Adeye has adopted AGAIN

[AmazonGrace]

I don't think we disagree about very much, in the end. Whether it works or not  mostly depends on how the child understands the choice. 

If it's an older child who is clearly able to communicate that they want to keep their own name and the parents say to hell with that, we'll change it anyway because we like H names better, or your name is the wrong stupid language and all the good people speak English here, or you were named after the totally false religion your loser parents worshiped, sure,  it's totally messed up and  it would  interfere with the bonding process.

But I wonder how many parents actually would override the child's preferences if explicitly known. Is this a rampant problem or a theoretical one?   If it's a very young, nonverbal child you can't  tell what name they would prefer any more than you can ask your biological baby to choose their own name at first, you just have to start calling them something.  If you adopt from a totally different culture maybe you can't properly have this conversation until you have developed a common language and it would probably be better to call the child by the name they know so they can at least recognize the when people are calling their name.. But if it's a child who is old enough to have an opinion and  to state their preference and you go totally against their will , yeah, that would be distressing and maybe there are more problems in that relationship than just the name.

Anyway I think tons of kids, adopted or  not, in the course of their lives  end up getting various new nicknames their bio parents didn't choose for them and it doesn't have to have any ill effects if it's not construed or understood  as an insult to the child's identity and background. Sometimes it's a sign of affection. 

[dianapavelovna]

I saw this in my feedly and sputtered.

This makes 10 kids total for the family, 6 of whom have special needs (one of their kids was adopted from Pleven and is severely disabled; the others have varying levels of needs). Adeye is not a Pearl acolyte, more of a hippy type fundie. I'm not sure if she's still shilling Plexus, but she's been all about the vitamins and the clean eating and etc. etc. keeping everyone perfectly healthy. I've never thought or suspected that any of her kids are abused or neglected - on the contrary, they seem very well loved - but I can't see how there's enough attention to go around in that family. Reminds me a bit of the Blessing of Verity family, except that most of those kids are bio vs. adopted. 

Before this Adeye & co. adopted 4 embryos (the ... siblings? ... had been implanted in bio mom and both of those kids had special needs) but none implanted successfully. Before that they were going to move to South Africa (Adeye is South African) and open an orphanage. Somehow, that didn't pan out.

And yes, all her girls have "H" names, and all the boys have "K" names. So Hunter was definitely in for a name change. I wonder if she is a rehomed kiddo.

[freejugar]

Her blog is filled with religious ramblings and pleas for adoptions, and dammit all i wanna know is how the children are doing. They seem to be in public school right?

[Inthemadhouse]

I would guess that this little girl has been rehomed.   She appears to be Asian, and I don't believe that Adeye qualifies to adopt from China under their new guidelines.  
I believe this raises them to at least four children (Hailee, Hasya, Kael, Haven) who will never live independently.   While it seems very unlikely that Hasya will outlive her parents, there is no reason the others will not live long and hopefully happy lives.  I hope their typical siblings are prepared to take over their care.
 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

Adeye homeschools -- there are mentions of it on her blog.  I wonder if she will let her non-SN kids go to college or will they be forced to do some sort of on-line "college" and continue to be caregivers for their SN siblings?  Does the family have a plan in place for the children who will never be able to live independently or is it just assumed to be the non-SN kids responsibility?

A friend in college was the oldest child with 3 younger brothers -- all born with severe Duchenne MD.  She was expected to be the sister mom/ caregiver, forego college and her own life and live at home.

She rebelled -- eloped with her HS boyfriend right after graduation.  She was divorced by 19 and putting herself through school when I knew her.

She was mostly estranged from her family.  She told me that as much as she sympathized with her mom needing help with her brothers she couldn't do it. Her parents had mapped out her life that she would be the sister mom and then the caregiver after their deaths.  She also admitted she was angry with her parents because the doctors had warned her parents not to have any more children after the first son was born with MD.  They ignored the advice and had 2 more children.

[smittykins]

Dumb question:  what does "SN" mean?

[Terrie]

38 minutes ago, smittykins said:

Dumb question:  what does "SN" mean?

Special needs. Can range from disabilities to any hard-to-place child in terms of how it's used.

