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) Jane Aronson’s book 
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/living/books-jane-aronson-orphan/?hpt=hp_bn11
Goofy quotes: “If young women are protected, and allowed the opportunities they deserve, then they would not be giving birth to babies that were not part of their family and their community”
How exactly does a woman give birth to a child that isn’t her “family” or “community”? 
On herself “In the best of both worlds, it was the stork, not just the delivery of a baby in a hospital room, it was really the delivery of a baby by a collaboration, a team effort, by adoption service professionals, myself, the families. We were helping a little tiny child who had no potential become a person. ”
Wow! NO potential to be a PERSON and delivery by collaboration… 
“There were hundreds of people who wrote essays for me. I personally edited every story”
She edited their stories to make them happy I guess 
(2) Bussing Mentally Ill Out of State When Discharged 
Though this profiles adults, this is the state of our inept mental health system
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/14/5340078/nevada-buses-hundreds-of-mentally.html
(3)China’s Children International
- Facepalmtastic Made in China t-shirt that they promote for their fundraising-which gives the money to Half the Sky.
- They also promote Chinese adoptees to do orphanage voluntourism!
http://chinaschildreninternational.org/chinaschildreninternational.org/Home.html
- Additionally they have forwarded on their “Message from an Unknown Adoptee” China’s Children International project
“Chinese adoptees, What would you like to ask or say to your birthparents? What do you want them to know about you? What do you want to know about them?
This is your chance to express these thoughts and have it published for viewing by a large audience of other adoptees, adoptive families, and even those not personally affected by adoption. Submissions are open to Chinese adoptees of all ages and can be in any medium (i.e. letters, poems, artwork, and free writes).”
(4)Adoptees as “living, breathing, adorable souvenirs”!
http://www.asuherald.com/opinion/international-adoption-should-be-supported-1.2823474#.UWysB7XD-M8
It starts with butt kissing the industry and then gets really weird “The perceived disadvantages that are made of international adoption in my opinion are outrageous. Some worry that a child might have physical or mental problems and are concerned there will be a language barrier. However, a child born in the U.S. might have health problems as well and does not come out of the womb speaking English fluently.
The cost does seem expensive but after years of planning to get a child, paying to travel to another country and bringing back with a living, breathing and adorable souvenir can seem entirely worthwhile” A living, breathing, adorable souvenir? 
Oooo! Which one will you pick out? 
and then this: ““I was adopted, at the age of two, from China” is the phrase I will use the most in my life to explain myself to people. China is the country where the most children are adopted from. Children adopted from overseas usually do just fine. The only problems I have are fitting in and being accepted by people. Everyday, everywhere I go I am proving people wrong about myself, especially when I speak. Some days it feels great, while others I just want to go back to bed and start over. 
At the end of everyday I try to be grateful for God and for my mom choosing to adopt me. It is sad to think about, but who knows where I would be working or even if I would still be alive now in China.” Ahhhh…gratitude at last! 
(5)Utah fundraiser for NCFA…featuring their partner A Act of Love
Could you match two worse organizations together?
http://www.prweb.com/releases/AdoptionCouncil/UtahFundraiser/prweb10643897.htm
(6) Just Stupid
Jonathan Merritt has forced me to bring back these smileys:
and another appropriate one: 
He obviously hasn’t read the book or paid attention to how many interviews were done. This Bethany dimwit seems to know nothing about any topic covered so therefore, he claims it is a distortion or a lie. He thinks being Hague-accredited somehow means ethical. He thinks being in business 70 years means ethical. He quotes 100 million orphan crisis. And lastly he trots out the abortion card. Truly, he is an ass! You can’t cure this kind of stupid. His head is so deep in the sand that he can’t even contemplate the harvesting, kidnapping, coercion and misleading promises that have lead to lining the pockets of the very organization he sits on the board for and for breaking up families that could have used actual family preservation instead.
We have read the book and I am proud to have given some information that went into it. Our review will be going up soon.
The book The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce is a must-read.
