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China cuts Jean off


dianapavelovna

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At least that's what I've gathered from her post today:

This is a post I was praying I would never have to write.

We are completely heartbroken...

We have been in battle against the opposition for quite awhile...

We have done absolutely everything we could do

but every time something "kinda good" happened it was followed by bad...

It has been an emotional roller coaster.

At time it was so hopeful and then

our hopes were snatched away...

Our Lord knows we have

fought the good fight.

He knows that we could not give up until we had done absolutely everything we could possibly do to adopt Grace and Jacob.

I do not feel very "mature" right now.

I just want my two kids home.

I can't imagine that they won't be coming home.

I know I should be way more mature and Godly but

I am just not ready to be, what I should be...

We are still hurting, sad, sickened, confused, upset, down in the dumps...

Tears flow so easily...

We are praying for healing hearts... and for the two children to find their family asap.

We are so thankful for all of your prayers.

God knew this story before us, He was with us every step of the way showing us signs of comfort and hope.

GOD is so much bigger than all of this.

HE has beautiful plans.

Plans to help us, not harm us.

We look forward to brighter days.

We look forward to serving our Lord

in what ever direction

HE

guides us towards.

We praise you dear God.

We are so thankful to you!

We would love it if you could send us comforting words and/or uplifting Bible verses!

I cannot share any details right now because we are still in the "grips" of the enemy.

He uses people to hurt others, he hates adoptions and he hates all that is good and Godly.

I hope to someday be able to share our story (I would like to know if other have things like this happen to them, and gain wisdom and support) but right now it would be harmful.

For now we will leave it at-

life is unfair.

We have had an jaw dropping unfair experience.

BUT WE KNOW GOD AND ALL THAT IS GOOD WILL PREVAIL!

Our agency has supported us throughout this roller coaster.

They have been patient and kind.

We are thankful for that...

And YOU dear friends have been so kind and prayerful for us-

THANK YOU!

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

If you just joined us...Catholic homeschooling family with five grown bio kids and 13 younger kids adopted from China over less than six years. She's been hinting that there were issues with this latest adoption they were trying to make happen, but I'm curious to know exactly what happened. Hopefully somebody put their foot down and said, "that's enough kids for y'all."

And I don't think of Jean as super fundy - more mainstream Christian on the conservative side - but that is some heavy fundy speak: doing "battle" with "the enemy" who "hates adoptions." :roll:

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I've been reading Jean's blog since she brought home Ava and Sam and I will admit that I'm torn. I like the fact that they fund their adoptions themselves and have all the kids in a variety of activities (not a typical homeschooling family for sure). I also wonder how well Emma and Ellie would have done in another family with their cognitive delays - I can see another family disrupting.

On the other hand, Jean & Jim are not getting any younger and 13 adopted children in such a short period of time is a recipe for disaster. I wonder what their older kids think about potentially having to step in and raise them if anything were to happen to their parents. When I read Jean's latest post I was surprised by the over-the-top fundie speak - that's not normally how she writes.

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Special needs orphans, especially girls, have almost no prospects in China. On the one hand, adoption by this family has almost certainly given these kids a better life.

On the other hand, they have taken on a lot of kids very quickly. Older children take a lot of time to adjust to the change and they need a lot of help, assistance and support during that time. I would be concerned that with SO MANY new kids, these children are not receiving adequate support and attention after the initial transition when the parents move on to the "newer" kids.

I used to volunteer helping families with non-infant Chinese adoptions. It is HARD WORK. It can take YEARS for a full transition. I don't know anyone who would give another child to this family for a few years, and I imagine the Chinese authorities feel the same.

And since there is a feeling of suspicion regarding organized religion in China (it has a bad history, especially Christianity), I wouldn't be surprised if they suspected them of being a family who was just trying to adopt as many kids as possible to "save" them without enough concern for their well-being.

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When that family adopted all those boys at a slower rate than this, people expressed concern over their needs being met. Yes, the kids they wanted to adopt might have better prospects here, but this doesn't necessarily mean really being better off. A good friend of mine adopted a girl from China, and that girl is a teen now. She feels a deep sense of loss. She's got better schooling here, and all the positives we like to think of, but the cost is that she feels like part of herself is lost. From our own viewpoints, the trade-off is worth it. But from hers, is it really? She's a girl who is #2 in the family, and that's it. Her parents have the time to spend with her.

