Family un-adopts Russian-born son

Luggie:

How/why did you get involved in this? It sounds like the kind of thing that would be inspired by personal experience.

 

Luggie, keep lobbying. There is A LOT of misinformation out there on international adoption, and a lot of discrimination (from the, "why shouldn't we just give the tax credit to domestic families" to the Roland Martin statement a few years ago that those of us who have adopted children from Asia were racists for whom Asian skin was sufficiently light enough ... a year later, Ethiopia overtook China as the #1 country for international adoptions). And a lot of that misinformation could become public policy.

 

Thanks Yankee. And like others on here, I don't see it as saving my little guy. I think he saved us.

 

Keep up the lobbying, Luggie. You're fighting a good fight.

 

There is no excuse for simply sending the kid back to sender as if it's a pair of shoes that didn't fit.

That said, my neighborhood is adoption central. In the past 36 months there have been at least 10 Ukrainian kids (the youngest is 8 ) and eight other adoptions that I can think of just off the top of my head. My next door neighbor returned from the Ukraine just yesterday with the 15-year-old sister of the 8-year-old daughter they adopted a year ago. They worked hard to reunite those siblings and I feel so happy that those kids are together again.

There are some kids from Africa, some Downs Syndrome kids, some autistic kids, etc.

Really inspiring and challenging on so many levels.

 

I know of two couples - one a former co-worker and still dear friend - and another former boss, an outstanding man and his wonderful wife, who have gone through the adoption process. One went domestic and wanted a biracial child because they're a biracial couple and the other went to Guatemala.

The lives of both couples have been transformed, not just enriched. And the thought of anyone inhumane enough to send a child back is disgusting.

 

I hugged my 3-year-old extra-long after reading the initial story and told him we were a family for life.

I'm so angry at those "parents," I want to slug them. Knowing they'll have mental and emotional anguish for a long time is enough.

 

My boss adopted a little girl from China in 2005, and a friend of mine who coaches golf just got back last week after adopting a boy from there.

 

Yeah - definitely. I got involved when I was going through fertility treatments... I connected with a lot of women who were going through some harrowing ordeals. One of those women was the head of an organization called Resolve, which, cheesy as it sounds, helps couples "resolve" to have a child one way or another... through treatments/adoption/foster-to-adopt programs, etc. She convinced me to try lobbying.

Amazingly my "training" here at SportsJournalists.com served me well because you have to make your point very quickly. I knew all these years on this site were good for something.

 

As an older brother to two adopted kids, both of whom have had behavioral problems (they were adopted as toddlers) I say these folks should be shipped off to Siberia themselves. Who the hell tries to return a seven-year old boy like a piece of merchandise?!?!?!?! He spent his formative years in a Russian orphanage, of course he has issues! What the fuck is wrong with people in our country...

 

We have a 4.5-year-old from Korea who came home at 10 months. Unlike some in the adoption world, we simply felt drawn to adopt. As far as we know, biological children are a possibility. Because of this, we get the comments about being heroes and whatnot. We're not heroes, we're parents. The people who go into adoption looking to "save" someone are often the ones who fail as adoptive parents.

There's no way to defend what the mother did. But I'll also say that the agencies need to be doing more to educate adoptive families about the issues they'll face, and weeding out those who might not be ready. Every day on adoption message boards we here from new adoptive parents who wonder why their kid won't sleep through the night in a crib two days after traveling half way around the world. In Korea's case, most kids are in foster homes where they sleep on the floor with their foster parents. Many have never even seen a crib before coming to America.

 

I've always wanted to have a couple of biological children and then adopt a child that's around 5-9 years old when my youngest is that age or a few years older. I'm not sure why, but adopting a child has always appealed to me, even when I was a young child myself.