FacePalm Friday

Welcome to this week’s edition of FacePalm Friday.

This is where your hosts will list their top picks for this week’s FacePalm moment—something they learned or read about this week that caused the FacePalm to happen (you know, the expression of embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, shock, disgust or mixed humor as depicted in our Rally FacePalm smiley).

We invite you to add your FacePalm of the week to our comments. Go ahead and add a link, tell a personal story, or share something that triggered the FacePalm on the subject of child welfare or adoption.

Your Host’s Selections:

Troubled Celebrities Adopting

This story from a few weeks ago caused a lot of outrage. We are talking about the girl from St. Lucia who came forward after the death of troubled singer Amy Winehouse to say that she was to be adopted by Amy. Celebrity watch sites like TMZ and a host of UK tabloids splashed the story and the followup from Amy’s reps that said it was untrue. Commenters remarked at how impossible it would be for someone with admitted drug problems to  adopt. While it is hard to believe that she would have been approved, that stance requires a lot of assumptions on the part of what the St. Lucia government would be willing to do and the assumption of where Amy might have lived to enable this to happen and the influence of money on the adoption process.

It was but a year ago that a US troubled celebrity died…Casey Johnson…who despite drug problems was allowed to adopt from Kazakhstan. This story describes how she had put herself into diabetic comas due to excessive alcohol and drug use and that she had been in and out of rehab clinics. Despite supposedly strong US regulations, the heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune was able to internationally adopt.
Ya gotta remember that the Adoption Industry is all about

Adoption.com’s Ridiculous Ethiopia Update

They receive the award for the weakest attempt to gloss over Ethiopia’s issues. http://ethiopia.adoptionblogs.com/weblogs/an-unofficial-update

“One agency representative told me that announcements and updates will not likely come out of Ethiopia while the courts are closed, but she expects positive information by October when they reopen.”

“While you wait, feel free to contact your agency. They are your partners in this process, and they understand their duty to give you true information and manage your expectations.”

See here for a PAPs sale to fundraise for their adoption. If you think adoption is all and , then maybe you should avoid buying one of their other T-shirts that appears to us to be a more accurate depiction of the adoption industry (though it is not supposed to be related to adoption) here.