Child Collectors Extraordinaire

[Ramona]

Kids are going to keep dying if people just stick to the "help this child, right here, right now, even if it means sending them to be abused in America" mentality.

Just for clarity (because it looks like you're using my specific words in the quotes but adding to them?): I've never said that an abusive home was okay. In fact, I specifically stated that I do NOT support those Pearl folks and all that crap. Most Christian families that I knew over the years didn't - many here don't even know who they are. I think they're more popular with a specific subgroup in the states or something..

[Ramona]

I don't know how to do the link thingy :) but I got lost this morning after following the topic earlier in this thread and ended up in the Katie story parts for over an hour. She's terrifying because unlike so many people written about here she's passing as normal in the daily world. Only an insane person would think with a house falling down around them and the stacked boys beds they need two high needs kids that will be so easy based on 6 months of experience.

The Blessing of Verity

Is this connected to the blogs that I found earlier and posted? I'm not sure who is who and what is what.. but "Katie" is the name of the little girl in some of the Pleven Orphanage stories that I found.. (I'd never heard of the place or the stories until someone said to google it yesterday) ...

[formergothardite]

I know you didn't but it others did. Do you not see how sticking with the mindset that let's help this one child right here right now doesn't really do a whole lot of good to change the situation that hurts these children?

It seemed like you were saying just based on your feelings after looking at those pictures you want to go with the "save this child right here, right now" instead of working to change the system. I could have been reading this wrong, thoug.

"This is the sort of thing that has me saying "help this child, right here, right now" versus the whole 'working to change the social whatevers' in other countries... yes, the latter is needed - but kids are dying."

Children are going to keep dying and suffering by the thousands if people take this mentality. And if people take the mentality that it doesn't matter that they will get beaten and abused when they get here, that isn't helping these children at all, it just hurts them and can move them from dying in one country of abuse and neglect to dying of abuse and neglect here.

[August]

Formergothardite, my understanding of her post was that it's a human impulse/instinct to find 'saving' an individual more compelling and immediate than working for social and institutional change. That's why child-shopping websites exist.

[August]

I don't know how to do the link thingy :) but I got lost this morning after following the topic earlier in this thread and ended up in the Katie story parts for over an hour. She's terrifying because unlike so many people written about here she's passing as normal in the daily world. Only an insane person would think with a house falling down around them and the stacked boys beds they need two high needs kids that will be so easy based on 6 months of experience.

The Blessing of Verity

Yes, it's only by the repeated use of the word training that you can infer Pearl-ness. But I would disagree that she's passing for mainstream. She posts a LOT about how the devil is out to get her. Once the devil broke her stove to try and stop Katie's adoption.

[Emme]

But your premise seems to be that it's an either/or situation. I'm not convinces that the only 2 choices are fundamentalist adoption or horrific orphanage conditions.

I would also point out that neither China or Russia are impoverished countries who lack the financial resources to care for orphaned children. Those conditions exist because of deliberate social policy and spending choices by the governments of those respective countries. It would seem to me that internal and external pressure to change those priorities would be more effective in helping a larger number of children than selective child hoarding by western fundamentalist Christians.

Russia doesn't really care about its orphans, especially those with special needs. Obviously there are a few "good" orphanages, but they are outnumbered by the bad ones. In the same area of Russia, there can be a babyhouse run by someoen who cares, and one that is called a hell hole. The population of street kids who have aged out of orphanages is very high. At age 16 they're basically put out. Many turn to drugs, prostitution or crime. There's also a high incidence of suicide. A lot of times these kids were born with HIV, so they carry a stigma that prevents them from getting jobs, even if they wanted to! Those with special needs have it worse, because they're in institutions where most of the staff is not nice and don't have the time or energy to care for these kids. We're talking 1 diaper change a day, food shoveled down their throats, no human contact. The money part isn't what's holding them back, it's that they see these kids as worthless, which is why so many are abandoned in the first place. There are stories of fathers telling mothers the kids have died, rather than raise a child with special needs. The nannies for some of the kids with HIV won't even hold their hands or snuggle them. It's not a money thing, it's a heart thing.

and yes, Plevin SUCKS. The old director was replaced, but the govt found "no wrongdoing" and she was reinstated. They were feeding the kids out of old beer bottles. Unfathomable.

[Emme]

Formergothardite, my understanding of her post was that it's a human impulse/instinct to find 'saving' an individual more compelling and immediate than working for social and institutional change. That's why child-shopping websites exist.

