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There's No Place Like Home


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39 minutes ago, SummerRocks said:

I have been looking ... no such luck yet. Since we don't really get any more info on how Joy fits into the Mulvahill family, I assume we just have to believe everything is going great. 

This or ... well ... Matt is not the golden child like Katie seems to be. 

 

 

I can't wait till Sarah is a few years older and -even though we have been told now several times that Sarah would love to be younger- she will start showing interest in boys (or uhh girls - openminded!) Where is she even going to meet someone to fall in love with? 

I have thought the same thing as well. I might be reading into this, but I kind of wonder if Matt is the bio-kid who had issues with Jim and Jean's frequent adoptions. He and his wife live away from the family out in Colorado and maybe there is a lack of closeness because of the distance. I do remember posts of Jean talking about how she and the kids would do Facetime with Katie and Andrew. Jean never mentions anything similar about Matt and Caitlin. I also think Katie is the golden child, but I have to give her and her husband credit for being very kind to the adoptive kids.

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Jean on naming their new puppy;
 
"We loved all of the names but decided we would not name her human names!

After all we have 19 kids and almost three grand babies with hopefully many more on the way!
We wanted to leave the human names to the humans!

We decided on Daisy!" 

 

Since when is Daisy not a human name?! 

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Jean on naming their new puppy;   "We loved all of the names but decided we would not name her human names! After all we have 19 kids and almost three grand babies with hopefully many more on the way!
We wanted to leave the human names to the humans!

We decided on Daisy!" 

 

Since when is Daisy not a human name?! 

Especially after you changed TWO of your dogs' names so you could use the name for your adopted kids...

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4 hours ago, iheartchacos said:

Especially after you changed TWO of your dogs' names so you could use the name for your adopted kids...

Say what?

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4 hours ago, Flossie said:

Say what?

"Our doggies at home are aging.

Sissy, on the left (formerly known as Missy until we adopted Melissa) is over 10 years old.

Mimi, on the right (formerly known as Mia until we adopted Mia) is over 13 yrs old."

Quote from the blog 

 

I hope Matt & Caitlin name their baby Daisy! 

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"Our doggies at home are aging.

Sissy, on the left (formerly known as Missy until we adopted Melissa) is over 10 years old.

Mimi, on the right (formerly known as Mia until we adopted Mia) is over 13 yrs old."

Quote from the blog 

 

I hope Matt & Caitlin name their baby Daisy! 

Oh no they didn't. Shit.

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1 hour ago, seattlechic said:

Oh no they didn't. Shit.

And it's not even like those girls came with the names. They GAVE them those names that they had previously given their dogs. Disgusting.

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9 hours ago, JillyO said:

And it's not even like those girls came with the names. They GAVE them those names that they had previously given their dogs. Disgusting.

Exactly. I knew a family who happened to foster and later adopt a child who had the same name as their dog. They made the best of it and renamed the dog... but in that case they had no control over it, the child already had that name when he came to them. 

It's incredibly bizarre to me to change the adopted child's name to one that was used for a pet. There's no reasonable explanation for that, at least not one I can come up with.

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I could understand if the children already came with those names, but why would anyone rename their adopted child the dog's name, and give the dog a new name? There are many other nice names out there to give to children.

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The renaming thing is so, so distasteful. Granted, I have a good friend who named her son after a beloved pet, but the pet was deceased, and she just really loved the name. There is a world of difference between reusing a dead pet's name once, and naming TWO children for living pets. Mia and Melissa were adopted in early 2013. I would imagine that visitors to the home accidentally called the dogs by their original names for a while before they got used to the new ones, not to mention the numerous small children that were already in the home, and already knew the dogs by their old names. That had to be incredibly dehumanizing for those girls.

Aside from all of this, I'm equally annoyed for the dogs' sake. They are aging dogs that had (as of 3 years ago) known their names for nearly a decade. Suddenly, they had new names. She picked similar-sounding names for them, but that doesn't really change the callous nature of the decision.

Seriously, was it THAT FRIGGING HARD to think up two new names??

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2 hours ago, ScreamingIzzy said:

It makes me really uncomfortable that website allows you to "Wishlist" a child. 

 

Ugh, how bizarre! But I guess when a child isn't a lifelong choice, it's easy to treat said child like an Amazon item. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The renaming of the dogs thing doesn't bother me at all (I had a very beloved dog who I renamed upon adoption because she shared MY name. :P She did not mind.) but it's weird as all heck that htey then gave those names to the girls! (OTOH, though, neither of the names that they used were actually the SAME as the dogs' names- they just were close enough that honestly, I can see kids learning English not always hearing the difference. And Melissa and Sissy are very far apart and I can see Missy not being a planned nickname very easily.) 

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1 hour ago, Mango said:

The renaming of the dogs thing doesn't bother me at all (I had a very beloved dog who I renamed upon adoption because she shared MY name. :P She did not mind.) but it's weird as all heck that htey then gave those names to the girls! (OTOH, though, neither of the names that they used were actually the SAME as the dogs' names- they just were close enough that honestly, I can see kids learning English not always hearing the difference. And Melissa and Sissy are very far apart and I can see Missy not being a planned nickname very easily.) 

I think the main issues are that:

1. They didn't need to rename the children at all. The girls had names. 

2. They intentionally decided to recycle the names of living pets on two girls adopted at the same time, meaning FOUR lives were impacted since both elderly dogs were renamed as well as the two girls. The "learning English" thing is a non-issue since the pronunciation confusion with the pet names wouldn't have existed if they just picked different names for the girls.

