Heartbreaking

[champu 1]

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An adopted child sent back half way across the world alone with a note saying that he is no longer wanted! Terrible.

To add insult to injury he's probably got a crap accent now too.

[pirana 0]

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An adopted child sent back half way across the world alone with a note saying that he is no longer wanted! Terrible.

How is it possible that an unmarried single person can adopt a child???

In my country, that's simply impossible.

Perhaps she went to Wisconsin and married herself.

I think you have been misinformed. You can not marry yourself, even in WI.

Now if you develop strong feelings about your favorite Hereford - arrangements might be able to be worked out.

I read that 10% of people that grew up on a working farm have sodomized a barnyard animal at least once. So if you know 10 peoploe that grew up on a farm with livestock; look around. Chances are one of them was banging the beef. That is my gross, irreverent Heartland Daily Factoid.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[dreaming13000 1]

"A man only gets in life what he is believing for, nothing more and nothing less" Kenneth Hagen

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Kids are no toys.

Great statement right there. I think some people think of them as possessions, toys, accessories or pets; returnable when you tire of them.

[airtwardo 6]

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An adopted child sent back half way across the world alone with a note saying that he is no longer wanted! Terrible.

Poorly handled? Absolutely.

I'm not going to come to the defense of the woman involved, but we really don't know anything about her circumstances in this yet. I think we'd pretty much all agree she attempted to do the right thing to begin with in adopting a child.

However, what happens when a person adopts a child and only after several months figures out they can't deal with him for any one of a number of reasons? I don't know. I've never been in that situation. I'd like to think I wouldn't just put him back on the plane, but people do return children all the time in that situation. This just happens to be an international case. It's f'ed up; no doubt about that, but I don't necessarily think the woman is some kind of monster. She didn't take the child out to the middle of the desert and kill him. She didn't sell the kid into the sex trade.

People do far worse things to kids all the time. That's not an excuse, but understand it could be a lot worse.

Thanks for keeping an open mind and not just jumping on the bandwagon quade!

~ As an adoptive parent of 3 Russian children I can tell ya there's likely more to this story than what's currently being reported.

Do I agree with what and how she did what she did?

No, but I certainly understand it and have empathy for her situation.

I watch the talking heads on TV...Larry King, Anderson Cooper etc. and can only roll my eyes at the incorrect information they disseminate.

The cold hard fact of the matter is that this program is a cash cow for Russia and the multitude of strip-mall store front 'agencies' here in the U.S. facilitating the program... and yes it's akin to the Cuban boat lift in that they are sending 'problem' cases that they believe will be a drain on their society.

These talking heads keep saying this woman had all these social safety nets...other things she could have done.

Well in reality, they don't exist to the degree someone not personally involved might think.

Yes there are 'programs' but as with most government sponsored assembly line social services, they are over extended and ineffective.

I pity the family without financial means to drop six figures over several years in an attempt to help their child/children.

What to do, when a child is out of control and in a REAL way, threatening the health and safety of someone, as in this case?

I can cite literally dozens of cases I know of in which families were/are ruined, people hurt and in one case killed, pets mutilated, property destroyed...on & on, by a sociopath time-bomb cleverly disguised as a child in need... and that's just in my state of Texas, there are thousands of these kids nationwide!

Here in Texas, of the total number of registered internationally adopted children...70% have been involved in the criminal courts system by the age of 17...yes 70 PERCENT!
They believe those numbers could actually be higher, some families have the means to circumvent the justice system.

Should these programs be stopped?
No, of course not...HOWEVER, some serious 'looking into' is long over due.


No doubt there are positive cases as well, I'd like to think after 12 years our children are on the path to becoming positive productive citizens.
~but there were times the stresses and strains were unimaginable.

And... had our family situation not been so unique, and more on the order of an 'ordinary' U.S. family, things would not have turned out as well as they seem to be at this point.

Having BTDT and researching many aspects of the cause & effect of what's going on I can say without reservation that the 'general consensus' has NO fucking idea in regard to the REAL story.



I fully understand this woman's exasperation, and understand the mental state that allowed her to take this action.

Wrong yes, but walk a mile before condemning...and this is NOT the first time this has been done, just the first time so 'publicly'.

Desperate situations sometimes require desperate measures.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[Nightingale 0]

I think many children of international adoption have difficulties because they're adopted as toddlers to teenagers, not as babies. They've started to bond with their carers, and then that's snatched away and they're expected to rebond with an entirely new family that may not even speak their language. Many foreign countries do not allow infants to be adopted internationally, keeping them for sometimes a year or two, to give citizens a chance to adopt. I understand this, but when the children aren't adopted locally, it's difficult on the child.