[smittykins]

Thank you! 

[Lurky]

23 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Let's say the child's birth parents named him  Himmler Meinkampf Braun . I'd rename him  in a heartbeat, and not even be sorry.

How can you possibly say this and then, 2 paragraphs later, be accusing another poster of being overdramatic?   We are NOT talking about people calling kids things like Himmler, we're talking about people changing a child's name because it doesn't match an arbitrary "theme" that probably even won't be noticeable once their kids go to school and get nicknames.  

[AmazonGrace]

38 minutes ago, Lurky said:

How can you possibly say this and then, 2 paragraphs later, be accusing another poster of being overdramatic?   We are NOT talking about people calling kids things like Himmler, we're talking about people changing a child's name because it doesn't match an arbitrary "theme" that probably even won't be noticeable once their kids go to school and get nicknames.  

As for me, I was talking more generally and I think  people may have a variety of other reasons for wishing to give their child a certain name. Not every adopted child has ten alliterative siblings.

[FiddleDD]

Last I checked most if not all of Adeye’s kids were in school. She did used to homeschool them, but around the time she stopped blogging as much she decided to send several to school. And said they were thriving. 

One thing I’ll say about Adeye, her kids are getting all the medical care and therapies required. (As far as I know, I’ve seen enough mentions on the blog to feel fairly certain)

I follow Adeye for one reason: Hasya. I discovered her blog when they were in the process of adopting her and Kael. The pictures and videos of Pleven are heart wrenching. I remember there was a video, from someone who had been picking up another child, of Hasya. She was sitting in a stroller and every time the filler reached out and gently stroked her arm or leg she would smile. It made me sob. Watching Hasya get as healthy as possible for her and be surrounded by people who love her...I never tire of it. That young woman (I believe she is 19 now) is stunningly beautiful and my heart breaks for the terrible things done to her as a child/teen in that orphanage. 

I know Adeye is not everyone’s favorite person around here, but at the very least, Hasya is so much better off there. (And yeah, she has too many kids, but they’re still better off than a lot if the adoptive families I’ve read about here.)

[BobTheWalrus]

On 2/6/2018 at 7:45 PM, AmazonGrace said:

Is there a conflict?  I  feel like anything that helps the family feel like the adopted child truly belongs with the adopted parents and is a true part of the family could be in both the parent's and the child's best interests. 

A name is so much a part of your identity, though, and if you've got used to one name it's hard to switch to another. I feel like, I'm not just called [name], I AM [name]. I think that a pet name used by the parents can make a child feel loved and part of the family, without having to lose the identity that has been theirs since birth.

[anachronistic]

Fiddledd, I came here to say the exact same thing. For all her faults, Adeye and her husband saved Hasya’s life. The differences between when she was first adopted and a year or two later are so amazing that you would not know they were the same person. Hasya, and her other kids, have all positively bloomed in that family, and if they had to become conservative Christians to do it, well, it is infinitely better than their lives in institutions. Adeye is one of the few fundies that we follow that seems to take the adage, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ very, very seriously. She puts her money where her mouth is, that’s for sure.  

I admit to being quite confused over some of her story - her blog is so disjointed and it’s hard to follow the plot - also, um, embryos are not the same as living, breathing babies - but for Hasya, Adeye and her family were and are a miracle. And I like how, unlike some adoptive par, Adeye emphasizes what the children have added to her family. She isn’t doing this just to save souls, but to save lives. Her kids have made Adeye a better person and she gives them all the credit for working hard and surviving. She also sends them to school, gets good medical care, and makes life choices based on what is best for them - for example, I suspect that they didn’t go live as missionaries because Hasya and the others need the educational and medical services available in the states,

Yeah, she’s a bit whacked, and I don’t like changing a kids name, but overall, I can’t fault her for much. Hasya is all the proof you need.

 

[Briefly]

5 hours ago, BobTheWalrus said:

A name is so much a part of your identity, though, and if you've got used to one name it's hard to switch to another. I feel like, I'm not just called [name], I AM [name]. I think that a pet name used by the parents can make a child feel loved and part of the family, without having to lose the identity that has been theirs since birth.

