What's with these jerk adoptive mothers?

[Mercer]

To me, adoption is not a selfless act... and it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be about wanting to be a parent to that child. A child does not want to be someone's charity project. A child needs parents, not saviors. I do not want to see someone go into adoption thinking they're doing a good deed, I want to see them excited to be Mom or Dad.

[FloraDoraDolly]

On 1/9/2016 at 1:36 PM, PsyD2013 said:

Agreed blessalessi The "special needs look" came after coming home to Kimi.  Blossom's haircut reminded me of old pictures from mental institutions.

Kimi seems to think Blossom's new hairstyle looks neater, more flattering, and more age-appropriate, but it isn't. Like you said, it makes her look institutionalized. I don't see ANY teenage girls with bobs these days; that hairstyle was more popular in the late 1980s/1990s (and, of course, in the 1920s). And those girls' bobs didn't look like poor Blossom's.

OK, I can see a mom feeling frustrated with a kid who looks messy. I can also see where in some cases, a special needs kid simply cannot take care of long hair because she doesn't have enough control of her hands to use a comb, or she is too intellectually disabled to groom herself. But Blossom does not appear to be so physically or cognitively limited. Her slicking down her hair with water makes me think she wanted to make her hair look nice, but needed someone to show her how to make it happen. Maybe she didn't know how to use hair care products? Or maybe the products Kimi keeps in her house don't work well on Asian hair? Kimi should have taken Blossom to a salon. The stylist could have shown her how to take care of her hair-- or given her a more flattering 'do.

[Pseudoname]

Kimi did take Blossom to a salon once, but of Kimi had to fix the hack job the stylist did, because Kimi always does/knows better than anyone else when it comes to her girls.

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Then, last May, I figured perhaps a salon might have some better ideas so off we went. What a disaster! I won't even put the pictures up because the haircut is soooo bad that Blossom is crying in them. I fixed it and it was back to the old style

http://fencingmama.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/a-perfect-example.html

[DaffyDill]

Interesting to read the negative feedback Kim received on her posts around that time. The main ones are from one lady, but she does make some good points, and another commenter then chimes in, telling Kim her blog "... is always negative. I felt so bad for Blossom too when K cut her hair. Lots of things make me feel sad for her actually"

Of course, Kim takes no notice whatsoever.

http://fencingmama.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/our-happenings.html

[alexandracabot]

5 hours ago, DaffyDill said:

Interesting to read the negative feedback Kim received on her posts around that time. The main ones are from one lady, but she does make some good points, and another commenter then chimes in, telling Kim her blog "... is always negative. I felt so bad for Blossom too when K cut her hair. Lots of things make me feel sad for her actually"

Of course, Kim takes no notice whatsoever.

http://fencingmama.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/our-happenings.html

Those comments are a little disturbing. The woman who is so critical of Kim suggests she consider re-homing B and offers to adopt her herself ("I am a single woman and would be able to take care of her"). That's bizarre and twisted, and Kim was understandably horrified.

[older than allosaurs]

20 hours ago, elliha said:

I Being able to speak freely in their mother tongue would probably be a relief, even if you are good at your second language you can still find it hard to express yourself as well as in your first. I speak English almost as well as a native speaker but still talking about things like feelings or very complex thoughts is still much harder than in Swedish. I have known English now for soon to be 23 years and studied it at university level and I still feel this way, what would it be like for these girls then?

LIving in a unfamiliar culture and speaking/learning a new language all day is exhausting. It can be such a relief to have a little time when your thoughts can just pour out without all that internal editing and translating. I tutor a couple for whom Spanish is their second language and English is their third. When English doesn't work for us we communicate in Spanish--theirs pretty good, mine pretty rusty--but when they talk to each other in their indigenous language the difference in their demeanor and confidence is so striking. I can see personality and humor that they don't have the ease to express in the languages they've learned as adults.

In TESOL training we are told to expect a period of silence in the classroom that can last for months. Once they get the basic survival vocabulary down, a lot of kids clam up until their language knowledge builds up enough to express more complex ideas. Teachers tend to think they have shut down entirely, but they are likely listening and learning, and--listen up, Kim-- understanding what is said about them.

 

 

[DaffyDill]

9 hours ago, alexandracabot said:

Those comments are a little disturbing. The woman who is so critical of Kim suggests she consider re-homing B and offers to adopt her herself ("I am a single woman and would be able to take care of her"). That's bizarre and twisted, and Kim was understandably horrified.

Oh for sure that was pretty creepy, as well as just wrong, but the commenter "Jo" did make some good points besides the "Let me take her" bits - which were perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to what "Jo" sees as bad treatment of the girls. She alludes to Kim finally getting the 'baby girl' she always wanted and the lack of affection she seems to have for the older girls, how often K speaks negatively of Blossom, Kim running a daycare in her home while stressed out with four girls with needs of their own, and her shock at Blossom's "haircut":

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Blossom needs a place where she can thrive. A place where someone will have the time to help her with her hair, not cut it all off. Not only does she act differently than her siblings, now she is forced to look different.

She also points out how angry Kim seems towards the girls on occasion, and that she thinks it's possible many people read Kim's blog and feel similarly (that things need to be said to Kim).

I don't agree with everything that "Jo" had to say at all, i just thought she made some good points that Kim may hopefully have considered, but I doubt she would.

[SoybeanQueen]

22 hours ago, Mercer said:

To me, adoption is not a selfless act... and it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be about wanting to be a parent to that child. A child does not want to be someone's charity project. A child needs parents, not saviors. I do not want to see someone go into adoption thinking they're doing a good deed, I want to see them excited to be Mom or Dad.

Dear God, YES. This is what I've tried to tell people for years about adoption. Every time someone says "oh, you're so wonderful!" I say, "actually, I'm selfish. I wanted a big family." I would give you a hundred likes for this if I could.