Jean's adopting at the rate of faster than a kid every 6 months, usually 2 or 3 at a time. How much time at the kids getting to settle in and adjust before there are newer kids and they're pushed down? at those kids really really really better off just for being on sacred American soil, or is that just our conviction that America is always better? It's a hard call to make. I know that life in Chinese orphanages suck, but saying that kids are always better off being removed from their culture is telling those kids they don't have the right to disagree, and I don't have any doubt there are kids who really wish they could have had less luxuries there if it meant remaining where some of them feel they should be.

China isn't known for thinking so highly of girls and orphans in general. If they put the skids on Jean adopting more of the disposable kids, it really means they're pretty worried. It's not like adoption of Chinese kids to Americans is on hold, just this family.

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Special needs orphans, especially girls, have almost no prospects in China. On the one hand, adoption by this family has almost certainly given these kids a better life.

On the other hand, they have taken on a lot of kids very quickly. Older children take a lot of time to adjust to the change and they need a lot of help, assistance and support during that time. I would be concerned that with SO MANY new kids, these children are not receiving adequate support and attention after the initial transition when the parents move on to the "newer" kids.

I used to volunteer helping families with non-infant Chinese adoptions. It is HARD WORK. It can take YEARS for a full transition. I don't know anyone who would give another child to this family for a few years, and I imagine the Chinese authorities feel the same.

And since there is a feeling of suspicion regarding organized religion in China (it has a bad history, especially Christianity), I wouldn't be surprised if they suspected them of being a family who was just trying to adopt as many kids as possible to "save" them without enough concern for their well-being.

Yes, it is a tough situation because I do believe that she has good intentions. I know the situation in China for abandoned children can be grim, so she very likely has helped these kids have a better life. Her other blog posts (just looking quickly since I had never heard of her before this) make it sound like the kids are happy with her. However, I definitely wonder if she is taking on too much too fast and would not be surprised if the Chinese authorities had concerns about her going overboard.

It reminds me a bit of animal hoarding actually. I suspect a lot of animal hoarders start out as good hearted people who just wanted to help homeless animals. They keep taking in more and more animals because there are always more animals who need help and the person feels like they can't say no to any animal that needs help. Eventually, the person has taken on so much that they have a breaking point where they just can't handle it. There is only so much that any one person can handle.

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Looking through her blog, I do like how in this blog post she acknowledges that one of her kids was not entirely happy after adoption (apparently because she felt guilty about not knowing what happened to her friends at the orphanage) :

theresnoplacelikehome-family.blogspot.com/2015/03/and-walls-come-tumbling-down.html

I am glad that the mom in this family acknowledges those negative feelings instead of being like many fundies who try to pretend that they are always happy because Jesus.

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13 kids in 6 years is absolutely unethical. I did 4 adoptions and 5 births in 12 years and there were times it was WAY too fast for everyone to adjust. The only time we added more than one in a year was a catastrophic birth control failure. It's not fair to the existing kids nor the new kids to develop a collector mentality, no matter how good you look in what you share online, I guarantee that pace of adding kids is causing stress for the parents, in the home, and in the marriage.

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One troubling thing I gathered from her blog is that all her older, biological kids received formal schooling but all the adopted children are being homeschooled. All her biological children have post graduate degrees and are working professionals. It seems to me that she is denying her adopted children the same experiences, which says to me that she sees them differently than her biological children. I know that not all homeschooling families are like the Duggars and many homsechooled children are well educated, but I cannot believe that is the case here. Considering some children are special needs, some aren't, and they are a wide range of ages and needs, I highly doubt she can meet all their needs herself. That alone makes me think that bringing more children in is a bad idea.

