I'm Missing the Crazy Adoption Threads

[Maggie Mae]

Just now, Petronella said:

Well, our current one has a digital temperature readout as standard, but I don’t recall our old pre-digital refrigerators having one I ever noticed. But the way she wrote about was as if it were specifically for the adoption process. That level of nitpickiness seems horrifyingly intimidating!

Yeah, we have an old fridge so we bought a thermometer for it. 

It makes sense to me, food safety is important and kids can die from common food borne bacteria. And a lot of people don't check their fridge temp. What good is having food and water if the food is dangerous and the water is dirty? (They also test water if you have a well.) But most of the adoption stuff is stuff that people should be doing anyway - cleaning their bathroom, not leaving dangerous chemical compounds about, securing open water and not living in a junkyard where kids can get locked in an old dryer out back. 

[ifosterkittens]

1 hour ago, Stormy said:

I'd like to know this, too, as someone who's considering adoption (though I'm not sure how lucky I'll get as someone who's LGBTQ, autistic, and will likely pursue it as a single person...).

Stormy I don't know where you live, but if you live in the United States this page may help https://www.adoptuskids.org/adoption-and-foster-care/overview/who-can-adopt-foster. You can select your state for more specific requirements. Some agencies claim Christian values when discriminating against LGBTQ+ adoptive parents, but I hope you can find one that embraces you.    

Here are the basics https://adoption.org/requirements-foster-parent

"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people are over-represented in foster care, where they are more likely to experience discrimination, abuse, neglect and the risk of harm. A 2019 studyfound 30.4 percent of youth in foster care identify as LGBTQ and 5 percent as transgender, compared to 11.2 percent and 1.17 percent of youth not in foster care." https://www.childrensrights.org/lgbtq-2/

I included the above to share the importance of having more LGBTQ+ foster parents and adoptive parents. 

I can't find a source at the moment, but I believe a quarter of foster parents are single. 

I wish you the very best! 

Edited May 19, 2020 by ifosterkittens

[Petronella]

17 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

But most of the adoption stuff is stuff that people should be doing anyway

Fair enough. I’m just flummoxed by the fridge thermometer, because it’s simply not come up in my fifty years. Of course the fridge needs to be cold; I’ve just never needed to prove that my fridge is cold.

[dharmapunk]

7 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

But most of the adoption stuff is stuff that people should be doing anyway - cleaning their bathroom, not leaving dangerous chemical compounds about, securing open water and not living in a junkyard where kids can get locked in an old dryer out back. 

Here in Austria some of the rules do seem a bit over the top. I already have a daughter, so of course I agree with basic child safety rules. But I was surprised to learn that I had to lock away my acrylic paints. I mean, keep them up on a shelf so that kids don't accidentally find them and make a giant mess - sure. But keep them in a locked box, because they are poisonous? Of course I will do it if those are the rules - but which kid eats acrylic paint. Or drinks vinegar? I was told to move my bottle of vinegar to an upper shelf in a closed cupboard because a child might accidentally drink it? My guess is they would stop after the first sip and not try that again anytime soon. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by dharmapunk

[katilac]

 

7 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

I'm not @Four is Enough but the thermometer is to check fridge temperature. We aren't trying to adopt and we have one for basic food safety. I thought it was normal?  You don't want your refrigerator to enter the danger zone (41-140/4.4-60).

idk about normal but I certainly wouldn't say it's typical. I've never had a fridge thermometer and have never known anyone to have one. 

[Four is Enough]

17 hours ago, Petronella said:

Can you explain the thermometer in the fridge? Is that an essential part of being found fit for parenthood??

We always kept our refrigerator in a "cold enough" situation. The milk neither froze nor went lumpy, so it was fine, right? With the home study for One... we had to have a thermometer in our refrigerator so that it could be checked at any time that it was appropriately cold enough to keep our food safe for the child. It has stayed there, and been checked, since.

Same way we had to keep a bedroom free for our children. They could sleep together if they were of the same sex, but they could not sleep together if they were not.. which always cracked me up because i have inlaws who had a two bedroom house, and they had a son and daughter who slept together until they left for college.. 

We also had to have up to date fire extinguishers, and smoke alarms, in the house. Routine maintenance, as one would say. but if you live in your own home and aren't adopting nobody comes to check. So we had our house vetted by the Fire Department.

Not only that, but our water heater was tested.. the temperature could not be above 120 degrees..

We had dollar store stickers on our microwave that the kids liked. They were Halloween decorations. I left them up (because the kids liked them) and was told by the social worker that I wasn't cleaning enough because it was January and the Halloween decorations were still up. Well, it's now the third microwave those decorations are on... the kids still love them, and phooey to that social worker..

