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) Group Home Disguised as Adoptive Home Part 753

Former foster child adopts 15 special needs kids [KSL 3/8/13 by Andrew Wittenberg]

Reformatina says, “Celebrating collectors again….this time it’s ok because they were in the system themselves. Sure.”

Rally says, “Now they have a chance? So they wouldn’t have a chance if they were adopted into  a family with fewer children? How absurd!”
Yippee! Oops! only 4 balloons for the 15 kids…oh well, they will just have to share that too!

(2) Fundraising to compensate CWA family

So this family ALREADY blogged to get money for their Ethiopian adoption which now won’t happen because CWA is bankrupt, so NOW the church is AGAIN fundraising for the family to COMPENSATE them? Um…they got money from others to begin with. I know it says that they emptied their savings , but if they had completed the adoption, they still would  have had empty savings another child. They still would have had those loans too. And of course they think all of the adoption problems are due to “red tape.” Do churches exercise PRUDENCE in giving anymore? Why not give to an organization helping orphans in Ethiopia?

Elk River families devastated after adoption agency goes bankrupt [KARE 3/10/13 by Lindsey Seavert]

(3)Oklahoma mom tries selling her children on Facebook for boyfriend’s bail.

She asked $1000 for her 2 year old and $4000 for her 4 year old. At least her pricing strategy matches how adoption agencies price things nowadays!

Mother, 22, ‘tried to sell her two young children for $5,000 to pay her boyfriend’s bail’ [Daily Mail 3/11/13 by Paul Thompson]

Mom of the year, I think not!

(4)Non-Reform bloggers

http://www.adoptionistas.com/tag/adoption-reform/

Adoptionistas, really? And where is the reform? And how legal was it for you to adopt “from Africa”? I see you don’t mention the agency or country. Gee, I wonder why?

(5)Rosie buys adopts her 5th child

My precious cargo! Rosie O’Donnell cradles newborn daughter as family arrive home from Miami holiday [Daily Mail 3/12/13 by Cassie Carpenter]

(6) Some AP’s head will explode with this one

John Eastman, National Organization For Marriage Leader, Calls Adoption ‘Second-Best Option’  [Huffington Post 3/14/13 by Alana Horowitz] says “”You’re looking at what is the best course societywide to get you the optimal result in the widest variety of cases. That often is not open to people in individual cases. Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts’ family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option,” said John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage.

Eastman was responding to a question about the Chief Justice’s position on the rights of same-sex couples. Roberts and his wife adopted two children, Jack and Josie, in 2000. Both children are now 12 years old.”

(7) The horrid gift that keeps on giving…The Head “STUCK” in the sand movement

This is the tour bus blog http://blog.jessicamrose.com/ Each entry is a facepalm in and of itself.

One of them describes the HORROR of a Guatemalan child being “forced” to live with the birthfamily.

“” The parents to this now preschool aged child have traveled back and forth to Guatemala 32 times and they still have not been able to bring their child home. In fact, they now have been facing threats from the Guatemalan government as they have been told that the fight is over and the child is going to be forced to stay with his birth family or the birth mother faces arrest. After I had finished taking some portraits of the Sarkees couple, the father told me that while they want to continue going to their boy’s Latin homeland to fight for him, they fear that they will be recognized too quickly and could become one those traveling couples who just ‘disappears.’ “”

(8) Whitney Reitz

She was with the Department of State and USCIS for 19 years. She was a driving force in moving almost every child identified by US adoption agencies in Haiti to receive Humanitarian Parole after the earthquake. Now, she works with Senator Landrieu and the STUCK movement. They all are of the same mindset-legislative branch, executive branch and adoption agencies and their apologists. They don’t want actual reforms.

She even uses the word “stuck” as a prelude to the movie in this January 2013 interview:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world/us-adoptions-from-abroad-decline-sharply.html?_r=0 [New York Times 1/25/13]

“The official, Whitney Reitz, who was then in charge of children’s affairs and parole policy at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, said at the time, in a speech at a  conference on adoption, that while some might believe it is best  not to allow adoptions from certain countries, “when I think  personally about the individual children in these countries who  need families and who are stuck in institutions, it really doesn’t look like such a great outcome to me”

This public post about Russia describes Whitney as a Landrieu STAFFER.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoptionforamericansabroad/message/9505

“letter from Landrieu

January 7, 2013
Dear Adoption Advocate,
I’m deeply troubled by Russia’s recent action banning adoptions of Russian children by American families. In an overheated moment, the Duma has prevented thousands of Russian children from finding permanent and supportive homes in America. Whatever issues our two governments may be facing, there is no reason to put vulnerable children in the middle of political posturing. Children should be raised by parents, not in institutions or alone on the street.

Watch me explain on CNN why Russia’s ban is bad for its children and American families.

Last Tuesday, the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution expressing deep disappointment of the ban. It also urges the Russian government to permit processing of inter-country adoptions involving parentless Russian children, who were already matched with United States families before the enactment of the law. I remain committed to working with President Putin and his administration to find a long-term solution for the more than 700,000 un-parented children in Russia.
Adoption, both domestic and international, is an important child-protection tool and an integral part of child welfare best-practices around the world. It also helps prevent child abandonment and promote family reunification. In fact, the United States has just released a National Action Plan for Children in Adversity, which places a renewed focus on the importance of every child having a family and seeks to ensure that all children grow up within protective family care and free from violence. While Russia’s ban may only directly affect some of our citizens, it’s an injury to Russia’s own children.
Be sure to watch me discuss this issue on CNN or read the Times-Picayune’s story below. If you have any questions about my work on domestic or international adoption, do not hesitate to reach out to Libby Whitbeck or Whitney Reitz on my staff.
Happy New Year,”

And the Stuck blogger tells a tall tale about how Whitney “goal” was to help Haitians post-earthquake with FAMILY REUNIFICATION/RESTORATION.

“”The Senator’s posy [sic] included the ever intelligent Whitney Reitz,  the Senior Policy Advisor on International Child Welfare, who       spoke at the Q&A following the showing the of the film. Reitz,  though not highlighted in the film due to brevity, was the person  primarily responsible for getting the 3,000 Hatian children  currently involved in the adoption process, home to their families after the horrendous earthquake that struck the small country. Reitz emphasized that the goal of her work is to get orphans home to families through any and all means possible including national adoption, international adoption, and family reunification/restoration. Essentially, some of the problems with getting  international children clearance to arrive into the US deals with immigrations policies and Reitz is working towards using  immigration to help, rather than hinder, people”

The agencies and JCICS quickly post earthquake arranged for a mass Humanitarian Parole even for prospective parents who just put in their applications.

We are watching you!