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I really like this blogger but yeah, she's gotta slow down/stop the rate of adoptions.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
While we are on the thread of kid collectors, Lauren of Mama D's dozen popped up a couple of weeks ago after being completely quiet for a year. I'm sure a couple of you (Chaotic Life) remember her... the mom of a bunch of bio kids up in WA state who adopted 3 Ghanaian kids and then rehomed 2 of them. Anyway, she's left a couple of comments on Smiles and Trials in the last few weeks. One of the comments mentioned that she might get back to blogging. I'm hiding this because the reason she went quiet was finding out we were talking about her.
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I really like this blogger but yeah, she's gotta slow down/stop the rate of adoptions.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
While we are on the thread of kid collectors, Lauren of Mama D's dozen popped up a couple of weeks ago after being completely quiet for a year. I'm sure a couple of you (Chaotic Life) remember her... the mom of a bunch of bio kids up in WA state who adopted 3 Ghanaian kids and then rehomed 2 of them. Anyway, she's left a couple of comments on Smiles and Trials in the last few weeks. One of the comments mentioned that she might get back to blogging. I'm hiding this because the reason she went quiet was finding out we were talking about her.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
Mama D was my first fundie obsession! I couldn't be happier (unless Cabinetman also came back and had a celebrity deathmatch with Mama D)!
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{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
While we are on the thread of kid collectors, Lauren of Mama D's dozen popped up a couple of weeks ago after being completely quiet for a year. I'm sure a couple of you (Chaotic Life) remember her... the mom of a bunch of bio kids up in WA state who adopted 3 Ghanaian kids and then rehomed 2 of them. Anyway, she's left a couple of comments on Smiles and Trials in the last few weeks. One of the comments mentioned that she might get back to blogging. I'm hiding this because the reason she went quiet was finding out we were talking about her.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
Laurel D is what brought me to Free Jinger. Her blog was a trainwreck. I knew someone who lived in the same town as her and wow, the stories! I hope she gets back to blogging just because I'm curious to know what is happening with her relationships with the big kids... if Rachel was allowed to return home after her time of exile at that unregulated "House of Hope"... and if Hosanna is still the favored child. O. My. Yes.
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Jean isn't a terrible person, and she isn't beating those poor kids or doing anything horrible to them. I think she means well, shes one of those people who wants to save them all, but doesn't realise she cant. There is too many children in orphanages for one family to adopt, so she will never feel satisfied with the number she has got.

But she has to stop somewhere, she has adopted 13 children, and of course their lives are better now than they would be if they were in an orphanage. But she was adopting too fast, its unethical, its hard for the kids she just adopted to adjust when as soon as she gets home, she is looking for another. She got well over her head, and I think her lack of ability to adopt from China again is a good thing for their family, as she will then have to settle with enjoying the kids she has. Unless she tries a different country now, but hopefully none will let her.

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I really like this blogger but yeah, she's gotta slow down/stop the rate of adoptions.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
While we are on the thread of kid collectors, Lauren of Mama D's dozen popped up a couple of weeks ago after being completely quiet for a year. I'm sure a couple of you (Chaotic Life) remember her... the mom of a bunch of bio kids up in WA state who adopted 3 Ghanaian kids and then rehomed 2 of them. Anyway, she's left a couple of comments on Smiles and Trials in the last few weeks. One of the comments mentioned that she might get back to blogging. I'm hiding this because the reason she went quiet was finding out we were talking about her.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
Was not familiar with Mama D./Lauren but it does seem she is back to blogging on a regular basis. This lady needs to seriously learn how to say no. anewjourneyoffaith.blogspot.com/
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{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
Was not familiar with Mama D./Lauren but it does seem she is back to blogging on a regular basis. This lady needs to seriously learn how to say no. anewjourneyoffaith.blogspot.com/

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
OMG...she is such a fun trainwreck. I'd really love to know the story on her job that "was not the Lord's calling":

Laurel * After 24 years of homeschooling, Laurel put the kids on the school bus this fall. In July, she was hired full time by an international ministry. She is in charge of Donor Relations, Communications, Event Coordination, and anything else that lands on her desk. In August, she spent 10 days in Switzerland, visiting the international headquarters and meeting the Program Directors that work with persecuted Christians in 38 countries. In November, Laurel also found herself spending nights and weekends behind the counter of the Christian Bookstore, as she'd been hired for "Seasonal" sales work. (update: sadly, the job with the international ministry was not the Lord's calling for a long term position. Laurel resigned her position in February.)

anewjourneyoffaith.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-year-of-transitions.html#more

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I have to wonder how much good the money they spend on 13 adoptions and supporting 13 kids could do if they gave it to Half The Sky? Even just the airfares would surely ensure that many children had a better carer:child ratio than 1:13.