 

15 hours ago, Petronella said:

Well, our current one has a digital temperature readout as standard, but I don’t recall our old pre-digital refrigerators having one I ever noticed. But the way she wrote about was as if it were specifically for the adoption process. That level of nitpickiness seems horrifyingly intimidating!

That level of nitpickiness is amazing. the refrigerator thermometer was specifically for the adoption social workers to check. We tried to figure out what the social worker would tell us about next.. but we just couldn't.

On the one hand, we took One out of state to Disney World at 6 weeks of age. The social worker agreed to it, because Mr. Four had a conference and airline tickets from prior to the time we received One. They had all our contact information, including our hotel name, address, and phone number. I have no doubt that they corroborated the information before we flew there. OTOH, when Two was born in another state, I could not leave the state with him until the Interstate Compact was fulfilled. I lived in a motel with Two for three weeks before all the paperwork was done.

And for Three and Four, they were in school by the time we adopted them. Navigating the "who can talk to the school, " "Who can visit the school" and "Who can pick them up from school" was VERY tricky. We had to identify ourselves very clearly as the foster parents, and refer them to our social worker, etc. Thankfully, we got them in May, and school ended in June, so it didn't last forever. The next school year, we enrolled them in the school One and Two attended, where we were known.

 

[Petronella]

4 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

We always kept our refrigerator in a "cold enough" situation. The milk neither froze nor went lumpy, so it was fine, right? With the home study for One... we had to have a thermometer in our refrigerator so that it could be checked at any time that it was appropriately cold enough to keep our food safe for the child. It has stayed there, and been checked, since.

Same way we had to keep a bedroom free for our children. They could sleep together if they were of the same sex, but they could not sleep together if they were not.. which always cracked me up because i have inlaws who had a two bedroom house, and they had a son and daughter who slept together until they left for college.. 

We also had to have up to date fire extinguishers, and smoke alarms, in the house. Routine maintenance, as one would say. but if you live in your own home and aren't adopting nobody comes to check. So we had our house vetted by the Fire Department.

Not only that, but our water heater was tested.. the temperature could not be above 120 degrees..

We had dollar store stickers on our microwave that the kids liked. They were Halloween decorations. I left them up (because the kids liked them) and was told by the social worker that I wasn't cleaning enough because it was January and the Halloween decorations were still up. Well, it's now the third microwave those decorations are on... the kids still love them, and phooey to that social worker..

 

That level of nitpickiness is amazing. the refrigerator thermometer was specifically for the adoption social workers to check. We tried to figure out what the social worker would tell us about next.. but we just couldn't.

On the one hand, we took One out of state to Disney World at 6 weeks of age. The social worker agreed to it, because Mr. Four had a conference and airline tickets from prior to the time we received One. They had all our contact information, including our hotel name, address, and phone number. I have no doubt that they corroborated the information before we flew there. OTOH, when Two was born in another state, I could not leave the state with him until the Interstate Compact was fulfilled. I lived in a motel with Two for three weeks before all the paperwork was done.

And for Three and Four, they were in school by the time we adopted them. Navigating the "who can talk to the school, " "Who can visit the school" and "Who can pick them up from school" was VERY tricky. We had to identify ourselves very clearly as the foster parents, and refer them to our social worker, etc. Thankfully, we got them in May, and school ended in June, so it didn't last forever. The next school year, we enrolled them in the school One and Two attended, where we were known.

 

Wow. That is intense. The "Halloween decoration are still up" makes me roll my eyes. Yeah, and our Christmas lights are still up, because they're pretty. What of it? Nothing to do with cleanliness.

Yes, of course I'm glad that adopted families are vetted, and using a concrete system for checking is a way to keep personal prejudices from entering into it. But it does seem like a recipe for checklist-over-common-sense.

Anyway, you did it! You're amazing! Thanks for explaining more about it.

[Four is Enough]

15 minutes ago, Petronella said:

Yes, of course I'm glad that adopted families are vetted, and using a concrete system for checking is a way to keep personal prejudices from entering into it. But it does seem like a recipe for checklist-over-common-sense.

I didn't even mention that our professional licenses were checked and our employers were also contacted about our employment history. I was in graduate school before One was born; I remember my thesis advisor was contacted about me. We were definitely checked out, very thoroughly..

ETA: I could go on... car seats, etc...

Edited May 20, 2020 by Four is Enough

[Flossie]

When my husband and I considered adoption, we started the process but there were several reasons why we decided against it.  One of the reasons was when I told the teachers at my daughters school we were thinking about adoption, they said that because my oldest was (at the time) diagnosed as autistic, if they were contacted by CSD they'd recommend against it.  They said that we needed to be spending all of our time focusing on our daughter.  I was pretty upset and said "I'm glad I didn't consult you when we had our second kid."  They came right out and said that they'd have recommended against it.

