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)Raising his Korean adoptive son as Chinese
“About seventeen years ago my wife and I adopted a baby from an Asian American family”‘
“We send him to Chinese language courses and by five he’s fluent in Mandarin and English, ”
” I go to my home office and go through some files and find his old adoption records. I’m not really paying much attention to them and then his biological parents surnames pop out and basically punch me in the face. His parent’s last names were PARK AND KIM. F*CK. F*CK. F*CK.”
Well, there’s a real 
!
(2) Ghanian Adoption “illegal” and Ebola
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/2014/10/17/mill-creek-ghana-adoption-ebola/17454705/
“According to the family, immigration claims the adoption is illegal because of an adoption ban in Ghana to prevent trafficking, but the couple has paperwork proving they received approval one day before the ban was implemented”
“Add to all that Ebola and fears the virus could spread to Ghana.
If the disease enters their country, the children might not be allowed to leave. Gretchen wants those kids out now. She can’t stand to think what might happen if they become trapped in a hot zone, surrounded by the deadly virus.”
(3) China Fundraiser
http://www.sj-r.com/article/20141016/NEWS/141019576/10298/LIFESTYLE
“Mia’s pending adoption is in jeopardy, however, because of an unexpected medical diagnosis for Harli. She needs an operation to close holes in her heart, and costs associated with her treatment are eating into the family’s adoption fund.”
So you can’t take care of one child ,so why not adopt a second child? 
(4) Another China Fundraiser
http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2014/10/the_journey_home_family_adopts.html
Of Course, they are blogging about it http://ouranhuiangel.blogspot.com/
“But the McClurgs await her arrival, nervous and nearly certain they cannot afford it on their own. Adoption is expensive, and it has cost the couple nearly $40,000 per child.
They’ve re-mortgaged their house twice. They’ve taken out home improvement loans to add extra bedrooms for their growing family. The credit cards are maxed out”
Great Credit cards are Maxed Out and re-mortgaged their house twice yet they want to adopt another child! 
(5) Holt Korea
“We recently received confirmation that Korea has changed age requirements for adoptive parents — expanding eligibility for families hoping to adopt a child from Korea. While it is still Korean law that adoptive parents must be between the ages of 25-45 at the beginning of the adoption process — i.e., the time of home study approval — the Korean government may now grant age waivers to parents up to age 49 at the time of home study approval if one of the following criteria is met:
- Both applicants are Korean-American.
- At least one applicant is a Korean adoptee.
- The applicants have previously adopted a child from Korea.
Before the recent change to requirements, the extended age waiver only applied to families where both adoptive parents were Korean. But now it applies to returning families, Korean adoptees and Korean-American families adopting all children from Korea!
The Korea program is in need of families! If you know of an eligible family that thought they aged out, please spread the word about Korea’s decision to create more flexible age requirements”
Crabbina Says: There are plenty of Koreans in KOREA who want to adopt.
Waivermania! 
[I had to get a few Halloween pictures in!]
Sharon McClurg has a Sad because the news story received negative comments questioning the ethics of the McClurgs “rescuing” another child by international adoption when they’re admittedly “strapped for money and space” already. Since Shawn McClurg is working 90 hours a week to afford this new adoption, you might as well add “time” to the list of things they’re short of. This can’t be good for the already-troubled bonding with their oldest adoptee, a teenage boy who has a legitimate claim to time and guidance from his father.
In addition, Min’s medical condition is certain to demand a lot of time and attention even if the surgical repair goes well and her condition doesn’t have complications. How this is going to work out with the extremely demanding Cora who reportedly “rules the roost” is troubling.
http://ouranhuiangel.blogspot.com/2014/10/jackson-citizen-patriot-article.html
My Facepalms include:
– A racist adoptive mommy to 4 Chinese girls explaining why she cannot possibly send her kids to public school with GASP Hispanic kids, GASP poor kids, GIANT GASP very few Caucasian kids:
“there are very low-income project areas, interspersed with apartments and lower end housing. This doesn’t mean that the people living in these areas any better or worse than my girls and I, it means that their challenges, language, economic situation, beliefs, education, and so much more are different – in some cases, so different that making friends would be very difficult. Yes, they’d be school acquaintances, but I’m talking about the kind of friends where you have play dates after school, the parents get together, etc… ”
http://fencingmama.blogspot.com/2014/10/racism-friendships-and-more.html
” I do fear public schools here because they are filled with children from very low income families, which means uneducated parents. The schools are overwhelmed trying to teach the children to behave”
Racist amommy homeschools girls, who aren’t yet fluent in English 3.5 yrs post-adoption! She also refers to other people’s kids as “retarded”.