There will always be older kids looking for families due to being orphans, financial issues, etc. I admire people that adopt them. I don't know that I could do that. It seems to me that children and parents grow at the same rate... when they're babies, all you have to worry about is keeping them clean, fed, and healthy. Often, that is overwhelming to new parents. Then, they start crawling and walking, and you have to worry about clean, fed, healthy, and out of trouble. As they grow, the "out of trouble" aspect becomes more and more difficult. It seems like parenting a child or pre-teen without going through everything that comes before is like trying to read a novel when you haven't learned the alphabet. The learning curve is so much steeper, because there's so much you need to know, and you need to know it Right Now.


I was adopted a few days after I was born. My birth mother insisted that I go straight to my family and not linger in social services for months like some babies. She picked (from files... birth mothers then were not allowed to meet the family) my parents from the files of parents who had completed everything, all the paperwork, homestudies, etc, and were ready to adopt in order to make the transfer as speedy as possible. My parents had only been in the system a few months, and they'd been told it might be years, so you can imagine their surprise when told "We have a baby girl for you, you can pick her up tomorrow!" (there was much freaking out and running to Sears and buying half the store because they had no idea what they'd need!)

I wonder why foreign adoption can't happen the same way? Get the background checks and home studies out of the way, so that when someone travels to a country to meet children and pick up their child, the child can be as young as possible? Give the citizens of the country who are ready to adopt a first chance for a couple weeks, and if nobody steps up, let the little one go to their family as soon as possible. I understand that what I'm describing is ideal, and not every child can be adopted as an infant, but those that can be should be, and there needs to be a lot more support for children and parents when the children are adopted at an older age.

I do wonder why the mother in this case chose to adopt an older child from a foreign country rather than be a foster parent here. I know our system in California at least makes it very easy to adopt eligible children if you are already fostering them, and will even pay most of the costs to allow you to do so. I think that an older child should have a chance to get to know their new family more than the few hours/days they get in a foreign adoption, so there are no surprises on either side. The foster system has much more support than an adoption, where once the kid is legally yours, you're mostly on your own.

Sorry about writing a book here... being an adoptee, this is a subject that matters to me.

[airtwardo 6]

A quick answer to the major point.

'Some' people adopt older children from Russia because if somebody doesn't, the kid has very, very little chance in life...

Family unit structure there is very important, usually a child is raised in part by grandparents while the parents are working, and working anywhere is very hard to do if you don't have family to get you into some kind of job...no family pretty much no future.


At an 'orphanage'~
On their 18th birthday they are put out in the street, if you have no family to turn to and no money the future is rather bleak.

For boys they either go into the military or turn to crime on the streets... for girls there even fewer options, it is not pretty.

We spent a few months in Siberia working with the Detski Dome (children's home) and getting to know the all kids and the dedicated people that try to take care of them.

Understand that the worst case of institutional care for any child in the US is so unbelievably better than the best case there you have to admire the heart & spirit of those that survive much less thrive.

When we went we brought for the home~ medicine, clothing, books, toys...ALL the kids were blown away...BRAGGING at school!

There were 64 kids in that place, 8 to 10 to a 6X8 room...always sleeping with kids the same sex & in the same age group. Often taking turns who would wear the shoes to go to school that day.

When we met our daughter, she was wearing the same dress she'd worn during the adoption video, taped almost 2 years earlier...a rag that didn't fit.

I would take ALL the kids for a 2 mile walk to the store for ice cream, it was under 5 bucks to make 'em all smile...that was 1/2 a weeks wage for an adult male there.

Tearing up now thinking about it, there was a young man I bonded with there...he was a couple weeks away from getting the boot, nice way to turn 18.

He had some physical problems with a shoulder and hip...could not walk right, was strong & healthy otherwise. He was terrified about moving on, where to go, what to do.

I asked the 'director' what would become of him and he simply shook his head no. I secretly gifted the young man with enough cash to get a train to a nearby larger town and be able to survive for a while.

...he didn't.

'Some' people take older kids because they know that though there will likely be 'more' problems than with an infant adoption...if someone doesn't, the child has no chance period.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[dreaming13000 1]

I just recently did a quick research into the "orphan" life in the eastern Europe (namely Russia) countries and what I found is similiar to your firsthand experience. I am blown away by Russia's actions right now, shutting down their adoptions to US families and crying foul to the whole world when they have substandard (way way below standard) care and facilities for their "beloved" orphans.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/russian-babies-have-their-mouths-taped-shut-by-yekaterinburg-hospital-staff.html

this is of course just an extreme example but there are many more. Why would Russia not want to find good homes for these children, even if sometimes there is a "bad" apple that harms a child or does something tacky like flying the child back to russia with a note, there are many more who rescue these children from a life with no future.