There were other reasons we didn't proceed, but that one stung.

[FiddleDD]

You hear all the time how there's a shortage of foster parents. Well a relative of mine got certified (she was trying to adopt a child from another state that ended up falling through after the two states messed around for YEARS). The social worker didn't seem to like them. No specific reason, it was stupid stuff like she didn't like that the husband was self employed, stupid petty stuff like that. Nothing that prevented their certification,  it was just clear to my relative that she didn't like them.

In the YEARS that my relative was certified, they never called her ONCE. it blew my mind. I just can't believe that in those years there was never once a kid that needed an emergency placement, even just for a couple days. Not after all the stories I've read where they beg already overburdened foster parents to take in cases because they have nowhere else. 

Meanwhile, the people I know who had zero trouble fostering and then adopting? I wouldn't trust with a goldfish. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by FiddleDD
I can haz words.

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

If anyone needs a dose of WTF, Not Enough Nelsons on YouTube is pretty crazy. They have a lot of kids including several adopted ones and are, in general, a cringey mess.

[Maggie Mae]

11 hours ago, katilac said:

 

idk about normal but I certainly wouldn't say it's typical. I've never had a fridge thermometer and have never known anyone to have one. 

Mean while, everyone I know who is around my age and younger has one, and a meat thermometer. I wish my parents and grandparents had cared at all about food safety, I still have memories of running to the bathroom after eating at grandma's house. 

32 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

If anyone needs a dose of WTF, Not Enough Nelsons on YouTube is pretty crazy. They have a lot of kids including several adopted ones and are, in general, a cringey mess.

Start a thread, they came up elsewhere as well. 

[Four is Enough]

54 minutes ago, FiddleDD said:

You hear all the time how there's a shortage of foster parents.

In the YEARS that my relative was certified, they never called her ONCE.

I have to say we were gifted with excellent and motivated  social workers. The only one who was a little... slow in her reactions left after our first year with her. I've been in touch with two of them for many years. One is now retired, and the other will still answer our calls.. there have been a few issues with the birth parents of our youngest.. and even after both turned 21, that social worker fielded calls from the birth parents and acted as a go between from our children to the birth parents. Totally not in her scope of practice to continue to work for an adult, but she did.. until the situation was rectified.

[Stormy]

Thanks for the links, @ifosterkittens! I will definitely check those out.  

4 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

I didn't even mention that our professional licenses were checked and our employers were also contacted about our employment history. I was in graduate school before One was born; I remember my thesis advisor was contacted about me. We were definitely checked out, very thoroughly..

2 hours ago, Flossie said:

One of the reasons was when I told the teachers at my daughters school we were thinking about adoption, they said that because my oldest was (at the time) diagnosed as autistic, if they were contacted by CSD they'd recommend against it.  They said that we needed to be spending all of our time focusing on our daughter.  I was pretty upset and said "I'm glad I didn't consult you when we had our second kid."  They came right out and said that they'd have recommended against it.

2 hours ago, FiddleDD said:

The social worker didn't seem to like them. Nothing that prevented their certification,  it was just clear to my relative that she didn't like them.

In the YEARS that my relative was certified, they never called her ONCE. it blew my mind.

Stories like these are really scary to me. I understand the need for vetting to weed out the Kimis, but, as someone who's been "misunderstood" throughout my life, it's haunting to think that such a crucial part of my life would be held against others' thoughts of me. I've always struggled to make friends with my same-age peers, and to this day I don't fit in with my coworkers (or supervisors, for that matter). I also went through a period of tension in my family (we're okay now) and I plan for many of them to be at arms-length. I'm also a very persistent person if something's not right, which could prove problematic if a social worker feels too inconvenienced. (Which leads us to, again, HOW did Kimi get approved...?)

1 hour ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

If anyone needs a dose of WTF, Not Enough Nelsons on YouTube is pretty crazy. They have a lot of kids including several adopted ones and are, in general, a cringey mess.

I only looked at the thumbnails before I had enough Nelsons. Is it bad that I confused them at first with a different cringey adoptive family on YouTube? (Crazy Middles?)

I second that there should be a thread for them. I started a whole new one myself for the whole Myka situation; YouTube families catch too many breaks.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I’ve never been a foster parent nor foster child. But I do have a friend who did foster to adopt. The biggest problem there was that their caseworker was completely overloaded. Since my friend was doing a great job as a foster parent and only had some small issues with their toddler, the caseworker barely ever checked up on them! She had so many emergency type cases that their case always took last place. So the caseworker was constantly cancelling visits at the last minute because she had other cases that needed visits pronto. They eventually adopted the child and all is well. It was just very frustrating at times. 

