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)CCAI’s promotion of STUCK and itself

See their blog post here. It really is pathetic that the industry along with elected officials are putting all their effort into this one last hope for cashflow-showcasing corrupted countries. At least they are transparent in their blogroll on which journalists are totally in the tank for them-David Brooks of NYT and Andrea Poe of Washington Times. Just a fancy version of this:

(2)Adoptee events that double as propaganda gathering to keep adoptions flowing

Surprise! Help us with some propaganda before you get !

(3)The 9^th Annual  Wells Conference on Adoption Law: “Rethinking Children’s Best Interests” description of Dusten Brown’s Father’s Rights/ICWA case

You can tell the slant this is going to have: “One of the highlights of this year’s conference is a discussion of the Indian Child Welfare Act and children’s best interests, featuring this highly publicized case in which a child was removed from her adoptive family after her biological father, a member of the Cherokee tribe, asserted his rights under the Indian Child Welfare Act. ”

Why no mention that the adoptive parents (one who is a developmental psychologist) went along with Nightlight adoptions and the so-called text message signing away of rights and kept the child FROM Dusten for 2 years ? Yes they apparently did this for two years and STILL are with their US Supreme Court case

(4)”By The Numbers: Adoption Is Safe” commentary

By The Numbers: Adoption Is Safe

[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2/20/13 by Zach Peterson]

Another commentary about how Russian adoptee deaths are no big deal and in this one, the author thinks there is no proof that 20 of them have died. Try Google , you dimwit. He also doesn’t realize that the lower placements to the US have no correlation to how many children need international adoptive homes. He just assumes all of them do and therefore a lower number must be bad.

“Although the numbers say the practice is prefectly [sic]safe…” well except for all those that have bad outcomes, though, right?  I must bring back this smiley:

(5)Adoptive Sister’s Reflection on Adoption blog post
The Adoption Firm

The US Federal government says so, so it must be true and she speaks for her adopted sister and all adoptees too!
“International adoption critics love to argue that displacing children from their native ethnic and racial background robs them of their heritage and leaves them confused and lost in a new culture. These claims are wrong. The United States federal government has debated this issue, and it has been studied extensively by psychologists. Transracial and transcultural adoptees face no more psychological risks than adoptees of the same race and ethnicity as their parents. In fact, families will often make an effort to integrate their adopted child’s native culture into their lives. Many families learn their child’s native language or go to great lengths to take their child back to his or her native country. Since her adoption, my sister has traded her Chinese culture for American, but she has not suffered any deprivation. On the contrary, she is blessed. What matters most to her is not her birthplace, but that she has been cared for by a loving family and given the opportunities to have a better life than she could have had before.”

Crazy stats: “”In fact, out of the 167 million orphans, 120 million will never receive any education whatsoever. About 60% of these orphaned girls will become prostitutes, and 70% of these boys will become criminals by the age of 18” 60 to 70% of 167 million orphans WILL become prostitutes?And completely UNSCHOOLED too

 

On Birthfathers “Domestic adoption is much cheaper, but it is not without drawbacks. During the adoption process, birth parents can change their minds and unknown biological fathers can emerge and demand the rights to their child.” those fathers that want to parent their children!

And transracial adoption is “trivial” and adoption cures racism!

“In the end the decision to adopt is a matter of heart. A child is a child, and birthplace cannot erase that fact. Both domestic and international adoption come with risks and difficulties, but when a child is waiting for their “forever family,” as my mother says, these challenges are trivial. Robert Dale Morrison once said, “The quickest cure for racism would be to have everyone in the country adopt a child of another race. No matter what your beliefs, when you hold a four-day-old infant, love him, and care for him, you don’t see skin color, you see a little person that is very much in need of your love.”

 

(6)Article by Jane Aronson and upcoming book

Abinet: From Orphan to Philanthropist [Huffington Post 2/18/13]

Her favorite notes…contain …Her new book , Carried in Our Hearts: The Gift of Adoption, Inspiring Stories of Families Created Across Continents, to be published on Mother’s Day, May 12, 2013.

(7)God’s call to adoption article

http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2013/feb/20/God-adoption-Biola/ [2/20/13 by Nicole Foy]

“The Styffe family, working with Saddleback Church in Southern California and the government of Rwanda, were instrumental in the establishment of the country’s first adoption agencies — opening the doors for hundreds of families to adopt. The Styffes have no doubt that God had a hand in bringing them together.” You know what is hilarious about this? They fail to mention the  JCICS connection-they sent a certain adoption agency to Rwanda with Saddleback back in 2008..guess who? GLADNEY See here and they felt the need to enter into the Hague Convention after these adoptions too.

“Instead of perpetuating orphanages, Rachel emphasized the necessity of placing children in loving, Christ-centered households” [Even if the children aren’t Christian?Even if they have families..no family preservation? The government is already trying to phase orphanages out ]

“When Jason Oakes, a professor in the biblical studies department, was considering adoption, he too found a confirmation and call to care for the orphans while reading a scripture passage about the fatherless. He and his wife felt a strong conviction to adopt immediately and let the finances work themselves out”

“The freshman communication studies major explained that even though he remembers picking up his adopted sister, Samantha, from China when he was 6 years old, he could never consider her to be any different than his younger biological brother.

“The way that we say it now, is that she has been my sister all along, she just got delivered in the wrong place,” Sweeney said.”

 

(8)Senator Mary Landrieu

From inserting herself as spokewoman for Max Shatto case to talking about reopening Vietnam, she is a nonstop FacePalm. She chooses to gloss over all of the known corruptions without batting an eyelash.

She is as annoying as

or getting this for your birthday:

or having this happen on your way to the coffee shop:

or having this guy show up for your blind date:

or doing this on a Saturday night

or listening to this coworker

or dealing with your computer again 

or this

There are not enough on Earth to express how much I want to tell her this: