Family un-adopts Russian-born son

...and sticks him on an airplane with a one-way ticket.

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/article/SB10001424052702304222504575173741062876452.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews


The kid is 7.

Disgusting.

 

Saw this earlier and thought of this story:

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/90319512.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4OW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciaec8O7EyUsl

The boy had brought a gun to school:

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/90055697.html?elr=KArksCiUtEia_nDaycUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUr

Can't get my head around any of this. Just heartbreaking.

 

Those stories remind me of this:



It really is sad, though, how profoundly fucked up a child can be at such an early age.

 

In Soviet Russia adoption America sends you back.

 

A coach in our area adopted four kids from the Ukraine about two years ago. The stories he told me about the orphanages and how screwed up the kids were were just horrifying. The four kids he got were relatively balanced, but still had problems.

 

I've heard similar stories, I'm sure, from a friend who adopted a baby girl from China.

The girl was already so messed up after only the first year of her life that she eventually became all but uncontrollable, and my friend had to give her up. She's been diagnosed with an anti-social disorder that prevents her from forming emotional ties with other people; for all intents and purposes, she's a sociopath. And she just turned nine years old. It's so sad.

 

There are perfectly fucked up AMERICAN kids to adopt. Why are we worrying about people on another continent?

 

Yup, House is right. The problem here in the USA is too many couples:
- Only want newborns/infants.
- Don't want to adopt minority children.

One of my neighbors has 10 kids - between the ages of 6-16, seven of them adopted, all from the US but most are African-American. They truck all 10, literally, to the elementary school and middle school in two seperate full size fans. They're inspiring.

We can call this parent "disgusting" but, if this kid were to go on and kill 17 students one day in high school, we'd be asking why the parents didn't see anything.

 

This kid was seven when they got him. He wasn't a newborn or an infant.

I didn't realize that China and Ethiopia were great sources of white children.

 

Not true.

And I say this as someone who has been involved in lobbying Congress on the issue of adoption legislation.

It's easier to adopt an infant/newborn IN THE U.S. It's almost impossible to adopt a newborn internationally... so you've kind of got that backwards.

The real problem is that it can be hard to adopt in this country because of the laws we have protecting the birth parents.

The laws differ depending on the state, but there are A LOT of "take backs" by the birth mothers in the U.S.

If you adopt internationally, there are fewer take backs because you are typically adopting from an orphanage. International adoption is seen as more of a sure thing.

I know one couple who TWICE paid the birth mothers' entire expenses in domestic adoptions and TWICE had the baby taken from them after birth. It's heartbreaking.

That couple's story does have a happy ending, though, because they ultimately turned to a surrogate and conceived twins with her help.

Adoption in the U.S. can be a damn minefield. Or it can be wonderfully easy. You just never know how it's going to go. And often the couple adopting has nearly gone bankrupt undergoing failed fertility treatments, so the "sure thing" of international adoption appeals to them.

 

Having adopted, and done so internationally, Lugnuts is spot-on. There are a lot of issues with domestic adoptions -- I've witnessed too many families that have been taken through the emotional wringer (and financial wringer) by "take-backs," which often happen AFTER all of the birthmother's hospital expenses have been paid by the adoptive family. "False start" is part of the lingo.

But it is not easy to adopt internationally. Families adopting from China have been waiting 4+ years (and some are still looking at 2-3 more years of waiting) because of the slowdown. Vietnam & Guatemala have shut down adoptions at different times in the process.

However, adopting internationally or transracially brings about a new set of challenges. One of the biggest is the "conspicuous family" issue -- we are on display for the world because our son is Chinese and we are not. We don't get too many dirty looks, but we do get a lot of questions and stares. Another is the quality of what they give you information-wise. Russia and ex-Soviet countries such as Kazakhstan, for example, is known for bait-and-switch techniques in underreporting or false reporting of medical conditions and horrible care in orphanages, and corrupt judges requiring bribes from parents, et al.

Another is the issue of institutionalization. My son was 15 months old when we adopted him internationally. He's now three. He still exhibits some orphanage behaviors, although he is pretty well-adjusted. We do have challenges, and any parent adopting internationally needs to know the risks going in AND be willing to accept them. Parents who send a 7-year-old back to Russia with a one-way ticket is the reason why we have to go through a months-long vetting process that involves national and state governments on both sides of the pond and thousands of dollars in added expense, plus hours and hours of education. It is very, very difficult to adopt, especially internationally.

But I wouldn't do it any other way. I love my son in a way that words cannot describe.

 

Awesome story.

When you adopt internationally, you are basically saving a life.