Lastly, %$#@ Boston Marathon suspect 1 was killed this morning. %$#@ Boston Marathon suspect #2 was just arrested this evening. I will leave readers with this message:
Heartbroken PAPs who fail to see how the US govts actions/inactions (violating the adoption treaty first, failure to address violations) and their actions (working with Reece’s Rainbow, illegally posting pics of a Russian kid they have no legal claim to) contributed to the ban — and are utterly dismissive of Russian efforts to improve its child welfare system.
PAPs fail to grasp that Russia’s got a legitimate reason to be suspicious of Max Shatto’s death, even though a grand jury failed to indict them? Toddlers routinely cover themselves in bruises and sever their own bowel arteries, right??
“And why, you might ask, are there nearly a millions orphans living in Russia without parental care, and suddenly ninety-nine of these orphans who’d met American parents are adopted by Russians!?!? Coincidence? Hardly. Good ol’ Pavel Astakhov has been hard at work PAYING RUSSIANS TO TAKE THE KIDS THAT HAD BEEN MATCHED WITH AMERICAN PARENTS!!!!!! Oh, and get this. If you take one with a special need, you get seven times the amount. It doesn’t matter if you take the kid back once you’ve been paid. It doesn’t matter how you treat the orphan, either. Nobody cares about them anyway”
US foster parents are paid a monthly stipend, which increases with the special needs of the child. But it’s somehow evil when the Russian government does the same?
Under Astakhov’s watch, more Russian foster parents have been trained = fewer Russian kids in orphanages. This is bad, how, exactly?? And if it is bad, should we not stop giving stipends to US foster parents ASAP??
“(Giving the russian delegation) Pictures of happy, smiling children and families. Not the handful of abuse cases that have hit the headlines nonstop in Russia recently”
How dare Russia be peeved by “only” 19-20 dead kids!! How can photos of happy Russian adopted kids fail to mitigate Russia’s concerns about the dead/abused ones??
http://amiracleformeg.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad.html?m=1
Thank you so much, Carlee, for finding public commentary on the recent Russia DOS call. Of course DOS did not want this information becoming public at this time, but I knew there would be some wailing PAP that talked about it. You have saved me a lot of search time! The key part of her post is how Russia won’t budge at all-there will be no more negotiations. And as she said 99 kids placed with Russian families actually is quite meaningful-just not the way she thinks- it shows that Russia all along was diverting kids to the US for $ instead of placing them locally. This PAP just doesn’t get it.
So it is bye-bye to a bulk of Reece’s Rainbow business.
Pavel has talked about upping payments to foster parents for several months now. This isn’t something he just came up with this week.
I’ve also heard (unsubstantiated) rumors that some of the 99 kids who’d been matched with AND met American PAPs have since been adopted by European (and possibly Canadian) families, ie not just Russian families. Although heartbreaking for the American families’ who’d met their referral (but hadn’t passed court), Russia did the right thing by re-listing those kids for adoption. They deserve families ASAP, period.
(My understanding is that some Guatemalan kids who’d been matched with US families before adoptions from Guatemala were suspended were/are “held” for American PAPs despite being technically UNADOPTABLE by Americans. So very, very, very wrong).
Amanda Unroe’s family — 18 kids at home, most adopted with high needs SN and unrelated — was just approved by USCIS to bring home THREE more unrelated Bulgarian children (!) – and doesn’t qualify to adopt or foster kids domestically.
Less than a year after they simultaneously adopted FIVE unrelated Bulgarian children (!!).
http://godsrainbowsinourlives.blogspot.com/2013/04/verbal-referral-praise-god.html
It is VERY possible that all the Unroe kids will receive less one-on-one attention at home with forever mommy and daddy than they presently do at their understaffed, grim Bulgarian babyhouses.
(Even horrible Pleven’s ratio is around 1:16 – since Mr. Unroe works full time and travels, the kids get 1:18, soon to be 1:21 caregive to kid ratio)
I truly do not understand how the US Embassies can continue to rubberstamp these visas. They are as complicit as the agencies and the family.