Yes. “Retarded”.
“At least the professionals as this school didn’t try to put her in with the autistic and mentally retarded kids as did the middle school with my other child. And some very kind people at the high school took me aside and told me that they can’t meet my eldest’s needs and to keep homeschooling her and that they’d ever put a non-autistic or non-mentally retarded child in a class especially designed for those kids and their needs.”
http://fencingmama.blogspot.com/2014/10/i-survived-another-iep.html
– USCIS approving a 75 yo man to adopt a 4 yo girl from Bulgaria using other people’s money:
https://www.adopttogether.org/emma
– Scoopy writing another moving post on the importance of ethics in adopting from Ethiopia and why no one should adopt from there now — ethics she didn’t care about til she had acquired ALL the Ethiopian kids she wanted! She ran into falsified paperwork during her 1st ET adoption but didn’t let it stop her fr adopting 2 more ET kids (like her pal at findingmagnolia.com)
http://www.scoopingitup.blogspot.com/2014/10/clarify.html
-Reece’s Rainbow’s Denise Davis begging for money to adopt 2 kids she cannot afford to care for — her adopted Bulgarian daughter Gennie died 21 days after she adopted her in 2013, she’s had no less than 3 separate CPS investigations in the past year & has has begged for $ to cover post-adoptions basics she cannot afford (like diapers and a stroller):
http://reecesrainbow.org/76036/sponsordavis-7
75 years old? LOL There’s is new one!
Denise Davis is waiting for a travel date, even though she doesn’t have the funds to travel right now if she DID get one.
http://bringinghomealittleangel.blogspot.com/2014/10/so-wait-begins.html
She’s also passive-aggressively scolding everyone for not funding her latest adoption venture. She wants everyone to ignore the fact that Gennie Davis died of woeful medical neglect and/or parental incompetence, and give her money to bring home two more children she’s incapable of caring for properly!
http://bringinghomealittleangel.blogspot.com/2014/10/start-ripple.html
Update: Denise Davis HAS received a travel date: 11-23-14 for an appointment on 11-25-14. However, because she CAN’T AFFORD TO TRAVEL she’s been rescheduled to 12-20-14, in the hope that she can panhandle enough money to travel by then.
Will somebody PLEASE explain how she keeps keeps meeting the USCIS income standards for international adoption?!?
Because those guidelines are a joke. It’s 125% of the poverty line. A family of 8 only needs to make $50,000. Where in the US can you live with a family of 8 for $50.000? Not to mention have $30k for an adoption? And have money to pay medical expenses for your new child? Basically, anyone over the poverty line qualifies under USCIS whether or not they have money to adopt or care for another child.
I’m beginning to think that an important adoption reform would be requiring that PAPs have an escrow account containing the full total needed to complete an international adoption BEFORE they receive USCIS approval. Or at least an escrow account with a sound financial plan for how they WILL have the amount needed by they time they’re expected to be approved. Needless to say, depending on crowdfunding would NOT be acceptable as sound financial planning.
The escrow amount needed should include estimated travel expenses, with a “cushion” to cover unpredictable events like government shutdowns and airline employee strikes. I’m on the fence on whether predictable expenses like sedation dentistry should be included (unless the PAPs can provide a WRITTEN agreement from their insurance agency to cover this).
Whaddya think?
Sounds like a plan to me, for ALL adoptions. That in order to get homestudy APPROVAL there is a requirement to put the estimated total cost of the adoption + 10% in an escrow account.
To adopt from foster care in NYC, only requirement is to pay for a homestudy (say, $2000) — so the escrow account would need $2200.
If an international adoption’s expected to cost $25K, then $27.5K must be in the escrow account to get the HS approved, etc.
I would also pass a requirement that if a family is caught fundraising (i.e. begging for money for the adoption which is NOT the earning/saving $ to adopt by selling stuff at a garage sale, getting overitme, etc) ANY amount of money, HS approval is suspended for 2 years, period. No appeals, non-negotiable.
Because the crap RR families pull REALLY needs to be stopped!
http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/fund-the-cannell-s-/265074
The minimum income requirements are ridiculously low – for the sake of comparison, my first job paid something like $55k in 1999, after rent/insurance/student loans/transportation/etc, there was surprisingly little left to support me and my 8 lb daschund. In NYC. And I had a roomie! And I’m pretty good with money!
Well, I know that NYC is an expensive place to live in… Perhaps USCIS should factor in the Cost-of-living when figuring out the income requirements? And perhaps the total number of kids with Special Needs in the family? There can be a lot of added expense with SN kids that AREN’T covered by insurance.
Update: Denise Davis has “passed court” and is now legal mother of two little girls she can’t afford to go and pick up. And she wants YOU to give her the money to get them.
http://bringinghomealittleangel.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-final-steps-of-our-journey.html
I say we let Reece’s Rainbow pick up the tab like last time. If their profit margin shrinks enough due to the cost of these PR rescues, they’ll close up shop. Or maybe change their policies to prevent traveling unfunded.
She took down the post. She just can’t stand any sort of scrutiny, can she?
Terrie,
Certainly not scrutiny of the type which might dissuade potential donors!
OR let frantically-fundraising parents know that Reece’s Rainbow will quietly slip them the balance rather than let a foreign family court know how improvident a lot of Rescue Adopters actually are. PAPs might not put the proper desperation into their last-minute begging if they knew that.
The whole Rescue Adoption system runs on manufactured crisis.
Folks have both tweeted and emailed their SPECIFIC concerns about Denise Davis to the US Embassy in Kyiv and USCIS.
Denise should NEVER have been approved to adopt 2 more kids. The fact that she failed to get little Gennie assessed IMMEDIATLY upon arrival in the US, that the kid died THREE WEEKS later and Denise IMMEDIATELY started shopping for replacement kids should have sent up red flags!
Denise has been investigated by CPS SO MANY times! It’s sad that LA doesn’t put folks who’ve had X number of investigations within a specific timespan on a list like MI!
Carlee,
Re: “…Denise has been investigated by CPS SO MANY times! It’s sad that LA doesn’t put folks who’ve had X number of investigations within a specific timespan on a list like MI!…”
Heck, make that list nationwide! And make USCIS check it before approving “Golden Tickets” for any PAP.
Or require that home study agencies have PAPs sign a release authorizing CPS to freely share information with them. That way, the social worker can determine if this is a single party with a vendetta against the PAPs or if it’s a lot of people who independently fear for the well-being of existing kids in the family.
Whether the Davises should or shouldn’t have been charged with medical neglect for Gennie’s death, the fact that a child DIED in their care under iffy circumstances should be grounds for not approving them for future adoptions.
I’m sort of torn on that one — because it’s POSSIBLE for a family to be falsely accused of abusing kids. False accusations, particurlarly REPEATED false accusations agaist a particular family are rare but not unhread of… and it is just WRONG to wreck a family’s life by placing them on an ‘absuive family list’ for crimes they didn’t actually commit.
Then again, it was a GOOD thing taht Annie Kitching ended up on that list — and was super-duper resentful about it — because, in the span of a year or two:
– a foster son was removed for CAUSE
– her adopted daughter accused her adad, abrother and the removed foster son of sexually abusing her
– an adopted son committed suicide
– her 13 yo adaughter got pregnant & bad a baby at 14 yrs old
– she let the removed-for-cause, ex-foster son move back in the day he turned 18
– she spooked half the nursing staff / social workers at the hospital when adaughter had the baby (because she appeared to be coercing the girl to let her adopt the baby).
– the adaughter accused the Kitchings of abuse on several occasions.
MI had in-home support for the Kitching family for a good long while — and that’s a GOOD thing. And the parish Annie worked for (she worked with kids!) was kept abreast of the child-welfare list & that she had in-hiome support too!