[desertvixen]

22 hours ago, FloraDoraDolly said:

Kimi seems to think Blossom's new hairstyle looks neater, more flattering, and more age-appropriate, but it isn't. Like you said, it makes her look institutionalized. I don't see ANY teenage girls with bobs these days; that hairstyle was more popular in the late 1980s/1990s (and, of course, in the 1920s). And those girls' bobs didn't look like poor Blossom's.

 Her slicking down her hair with water makes me think she wanted to make her hair look nice, but needed someone to show her how to make it happen. Maybe she didn't know how to use hair care products? Or maybe the products Kimi keeps in her house don't work well on Asian hair?

I'd agree with this, @FloraDoraDolly.  The picture of the bob looks bad in part because Blossom looks unhappy, but also because her hair looks kind of dry and flyaway. 

[Mango]

This seems relevant.... 

 

http://www.theonion.com/graphic/how-adopt-child-52167

[justwatching]

Did FJ run her off?  Her blog hasn't been updated for quite a while.  Hope they're all ok!

[dianapavelovna]

Nah, she'll often go a spell without posting. I seriously doubt our snark will shut her down. 

[iheartchacos]

Was hoping blossom's hair would be longer in the update :/

[Zola]

Dude, Blossom's hair is not only not any longer, it's shorter than I ever recall seeing it before. Like freshly shorn short.

Some things are the same, though...Apple is in 2 of the 3 photos, and 1 of them features solely her. From the back, but still, it's a photo featuring Apple alone, despite the other 3 girls being right there as well.

[DaisyD]

I actually like Blossom's cut. It looks like a style at least and not the cut the Navy gave me in boot camp like the last one did.

[dianapavelovna]

17 hours ago, Zola said:

Some things are the same, though...Apple is in 2 of the 3 photos, and 1 of them features solely her. From the back, but still, it's a photo featuring Apple alone, despite the other 3 girls being right there as well.

And it sounds like it wasn't even her appointment/visit, was it? Jie Jie & Blossom were seen. 

[DaisyD]

I'm sure she would have mentioned it. I wonder how Sissy is doing. It seems like she's just in the background lately. 

[Peas n carrots]

I'm sure she would have mentioned it. I wonder how Sissy is doing. It seems like she's just in the background lately. 

Maybe quietly plotting her escape? At least that is what I hope she is doing

[littlehouse]

I really thought that with such a long break between blogging something major had happened.

[adidas]

On 9 January 2016 at 4:49 AM, blessalessi said:

http://fencingmama.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/getting-real.html?m=1

 

See the post above.  She went from lovely long hair to a blunt bob.

Two years earlier, if you look at the September photos on the blog, Blossom had a shoulder length cut when she first arrived, with face-framing layers that looked flattering on her. If Blossom herself wanted a shorter hairstyle, that earlier one would have been easy to manage and suited to her face too.

Regardless, it just seems that Blossom wanted to be carefree young teen at the time Kimi gave her the severe haircut.  There was nothing wrong with her hair, but Kimi thought it looked messy and Blossom couldn't meet Kimi's standards, so she lost her hair in a n horrific punishing way.

But the thing is, if you go back and find the post about Jie Joe's first haircut, it is even sadder. Kimi was so careful about Jie Jie's haircut because she didn't want it to be a negative experience. 

Of course, this was when Jie Jie was the only child and Kimi's posts were full of love, hope and 'my daughter is amazing, my heart is bursting with joy'

im sad that Kimi's didn't take her bishop's advice, but I suspect she is unable to. I'm loathe to be an armchair psychologist and diagnose over the Internet, but I think Kimi's needs to see a specialist herself, and quickly. For her own sake as well as that of her beautiful, precious girls.

[alexandracabot]

There's a bunch of updates in the past few days - it seems like Jie Jie has some more serious health issues. I hope "too complex to discuss on the phone" really means "complex" and not something more serious. More problems for Sissy, too. I feel so bad for that girl. In the photo of her with the firefighter at the dance, she looks so beautiful and happy!

[freejugar]

I wonder why she seems to care about privacy issues now, considering she has posted very shitty things about her daughters

[Koala]

I wonder if it's because she's getting a lot of negative feedback...

Am I the only one who gets the impression that "her firefighter" is just not that into her?  She's mentioned him not being sure if the relationship would work out (of course it's the girls' fault....couldn't possibly be her!).  Maybe it's the body language in the pictures?  He just doesn't look all that warm towards her.  

 

[EyeQueue]

5 minutes ago, Koala said:

I wonder if it's because she's getting a lot of negative feedback...

Am I the only one who gets the impression that "her firefighter" is just not that into her?  She's mentioned him not being sure if the relationship would work out (of course it's the girls' fault....couldn't possibly be her!).  Maybe it's the body language in the pictures?  He just doesn't look all that warm towards her.  

 

@Koala: I've wondered the same thing (on both accounts). She has been getting some negative feedback, but that didn't necessarily stop her from posting in the past, so maybe they're just really busy?

Also, re: Her Firefighter, I assumed he wasn't that into her, either, but then some people are not very demonstrative. I, myself, don't like having my picture taken and am uncomfortable in a lot of social situations, so in many pictures I look like I'm Just Not That Into whoever/whatever is in the picture with me.

Not much seems to be going on on her blog right now, so I hope that means she's focusing more on getting those girls the help/support they need.

[blessalessi]

Her firefighter might reasonably not want his photo and his personal life discussed on her blog (and dissected here and elsewhere). 

I would definitely shy away from a relationship with someone who posts relationship updates and telltale photos on the internet.

Unless she has the firefighter's passport and birth certificate hidden away with Sissy's, then she is probably having to negotiate and compromise for the first time in her life.