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)Clueless on Adoption Disruption
http://www.chicagonow.com/good-bad-parents/2012/11/adoptive-child-returned-adoption-agency-russia/
The author believes that under no circumstance should an adoptive parent disrupt. Here is what I say to that: 
BUT the readers voted quite the opposite. Well most states allow voluntary relinquishment by biological or adoptive parent for the very reasons she claims never should happen. Even the Child Welfare League of America has a 6-page pamphlet on it. See here. It gives a statistic from a 2002 study by the General Accounting office .
The study “showed that at least 12,700 children in the United States (and probably more) come into the child welfare system or juvenile justice system to get mental health services.”
(2)Hand-picked, happy adoptee to cover for massive Ethiopia trafficking
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1711915/Ethiopian-adoptees-speak-about-their-experiences
Again, it is not about unhappiness, but TRAFFICKING. Just because some have not been trafficked doesn’t make up for those that have been trafficked.
Another puff piece that tries to distract from the real issues.
(3) Adoptive parents who post about how ethical their adoption agency is and immediately follow that with description of unethical behavior
Yes, that halo can’t be tarnished by your 
of an agency, now can it? 
(4) YouTube ads for China Special Focus Children
There are too many to list. These are just as bad as the slave photos in the Lincoln movie that just came out.
“These are just as bad as the slave photos in the Lincoln movie that just came out.”
Oh, wow. Generally I agree with the views expressed on ReformTalk, but I have to call this out as hyperbole. I get the parallel you’re drawing, but I think it ultimately cheapens your point. The only thing as bad as the triangle slave trade was…the triangle slave trade. The adoption industry deserves to be criticized for its capitalistic approach towards placing children, and adoptees are absolutely treated as second-class citizens, but posting Youtube videos of Special Focus Children — as objectionable a practice as it undoubtedly is — does not equal selling human beings for forced labor on an auction block. You can argue that these videos are a violation of the human rights of these children (the right to privacy and dignity come to mind) but they are not being treated, LITERALLY, as inhuman animals.
As a queer person, I often hear other GLBTQ people talking about our struggle for civil rights in America as equal to or “the same as” the Holocaust or the treatment of Black persons prior to (and after) the Black civil rights movement, or to a number of other historical atrocities. Um, no. Our struggles are legitimate, the horrors are real, but in present-day America we are NOT being put in chains, rounded up in concentration camps, or sold as chattel. Saying that being denied the right to marry is exactly like chains, camps, etc. helps nothing. It makes our concerns (which are significant, don’t get me wrong) seem like petty legalisms in comparison.
The same holds true for the case you cite. Awful? Yep. A violation? Absolutely. But an awful violation of a much different character and magnitude than American slavery.
Our position is that homestudies do not weed out the crazies and baby selling is occurring in many places. That combination is exactly like the slave trade. The orphan train was also the same as this as orphans with price tags were paraded around stop to stop for labor yet people called that “adoption”. We certainly cannot guarantee that these children will go to a good home or one without labor just because they have been advertised on YouTube. These agencies take the first people that come forward.
Children are not being treated like animals?We have never said that all adoptees are being treated that way, but many who have gone to APs who *should have* been weeded out from adopting have. We have a list of disruptions in which *some* children are being taken in to the new home *as labor for their farm or dog kennel business* or passed around like animals to other APs when the APs needs have not been met by the child. We have many cases in our How Could You? archive in which the children are *literally* being treated like animals and many of the parents are supposedly “good” Christians and many blog. Sharon Leonard put her children in calf huts-you can’t get closer to treating children like animals than that. See https://reformtalk.net/2011/03/09/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-sharon-leonard/ and many have placed their children outside like animals: example Hana Williams https://reformtalk.net/2011/08/02/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-hana-williams-updated-child-death/. We have many children locked away as prisoners: examples Anya James who also had a kennel and kept the animals better than her adopted children https://reformtalk.net/2011/05/18/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-anya-james-updated/ and Drakes https://reformtalk.net/2012/11/08/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-paul-and-joann-drake/. Blogging Christians who locked away and denied food like punishing a dog- the Barbours: https://reformtalk.net/2012/10/06/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-prosecutor-douglas-barbour-and-kristen-barbour/ Physical beatings for disobedience, example Christian Leschinskys https://reformtalk.net/2011/05/02/how-could-you-hall-of-shame-updated-2/
Those are the ones that quickly come to mind but there are dozens and dozens more.