Carlee,
I’m a little ambivalent about it as well, which is why I mentioned having the home study worker read the actual case details to make sure it ISN’T a case of vendetta.
The thing is, when it comes to adoption, PAPs should meet a higher standard than “CPS closed the case without filing charges”. The to-be-adopted child’s right to a safe and supportive placement trumps iffy PAPs “right” to adopt. Home study approval should only be granted if the HSA social worker is as sure as humanly possible that this is good home in which the child won’t be subjected to any kind of abuse or neglect.
The state is under no obligation to give PAPs with red flags in their background custody of a vulnerable child. Adoption is supposed to be about finding good homes for children who need them, not about giving dubious PAPs a chance to “prove themselves”.
This applies to well-intentioned good parents who are biting off more than they can chew by adopting high-needs older kids when they have 11 other children living at home, or adopting two-or-more-at-once out-of-birth-order. The fact that MOST such adoptions wind up working out okay doesn’t justify ignoring the high percentage of disruptions– or worse– associated with them.
Colleen Novit is picking up her 2 high needs, SN, out of birth order, bought with other people’s money Bulgarian kids soon – because every 25 yo who has 4 biokids (oldest being 9 yo) totally needs a 10 yo w/DS & 4 yo w/CP:
http://thestarsaligned.blogspot.com/2014/11/our-angel-tree-kids-and-gotcha-day.html
Not. Dollars to donuts her adoptions will last less than a year. I will simply pray that both kids survive their brief period as Novits – lil Tommy Musser & Gennie Davis weren’t so lucky!!!
The countdown begins! Colleen Novit picked up her out of birth order special needs dumpling #1 at her now-ex-orphanage:
http://iwillcometoyou-john14-18.blogspot.com/2014/11/gotcha-day-musings.html
Poor kid will be dumped in US foster care within six minths, as will out of birth order dumpling #2
Gee, maybe approving a 25 to with 4 kids to adopt 2 more with other people’s money.
She’ll hit folks up for extra cash to provide for their basic needs too!
Technically, this doesn’t involve adoption, but it DOES show the justice system’s gender bias when it comes to child welfare: Tondalo Hall, an abused woman, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for “failure to protect” her children from her abusive partner. Yet HE was only given a TWO YEAR SENTENCE for actually abusing the children!
http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/tondalo_hall
This is ridiculous!
There’s quite a bit more to this PARTICULAR story — like the fact that both kids were in immense pain, their mommy knew it and FAILED TO TAKE THEM TO THE HOSPITAL FOR TREATMENT because she feared CPS would take the kids:
http://newsok.com/parents-charged-with-child-abuse/article/2875941
I didn’t say she didn’t deserve punishment– just that she doesn’t deserve FIFTEEN TIMES the punishment of the guy who caused the injuries!
I consider that a CPS fail, too. If abused women knew that THEY as well as their children would receive protection from their abuser, maybe Tondalo Hall wouldn’t have dithered! Remember, kids are three times more likely to be abused in foster care than with their parents, and are at even greater risk if CPS has been “privatized”.
We need to stop criminalizing women for being in abusive relationships, and offer them support and services instead.
Then we will just have to agree to disagree. If a woman elects to stay with her abusive partner, the kids suffer. Period. The kids are in danger. Period.
Given that these PARTICULAR kids spent a week in agonizing pain because mom couldn’t be bothered to take them to the hospital, I’m guessing the odds of those kids suffering worse in foster care are minimal.
(A woman who truly loves her kids – in this day & age where there are shelters, support, etc – won’t stay with an abusuve partner. And a woman who stays with her abusive partner deserves to have her kids taken by CPS).
By that logic, HE should have had a 30 year sentence, too. He was just as capable of taking the kids to the hospital as she was.
Reeves Rainbow’s Kara McIntee – she went to Ukraine to purchase another illegally pre-selected Ukrainian boy who she found on an illegal rr photo listing with other people’s money… and doesn’t have enough cash to get home!
She’s begging! For money! For flights from Ukraine!!
http://catholic-kara.blogspot.com/2015/07/urgent-plea.html
Why does USCIS issue visas to idiots like this??
Carlee,
Re: “…Why does USCIS issue visas to idiots like this??…”
Because their employees would rather help white Christian Americans bring in “orphans” to be raised the “right” way than process visas to allow brown and black adults entry into the country?