Some of the blogs that have been linked to do both. I know a lot of moms who go, adopt a child, and then do what they can to make the orphanage a better place by helping with supplies, therapy toys, etc, like the sponsor a baba program at Plevin which gives kids one on one attention. Reece's Rainbow has done a lot to connect with parents who do want to keep their children, so has the only1mom blog (she works with RR). Plus a lot of families send photos back to show how well kids are doing. There is definitely an effort to counteract the archaic ideas about kids with special needs, but it takes time and is hard to do when people on the street avoid you because you are walking with a child with a disability.

[library_youth]

I've followed the Blessing of Verity blog for a little over a year. A little bit more background: They have 10 biological kids. Their youngest was born with Down syndrome. The mother (Susanna) came across a clip from the Today show about the horrible conditions in Eastern European orphanages, and it got her started thinking about adoption. They adopted a nine-year-old with Down syndrome from the Pleven orphanage and they've had her for a little over a year now.

A few months ago, they announced on the blog that they were adopting another child, this time a boy, who has cerebral palsy and is almost sixteen years old. According to their most recent post, Susanna is now at the orphanage for the preliminary visit with the boy. The second visit will be the one where they pick him up and take him home.

Also, Susanna is pregnant right now.

Edited for typos.

[dairyfreelife]

Fuck sake. The Verity bloggers use Pearl techniques? I endorsed them on a previous thread. Where do they talk about Pearl discipline? I don't want to believe.

I looked through the blog a bit, but I don't see anything about the Pearl techniques. Where do they endorse the Pearl methods?

[Patsy]

I looked through the blog a bit, but I don't see anything about the Pearl techniques. Where do they endorse the Pearl methods?

August followed up with

it's only by the repeated use of the word training that you can infer Pearl-ness

[meda]

Russia doesn't really care about its orphans, especially those with special needs. Obviously there are a few "good" orphanages, but they are outnumbered by the bad ones. In the same area of Russia, there can be a babyhouse run by someoen who cares, and one that is called a hell hole. The population of street kids who have aged out of orphanages is very high. At age 16 they're basically put out. Many turn to drugs, prostitution or crime. There's also a high incidence of suicide. A lot of times these kids were born with HIV, so they carry a stigma that prevents them from getting jobs, even if they wanted to! Those with special needs have it worse, because they're in institutions where most of the staff is not nice and don't have the time or energy to care for these kids. We're talking 1 diaper change a day, food shoveled down their throats, no human contact. The money part isn't what's holding them back, it's that they see these kids as worthless, which is why so many are abandoned in the first place. There are stories of fathers telling mothers the kids have died, rather than raise a child with special needs. The nannies for some of the kids with HIV won't even hold their hands or snuggle them. It's not a money thing, it's a heart thing.

and yes, Plevin SUCKS. The old director was replaced, but the govt found "no wrongdoing" and she was reinstated. They were feeding the kids out of old beer bottles. Unfathomable.

But again, in the not so distant past in America, physically and mentally disabled children were warehoused in institutions that were often substandard and abusive. Doctors encouraged parents to surrender handicapped children to the state at birth. Infants with disabilities had food withheld in hospital nurseries until they died. Such children were not valued or cared for in many cases. The conditions you describe are not unique to Russia, they were considered acceptable medical care here and in other Western countries up until the mid 1970's.

What changed those things was sustained activism that led to the exposure of such conditions, changes to standards of care, statutory requirements to educate such children, as well as a huge influx of cash into the system to make such changes possible. The solution was not for activists to assume that the situation was hopeless and start a religious crusade to adopt a small percentage of American children while leaving most others to their fates. Wholescale, systemic change happened.

Russia is not Somalia. They are a first world country with a lot of influence in international affairs, vast natural resources, educated professionals, and the ability to provide first rate medical to its citizens if it had the desire to do so. Instead, the country has a regressive flat 13% income tax, a public/private health care and insurance system even more dysfunctional than the US's, and rampant corruption in the orphanage and adoption industries. Those things exist as a result of deliberate policy choices, not civil war, famine or invasion. They should be changes by deliberate policy choices.

[chaotic life]

Okay, say we all agree that it is okay to scoop up the children and bring them to American homes, no matter how good their care and future in those homes is because it's better than the orphanage where they were.

Except......

Chronically malnourished children cannot be restored to what they would have been originally. They cannot even be quickly fattened up. If you take a child so starved that they failed to grow and rapidly feed them you will KILL them. If you take them off the sedatives they have been fed their entire lives cold turkey, again it will kill them.

