Christian organization lets you borrow an orphan for the holidays

[Ozlsn]

2 minutes ago, Aine said:

I just can't imagine the callousness of leaving my siblings, adopted or not, out of my wedding. Every 'adult only' wedding I have been to has been with the exception of immediate family kids (like siblings, first cousins, and nieces and nephews)

I just read the blog entry - apparently it was the mother who suggested it. From the entry: 

"I came up with a brilliant idea and decided it would just be the grown ups!

I'm sure you would prefer kids pics but sorry!

The logistics of driving across country with all the kiddos, packing for 18, having a grooms dinner that focused on the soon to be newlyweds, keeping track of 16 kiddos while they were
hiking and running around the cliffs of Dead Horse State Park, Canyonlands National park and Arches National Park was more than I/we could handle!

I started to have nightmares of everyone safety...

Sooooo, just the hubby and I went and enjoyed the grown up kids and all the festivities!

It was a good choice!"

WTAF? I don't think she could say much more clearly that she has two very separate ideas of family. Also who was looking after the 16 (ffs) 'kiddos' while they were away? 

[Aine]

50 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

I just read the blog entry - apparently it was the mother who suggested it. From the entry: 

"I came up with a brilliant idea and decided it would just be the grown ups!

I'm sure you would prefer kids pics but sorry!

The logistics of driving across country with all the kiddos, packing for 18, having a grooms dinner that focused on the soon to be newlyweds, keeping track of 16 kiddos while they were
hiking and running around the cliffs of Dead Horse State Park, Canyonlands National park and Arches National Park was more than I/we could handle!

I started to have nightmares of everyone safety...

Sooooo, just the hubby and I went and enjoyed the grown up kids and all the festivities!

It was a good choice!"

WTAF? I don't think she could say much more clearly that she has two very separate ideas of family. Also who was looking after the 16 (ffs) 'kiddos' while they were away? 

Surely the people looking after the kids could have maybe come along for the trip to give some back up? Or else...maybe don't have so many kids that you can't supervise them all for one weekend at a wedding?

They are your kids! You can't sit there and go "well, they're better than in an orphanage in China because they have Jesus and the have the USA" (although I'm sure that's what they tell themselves). They're part of a family now and that is meant to be a family that can include them, love them, nurture them each as individuals, cater to their needs (including belonging and being a sibling to your biological kids). The way she refers to them seems more like a pet but even I don't speak so carelessly and emotionlessly about my dog. But still, something like this would be more 'normal': "Couldn't bring Buster and Peaches along because we couldn't supervise them safely and didn't have accommodation to provide for them so they had a great time at a free-range kennel and we missed them terribly. Although they gave use photo updates while we were gone so we could see they adjusted and had some fun but are excited to be home!"

Having made the decision that two of my siblings were better off being raised by some very observant and conservative (by Australian standards) Christians, I'd be appalled and distraught to read that this was their life on a public blog. Many Chinese 'orphans' have living parents that may one day be reunited with their biological children and I can't imagine the despair they'd feel when they realize they gave their child to an orphanage for a "better life" and this is what their child got. ?

[Aine]

1 hour ago, ladyjanegrey said:

In Jean Fritz's fictionalized autobiography Homesick she mentions that her family and another family were going to share an orphan over the Christmas holidays. The orphan (Millie? Lee?) was going to spend one week with the other family, then the two families would get together for a Christmas party and at the party they would hand off the orphan to Jean Fritz's family, where Millie(?)  would then spend a week with the Fritzs'. During a game of hide'n'seek at the Christmas party Lee(?) stormed off to the car, saying she didn't spend a week with the Fritzs' and if I remember right, she demanded to be taken back to the orphanage. Not that I blame the girl, it kind of sounded like the other family was a bit of a nightmare to live with... 
(For context, the contents of Homesick took place in 1920s China.)

I did a quick Google and saw some obituaries for Jean Fritz and summaries of her life but I wasn't exposed to her children's books growing up. How does one write a fictionalized autobiography and then the stories be true? I'm not doubting they are...I'm just confused as to how the content was in 1920s China- but it's fiction and an autobiography all at once rather than just being "based on a true story" (something plenty of people do)? This isn't questioning you, I'm just interested as to the veracity of various stories in the book and I can really only find things that say she recounted her life in China in Homesick.

[JillyO]

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

I just read the blog entry - apparently it was the mother who suggested it. From the entry: 

"I came up with a brilliant idea and decided it would just be the grown ups!

I'm sure you would prefer kids pics but sorry!

The logistics of driving across country with all the kiddos, packing for 18, having a grooms dinner that focused on the soon to be newlyweds, keeping track of 16 kiddos while they were
hiking and running around the cliffs of Dead Horse State Park, Canyonlands National park and Arches National Park was more than I/we could handle!

I started to have nightmares of everyone safety...

Sooooo, just the hubby and I went and enjoyed the grown up kids and all the festivities!

It was a good choice!"

WTAF? I don't think she could say much more clearly that she has two very separate ideas of family. Also who was looking after the 16 (ffs) 'kiddos' while they were away? 

Wow, that's fucked up. They definitely do not think of the adopted kids as anywhere near the same level as their bio kids. It seems more like a glorified daycare. Jean makes it sound like they couldn't have supervised all those kids (which, cool, how do you supervise them all at home then??), but the two oldest of those kids are at least 17 (possibly 18 at this point) and the youngest few are 9, maybe 10 now. So plenty of teenagers, including older teens, and some pre-teens. Not exactly a group that should be impossible to supervise with both parents present. If they actually saw them as their children, that is, rather than as projects to take care of when they feel like it.

[Ozlsn]

38 minutes ago, JillyO said:

Wow, that's fucked up. They definitely do not think of the adopted kids as anywhere near the same level as their bio kids. It seems more like a glorified daycare. Jean makes it sound like they couldn't have supervised all those kids (which, cool, how do you supervise them all at home then??), but the two oldest of those kids are at least 17 (possibly 18 at this point) and the youngest few are 9, maybe 10 now. So plenty of teenagers, including older teens, and some pre-teens. Not exactly a group that should be impossible to supervise with both parents present. If they actually saw them as their children, that is, rather than as projects to take care of when they feel like it.

So I fell down the rabbit hole trying to work out the adopted kids' ages. As best I can work out they have:

Sarah and Emma (both 18), Mia (17), Ellie (16), Jenny, Ava, Melissa (all 13), Abby, Anna, Sam, Ben, Madeline,?Emily  (all 12, although I'm not sure about Emily - I have an extra child in there somehow), Jake (11), Joey, Grace, Luke (10).

By contrast their youngest biological child is 25 - I don't think the older kids know the younger kids very well at all, they are (unsurprisingly) off starting their own families and lives and probably only see them at Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. I really don't know - I don't necessarily begrudge the parents a break, but not including at least the two adult, maybe four oldest girls even, would have made it a bit less obvious that there isn't really a connection between the biological and adopted parts of the family.  

One thing I will say though - in the very unlikely event that I adopt 16 children, and the even unlikelier event that I give them all Anglo names (choosing a name themselves is different to me), I am going alphabetical. Seriously here, three names starting with A, two with E, two with S, three with M and three with J? Letters addressed to "Initial. Surname" must be a nightmare in that house. Mine would go Anna, Bianca, Caleb, David, Eugenie, Faith, Gareth, Harry, Ingrid, Jason*, Kylie*, Liam, Melody, Norbert, Oscar, Penelope.

*yes I had to after I put Jason down. Nothing else would work for K...

 

2 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

"I came up with a brilliant idea and decided it would just be the grown ups!"

Yes, quoting myself quoting her but I just realised that her two adopted 18 year olds aren't being included as grown ups. 

I am really sort of stunned by that. I mean, I get that they're always your kids and 18 doesn't necessarily equal grown up, but I strongly suspect that "grown up" was not the metric being used to determine attendance here.

 

[Briefly]

9 hours ago, Aine said:

I did a quick Google and saw some obituaries for Jean Fritz and summaries of her life but I wasn't exposed to her children's books growing up. How does one write a fictionalized autobiography and then the stories be true? I'm not doubting they are...I'm just confused as to how the content was in 1920s China- but it's fiction and an autobiography all at once rather than just being "based on a true story" (something plenty of people do)? This isn't questioning you, I'm just interested as to the veracity of various stories in the book and I can really only find things that say she recounted her life in China in Homesick.

They may be fictionalized in the same sense that the Laura Ingalls Wilders books are considered fiction.  The stories are basically true, but the timeline is wrong and some of the people she wrote about are actually combined.  For example, Nellie Oleson is probably a combination of two or three girls that she combined into one for the stories.  The timeline is not exact, the events in Little House on the Prairie are off because Laura was a very young child during that time.  She took stories that she had been told by her parents as to what happened and changed them slightly, plus made herself older.  The basic story may be true but with changes like that.  I'm not familiar with Jean Fritz but that would be my guess.

