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)Only other option for Russian children than international adoption is to “age out of orphanage”
Actually international adoption is still a choice for Russian orphans as we reported today with the Russia-Spain agreement
It is tiresome to read hissy-fit after hissy-fit 
about the supposed only 2 options for Russian children-aging out or a US home
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tina-traster/adoptive-american-parents_b_2884437.html
It took her 4 years to figure out what was wrong and only then did she realize there was such a thing as RAD? What freaking bubble was she living in? If she never heard of RAD, that meant she had no pre-adoption education. And she couldn’t have been part of the adoptive community as if you are on any Yahoo groups you can’t say it doesn’t come up. If she wasn’t prepared to be part of the adoptive community she should not have been allowed to adopt.(2)Guide to dropping off your baby in a safe haven
and make sure you bring her toys 
along too!
http://www.internationaladoptionnet.org/referral-acceptance-11
“Referral Acceptance
We have a referral acceptance to share today! An amazing family has accepted the referral of an infant boy! Congratulations to the very happy family!Infant Girl: Everyone below #18 moves up one
Infant Boy: Everyone below #10 moves up one
Family’s time on the wait list: 1 year and 1.9 months ”
Quick Infant boy referrals…even the 
is surprised!
(5) For Profit MLJ tries to school world on how trafficking has no relation to international adoption
http://mljadoptions.com/Media.aspx?articleID=747
They claim “Payment does not produce a child.” 
(6)Precious.org Adopting from Poland “Cool adoption story” and more…
http://eepurl.com/wZpi5Yes, real cool 
(7)McDonald’s South Africa ad with orphans
and 
than orphans! 
I’m posting an anti-Facepalm that I came across – about the AMAZING, WONDERFUL, TRULY-the-RIGHT-THING this adoptive and foster mom did — she got a call to take in a 10 month old boy for short-term respite because his 19 year old biomom was hospitalized for a week or so (and would become homeless when discharged– and her baby boy would be taken into foster care)… and offered to let both mom AND baby live with her family for a few weeks/months, until they could find a place of their own.
Mom and baby boy stay together. Baby boy does NOT end up in foster care. A happy ending:
http://fosteradoptionblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/i-am-jack-jacks-mother/
(The foster/amom writes that an acquaintance showed her similar grace when she was a young mom in similarly dire straights 🙂
We would give that a Kudos column.
Mine include:
1) This amommy blogger insists that older Ukrainian kids who declined to be adopted by US families are influenced by the devil. She feels that the influence of a supernatural being is the *only* thing that would cause a kid with an extended biofamily they see on a regular basis, or move in with after they age-out of the orphanage to reject the “gift” of a godly US family:
http://mamaporuski.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/urgent-prayer-request/
My comment was deleted, but the gist of it was that:
– a 16 yr old Ukranian is legally an adult who has the *right* to choose whether or not to be adopted at age 10 – and it’s pretty disrespectful to dismiss a the “not” choice as “only said no cuz people lied to the kid”, while praising the maturity of the kids that say yes.
– many of the “no” kids have extended biofamilies they are regularly in contact with (spending weekends/holidays with, or even move in with after aging out) and not wanting to lose those family ties is a valid reason to not move to the US with strangers
– adoptions of older kids/near-adults are at much higher risk of failing, like this infamous case where a godly Christian family stepped out in faith to simultaneously adopt 4 15-16 yr old Ukrainians and disrupted 3 of them in less than a year, one after all of 35 (!!) days:
http://followinghiscall.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/taken-hostage-or-testing-our-love/
– US foster kids from similarly dire circumstances can decline to be adopted without it being attributed to demonic interference, so that grace ought to be extended to parentless Ukrainians.
Several commenters, including Annie Kitching, pushed back saying Ukrainian/Russian kids (especially if they have SN) have so little life experience that they cannot possibly *understand* why the decision to not move to the US is bad and included anecdotes about kids who said no to stay with their extended biofamily only to be kicked out an regret saying no to the godly American family a few months later. The implication was that the child would unquestionably, definitively, 100% have been *much* better off by saying yes to adoption, no matter what.
I pointed out that Annie’s adopted Russian son committed suicide at 17 and her adopted Russian daughter (his biosister) had a baby at 14 – so it is hard to imagine that either kid could’ve has a *worse* life outcome had they remained in a grim orphanage.
Several commenters pointed out that many adopted kids are so damaged by trauma/neglect, a poor life outcome is the almost invariable result – that the early damage is so severe that it is unovercomable.
Annie Kitching notes that her girl was sexually abused as a child* and is abused daughter of a prostitute, so her girl’s behaviour is textbook (yes, true) — but then notes that the girl is definitively better off with her in the US, as she’s likely have become a prostitue by now had she remained in Russia (!!!!).
* and told CPS that she was sexually abused by her brothers in the US. I believe the allegations were untrue, but it’s worth noting that a therapist Annie hired reported the allegations to CPS *and* the Kitchings behaviour in the hospital when the 14 yr old gave birth was such that a hospital social worker *independently* called CPS to report her concerns.
2) Reece’s Rainbow amommy Rebecca Preece is railing against the unfairness of the Russian adoption ban, pooh-poohing issues like dead Russian-born kids (by the hand of American forever families), the Russian Children’s Ombudsman for objecting to things like the im unlicensed Montana Ranch for Kids.
Interestingly enough, she does not mention 1) RR’s illegal photolistings or 2) the fact that she had plastered her blog with pics of the Russian boy who is now her son * before* he was her son and 3) merrily advocated for Russian orphans on her blog using illegally obtained photos of said orphans:
Preecefamilyadoption.blogspot.com
3) incredibly, mindbogglingly biased article about the Russian children’s ombudsman from the Moscow times:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/astakhov-is-a-better-showman-than-ombudsman/476359.html
Naame,
What boggles my mind is the fact that Mama PoRuski says she was in the foster-adopt program for three years with NO referrals. While she admits that she excluded special needs kids from consideration at this time, I can’t imagine how strict her requirements were that she received no referrals in 3 years. According to this source, a couple was told to expect a wait of up two years for a girl from birth-2 (though they wound up waiting 6 mos).
http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2011/11/the-big-problem-facing-foster-to-adopt-families/
So… if a request for the most-desired age group with a gender-selection on top of it was told to expect a MAXIMUM wait of two years… Either Mama PoRuski’s requirements were so specific that the chances of a match coming up were unlikely, or local social workers had her name mentally asterisked with an “only if everyone else on the foster-adopt list says no” notation.
That sounds about right- 3 years if you only want *one* child (no sibling) of that age. It is all about timing.
Rally,
Ah. I stand corrected. I wasn’t sure, and when I Googled, I found that source saying 2 years. My bad!
Another RR PAP blogging about taking photos of Bulgarian RR kids *other* RR families are hoping to adopt during her orphanage visits with the little boy she’s hoping to adopt:
http://gracesfault.blogspot.com/2013/03/answers.html?m=1