Seriously, the income requirements for international adoption need to be revised sharply upward. Special Needs kids cost a lot more to raise than typical kids, and ALL international adoptees have Special Needs of one kind or another. Parents need to have the income to pay for all the incidentals that insurance and public assistance programs for the disabled don’t cover, as well as the predictable “unexpected” expenses that are apt to materialize once the kid is in the country.
Also, vehicle ownership should NOT be allowed to count as “income”, since they can require expensive repairs without warning.
The Reece’s Rainbow Baerbock’s are merrily on their way, bragging about their intent to bribe a 10 yo little Ukrainian girl into being adopted by them.
The kid has the right to say no, the facilitator and the PAPs think treats/candy are the way to sway a child. BARF!
http://www.postzero.com/adoption_journey/2015/07/06/we-met-eloise-today/
An out-of-birth-order, two-unrelated-at-once adoption by parents with NO experience in parenting traumatized traumatized older children or transcultural adoption that I can find on their website.
*headdesk* Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Mandy Rhodes of Reec s Rainbow is at it again. 3 kids with Down syndrome purchased with other people’s money just wasn’t enough!
http://www.gofundme.com/z54hkw
The Rhodes have only raised $50 from three donations so far. We can only hope this means that the Rescue Adoption Bubble has burst, and that would-be donors have realized that international adoption as a way to help needy kids has a VERY high overhead and the “charity” doesn’t have any accountability measures.
Vile child collector Momma Jeane who (along with her husband) is in her early 60s and has 25 SN kids at home.
25 SN kids!
And she just adopted a toddler!
http://blessedbyachild.blogspot.ca/2015/07/sunrise-or-sunset.html?m=1
Oh, my: It seems like Momma Jeane doesn’t like hearing ANY concerns raised about adoption ethics or best practices. She offloads all responsibility for her adoption decisions onto “God’s Will”, ignoring the fact that PAPs have to exert a LOT of active agency in the process to complete an international adoption. Have you aver read the hilarious piece ‘The Accidental Adoption’?
https://adoption.com/forums/thread/201130/the-accidental-adoption/
Momma Jeanne seems to think that “freedom of speech” only works one way. She should be allowed to broadcast pro-adoption propaganda unhindered, but how dare “haters” give her any pushback on her faith-promoting inspiration porn!
Minor quibble: She says she’s 58, not in her early 60s. Just sayin’.
“I also strongly believe that poverty is a very good reason for adoption. ”
Um, what? I can’t even wrap my head around this one. so does that mean if something happens and she no longer has enough money to support her hoard of children (and no doubt, he logic reminds one of animal hoarders), she’d be okay with them being placed for adoption in other families?
Terrie,
I know! That was so toxic I couldn’t even address it.
I did ask that question of an Adoption Cheerleader in a comment on a 1-star review of Kathryn Joyce’s ‘The Child Catchers’ on Amazon… and two years later, it’s still unanswered.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1UPEZBDR0IEGN/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1586489429
There’s also no freaking way kid kollector Momma Jeane’s family meets the USCIS minimum requirements to adopt — for a family of her fam’s size it’d be $170k/year!
Besides her ghastly comments on poverty her RIDICULOUSLY RACIST VIEWS really ought to have prohibited her adopting a gaggle of kids of color!
Carlee,
Re: “…There’s also no freaking way kid kollector Momma Jeane’s family meets the USCIS minimum requirements to adopt — for a family of her fam’s size it’d be $170k/year!…”
According to her screed, a lot of officials have made “exceptions” to allow her to adopt. When someone presents themselves as a “devout Christian” wanting to do “charity” a lot of people’s critical thinking capacity shuts off, and they wind up giving the petitioner whatever s/he wants without further questions.
Despite her claim to be doing this without government assistance, I feel sure she’s got her disabled kids signed up for every state and federal entitlement program they qualify for, including social Security.
I have no problem with her signing kids up for any and every program they qualify for. That’s why the programs are there! But to claim she’s doing it by herself is BS, and undermines those very programs’ existence.
Terrie,
I agree! It’s the hypocrisy which drives me crazy.