Even when hey survive all that you try to reverse from their neglect, you don't have a normal child. You have a child who needs intensive therapy and who will need those therapies and services for the rest of their lives. They will suffer from institutional autism, profound autism. Like other ferral children, they will never develop full language and communication skills.

I raised and buried a child from the US fostercare system who suffered instituational neglect to the point of causing severe Autism right here in the US. He was dumped in Children's hospitals from the day after he was born for most of his formative years because it was the easier thing to do. He NEVER recovered.

I loved that little boy. I fought tooth and nail for him AND I gave him more lifespan than he would have EVER endured under the neglect he suffered. Even today, I am stunned some days to see my normal, healthy 3 year old wore the clothes that son came home in because he was SO malnourished.

My son has therapies that were exhausting, medical treatments that literally took HOURS out of every day. He was violent and we had to work closely with his Psych to control his violent tendencies. In fact, it took an entire family with seven siblings, two parents AND a support system of special ed teachers and therapists to give that child quality of life.

I did it, and I did it WELL.

Could I do that for ten children like him??? NO ONE CAN. Plain and simple, no one can provide that level of care to so many children. It's categorically IMPOSSIBLE to do so.

So....we just rescued the poor neglected and starving orphanages because we arrogantly decided their own countrymen felt they had no worth or value and we placed them into homes that we set up for failure because they cannot possibly provide for the numbers they are rescuing.

Now, we have news reports of families whom the authorities discover have starving children in the US. The birth countries of these children SEE the news. They are not stupid. They know when their children in the US are neglected, abandoned and even killed here. Instead of rescuing children, we just set up the situation to justify acts such as Russia's complete block on adoptions.

Instead of helping children, because we were overeager and didn't do it ethically and within the bounds that would allow for a proper and full change for those most desperately needing to be adopted to the US, and working to change the circumstances for the rest, we rescued the handful that pulled on our heartstrings and left thousands more like them to die without hope, without the option for those most in need of adoption to get it, and without making lasting policy changes to stop more children from suffering as these suffered.

We didn't really HELP. Yes, we got OUR little collection but we didn't give any consideration for all of the other children left behind and THEIR need to have changes mades in their lives as well. It's myopic and selfish to simply collect children and not see the BIG picture. It turns children into commodities and places "facilitators" on the street corner of Russia waiting for the American family to give them $20K in crisp, new American bills to ransom the child that pulled at their heartstring, whether her story is true and her need is real or NOT. It turns adoption into a business and not a humanity action. It shuts down countries, leaves more children devestated and does NOT really help.

[dairyfreelife]

August followed up with

Then how does that prove they are Pearlites? The use of the word train doesn't make them Pearl followers. I know lots of Christians who use the term train because of the Proverb. Based on the original info about the family, it sounded like the parents admitted they beat their children all the time like the Kruegers. I really could not even find anything related to spanking, let alone even worse tactics of the Pearls, on this blog. In fact they seem to embrace their opinionated two-year-old. Maybe I am missing something that August seems to see...

[Patsy]

Then how does that prove they are Pearlites? The use of the word train doesn't make them Pearl followers. I know lots of Christians who use the term train because of the Proverb. Based on the original info about the family, it sounded like the parents admitted they beat their children all the time like the Kruegers. I really could not even find anything related to spanking, let alone even worse tactics of the Pearls, on this blog. In fact they seem to embrace their opinionated two-year-old. Maybe I am missing something that August seems to see...

It doesn't really seem to, to me, but as I say, I don't want to believe.

[wtfrenchtoast]

In this particular adoption it's down to the line whether they will get their adoption through before he ages out, and he's been on a child-shopping website for a long time - years, IIRC. There is no one else, it's this or an adult mental institution.

Yes, the parents are abusive and he'll be beaten. But. He'll have human interaction, he'll have adequate amounts of solid food. He'll get physical therapy, and speech therapy. People will speak to him and smile at him. At the moment he's probably not getting more interaction than a minute twice a day to suck down his bottle. That was the situation with the nine year old they last adopted. And I think beatings interspersed with smiles and talking and food and physical therapy to loosen his joints up is better than that.

...are you serious? Like, for real?

[Guest Anonymous]

August's posts on several threads have pinged my troll-dar.

[longskirtlotsakids]

The family with Pintabians and something like 21 children has me in disbelief. Raising that many kids is expensive, but to be breeding and showing horses on top of it is amazing. I am in awe, and jealous, that they can swing that financially.

