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.
1. “Your adopted child could turn out to be a Steve Jobs too”
It didn’t take but 48 hours after Steve Jobs’ death for the adoption industry to turn it into a marketing ploy. An Indian adoption agency explains it in ‘Adopted’ Steve Jobs to inspire Indian adoption agency campaigns.
“City adoption agencies hope to leverage the outpouring of admiration in the wake of the death of Apple CEO and adopted child, Steve Jobs, to encourage childless couples to adopt.”
“With awareness about his accomplishments and interest at an all-time high following his death, adoption centres believe it is the right time to design an apt Steve Jobs-centric campaign to target couples that want to adopt.
State Minister for Women and Child Development Varsha Gaikwad is keen to introduce the success story of Steve Jobs in their future promotional adoption campaigns. “Such successful case-studies or faces will be used for the promotional campaign to encourage adoption. We also want to make a case for the adoption of kids in the age group of two to six years, apart from infants.”
Dr Vinita Bhargav, professor of sociology Delhi University, admits that case studies of people like Jobs will be useful in spreading the right message. “The need of the hour is not to promote adoption but to encourage childless couples to adopt children in the age group of 2 years and above, who are mostly neglected,” she said.
She added, “Of course, in most cases of adoption, the probable parents want to know as much as they can about the child’s background, which can empower them to make a decision. But adoptive parents must realise that it is the child, after all, who decides his/her destiny. They can only provide a better environment for the child.”
Harsha Sheth, a social worker at the Chembur centre of the Bal Anand World Children Welfare Trust, shared similar views. “The success stories of adopted children like Jobs and others will surely encourage more childless couples to give adoption a second thought.”
2. Adoptive Parent Petitions Against TV Show “Glee”
With all the injustices and trafficking in the world of adoption, this effort sadly will get more attention.
From The LA Times Blog, “”Austin said the show irresponsibly raises fear for adopted children that they can be taken away from their families, and that the plot also could cause confusion for families who adopt. She said the story line perpetuates one of the most pervasive and harmful myths about adoption: that a birth mother can take a child away from a family or pop back into the child’s life.”
Oh! The Horror! The child may actually get to know her original family! A “harmful myth”? This is what we think of this petition:
3. Adoption Idea Sparked by Lines of Cocaine?
This October 2010 article says “New Yorker, Franklin Meyer, the star’s propurted drug dealer, met Jolie in 1997. As part of an exclusive interview, he dishes on his relationship with the star who had become a regular customer of his.
Meyer speaks about how one time in the 90’s, Angelina Jolie met him at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. At the time, she was 21, but heavy into drug use. He says she would spend about $100 each visit (3 to 4 times per week) and score about 1 gram of cocaine and a small portion of heroin. Meyer says that what was very peculiar about Angelina Jolie was she had no reservations about snorting the product in front of him or anyone else who may be present at the time.
“I assumed they were real bodies,” he reports in his interview. “I don’t know where someone would get pictures like that”.
The most shocking revelation from Meyer was not Angelina Jolie’s cocaine abuse; it was her constant talk of adopting a child one day. According to Meyer, she would say, “I think I would really like to adopt a kid” while she was snorting a line of cocaine.”
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