[SolomonFundy]

8 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

So I fell down the rabbit hole trying to work out the adopted kids' ages. As best I can work out they have:

Sarah and Emma (both 18), Mia (17), Ellie (16), Jenny, Ava, Melissa (all 13), Abby, Anna, Sam, Ben, Madeline,?Emily  (all 12, although I'm not sure about Emily - I have an extra child in there somehow), Jake (11), Joey, Grace, Luke (10).

There's the answer. Can't have an "adults only" 18-and-up wedding if you are forced to bring along two of the adopted family members. Unless Sarah and Emma explicitly did not want to attend, it's inexcusable to exclude them from a sibling wedding intended for adults. I'm sure they were left home to care for the brood of left-behind siblings so that the "adults" could party together.

This family has always bothered the hell out of me. On the surface, it's hard to criticize the motives of someone who has the money and inclination to provide a home life for such a large number of children, many of whom have ongoing medical or developmental concerns. But there are so many WTF things that have cropped up on the blog and social media, including stuff like being left out of a major family event. You mentioned the kids' names? 

Quote

One thing I will say though - in the very unlikely event that I adopt 16 children, and the even unlikelier event that I give them all Anglo names (choosing a name themselves is different to me), I am going alphabetical. Seriously here, three names starting with A, two with E, two with S, three with M and three with J? Letters addressed to "Initial. Surname" must be a nightmare in that house.

Yeah. These people renamed two of their dogs so that they could RECYCLE THE NAMES FOR ADOPTED CHILDREN. One of the names was just similar in sound (Sissy/Missy), but poor Mia was given the same name as a living family pet. As far as anyone can tell, Jean and Jim pick the names for their adopted kids, so it's not even a situation where they did it as a courtesy for a child who preferred a certain name. 

I'm not a fan of arbitrarily changing the name of a child (or a pet) anyway, but the lack of consideration and originality is just baffling.

 

(Also, Emily is their grandchild.)

[Terrie]

9 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

One thing I will say though - in the very unlikely event that I adopt 16 children, and the even unlikelier event that I give them all Anglo names (choosing a name themselves is different to me), I am going alphabetical.

If I were in the position of naming children that way, the fourth one better not be a girl. There aren't really any D girl names I love. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I have always said that if I adopted a child from another country, they would keep their name. Even if it’s hard to pronounce. We could possibly come up with a similar nick name that’s easier to pronounce if they are getting tired of Americans mispronouncing their name all the time. But that’s it. Unless the child really wants to change their name. It would be up to them. I’m not about to bro g them to a new country, with a new family, a ton of new siblings, immediate medical procedures, AND change their name on top of it all. Nope.

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, SolomonFundy said:

I'm sure they were left home to care for the brood of left-behind siblings so that the "adults" could party together

According to much further down that blog entry:

"Thank you to both of our sisters-
Barb and Mimi, who stayed home with our kiddos and held the fort down!"

It's also interesting thinking about it - two of those "kiddos" are 18, and two others are late teens. It is making me wonder whether there are intellectual disabilities that she hasn't mentioned anywhere that I've seen, or whether it's subconscious infantilisation.

1 hour ago, SolomonFundy said:

On the surface, it's hard to criticize the motives of someone who has the money and inclination to provide a home life for such a large number of children, many of whom have ongoing medical or developmental concerns. 

Yeah, this. The kids do seem to be keeping in contact with their birth culture, as they seem to be going to Chinese school, and it was mentioned that one of the most recently adopted kids didn't see any reason to speak anything other than Mandarin which presumably means the kids are speaking it at home too - much better than forcing them to only speak English all the time. And certainly they get good medical care.

And then you read something like the birthday list for one of the boys was written by his brothers and he had no idea about it, and you wonder how well the parents can possibly know any of these kids when their time is being divided between 16 at home, 5 away, plus in laws and grandchildren. I don't know what the carer:child ratio is in Chinese orphanages but I suspect 1:8 is probably a bit lower. Even so I think the main support and bonds these kids are forming are with each other, which isn't a huge change from before. I think the adopted siblings will stay in contact as they age but I suspect few will stay in contact with the biological siblings.  

[wotdancer]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I have always said that if I adopted a child from another country, they would keep their name. Even if it’s hard to pronounce. We could possibly come up with a similar nick name that’s easier to pronounce if they are getting tired of Americans mispronouncing their name all the time. But that’s it. Unless the child really wants to change their name. It would be up to them. I’m not about to bro g them to a new country, with a new family, a ton of new siblings, immediate medical procedures, AND change their name on top of it all. Nope.

re: bolded. I'm sure you meant "bring", but now all I can picture is Bro Gary adopting a child from abroad, and massacring the child's name even worse than he already does to the English language.

[Jess]

The common room blogger who was part of the 4mom group with in a shoe, raising olives, and smocking frocks did this a few years ago. It was a sibling group from the Ukrain they came once things went well then they came again and the agency removed them for reasons she wouldn’t tell but claimed were false allegations. 

[Terrie]

At some point, it's not an adoptive family, it's an adoptive group home. Probably a little more stable than most actual group homes, because you won't be moved based on your age and there will be fewer other kids coming and going, but I think the adults need to be honest that it's not the same as a nuclear family setup.

[dianapavelovna]

7 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

It's also interesting thinking about it - two of those "kiddos" are 18, and two others are late teens. It is making me wonder whether there are intellectual disabilities that she hasn't mentioned anywhere that I've seen, or whether it's subconscious infantilisation.

 

Some of their kids do have IDD - Emma & Ellie, two of the older girls who are also bio sisters, both have pretty significant disabilities. Others may as well, but Jean is typically pretty vague about the kids' disabilities and medical needs, which I won't fault her for.

I was happy to see that Mia has a job - looks like she's a bagger at a grocery store.

[ladyjanegrey]

22 hours ago, Aine said:

I did a quick Google and saw some obituaries for Jean Fritz and summaries of her life but I wasn't exposed to her children's books growing up. How does one write a fictionalized autobiography and then the stories be true? I'm not doubting they are...I'm just confused as to how the content was in 1920s China- but it's fiction and an autobiography all at once rather than just being "based on a true story" (something plenty of people do)? This isn't questioning you, I'm just interested as to the veracity of various stories in the book and I can really only find things that say she recounted her life in China in Homesick.

 

12 hours ago, Briefly said:

They may be fictionalized in the same sense that the Laura Ingalls Wilders books are considered fiction.  The stories are basically true, but the timeline is wrong and some of the people she wrote about are actually combined.  For example, Nellie Oleson is probably a combination of two or three girls that she combined into one for the stories.  The timeline is not exact, the events in Little House on the Prairie are off because Laura was a very young child during that time.  She took stories that she had been told by her parents as to what happened and changed them slightly, plus made herself older.  The basic story may be true but with changes like that.  I'm not familiar with Jean Fritz but that would be my guess.

 

@Aine, no worries about not believing me; it was not the best choice of wording that I could have used! Briefly's guess is pretty spot-on. In her introduction to Homesick, Ms. Fritz wrote something along the lines of, 'The events and characters are real, however, I don't know if they happened in the exact order that I wrote them.' She also mentioned that while her book takes place over a period of two years, the events that transpired took place over a longer period of time. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

On 11/13/2018 at 7:49 PM, Glasgowghirl said:

The Parish I was part of growing up every summer had families take in families from Chernobyl and the surrounding areas. It was usually children and teenagers, though some younger children came with their parents. My friend's aunt used take kids in, the same groups often came back the following year, they got to travel around Scotland and enjoyed their time.

This to me seems totally different, this seems like renting a child just to make people think they are better than everyone else. These Children a getting hope of having a new family for a few days then dumped back into an orphanage, this is going to emotionally damage a child.

Same here. It's been a longtime tradition for many families here to host kids from Bielorussia for a month a year to help them lower their body radioactivity levels. Kids aren't necessarily orphans, just kids whose families wouldn't otherwise be able to afford sending them away from the contaminated areas for a sufficient period of time every year. 

Those programs are really good, help kids giving them the opportunity to grow healthier and help families creating strong bonds that go beyond borders and easing cultural exchanges, improving learning opportunities on both sides. Also most of these programs are well tried, having been in place for three decades now, with counselors helping families going through the difficulties that may arise especially at the beginning.

Needless to say, you can't have fundies come up with a useful, effective and not self serving idea. Can't have that.

[smittykins]

19 hours ago, SolomonFundy said:

I'm not a fan of arbitrarily changing the name of a child (or a pet)

When I adopted my previous cat China, she was already at least 3 years old, and I figured that she’d been through enough change as it was and didn’t need a new name on top of it. Plus, as a Siamese mix, I thought it fit.