How does a family like this meet the minimum USCIS income requirement — it appears that only one parent (dad) works. As a special education teacher.
USCIS minimum (125% poverty line) for family of 8: $50K
+ $5K for each additional family member x 10 kids = $50K
+$5K for each additional family member x 3 more kids they are approved to adopt = 15K
total to support family with 21 kids = $115K
How many special ed teachers make $115+K a year??
Name, I don’t know if he can make that much. Median income is about $52,000. With a Masters degree the range is $40,000 to $68,000 usually. Maybe they live in a state that gives major raises if he has been working a long time or if he is a coach/takes on other after school clubs, he can make extra money. Some stats can be found at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Education-Training-and-Library/Special-education-teachers.htm#tab-5
I know this family personally and I don’t know where you got that he was a SE teacher but he is NOT a teacher.
Reece’s Rainbow apparently made a unilateral decision to transfer all the $$ that has been sitting in their bank account, earmarked for Russian kids, will UNILATERALLY be transferred to other adoption programs — no refunds! just transfers!
“In light of this sad development, Reece’s Rainbow has decided that the money that was donated to all the Rus*ian babes is being transferred to children in other countries whose doors are open.”
http://covenantbuilders.blogspot.com/2013/04/to-love-at-all.html
It’s better than letting the cash sit in the RR bank account, inaccessible to anybody but RR and accruing interest for RR, but the truly FAIR thing to have done would be to return the $$ to donors (since it was donated for a specific purpose that is no longer possible, i.e. adoption of a Russian kid) — and let THEM choose what happens to THEIR money.
I get the impression that they transfer funds all the time for whatever suits their purpose. Your idea, which is a sound one, probably never crossed God (aka Andrea’s) mind. Remember adoption is a religion now and Andrea is their God.
Carlee,
To be scrupulously fair to Reese’s Rainbow, how do other charities handle it when they fundraise for a specific purpose, and then it develops that what they planned to do isn’t possible for political or legislative reasons?
I don’t think I’ve heard of a charity refunding donations to donors before, but I have heard of charities which raised MORE than they needed donating the excess to another good cause. What is SOP in the world of charitable giving?
I’d Google, but I can’t think what search terms to use.
Astrin, Here are some details on ethics in fundraising: http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/resources/ethics-in-fundraising This falls under Respect of Donor intent
Thanks, Rally!
Okay, I wanted to avoid opening an unfamiliar PDF if I could, so I checked the FAQ. According to #8 “… it is a violation of the AFP Code to use monies from a restricted gift for a purpose other than the purpose for which it was solicited. You should advise your institution that such a use would violate the principle of honoring donor intent and would be a violation of the AFP Code of Ethical Principles (Standards 14, 15 and 16). You should strongly urge your institution not to allow such action.
If your organization wants to request a change regarding the restricted use of a gift, you must communicate with the donor about the gift…”
So as I understand it, Andrea Roberts is being unethical by failing to contact the donors before “repurposing” their money, and could even be subject to legal penalties for doing so.
Mind you, I doubt any member of the Christian adoption movement is likely to initiate such action against her. As you’ve said, she’s got her sainthood credentials firmly in place.
Besides, it’s quite plain that Russia isn’t going to re-open the program unless the U.S. government takes on a far more active role in vetting PAPs and supervising adoptees than they have been. However, the very constituency which is screaming loudest for the state department to “do something” about the Russian adoption ban would also scream about “unnecessary regulation” and “interference in our right to raise our children as we see fit” if the government DID make the changes Russia demanded.
I’m not sure if any of the STUCK! groupies have actually thought this through.
She will come up with every reason under the sun not to refund the money to the donors. This happened when we committed to a child that wasn’t even available for adoption. We asked for our donors $$ to be refunded to them and she said it had to stay with that child until he became available for adoption (which he never did because he was adopted by Ukrainians) or be transferred to another child. Since then we have learned that all their excuses for why it is legal for them to photolist children are not legit because photolisting Ukrainian children is ILLEGAL!