3. There were other adults and young children in the home who knew the dogs' names for years before this particular adoption, and would have afterward associated their new siblings with the family pets every time they said their names.

4. There are so, so, SO many names that are not "Missy/Melissa" and "Mia". So many. 

Your example would be a little more comparable if you'd had your sweet dog for a decade, then had a baby, THEN changed the dog's name to something different so that they baby could have your pet's old name. (By the way- I love that you adopted a dog that had your name! Serendipity. :) )

 

The more I think about this NPLH renaming thing, the more it smacks of thoughtlessness and some kind of weird control issue. These aren't people adopting babies who may never remember their early lives or given names. They intentionally adopt older children, many with developmental delays, some of whom come with literally NOTHING from their lives in China other than their name. Their names are then immediately stripped from them, and they are forced to learn new ones. Maybe the children prefer this arrangement? Somehow, I doubt that all of them picked neatly coordinating names of their own volition.

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It's like she made a list of her future children's names when she was a kid and is bound and determined to make it happen. 

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So Matt graduated ... the baby will come soon. I'm still rooting for a little girl called Daisy.

 

Joy is legally adopted.

Jean; "She fit in seamlessly from the day she arrived at our house."

Ok Jean ... I think the blog readers are being set up for the arrival of a few more rehomed domestically adopted children. 

 

Isn't there some sort of summer months hosting program from China going on soon, so they can have that great experience again as a family.

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  • lilwriter85 changed the title to No Place Like Home child colhttp://www.freejinger.org/topic/25210-no-place-like-home-child-collectors-adopt-a-rehomed-child/lectors adopt a rehomed child
30 minutes ago, SummerRocks said:

So Matt graduated ... the baby will come soon. I'm still rooting for a little girl called Daisy.

 

Joy is legally adopted.

Jean; "She fit in seamlessly from the day she arrived at our house."

Ok Jean ... I think the blog readers are being set up for the arrival of a few more rehomed domestically adopted children.

 

Isn't there some sort of summer months hosting program from China going on soon, so they can have that great experience again as a family.

I see that happening as well. I have to wonder if they would adopt US born special needs children who have or have not been rehomed or if that has ever crossed their mind. I'm not knocking them for adopting from China and helping out those kids even though they adopted too frequently.  I just have to wonder if ever felt the need to do domestic special needs adoptions like Ann Belles and her ex Jim Silcock, Susan Tom, the Murphys in Georgia, and other families that adopted special needs American kids. I know Ann Belles and Jim Silcock had several international adoptions, but IIRC most of their sons were American born. I also think one of Susan Tom's daughters was born in Russia.

I'm going to look into Jean's early postings to see if the topic of domestic special needs adoption was ever considered. I imagine that deciding to adopt in any way is difficult, but if I was adopting special needs kids a part of my heart would want to have some focus on special needs kids in the American foster care system.

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I read through the whole of her blog fairly recently. They never talked about any other variety of adoption. It was China right from the start.

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The hosting program is indeed going on right now. A friend's hostee(??) arrived today from China. This child has Down syndrome...I wonder if jean would consider that dx.

I totally wouldn't be surprised if her next post is about hosting a child. And the next about adoption.

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4 hours ago, Ausje said:

I read through the whole of her blog fairly recently. They never talked about any other variety of adoption. It was China right from the start.

Thanks for the info. I still wonder about them.

43 minutes ago, iheartchacos said:

The hosting program is indeed going on right now. A friend's hostee(??) arrived today from China. This child has Down syndrome...I wonder if jean would consider that dx.

I totally wouldn't be surprised if her next post is about hosting a child. And the next about adoption.

I wouldn't either be surprised by hosting a child or another adoption.

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They hosted a child last summer winter; I'm pretty sure we talked about it here (dunno which thread it was, though). Here's one of Jean's posts about it: http://theresnoplacelikehome-family.blogspot.com/2016/01/our-hosting-comes-to-end.html

If they adopt again, I fully expect it to be through "the blessing of domestic adoption" aka rehoming. For whatever reason, pretty sure they are cut off from adopting directly from China.

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It seems kind of cruel to host an orphanage child, give them all the fun things in the world and treat them like their own child for a few weeks, and then send them back to the orphanage to be neglected until they are adopted by another family (or not :( ). It seems like it would make the child feel rejected when they are sent back, but the family has other adopted children who are there permanently, especially if they are hosted regularly, kind of like why its sad when kids bounce between many different foster homes.

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4 hours ago, ILoveJellybeans said:

It seems kind of cruel to host an orphanage child, give them all the fun things in the world and treat them like their own child for a few weeks, and then send them back to the orphanage to be neglected until they are adopted by another family (or not :( ). It seems like it would make the child feel rejected when they are sent back, but the family has other adopted children who are there permanently, especially if they are hosted regularly, kind of like why its sad when kids bounce between many different foster homes.

I have mixed feelings on this.  One one hand, I feel exactly as you do.  On the other hand, these kids often get medical and dental care while being hosted that they would not have gotten in the orphanage.  I suppose in some ways it is just like the kid is going to a fun summer camp, where they get to experience new things and hang out with other kids.  It's probably emotionally tougher on the older kids as they would have a better grasp on what they are missing out on once they go home.

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