting animals if they were just going to give them away later, and that's just animals. I can't believe some people treat children like that.

[Sarietty]

It was me who said Renee wasn't a good example. Her blog isn't reality. She won't officially disrupt Kellsey because of "image" reasons. Read between the lines on her blog.

ETA: Renee isn't alone in trying to keep the "image" thing when it comes to adopted kids. Its a lot more common than one would think.

I read Renee's blog for quite some time, and read through the archives after she was mentioned here. I agree with your assessment, though I do feel that Renee's is another situation in which international adoption probably wasn't advisable. I grew up in a military family, and multiple moves can be very stressful for everyone involved. On top of that, her husband is frequently deployed for long periods of time, and one of the children is a cancer survivor who is regularly monitored for relapse. Renee seems like an excellent mother to her biological children, and one thing I like about her is the time she takes to respond to the needs of each child. But I'm really not sure why she thought that a toddler with Down's syndrome who had been cared for in a group setting (Renee made a point of describing Kellsey's Ukranian living conditions as a "baby home," not an orphanage, but it was still an institution) would easily adapt to a home with four biological children and a husband who is frequently out of the country and potentially in danger.

I feel like Renee is a role model to a lot of people, for better or or worse, and she hasn't been honest about the reality of parenting Kellsey. Though Kellsey is living with Renee's mother, there's little mention of how she's doing, and an overall sense of relief that she's no longer in the home. It also seems like Renee sees it as Kellsey's problem that Kellsey needed a significant amount of individual attention. I think that's what bothers me the most about adoption disruptions. The adoptive parents never admit that they were in over their heads, or that they are incapable of parenting a child because of their own limitations. It's always, "something is wrong with the child."

Also, I couldn't imagine circumstances in which my mother would step in and parent one of my children, unless I were extremely sick or dead. She would tell me, "you chose to parent that baby, and she's your responsibility. Not mine." Renee's mother might be a wonderful person, but I worry about somebody parenting a special needs child day-to-day when she's in her sixties and didn't intend to expand her family. If the mother feels too overwhelmed and exhausted to carry on, what happens to Kellsey? And how is Kellsey emotionally affected?

[Lillybee]

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that many of these adoptive parents underestimate the language barrier. It seems that some of them expect their adoptive children to understand English immediately and if they do not, the children are called rebellious. Poor Lydia Schatz was murdered because she couldn't pronounce the word pulled.

[valsa]

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that many of these adoptive parents underestimate the language barrier. It seems that some of them expect their adoptive children to understand English immediately and if they do not, the children are called rebellious. Poor Lydia Schatz was murdered because she couldn't pronounce the word pulled.

I get really pissed off when people adopt internationally and don't even try to learn some of the language of their child's country of origin. Yes, I know some of the countries have languages that are harder to learn or are more difficult to get resources to learn but adoptive parents are the fucking adults! Forcing children to give up the only homes they know, their friends, their country, their foods, their habits, their language and not even bothering to make the transition easier by learning at least a few key words the child can understand first? Fuck that.

The mispronunciation thing breaks my heart. I've spoken English all my life and I still don't pronounce some words right (for instance, I always pronounce "treadmill" as "treadmeal" and make similar mistakes)

[chaotic life]

IME, Fundies give NO credence to ESOL struggles. My oldest has been home for nearly a decade and is finally in his final year of ESOL accomodations with the school system, after first homeschooling until 7th grade to help with the WORST of his ESOL struggles without him having to feel stupid in a school environment. He's an Honor Roll student yet still has me edit all of his papers because he KNOWS he will have mispelled words that the spell check doesn't catch in those papers.

Another of my sons has been home 7.5 years and just entered the school system this year. I had to negotiate and be very firm with the school system that he DOES have ESOL issues. His oral fluency is nearly that of a native speaker but his academic English is NOT anywhere close to that. It's close enough that he was ready to work on his issues at school instead of homeschooling. He honestly could have used one more year but after losing a child I was at the end of my limit this year and needed to turn him over a tad earlier than ready to an excellent school system. This child is still under forml ESOL accomodations at school for several more years.

My newest child spent four years in a fundie homeschooling home that doesn't believe in ESOL struggles. Afterall, since English was the official language of his birth country, he cannot possibly have ESOL struggles. Except, he didn't speak English before coming to America four years ago. He was fully fluent in his native TRIBAL language, couldn't even communicate well in the orphanage that used a different tribal language. He made NO progress on his ESOL struggles in the four years he had been in the US because of their absolue ignorance on ESOL issues.

I have never met a fundie adoptive family that understood the ESOL component of international adoptions. I've seen a lot of mainstream homeschooling families struggle or completely fail to realize the impact language plays in adjustment. The problem is that within 6-12 months an international adoptee will SOUND like they are fluent in English when fully submerged in the language. However, they actually have a LOT of tricks to mask what they do not understand, even with their own family. They will still have issues with vocabulary. Then, when you switch from oral to academic language, it's as if they don't know ANY English because academic fluency comes MUCH later than oral fluency. Even when you get academic fluency, or it appears you do, the last things to come are writing fluency and MATH fluency.

My younger son had been home five years and I discovered he didn't have a clue what a dimple was. His baby sister had two dimples. However, she also has two moles on her chin. One day she was telling me about her two dimples and pointing to her moles. I asked her why she was pointing to her moles and talking about her dimples and she informed me this brother told her that was her two dimples. He had NO clue what dimples were. I could have gotten angry, assumed he was being obtuse and punished him for confusing his sister. Or, I could do what I did. I laughed, explained to him what dimples were and suggested that instead of context clues, if he is confused by a word to ask me. I did the same thing last night when my newest son (home this year after four years in fundie isolation where they refused to work with him on language at all) asked me for the TOE CRACKERS last night. Took me a few minutes to ferret out that he wasn't trying to crack his toes open but merely wanted to clip his toenails with the toenail clippers.

I still tell teachers and coaches that if they want to be certain my boys understand, then require they repeat back what you just said in their own paraphrase NOT verbatim. You'll figure out exactly what they processed and then it's a matter of using synonyms, pidgeon and defintions to walk them through comprehension. I often have better luck teaching educators and coaches than I do when I am doing peer support with fundie families. They don't want to hear it, and they don't believe it because they see oral fluency and assume everything else is either low IQ, learning disabilities or deliberate defiance.

[chaotic life]

It's not just the language though. It's the food, the sights, the sounds and the SMELLS. Latin America, where I spent my earliest years, still SMELLS more familiar than the US to me. The minute I step off an airplane, I feel like I'm home because of the smells and the sounds that accost me. I can only imagine what it feels like to my two sons who were older and have cognitive memories of their homelands. My oldest says what he still misses the most is the monkeys that used to swing from the trees. There is a LOT to change and it simply takes a LONG time for international adoptees to adjust to everything around them. They acclimate, but part of their heart and soul always remains in their homelands, especially when they have memories of those homelands. You cannot ask them to forget. You have to learn to integrate all of who they are into the fabric of the family at large.

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.

[Peas n carrots]

I get really pissed off when people adopt internationally and don't even try to learn some of the language of their child's country of origin. Yes, I know some of the countries have languages that are harder to learn or are more difficult to get resources to learn but adoptive parents are the fucking adults! Forcing children to give up the only homes they know, their friends, their country, their foods, their habits, their language and not even bothering to make the transition easier by learning at least a few key words the child can understand first? Fuck that.

The mispronunciation thing breaks my heart. I've spoken English all my life and I still don't pronounce some words right (for instance, I always pronounce "treadmill" as "treadmeal" and make similar mistakes)

This grinds my gears too. I would imagine it would make the parents lives easier too understanding some of the language and culture. If the child does something wrong/inappropriate, having that kind of background could give the parents context as to why their child may have done it. To me it feels like fundies want to no have those tools so they have an excuse mete out corporal punishment. American culture is superior to them, and the native culture of thr child is inherently inferior and must be beat out of them....no reason to learn anything about it!

[SquirrelySquirrel]

Myself as well. Thank you.

Ditto that!

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

Completely o/t, but are you by chance a reader of Diana Gabaldon? :mrgreen: Her novels are the only place I've ever seen Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ used.

[Katiebug]

I have to say, I was pleased to read that my state (CT) is one in which those "direct consent" adoptions - basically a private re-adoption of a "disrupted" child - are illegal.

There are situations when a minor child - biological or adopted - cannot be allowed to remain in the family home for safety reasons. There is a need for residential placement so that the child can be helped and other family members are protected (i.e. if the child is abusive or violent towards siblings or parents). However, most parents of biological children in this circumstance don't terminate parental rights unless it's the ONLY way the child can get the care they need. I feel adoptive parents should be held to the same standard.

This is what happens when people go into adoption thinking it's all lovely and roses and that of course the kid they adopt won't have RAD or developmental or health issues related to their lives so far. It's so unrealistic and it seems like a lot of agencies only care about taking money and churning out placements, rather than ensuring that potential adoptive families know what they might be getting into. You can't adopt a kid thinking you're going to "save" them.

[JesusFightClub]

It's funny, as I've said here before, my IQ is low indeed (it's 82 for the interested). Low IQ, I reckon, should not be a reason for judging ESOL students. I'm not ESOL (though Scots is what I think in so maybe I am :lol: )

I don't get at all how low IQ in an ESL student can even be judged. They won't understand the test. It's a bastard even if your English is fluent.

[2xx1xy1JD]

It's funny, as I've said here before, my IQ is low indeed (it's 82 for the interested). Low IQ, I reckon, should not be a reason for judging ESOL students. I'm not ESOL (though Scots is what I think in so maybe I am :lol: )

I don't get at all how low IQ in an ESL student can even be judged. They won't understand the test. It's a bastard even if your English is fluent.

JFC, I've said this before, but before you tell us again that your IQ is low, PLEASE get properly tested and a decent interpretation of the results (especially if you are thinking about going back to school and/or doing a career change). A global IQ score is really quite meaningless. It's pretty obvious to me and others that you are at least average, if not above average, in language skills and writing, but you likely have a deficit when it comes to math-related skills, along with a wee bit of social perception problems (you mentioned doing technical gun analysis as a Facebook status after the Colorado shootings). Many of us are like that, but in some cases the discrepancy is more pronounced. My hubby, for example, can diagnose and manage complicated multi-systemic diseases - but he cannot assemble IKEA furniture, unclog a toilet or even figure out how to properly load a dishwasher, because he has problems with visual-spatial skills. He STILL talks about the guidance counselor who told his mum that medicine might not be a realistic career for him after he nearly flunked math one year, when the curriculum happened to be largely geometry-based. There are ways to work around deficits (my sister, who has learning disabilities, simply learned to use a calculator and write on a computer with a spell check to compensate for bad math and spelling) and find a way to build on strengths instead.

[VVV]

JFC, I've said this before, but before you tell us again that your IQ is low, PLEASE get properly tested and a decent interpretation of the results (especially if you are thinking about going back to school and/or doing a career change). A global IQ score is really quite meaningless. It's pretty obvious to me and others that you are at least average, if not above average, in language skills and writing, but you likely have a deficit when it comes to math-related skills, along with a wee bit of social perception problems (you mentioned doing technical gun analysis as a Facebook status after the Colorado shootings). Many of us are like that, but in some cases the discrepancy is more pronounced. My hubby, for example, can diagnose and manage complicated multi-systemic diseases - but he cannot assemble IKEA furniture, unclog a toilet or even figure out how to properly load a dishwasher, because he has problems with visual-spatial skills. He STILL talks about the guidance counselor who told his mum that medicine might not be a realistic career for him after he nearly flunked math one year, when the curriculum happened to be largely geometry-based. There are ways to work around deficits (my sister, who has learning disabilities, simply learned to use a calculator and write on a computer with a spell check to compensate for bad math and spelling) and find a way to build on strengths instead.