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Jean is probably the most interesting child collector to me. They certainly can afford to adopt, whatever the husband does he must make a ton of money. I don't think I've ever seen them fundraising for their adoptions. They just spent like a month in vacation too. I think a couple of the girls go to public school too. She seems to truly love those kids and want what is best for them. I do think they went too fast though. 13 is a lot of kids in general, but over a six year span? I'm surprised that China allowed that many, even if they could afford it.

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{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
Was not familiar with Mama D./Lauren but it does seem she is back to blogging on a regular basis. This lady needs to seriously learn how to say no. anewjourneyoffaith.blogspot.com/

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
thanks for finding that, Phoenix! I don't know why I love to read her blog, because she drives me nuts, but it's like a scab you can't help picking (sorry if that's kind of gross ;-)). Anyway, I guess her year of non-blogging was not spend in much introspection or improvement in writing style. Oh, my, no! Because she's still the Mom-In-Charge of just about everything. Although I'm glad to see she did finally break down and take a real job, even if it only lasted half a year. Wonder what's up with the Mr. if he gets laid off from every single job he manages to get. Would love to be able to discuss her more openly but I'm afraid of driving her underground again. I posted something to an old thread when I first saw her comment on Smiles and Trials a couple of weeks ago. Is "are you there, FJ" only open to members with a certain # of posts? I don't remember. Maybe I can start a thread just on her over there.
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I'm sure Jean has good intentions, but I was so relieved to read that blog post. There is absolutely no way all the kids have adjusted and attached at that rate. And it's sad when she writes about Mia :(

I can't believe they were even allowed to adopt so many.

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{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
[/hidden]


{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
Was not familiar with Mama D./Lauren but it does seem she is back to blogging on a regular basis. This lady needs to seriously learn how to say no. anewjourneyoffaith.blogspot.com/


{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
thanks for finding that, Phoenix! I don't know why I love to read her blog, because she drives me nuts, but it's like a scab you can't help picking (sorry if that's kind of gross ;-)). Anyway, I guess her year of non-blogging was not spend in much introspection or improvement in writing style. Oh, my, no! Because she's still the Mom-In-Charge of just about everything. Although I'm glad to see she did finally break down and take a real job, even if it only lasted half a year. Wonder what's up with the Mr. if he gets laid off from every single job he manages to get. Would love to be able to discuss her more openly but I'm afraid of driving her underground again. I posted something to an old thread when I first saw her comment on Smiles and Trials a couple of weeks ago. Is "are you there, FJ" only open to members with a certain # of posts? I don't remember. Maybe I can start a thread just on her over there.



{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
I was excited to find her, too, but also am fearful of her flouncing. I'm assuming Ben is the one expecting a child, given the dearth of details about the next grandson who "will live in Washington" but whose parents are never mentioned? It's weird.
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I'm late to the party on this one. I didn't see this thread and I hadn't been checking Jean's blog until this morning. i just posted about this in the large adoptive families thread.

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I'm sure Jean has good intentions, but I was so relieved to read that blog post. There is absolutely no way all the kids have adjusted and attached at that rate. And it's sad when she writes about Mia :(

I can't believe they were even allowed to adopt so many.

Is the Mia the one that has some kind of developmental delay? I recall sometime back Jean posted about not allowing Mia to get her driver's license until 18. If there are good reasons for it fine, but something about the tone rubbed me the wrong way.

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Jean is probably the most interesting child collector to me. They certainly can afford to adopt, whatever the husband does he must make a ton of money. I don't think I've ever seen them fundraising for their adoptions. They just spent like a month in vacation too. I think a couple of the girls go to public school too. She seems to truly love those kids and want what is best for them. I do think they went too fast though. 13 is a lot of kids in general, but over a six year span? I'm surprised that China allowed that many, even if they could afford it.

I have wondered what Jean's husband Jim does for a living. It's likely something with business/corporate. He went with them to Florida and Jean talked about him working from his laptop donw there. The family also does other expensive stuff. Some of the kids have hobbies and take horseback riding lessons.

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One troubling thing I gathered from her blog is that all her older, biological kids received formal schooling but all the adopted children are being homeschooled. All her biological children have post graduate degrees and are working professionals. It seems to me that she is denying her adopted children the same experiences, which says to me that she sees them differently than her biological children. I know that not all homeschooling families are like the Duggars and many homsechooled children are well educated, but I cannot believe that is the case here. Considering some children are special needs, some aren't, and they are a wide range of ages and needs, I highly doubt she can meet all their needs herself. That alone makes me think that bringing more children in is a bad idea.

