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:

(1) PREVIEW of Disney’s Jessie show and Gotcha Day

Reformatina sends this one along:Some secret about the  boy adopted from India is going to be revealed…ack.

Who is teaching Hollywood writers these lovely things?

By some miracle, Rally was spared from having to even watch the preview.

 This pic was quit a find! Maybe that postcard can be sent to new APs?

(2)Myths, ineligibility and other cluelessness in China Adoption

Before delving into specific quotes, they don’t yet qualify due to age nor do they have the money, so why is this child being held for them?

Area couple led to special-needs adoptions
[St Joseph’s News Press 8/10/12 by Erin Wisdom]

“”“It really hit us hard,” Andi says. “We’d had people praying China would do the unthinkable and allow us to adopt her, even though I wasn’t 30, or that she’d be healed, or that someone else would adopt her. But none of that happened, and I was so mad at God. It took me a while to realize he did a beautiful thing by bringing her into our lives and using her to change our hearts” concerning special-needs adoption.”

So are they saying that it is “beautiful” that God did not cure her and that she did NOT get adopted already? Oh wait, they are only talking about themselves…

Ye Olde Adoption as Charity routine:““Then we spent all day playing with kids who had special needs, knowing so many of them would never get families. On the plane ride back home, James said maybe we should consider two kids,” Andi says, adding that the decision was easy at that point. “We’ve been given so much, it was really just selfishness that was keeping us from stepping out and doing more.”

The only need is them (a US family) routine: ““You’ve got to look past their special needs and realize they’re just kids, and they need homes,” James notes, with Andi adding in agreement: “That truly is their biggest special need: That they don’t have a family.””

Um…no they have more special needs than that…

Fundraising-they are not paying for even half of the adoption and still have no idea where the rest is coming from:
“With time quickly closing in on Andi’s 30th birthday, the Millers have much anticipation as well as much preparation ahead of them, especially in terms of coming up with the $40,000 to $44,000 they’ve been told they’ll need to cover their adoption costs. A fundraiser last month at their church, The Edge Christian Fellowship, provided about half of this — and not feeling they can ask those they know to be even more generous than they already have, the couple aren’t planning additional fundraising events. But anyone wanting to make a donation to their adoption fund can mail a check ….

The Millers know already Andi’s birthday falls on a Friday — fortunately, a day the Post Office is open — and know they won’t delay in submitting the adoption paperwork they hope will lead to them soon being matched with their children. They know that, somehow, they’ll have the necessary funds by then. And they also know these adoptions likely won’t be their last.” [Not their last through they could not provide funds for this one?]

(3) AGCI celebrates 20 years in business.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/08/all_gods_children_internationa.html

Two other facepalms:

Bulgarian adoptee says “”I love being adopted,” Dimana said, smiling at  Damitio. “God wanted me to get adopted.”

Is this a Freudian slip? “”It’s about finding children, not finding families,” she said. ”  FINDING children?

(4) Interstate Compact Debacle

Withholding comment on why a cute, white toddler needs to cross state lines to be adopted, but nonetheless, the bureaucratic bodies were sure not coordinating this one in the best interest of this child. Why was this child moved across state lines  to begin with when the homestudy was not correct?

“The Earharts began the adoption process. In June,  Luke came to Georgia and their family, including their little boy Eli, now a big brother, quickly fell in love.

The Earharts say officials in both states said everything was going well.

An adoption attorney advising the Earharts say caseworkers in Georgia and Iowa said Luke belonged with his new family. But a paperwork problem between the two states is forcing Luke to go back to Iowa, back into foster care, after spending the whole summer with his new family.

Sherryl says, “From what I understand it’s that the correct foster home study has not been completed, though we completed a private home study and we’ve complied with every request we’ve had from Iowa and from Georgia.”

The family has begged that the paperwork get completed and signed by Wednesday.

Sherryl Earhart says one caseworker told her things don’t happen that fast.”

They now have to go back to Iowa so he can go back into foster care before he can come back to Georgia.

Paperwork issue sends toddler back to foster care

[11 Alive 8/15/12 by Jaye Watson]

 

I will give the CPS a new logo for this one :

(5) Pat Robertson opens mouth

Insert anything here… but seriously he did make a remark that will rock the waiting child advocates to the core. Even Christian Post has written about it!

“Televangelist Pat Robertson on Thursday cautioned his viewers to think twice before adopting disadvantaged children that had been sexually abused or deprived of food because they could grow up “weird.”

During Thursday’s edition of The 700 Club co-host Kristi Watts read a letter from a woman who wanted to know why men stopped dating her when they learned that she had adopted three daughters from three different countries.

“Can I answer?” Watts asked. “I was going to say because they’re dogs. … That’s just wrong on every level.”

“No, it’s not wrong,” Robertson disagreed. “A man doesn’t want to take on the United Nations, and this woman’s got all these various children and blended family. What is it?”

The TV preacher then told a story about his “dear friend” who had adopted a son with brain damage and the boy “grew up weird.”

“You just never know what’s been done to a child before you get that child,” he explained. “What kind of sexual abuse, what kind of cruelty, what kind of food deprivation, etc., etc., etc.”

“So, you’re not a dog because you don’t want to take on that responsibility,” Robertson added. “You don’t have to take on somebody else’s problems.”

“OK, let’s get to the next question. I’m in trouble.”

Pat Robertson: Don’t adopt sexually abused children that could grow up ‘weird’

[Press Tv 8/16/12]