The majority of our How Could You? cases are state care(foster care) and sexual abuse is one of the most common crimes. I do equate that with being treated like an animal or slave as well.
I saw the Lincoln movie and was struck by the price tags on black children’s photo plates. I could pull up a number of listings for available children right now priced according to demand (black infants cheaper than white, special needs cheaper than “healthy”). Some adult adoptees have said international adoption is a form of slavery, in many cases I disagree, however I can now see their point both in terms of being sold as personal property to strangers and in some cases adopted for the purpose of providing labor to their APs. Over the years I have met adoptees and adoptive families who adopted for the purpose of: children to work their farms, clean their homes, care for younger children, provide a sexual outlet for one or both parents, work whaling ships. These poor souls tend to be poorly educated (if they are educated), poorly fed, abused when not in compliance with their owners ( I cannot refer to them as parents). They are legally free from their owners at the legal age of adulthood, but honestly their childhoods look a lot like slavery to me. Until they reach that age they are the property of their adopters and sadly, rarely does our gov’t/law enforcement step in to help them. In fact I just met an adult adoptee last month locally who shared with me the saga of his childhood which included being adopted to work his “parents” farm. Growing up included beatings, hard labor, no health care, and verbal reminders that he was hated. Not the adoptive family picture agencies put on their shiny sites!
It happens. Granted the majority of children are not placed in these conditions, but there should not be even one case like this as far as I am concerned. Legal slavery is far worse across the board, but there are some real and disturbing similarities between slavery and adoption practices.
Mostly, I am sick and tired of children being treated like property to be bought and sold in the adoption industry. It is gross and dehumanizing to reduce children to something that can be bought and sold. To me there is a HUGE difference between a kinship placement where the only fees are actual fees for the legal process, homestudy, etc vs. price tags agencies put on individual children in order to “adopt” them.
Yet another Reece’s Rainbow PAP who is begging for cash from strangers – they cannot afford the plane ticket to bring their two unrelated, severe SN kids home:
http://piecingourpuzzletogether.blogspot.ca/2012/11/sooo-close-but-green-monster-is-in-our.html?m=0
What happens if people don’t give these irresponsible folks tge $ to bring the kids home? Why are people so irresponsible as not to have an emergency fund??
Here’s the whole post:
” Tomorrow I leave to head to Ukraine to bring our boys home. My husband has been there the past week getting most of the final paper work in order. If all goes well, we will be on a plane Wednesday morning and home Wednesday evening. There is only 1 thing standing in our way: the money to book our plane tickets. We have a flight picked out, the only flight leaving Kiev that day. I really hope that we do not get stuck in Ukraine 🙁 Please share with anyone that you think may help by donating to our FSP so that we can fly home Wednesday with our boys. We need it to read $14266 to book our tickets. “
Hi Leah – Rally is right. Not all adoptions feature children as chattel, of course, but what irks me no end are the glowing writeips of children (Especially the about-to-age-out ones in China) who all want to be adopted and are all brilliant and gorgeous and loving and have no problems whatsoever. Except when they have been trafficked, when they don’t want to be adopted, when they have severe mental or physical issues that are downplayed, etc… In other words, the marketing of these children often strikes me as being put in the same vein as the marketing that slave traders did.
And you can’t tell me that those heinous horrible cretins who are Collectors aren’t using their children as slave-like caregivers for the dozens of other children in the house. It is unpaid and nonnegotiable forced labor.
I think my point is being misconstrued. I completely agree with both of you — adoption does have uneasy parallels to slavery, the rhetoric used to justify both adoption and slavery is in many cases virtually identical, and there is undeniably an intersection between baby laundering and the modern-day slave trade. I would NEVER deny the atrocities committed against adopted persons, including forced labor. My objection was specifically and *exclusively* to the equivocation of photolistings with advertisements for slaves in the 19th century. This no doubt has a lot to do with the fact that, as a social justice advocate, I am constantly hearing people compare social justice issues of modern-day America (income inequality, gay civil rights, anti-choice activism, etc) to atrocities of the past, specifically the Holocaust and the triangle slave trade. While I believe there are important connections to be made here, I have to wince every time I hear some well-intended person opine that the death penalty is EXACTLY LIKE mass extermination under the Nazi regime, or that opposing abortion rights is THE PRECISE EQUIVALENT OF running a plantation on slave labor. No, no it isn’t. There has been no event in history that is “exactly like” and “the precise equivalent of” the Holocaust or the triangle slave trade. Again, there’s a fine line between pointing out the historical resonance of, say, an adoption photolisting and 19th century advertisements of slaves — a point with which I’d be generally inclined to agree — and claiming that an adoption photolisting is “just as bad as” advertising slaves. The crimes committed against adopted persons that this blog has documented absolutely sicken me, and I totally, unreservedly agree that adoption atrocities deserve a sizable chapter in the history of human trafficking. I also agree that there are not nearly enough measures to protect adopted persons and prosecute their abusers, not to mention the agencies that facilitate that abuse. However, one major difference between American slavery and American adoption is that, ***however imperfect and badly enforced they may be***, there are still laws in place to protect the welfare of adoptees. The reason we know about the stories of abuse and neglect documented in the “How Could You?” archive is because law enforcement intervened. Because laws were broken. Because there are laws against abusing and neglecting children. Including adoptees. And while many perpetrators of abuse and neglect escape justice, a lot end up in jail, too. Perhaps not as many as ought to, and perhaps not for as long as they should — but given that pretty much every single white person who abused, raped, and committed heinous, disgusting crimes against their slaves did so LEGALLY and with the full approval of the American government, I think there’s still a pretty stark contrast. As advocates for adoption reform, we seek to combat violations of the human rights of adoptees: we are not arguing whether or not they are *human*, because (thanks in very large part to the work of abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth) their basic *humanity* is not in question. While adoptees are obviously treated inhumanely, and many adoption practices violate their human rights, I doubt that any of the abusers you profile argued in a court of law that their treatment of their adopted child was permissible because that child was not a human being. That’s a really, really important distinction. Watchdog organizations like UNICEF exist; the Hague Convention exists; child protection services exist. You can argue that they don’t do enough, and in some cases are even complicit in bad adoption practice, and I would absolutely AGREE — but the fact is that there now exist organizations backed by law that are intended to intervene on the behalf of adopted or orphaned persons. That was not true for slaves in America. In fact, all organizations backed by law were explicitly intended to perpetuate the violation of their basic human rights. Again, this is a really, really important distinction. And that’s why I say that adoption photolisting is not “just as bad as” 19th century advertisements for slaves.
Basically: I’m not disagreeing with any of your points. I actually think we’re in total agreement. I’m just not totally on board with a very specific example that you used to illustrate a point with which I otherwise agree. Does that make sense?
(Also, sorry about the paragraph of doom — I never know how to format text in comment boxes!)
It is ok to disagree on any level, but I do want to point out that not all adoption atrocities are published and laws don’t always amount to justice. We only report those things that we can point to a public link to. And while I have not yet seen someone argue that an adopted child is not human, many have argued that their child IS (not has) a disease-usually RAD- and therefore their crime (usually head injury) was not a crime and some have not received jail time at all.
Again, my objection was to the LITERAL equivocation of two things I do not think are LITERALLY equal. And again, I absolutely agree that these parallels exist.