Large Adoptive Families Thread

[DGayle]

Changing a child's name is a huge, huge pet peeve of mine. The only child whose name we changed was Micah, and that was specifically because when parental rights were terminated bio-mom stood up in court and declared she didn't care where they tried to take him, she would hunt him down and bring him back. GAL requested we change his legal name for his protection. We still intended to call him by the same name he had always had except when he learned his legal name was changed, he flat-out refused to use any name by the one we gave him. His birthname was his middle name, and we would have called him by that name if he would have allowed us to do so.

My other kids retained their birthnames. I've heard the argument that Asian names don't sound right to American tongues but I'm sorry you aren't fooling anyone. The one of my boys who has an Anglican name comes by it totally naturally--his birth mother gave him that name, not me.

Yukino, Lee, Sakura, Cho, Hulin. There are some beautiful Asian names. True, there are some that have less than desirable meanings for a name here (Dong, Wang, Gook, and Gook is a slur in parts of the US), but even if a name is changed, why not honor a child's heritage? If you've got a blanket problem with Asian names, don't adopt an Asian kid. What a fantastic way of telling them their heritage is wrong.

Your son's situation definitely means a name change was needed. That was a safety issue!

[DGayle]

China actually encourages the placement of more than one, non-related, special needs child. It's my understanding that if you adopt a special needs child from China now, you can choose to add a second special needs child and use the same paperwork.

I wasn't aware that you could do that with more than one special needs child, but it has caused a lot of simultaneous adoptions that I really think are a terrible idea. The only children that should be adopted together are biological siblings *or* children so tightly bonded with an orphanage mate that they aren't aware they are not siblings. Frankly, I'm leary on those as it requires the orphanage to report that bond and I think most orphanages would report one whether it exists or not to increase the revenues that adoption brings into their coffers.

All of these patterns that these families are doing increase the risk of disruptions, increase the risk of attachment disorders, increase the risk that a child gets hurt, increases the chaos and the inability to monitor how children are integrating into the family.

Part of what makes sibling adoptions harder is that the children don't get to be the new kid all by themselves. They don't get to be the center of mom and dad's attention the way single children do who enter a family because they come with siblings. It encourages the sibling bond, which is more important than even most people even imagine, but it discourages full integration into a new family. To add child after child without pausing is, as I said, totally irresponsible.

Its not a race to the finish and she who holds the most hands at the end wins. Its about being the best transition for each individual child. Yes, it costs more money to do them one adoption at a time. However, it's better for the children when you do. It's better for the parents and those already in the house as well.

I had a had time reading all of this. I can't get over how special needs children as being treated as a buy-one-get-one-or-two-free deal. I know adopting is expensive, and I wish more was done to offset that cost, but looking for the cheapest route instead of what's best for the kids is the supreme in selfishness. The US needs to step up and put a stop to this. I'm surprised there aren't laws in place requiring that all children being adopted have paperwork filed in advance here in such a way as to stop people from getting there to adopt a single kid and bringing back several.

[DGayle]

I don't think it's quite that (although I'm sure some have said it), so much as the Asian names are often pronounced so completely differently in English that you're renaming your kid anyways, whether you intend to or not.

Make the effort to learn and then do the best you can. If you're not willing, you're not it to adopt that child. Say your name is Maria, with a rolled-R. You're from El Savador. You're adopted by some white American people who, rather than trying to learn to say your name right,or even not rolling the R, decide fuck it, you're name is now Sarah. That's a slap in the face to your heritage, especially if you're already 7, 8, 9, 10 years old. Being moved from one culture to another is a huge shock, even if the change is beneficial. To a lot of those kids, the only think they had that wasn't taken from them is who they are, and a name is part of that. Along come some white people who decide those kids have to leave even that behind, without any reason other than wanting good white Christian names to make those dirty yellow heathens as good and white and Christian as they can.

Letting a child keep their name, and making the effort to learn it when you'll be expecting them to learn our entire damned language, is the least you could do it you love your kids.