Nicknames, or pet names, have always been big in my family. I still answer to mine, although I do know what my actual name is!  But one of my niece's (who I honestly think is exactly like McKmama) has 5 kids with nice names but they chose nicknames before the kids were born and never use the "real" names.  In fact, I'm fairly certain that most of her children do not know that they have actual names other than their nicknames.

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

I know someone like that.  The parents decided on the nicknames they wanted to call the children and then figured out what "real" names they could use that would sort of correspond to the nicknames.  The children have never been called anything but the nicknames by anyone. 

The nicknames are, at least to me, odd with strange rationales.  Like Hettie as a nickname for Heather.  Hettie is for some great aunt, but the parents didn't actually want to name the child for the great aunt, just call her by the great aunt's name.

[SoybeanQueen]

On 2/6/2018 at 7:54 AM, JermajestyDuggar said:

 

Sorry for the accidental quote, Jermajesty.

On 2/5/2018 at 10:51 PM, Ozlsn said:

Out of curiosity is it common for internally adopted US kids to have their names changed, or is it more an overseas adoption thing?

Depends on the situation. I know several former foster kids who chose an entirely different name for themselves upon adoption. I know some who only changed their last name, a few that chose to keep their original first and last names, and some whose parents wanted to change their first and last names. Our children who came to us from foster care have new names. They chose their names, but we were also advised to consider a complete change for safety reasons.

It isn't difficult to find people online these days. Their original names, particularly when typed in together, were unusual enough that one could pinpoint their location pretty quickly. Even if they avoided social media altogether, it's nearly impossible to avoid names being in local newspapers, which often publish online as well, or on websites (school honor roll lists, sports articles or photos, community organization info, church directories).

My boys really don't care much about their original names, but they also don't have much emotional connection to their birth family. My daughter and I talk about how she can honor her original name and history while keeping herself safe from people who tried to kill her and those that might see her relative prosperity apart from them and ask for monetary help.

Their complete change included new SSNs, because it really sucks for former foster kids to find out when they grow up that someone along the way trashed their credit.

 

Rehoming stories make me ragey. People have to be willfully ignorant to not prepare themselves for serious difficulty when adopting older children. They shouldn't adopt if they aren't prepared to stick it out through the worst. Are there days where I feel like giving up? Of course, because parenting a child with a traumatic past is hard. It's really, really hard. Other parents don't understand, and they judge, and it sucks. But I have a cry and suck it up and move on, because these are my children. That's what parents are supposed to do. I have no use for the people who give up and then sob about how it was too hard when the issues they describe are freaking typical for older adoptees.

[Inthemadhouse]

There are many things I like about Adeye.  She does get the kids what they need, and they are obviously adored.  She took a very strong stance against the Pearls and their child training methods when somebody asked about her blog title.   She is very proud of the kids, boys and girls, and she does encourage tenderness  and gentle feelings  in her  boys.     She is an extremely lucky woman who seems to truly  enjoy the life she has created for herself.
That said,  she paints way too rosy  a picture of adoption, especially  special needs and older child  adoption.   A lot of issues are very glossed over with babble about Jesus and how he has  a plan for everything.    Which  I would be able to swallow a lot better if she wasn't pushing for others to adopt kids with similar needs.  No, love and Jesus will not cure everything, and sharing the hard parts as  well as the joy is only  going to make things easier for the potential parents,  which will make it better  for the kids.  Too many stories about parents rehoming, when a more  honest  look at what they are actually willing to handle  day to day, possibly  for the rest of their lives would have helped them make different  choices.
I also have  very  mixed  feelings  about  the mother  from  redemption  whispers.   She is a grade A child collector who lays the Jesus on almost as thick as Adeye.   But  I feel like she is more honest about the hard parts of  adoption and special needs parenting.     She  admits that she has had to lower  expectations for one child from what she had originally hoped for.    She talks about  the  trauma of being in even a good orphanage, and  how  their progress will be measured in years instead of expecting to see it  right  away.  
Adoption is hard.   Parenting special needs and traumatized  kids is hard.    Not  everyone is cut out for it.   I just wish that   Adeye ( and others too), would be more honest about  the tough days, too