The education of her biological kids vs the adopted kids makes me wonder for a few things Jean's biological kids attended Catholic schools for K-12. Her youngest bio son is still undergrad, but is attending a Catholic college. Now it could be possible and reasonable that Jean and Jim don't want to pay tuition for all those kids to attend Catholic schools. Some private or parochial schools aren't equipped to handle or deal with kids with special needs. As another poster stated, I do think two of the girls are in public schools and Jean said something a year ago about putting some of the kids in public schools. An interesting thing to note, is that an FJer who lives in Minnesota stated in a previous thread, that there is a public Chinese immersion school in St Paul or Minneapolis. I have no idea exactly, where this family lives. But those kids could possibly benefit from something like that. It is also troubling to me that Jean, Jim, and their older kids really don't try to learn Chinese.

I think Jean is probably doing a decent job at homeschooling, but I do see some of the same concerns about different ages and some of kids with special needs regarding learning and development. But I do think Jean and Jim will encourage their adoptive kids to get post secondary educations or some kind of vocational training.

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The education of her biological kids vs the adopted kids makes me wonder for a few things Jean's biological kids attended Catholic schools for K-12. Her youngest bio son is still undergrad, but is attending a Catholic college. Now it could be possible and reasonable that Jean and Jim don't want to pay tuition for all those kids to attend Catholic schools. Some private or parochial schools aren't equipped to handle or deal with kids with special needs. As another poster stated, I do think two of the girls are in public schools and Jean said something a year ago about putting some of the kids in public schools. An interesting thing to note, is that an FJer who lives in Minnesota stated in a previous thread, that there is a public Chinese immersion school in St Paul or Minneapolis. I have no idea exactly, where this family lives. But those kids could possibly benefit from something like that. It is also troubling to me that Jean, Jim, and their older kids really don't try to learn Chinese.

I think Jean is probably doing a decent job at homeschooling, but I do see some of the same concerns about different ages and some of kids with special needs regarding learning and development. But I do think Jean and Jim will encourage their adoptive kids to get post secondary educations or some kind of vocational training.

One of the issues, which Jean talks about, is the level of education the children come with. I mentioned briefly that situations in the orphanages in China for non-infants are often bad. If they have any sort of "defect", whether physical or mental, then they basically give up on them, consider them damage goods, and wont spend extra resources trying to help them.

An older orphan child coming over from China with grade-appropriate education is not always the case. If they have any sort of learning disability, they are usually considerably behind. Even children who move with their families from China/Taiwan and were properly educated find that they don't fit perfectly into one grade. You will often find that they are ahead in math/science, but several grades behind in English (naturally), social sciences, etc.

Even Mandarin immersion schools usually do half the subjects in English, which may be impossible for these kids. Plus, they may not speak standard Mandarin well (in many areas in China, especially rural areas, Mandarin is not the spoken language and children would learn it in school).

A great deal of older adoptees end up getting privately tutored in some subjects to catch up before going into mainstream classes. One thing that is really, really important to work on with these kids is often their confidence and self-worth (they are often told they are "ugly", "stupid", or otherwise not worthy in the orphanage). Putting them into an academic situation where they are likely to fail is not a good thing for them and putting them into a situation that is embarrassing (like being in a lower grade than your peer group) is sometimes worse.

Homeschooling, if the parent feels qualified, can help them bond with the child and catch them up to a level where they can confidently be mainstreamed. It's not a bad solution temporarily. If you have older children with intellectual disabilities who are struggling to catch up, it may not be a bad permanent solution as long as they respond well to the teaching. I would say in that case you need to make sure they have opportunities for social immersion to learn American social skills, but educationally it can be a good option for the child.

As far as language, I agree that they should be learning Modern Mandarin from a good program.

That being said, I can also see why they may not. There are a variety of reasons why even Chinese/Taiwanese parents pull their children out of Chinese School.

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Jean updated this blog yesterday to thank people who have emailed them. She is pretty open about still being sad about the disrupted adoptions, which no one can blame her. I'm kind of curious if they will try adopting again after this.

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