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.
22-Year-Old Trying to Adopt 13 Ugandan Children Now Has Book
We have known about this person for quite some time. There was a 14th girl, but the original family reclaimed her…much to this “missionary”‘s disdain.
From Teacher inspired to help Ugandan orphans [Houston Chronicle 10/2011 by Ken Chitwood], “Motivated by their own “adoption” into the family of God, these young women are part of a growing evangelical movement prompting people to adopt children from foreign countries, get involved in orphan care ministries or move to foreign countries to care for street children.”
“”As NPR reported in July, Davis is under scrutiny by Ugandan child-welfare officials who not only object to her taking on 13 children but remind Davis and others that under Ugandan law an adoptive parent must be at least 25 and at least 21 years older than the child being adopted. Davis’ oldest “daughter” is 15, just seven years younger than her potential adoptive mother”
Not only is she too young to qualify to adopt, has unrealistic expectations for raising this many children which puts them all at risk, has a major entitlement complex, doesn’t seem to care that local officials have legitimate issues with this , she also started teaching after just graduating from high school. So, she even has low qualifications for teaching. Why not teach with no qualifications? You know, many PAPs are acting as amateur social workers by photolisting waiting kids. Hey, anything goes these days! Qualifications, Schmalifications!
Of course, a puff piece in Christianity Today had to be written about this, too.
UK Adoptive Parent Recruitment Ad
Could you make space for a child and adopt?
“No special qualifications are required to adopt a child.” 
” Your race, religion, culture and sexuality will be accepted. ” Wow! They can guarantee that the child will accept that? Oh…they mean that the social services will accept that. Yea, forget about what the child accepts, right?
“The reward is knowing that you have really made a difference.” Oh, so you should adopt to get rewarded. Now I get it! And does any difference count or maybe they should shoot for positive differences only in kids that actually need a different family?
Three-Part Bulgarian Adoption Story of Entitlement
Part 1 May 5, 2011 Part 2 July 2011 Part 3 published this week
“The sudden decision to adopt left my head spinning. For the entire week after I first broached the subject with David, all I could think about was his softly whispered “yes”. It was so amazing . . . so easy! [Yes, major life decisions are always good to make without conversation.]The right partner – that’s what it took! Perhaps our ages wouldn’t matter, but that was yet to be discovered. I was exactly 45 years older than the five-year-old girl who had stolen my heart, but David was much older.
Would that get in the way? Perhaps if it did, we could choose one of the older children. There were literally hundreds available in Bulgarian orphanages, and thousands more if we considered children in other countries. But I wanted that girl – the tiny one with the almost-shaved head of brown hair and shy smile. Excitement turned to worry.”
The sudden decision also leaves our heads spinning! She had to have THAT girl!
“The Utah adoption agency returned my call. Our discussion revealed that David’s age might not be a factor, but the first of many steps would be getting approval from the agency itself. We immediately made flight arrangements to Salt Lake City from Anchorage, Alaska.”
Sure, we have a waiver for that pesky age requirement! 
Isn’t it special that they immediately flew to another state because that is typical, right? And that state is Utah, so our intelligent readers can figure out exactly which agency that this is.
“We filled out forms, but mostly, we talked. “Why are you considering adoption?” she asked us. David, always the quiet one, deferred to me. ” Deferred the answer to the most important question?
“I’ve always wanted to adopt from the time I was a teenager. My first husband and I had two children who are now grown. He did not want to adopt, and it turned out, it’s best that we didn’t because of the eventual divorce. But the desire didn’t go away, and since marrying David . . . we are just so happy! When I heard my brother and his wife are adopting a boy through your agency, wanting another child came back so strongly. I thought how wonderful it would be to raise a child with a kind, loving man, unlike my former husband. This time it could be a real partnership.” Yes, such a real partnership. Good thing sister jealousy and entitlement aren’t the reasons she is adopting! 
Mighty CPS Comes to Save the Day in the Forgot-to-Pay-for-the-Two-For-$5-Sandwich Crime of the Century
Now, we are not making fun of 4th degree theft and we don’t recommend eating your deli purchase prior to leaving the store, but sometimes, just sometimes, common sense needs to be used by the general public before an over-the-top reaction. Why? Because if a child is involved, CPS will be called and the kid will be removed and put through trauma like in this case.
First, the case was taken to a pregnant mom forum here and then the media covered it here. A couple who just moved to Hawaii one week prior were still waiting for their car to come. They took a bus and walked two and a half miles to get to the grocery store. There they loaded their cart with $50 of groceries, picked up the two for $5 sandwiches from the unmanned Safeway deli counter and ate them. The toddler was fussy and they forgot to have the sandwich wrappers that had fallen under the shopping cart kid seat scanned. They left the store and security asked for the receipt for the sandwiches. As the blog entry states,”I stopped and literally smacked myself in the forehead.
My husband looked in the cart and at the very bottom, under my daughter’s seat, there were the wrappers.
We immediately offered to pay for the sandwiches. The guy said we’d go in the back and straigten it out. I fully expected to just show the manager the wrappers and pay. Turns out… We were ARRESTED.
Two hours after trying to leave the store [Yes, this the suspicious part of the story], the police show up. They were baffled as to why the manager was insisting on pressing charges, and kept asking us if we had the money. “Ofcourse, we do! We intended to pay, I got the 2 for $5 deal!” The manager said that corporate policy would not allow us to pay for the sandwiches. The police tried to arrange to have one of us arrested at a time, but it was not possible. They had to call Child Protective Services to take our daughter because we have no friends or family here. I had to make up a story that Mommy and Daddy had an appointment to go to, but no kids were allowed, so a lady is going to come and pick you up and you are going to hang out and have fun with her. I tried not to get hysterical. Yeah, right.
I cannot believe that my husband and I were arrested and put in jail for eating a sandwich in the store. I cannot believe that my daughter had to spend the night away from us for a fkng $2.50 sandwich each that we forgot to pay for. Our bail was $50 each, and we are charged with Fourth Degree Theft.
Neither of us has ever been arrested before, or dealt with CPS. We called and called the office already and the social worker said that Child Welfare Services has three business days to return our daughter or decide to keep her. THREE DAYS?!
I’m in total shock. I’m waiting for a phone call from the case manager, as soon as its been assigned. How can this happen??
UPDATE: Our daughter was released back into our custody at about 4pm this afternoon. The media has caught the story and we’ve been interviewed a couple of times. It’s very overwhelming, but I’m thankful for all of you ladies’ support! I’m SO HAPPY to have our daughter back, everything else seems almost inconsequential. Thank you again for your encouragement and advice!”
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