QFT. It is obvious to everyone on FJ except, apparently, to you (JFC), that you are very far from being of low intelligence. Possible learning disabilities, social disabilities, or specific deficits do NOT mean you are low-IQ. They mean you haven't taken the right test.

C.S. Lewis would never have gotten into Oxford if he hadn't been exempted from the entrance exams by virtue of his WWI military service...he couldn't have passed the math part.

[Guest Anonymous]

QFT. It is obvious to everyone on FJ except, apparently, to you (JFC), that you are very far from being of low intelligence. Possible learning disabilities, social disabilities, or specific deficits do NOT mean you are low-IQ. They mean you haven't taken the right test.

C.S. Lewis would never have gotten into Oxford if he hadn't been exempted from the entrance exams by virtue of his WWI military service...he couldn't have passed the math part.

I agree. You are far from low IQ JFC.

(Glaswegian should definitely qualify as ESOL, though! :P )

[amydamy]

It's not just the language though. It's the food, the sights, the sounds and the SMELLS. Latin America, where I spent my earliest years, still SMELLS more familiar than the US to me. The minute I step off an airplane, I feel like I'm home because of the smells and the sounds that accost me. I can only imagine what it feels like to my two sons who were older and have cognitive memories of their homelands. My oldest says what he still misses the most is the monkeys that used to swing from the trees. There is a LOT to change and it simply takes a LONG time for international adoptees to adjust to everything around them. They acclimate, but part of their heart and soul always remains in their homelands, especially when they have memories of those homelands. You cannot ask them to forget. You have to learn to integrate all of who they are into the fabric of the family at large.

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 get so happy when the weather is right where I live now , generally really foggy, and it smells like my grandma's city(Saint John NB) where I spent my summers. It makes me feel right.

I do think it's really odd reading these blog how they parents don't seem to learn any thing of the language and culture of where the kids are from. The some where over the morning women was in Ukraine for a month you would think they would pick up something in that time. I try to pick up key phrases for places I'm only going to for a week.

It also annoyed me that she kept saying Russian when her son was Ukrainian. They are different things. My grandpa was Ukrainian and nothing annoyed him more than when people assumed he was Russian.

[rollmeover]

The first US international adoption blog I read was a woman who had a whole big bunch of biological kids and went to Liberia to snag herself a couple of black teenagers. Well, I say she went, but in fact the kids were flown to the USA with an escort, leaving their biological families behind. Instantly on arrival, the boys were no longer allowed to speak their own language, no longer allowed to eat foods they were used to, were given new names and forbidden to use their old ones, and one "son" became outwardly compliant and the other would not give in, and his "rebellion" was affecting the "good son" so he was sent away - he lost his original biological family and he lost his biological brother in America. They were fundies of some sort.

I read another blog now, with a fairly large family who went and adopted two older boys (again I think it was from Liberia and I believe they were biological brothers) even though they had a kid with a special needs and a toddler in the mix, and the mom was either pregnant or had a new born - and again, one son became "good" and the other was shipped off. And this mom has written that she doesn't feel the same about the adopted son but she is fond of him, while lavishing so much obvious adoration on her birth kids, especially the youngest ones. I don't get why people are so sure that they can cope even with existing large families and a single income and babies and toddlers in the home, and kids with existing special needs, and one parent working long hours to support the family and no real knowledge of attachment and trauma - well I do get it: they think they will be supernaturally enabled to cope because it seems like a lovely thing to give a kid a home and material advantages, let alone the soul saving part.