[SoybeanQueen]

The idea of "rescuing" one child at a time has added up to a huge problem in China. One at a time multiplied by thousands means there's significant demand for Chinese babies to come to the U.S. The Chinese government, upon learning that a family has more than their allotment of kids, can either ask the family to pay the (small by Western standards) fine, or they can take the extra kids and make thousands of dollars by essentially selling the kids to foreigners. Which do you think they'll choose?

[August]

August's posts on several threads have pinged my troll-dar.

Which ones? I'm not trolling, but If I disagree with the consensus I'm not one to just go along with things, I'll openly disagree.

And I am posting a lot because I joined to bitch about something in a fundie blog, but I want to do it in its own thread. I've been lurking here for years.

[Guest Anonymous]

Which ones? I'm not trolling, but If I disagree with the consensus I'm not one to just go along with things, I'll openly disagree.

And I am posting a lot because I joined to bitch about something in a fundie blog, but I want to do it in its own thread. I've been lurking here for years.

Your posts in the sparkling adventures thread pinged most loudly. Firstly, handslapping the comments, while at the same time admitting you hadn't even read the thread or the blog in question, followed by repeated updates that you were then in the process of reading the blog, followed by posts suggesting why you might expect to be flamed by what you were going to say.... Open disagreement is not something new to Free Jinger, it just isn't usually accompanied by such fanfare.

If you are that desperate to have a thread opened, you could ask someone to do it for you.

[August]

The comments about that picture were uncalled for, you must admit. Yes, when I then didn't post again for a few days I thought it was a good idea to show I hadn't flounced, but was reading her blog. There weren't repeated updates, there was one, something like "I haven't run away, but this girl's been blogging for five years and it's taking a while to read it all". Do you think posting a hand slapping and then ignoring responses and disappearing would have been troll-like or un-trollike?

I want to open it myself and revel in my outrage.

[lilwriter85]

I started to look through some of the early postings from 2008 on Jean's blog. I agree with a previous poster who said that they adopt too soon after each adoption. I'm looking at the postings where they brought Sarah home and Anna had only been with them for about a year. Jean said that Anna adjusted well to Sarah early on.

[Guest Anonymous]

The comments about that picture were uncalled for, you must admit. Yes, when I then didn't post again for a few days I thought it was a good idea to show I hadn't flounced, but was reading her blog. There weren't repeated updates, there was one, something like "I haven't run away, but this girl's been blogging for five years and it's taking a while to read it all". Do you think posting a hand slapping and then ignoring responses and disappearing would have been troll-like or un-trollike?

I want to open it myself and revel in my outrage.

I don't doubt it for a second. :roll: Here endeth my part in this discussion.

[Guest Anonymous]

I started to look through some of the early postings from 2008 on Jean's blog. I agree with a previous poster who said that they adopt too soon after each adoption. I'm looking at the postings where they brought Sarah home and Anna had only been with them for about a year. Jean said that Anna adjusted well to Sarah early on.

That reminds me of the way Loralynn propped her adopted child, Miracle, up on the sofa next to the new bio-baby, as an example of how much Mira was apparently delighted to be bumped to the position of older sibling within months of being brought to the USA.

[dairyfreelife]

It doesn't really seem to, to me, but as I say, I don't want to believe.

I still can't find anything related to the Pearls or anything that even comes across as Pearl tactics.

In discussing daughter, Verity:

Is like that of any of our other children at age two. Miss Marcia, her occupational therapist, tactfully describes it this way, “She purposefully refuses to comply initially but then will try with an adult request.â€...I have her practice good manners and divert her from poor behavior as best I can. I am also very aware of the fact that she may attempt to use the “cuteness factor†to distract us from making her work hard, as I have been warned by those who have long experience educating children with special needs. I don’t ask her to do things if I’m not willing to follow through to have her do them.

Describing daughter, Katie:

For me, the hardest part is laying her down in her bed at night, turning my back, and walking away.

Not because it bothers Katie. Her days are full, and by bedtime, her eyelids are drooping, and she’s happy to hear me say it’s time for jammies. We have our bedtime routine and our snuggling time, and then she lets me know when she’s ready to stop snuggling and dive into her bed. A Bach CD is always playing as she and Verity drift contentedly off to sleep.

So it’s not that.

It’s just…well…I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable putting her down in her crib, turning my back, and walking away.

Neither of these sound anything like Pearl follower attitude or behavior. Again, maybe I am missing something...