[Maggie Mae]

1 hour ago, Stormy said:

Stories like these are really scary to me. I understand the need for vetting to weed out the Kimis, but, as someone who's been "misunderstood" throughout my life, it's haunting to think that such a crucial part of my life would be held against others' thoughts of me. I've always struggled to make friends with my same-age peers, and to this day I don't fit in with my coworkers (or supervisors, for that matter). I also went through a period of tension in my family (we're okay now) and I plan for many of them to be at arms-length. I'm also a very persistent person if something's not right, which could prove problematic if a social worker feels too inconvenienced. (Which leads us to, again, HOW did Kimi get approved...?)

I've wanted to adopt as well, and we'd be great at it. But all of the background checks and financial stuff puts it out of reach - for the same kind of reasons as you. Like, my house is in order (other than the garage, which I think is a stupid requirement) but the job situation (I worked at one company for 10 years, and now do a lot of "gig" work (swim lessons, yoga classes, thinking about teaching piano or tutoring) while looking for something more permanent  and the fact that we aren't married is not going to fly. Plus most of the kids who are adoptable out of foster care have FAS, and that's one disability that I just can't handle. 

Kimi got approved because she met the requirements to adopt a disabled child from a Christian agency in China. 

I've really enjoyed reading Rebecca at Fosterhood NYC's blog and now twitter - she's been trying to adopt the child she's had for six years. That's a nightmare situation - the poor kid is not eligible for reunification, and yet she's been with Rebecca since she was 2 days old. For six or seven years now, no end in site. Despite laws that said she should have been adopted years ago. 

[SassyPants]

I used to follow a couple of bloggers who had adopted internationally. One had even interrupted the adoption of several, related children. I think the family’s last name was Morro? The dad was an OBGYN in MI, and the family had a gaggle of biological kids too. Another one was The Blessing of Verity blog. These folks were in real deep. This was a family where an older boy with special needs they had adopted from an Eastern European country drowned in the bath tub. Just a train wreck of a situation...lots of kids, lots of special needs, religion and problems.

[TuringMachine]

4 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

Start a thread, they came up elsewhere as well. 

Done: 

 

[apandaaries]

I’ve known a few folks trying to adopt. 
It’s so hard.

There are the constant and erratic check-ins. There is usually an underlying fear in the family that the child will be taken away.

During these past two years, I’ve watched three households, good, loving ones, do their best and get kicked to the curb.

The first two fostered babies for almost a year, before family stepped up and intervened...by taking on the baby after its first year. I’m glad those babies have family, but still....

My brother and sil have been trying to adopt for two years, but privately, to discourage the issues seen above. From what I’ve seen, tbh, is a helluva lot of scammers.

One cannot sell a baby in the US, but one can spend thousands on keeping a family from being evicted, fed, etc.

Basically, One can be pregnant and request “help” with rent, food, etc. then, if they prefer to keep the child, they can. And do. And will. Which  is cool until you realizing they’re fleecing the potential parents and their feelings.

None of my folks have gotten after “displaced” adoptions, so I only know what I’ve read on fb and reddit. But I know there’re out there.

[Quiver Full of Kittens]

6 hours ago, SassyPants said:

 Another one was The Blessing of Verity blog. These folks were in real deep. This was a family where an older boy with special needs they had adopted from an Eastern European country drowned in the bath tub. Just a train wreck of a situation...lots of kids, lots of special needs, religion and problems.

I learned about The Blessing of Verity when I fell down the Reece’s Rainbow rabbit hole. That whole situation with their son was absolutely tragic.

I just popped onto the blog and it appears that as of mid April she has decided she is done blogging. 

[Inthemadhouse]

'Sissy' looks happy and beautiful.  I hope her new family is getting her the help and services she needs to transition into independence.  I worry about the other two girls, and even Apple.

[DarkAnts]

I hope Avery is ok too. She kept getting rehomed and returned to her abuser. She was not wanted by the women who initially adopted her. She did it with the intention of rehomeing her after they were in the states. 

[Queen Of Hearts]

8 hours ago, DarkAnts said:

I hope Avery is ok too. She kept getting rehomed and returned to her abuser. She was not wanted by the women who initially adopted her. She did it with the intention of rehomeing her after they were in the states. 

Oh, I remember them. What blog was that? That woman also had multiple adopted kids, right?

[katilac]

3 hours ago, Queen Of Hearts said:

Oh, I remember them. What blog was that? That woman also had multiple adopted kids, right?

Yes, but the others were more 'grateful' and pliable than Avery ?

[DarkAnts]

11 hours ago, Queen Of Hearts said:

Oh, I remember them. What blog was that? That woman also had multiple adopted kids, right?

I can't remember. It's no longer available. She went private a few months after Avery came back from being rehomed. She swore that she would never do that again. Later, she started another blog and there was no evidence of Avery living there. Someone asked where Avery was. That blog went private soon after.