[Jana814]

How are people allowed to adopt that amount of children? If you did that with animals you are a hoarder.

I wonder the same thing.

[DGayle]

I have a son with an Asian name. I'm completely aware that how I pronounce his name is different than what it was in his birth country, just as I'm aware that there is a sound within his name that an English based tongue cannot hear nor pronounce. He still retains his name.

I love you so hard. You're the kind of adoptive parent kids need. You respect them. Gawking doesn't and doesn't care to. A kid immigrating with his family can't compare to a child with nothing left of their own but a name. Making an effort, even if it's wrong in the end, is the least than can be done.

[dairyfreelife]

There's a lot of names that don't sound right to native English speakers or are not being pronounced correctly. Hardly anyone can say my boyfriend's first name correctly. So it shortened it, gave himself a nickname, so people can call him that instead. It was his choice, but it also was not his choice. He decided on the name, but also felt obligated to do so. Doesn't mean adopted parents should do so. I am in the camp of letting the child decide if they are older.

[dianapavelovna]

August 2007-Anna

December 2008-Sarah

July 2010-Ellie (sister of Emma)

July 2010-Emma (sister of Ellie)

April 2011-Sam

April 2011-Ava

December 2011-Luke

December 2011-Abby

February 2013-Madeline

February 2013-Melissa

February 2013-Mia

December 2013-Joey (brother of Ben)

December 2013-Ben (brother of Joey)

I don't think Ben and Joey are bio sibs. I think Emma and Ellie are the only bio sibs they've adopted. Both of them have significant cognitive/developmental disabilities. All the kids have special needs I think, although some are pretty minor, like Hep B. Abby has thalassemia, which had been diagnosed in the past as MDS. They have one child with HIV, but Jean has (quite rightly) not identified which one. One of the kids has anal atresia/imperforate anus. Ben has mild spina bifida. That's just off the top of my head, and things I've seen mentioned in the past year or so I've been reading the blog. I think they are good parents in many ways, and they've gotta be pretty wealthy (a bunch of kids took ballet and horseback riding lessons over the summer - that shit is not cheap), but they are the embodiment of child collectors. Their last adoption (Ben & Joey) was meant to be their last, but not even a year later, they're going back for just one - oh, no, two! - more.

[lilwriter85]

I don't think Ben and Joey are bio sibs. I think Emma and Ellie are the only bio sibs they've adopted. Both of them have significant cognitive/developmental disabilities. All the kids have special needs I think, although some are pretty minor, like Hep B. Abby has thalassemia, which had been diagnosed in the past as MDS. They have one child with HIV, but Jean has (quite rightly) not identified which one. One of the kids has anal atresia/imperforate anus. Ben has mild spina bifida. That's just off the top of my head, and things I've seen mentioned in the past year or so I've been reading the blog. I think they are good parents in many ways, and they've gotta be pretty wealthy (a bunch of kids took ballet and horseback riding lessons over the summer - that shit is not cheap), but they are the embodiment of child collectors. Their last adoption (Ben & Joey) was meant to be their last, but not even a year later, they're going back for just one - oh, no, two! - more.

You are correct Ben and Joey aren't bio sibs. They were brought to the US at the same time. IIRC, they were adopted from different orphanages.

[GawkingToo]

Actually, I took my child's referral to someone who spoke the language their name was in and had them couch me on how to pronounce it because I was indeed saying it all wrong. I also took their advice on changing the spelling so that Americans would more closely pronounce it correctly. So obviously my concern was in retaining as close to what my child identified with as their name as possible.

This is what I was getting stuck on. Thank you.

[Curious]

I posted in the Adoption topics forum about Christi (porknbeans) whining about not being able to get her sixth "egg roll" (whom she HAD, but threw away). Not sure how much traffic gets to the individual forums though. I miss talking about the child collectors here.

You are free to start threads in QFoS rather than the archive area. When the threads fall back far enough we will move them to the archive.

The Duggars are perhaps the one exception because we'd have them pushing everything off the front couple pages if every thread about them was posted on QFoS vs the Duggar related forum.

[Grimalkin]

I cannot even imagine what kind of chaos that house is in. It seems like turmoil would be the norm in that house. Not sure if any of you are familiar with Ray Guarendi, he is big in Catholic circles as a clinal psychologist with a radio show and has written many books. He and his wife have adopted 10 kids all within the us and he talks about how it takes at least a year for the whole family to adjust. I think he had more than one sibling group, and an occasion or two where a kids half sibling would turn up in need of adoption. I have mixed feelings about him, but acknowledges that there is an adjustment period and they all have individual needs.

[Jana814]

I cannot even imagine what kind of chaos that house is in. It seems like turmoil would be the norm in that house. Not sure if any of you are familiar with Ray Guarendi, he is big in Catholic circles as a clinal psychologist with a radio show and has written many books. He and his wife have adopted 10 kids all within the us and he talks about how it takes at least a year for the whole family to adjust. I think he had more than one sibling group, and an occasion or two where a kids half sibling would turn up in need of adoption. I have mixed feelings about him, but acknowledges that there is an adjustment period and they all have individual needs.

I have never heard of this psychologist. But I have to agree about the chaos that must be happening in those homes. Glad that he achnowledges that their is an adjustment period.

[snuggles911]

I heard a horrible large-family adoption story recently.

My daughter met a new girl at her middle school. The girl told her that she had recently been adopted by a local family. My daughter asked her if her parents had died. She said, no. Apparently, she had been adopted as an infant by a fundamentalist Christian family. That family went on to adopt 9 more children, the maximum number you can adopt in Kentucky, according to the girl.

They wanted more children so they moved to our state where there are no set limits as long as you pass a home study. Here, they adopted 11 more. It got to the point where, according to the girl, they didn't have enough food. She and her siblings were malnourished. DCF got involved and removed many of the children from the home and put them in protective custody.

This summer, the girl was adopted by a family with 5 biological children. They are Baptists and felt God was calling them to adopt a child after the wife was told she couldn't give birth again. According to the girl, the family is very loving and they are providing for all of her needs.

My daughter says that she seems happy and she has a very bubbly personality despite what she's been through. I'd love to know how the home visits were conducted when her original adoptive parents were adopting all of those kids and how they got the money for the legal fees.

[SunnyAndrsn]

16 children in seven years is flat-out irresponsible both on the part of the adoptive parents and the adoption agencies that placed those children.

For comparison, we've adopted four children in 14 years and I still feel like sometimes it went too quickly!

I would like to adopt one more time, but we have a strict rule that we don't even consider another adoption unless and until children already in the home are settled and thriving. We have children still grieving from their lost brother and I won't consider adopting until they have all the time to work through their grieving that they need. If that means I don't get to pursue that one last adoption, then so be it. The children in the home take priority over theoretical children not in the home. But then, despite having nine no one could ever accuse me of being a child collector.

Could not agree more!

[Marianne]

nogreaterjoymom.com/2014/09/embracing-new-adventures-and-changes.html

Adeye have sent Haven to public school, she loves it and is doing well :) She's in a 6 students classroom with a helper.

[Emme]

nogreaterjoymom.com/2014/09/embracing-new-adventures-and-changes.html

Adeye have sent Haven to public school, she loves it and is doing well :) She's in a 6 students classroom with a helper.

If she has severe apraxia and they haven't taught her signs, PECS, or given her an ipad to use as a talker, I'm going to explode....

[lilwriter85]

I got caught up on the latest from Jean from There's No Place Like Home.

She said they got good news regarding the adoptions of the two kids that they are calling Grace and Jacob. She didn't go into the specifics of the good news and said they need other approvals to go through.

[lilwriter85]

I checked out Jean's blog at There's No Place Like Home and she has said that their adoption plans for two more children have fallen through. The post is quite long, but she doesn't go into specifics about why they aren't getting the kids.

theresnoplacelikehome-family.blogspot.com/2015/04/heartbroken.html