Quit being silly Russia!

"A man only gets in life what he is believing for, nothing more and nothing less" Kenneth Hagen

[airtwardo 6]

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I just recently did a quick research into the "orphan" life in the eastern Europe (namely Russia) countries and what I found is similar to your firsthand experience. I am blown away by Russia's actions right now, shutting down their adoptions to US families and crying foul to the whole world when they have substandard (way way below standard) care and facilities for their "beloved" orphans.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/russian-babies-have-their-mouths-taped-shut-by-yekaterinburg-hospital-staff.html

this is of course just an extreme example but there are many more. Why would Russia not want to find good homes for these children, even if sometimes there is a "bad" apple that harms a child or does something tacky like flying the child back to Russia with a note, there are many more who rescue these children from a life with no future.

Quit being silly Russia!

This isn't the first time they have 'shut it down' for political reasons...it's all a dog & pony show, in a month or two when all the hoopla has died down they'll turn it on again.

The government doesn't 'run' this highly profitable business...the 'gentleman' in the silk Italian suits with the black Mercedes do.

It will be up & running again!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[dreaming13000 1]

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I just recently did a quick research into the "orphan" life in the eastern Europe (namely Russia) countries and what I found is similar to your firsthand experience. I am blown away by Russia's actions right now, shutting down their adoptions to US families and crying foul to the whole world when they have substandard (way way below standard) care and facilities for their "beloved" orphans.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/russian-babies-have-their-mouths-taped-shut-by-yekaterinburg-hospital-staff.html

this is of course just an extreme example but there are many more. Why would Russia not want to find good homes for these children, even if sometimes there is a "bad" apple that harms a child or does something tacky like flying the child back to Russia with a note, there are many more who rescue these children from a life with no future.

Quit being silly Russia!

This isn't the first time they have 'shut it down' for political reasons...it's all a dog & pony show, in a month or two when all the hoopla has died down they'll turn it on again.

The government doesn't 'run' this highly profitable business...the 'gentleman' in the silk Italian suits with the black Mercedes do.

It will be up & running again!

Right, something like $40,000 usd for these adoptions to go through.... so yeah, the door will open again and I guess all you can hope for is for these children is that they'll find a loving family .

"A man only gets in life what he is believing for, nothing more and nothing less" Kenneth Hagen

[peregrinerose 0]

Nightingale... I can tell you first hand that once the child is legally yours, you are by no means completely on your own with regard to adoption from foster care. Our son was with us almost a year before he was adopted. And some issues came up AFTER his adoption that we needed some expert help with. Both the county case worker and our agency have been absolutely phenominal in hooking us up with the resources that we needed to help him

Airtwardo and Night.... the huge advantage of adopting older kids, at least in the US, is that you know their baggage. You know their history, their behaviors. I have about 200 pages of psych records alone on our son, so we knew where he had been, his triggers, the course he was on, what did and didn't work to help him, the kinds of things to watch out for, his personality, etc. These are all total unknowns with an young child or infant. I would adopt another teenager in a heartbeat (actually working on updating the paperwork now to start the matching process again), but hell will freeze over before I adopt under the age of 13.

Teenagers can talk to you. They can tell you what's wrong. They can reason. They don't always choose to engage in those behaviors, but at least the capability is there. You can't reason with a 4 year old that is trying to rape the dog and set the curtains on fire due to a previously unknown past of sexual abuse.

I would not adopt overseas, as 'buying a child' doesn't sit right with me, and it's a big money game. $30,000+ for a kid? That's insane. I paid absolutely nothing for our adoption, plus get a $950 adoption subsidy every month which goes into a bank account for his college education.

Learning curve? I can deal with a teenager pretty easily, but am a bumbling idiot with the under 5 crowd. I found the learning curve not too bad.... learning what resources were out there and asking the right people the right questions was more difficult than actually learning to parent. That was actually not too tough.

Oh, and regarding attachments... ours had over 2 dozen foster homes. 4 failed adoption attempts. 3 years in Residential Treatment Facilities (psych wards, basically). He has no idea how to attach, but has made very good progress. I wouldn't trade our life with him for anything at all. He's a remarkable kid. Most of the time

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda