I am probably opening myself up to a whole slew of criticism here , but I cannot let it go. . .
I have spoken about disruption and my ideas about it several times If you are tired of hearing my opinion just move along, but I truly mean to be respectful and I want to understand.
One of the blogs I read occasionally posts about children whose adoptive parents are needing to find them a new adoptive home for a myriad of reasons. Mostly their behaviors make them difficult to deal with in a particular family situation. This time it is about children who have been home for a week and a half and they have some significant, yet treatable, medical issues . . . here is part of the text. . .
We adopted a sibling group, brother (7-8 yo) and sister (4-5 yo), from Ethiopia. When we started this process with our agency in November 09, we stated we could take children with minor, correctable medical conditions... Two days after we passed Ethiopian court, when they became legally ours, we were told the little girl had a heart condition, Tetrology of Fallot, which is correctable with heart surgery. Her prognosis after surgery is a normal, healthy life... ...we were told he (the boy) had 4 cervical vertebrae fused, a condition which may or may not need treatment. As previously mentioned, we went into the adoptive process stating we could only accept minor, correctable medical conditions based upon our existing family situation...
...
We are looking for a Christian family to take these two children as their own. Back in Ethiopia, the Uncle made us promise that his niece and nephew would be raised in a Christian home and we want to honor his request. I know it seems as if one and a half weeks is not enough time to make this kind of decision but we feel certain that this is what needs to be done for the sake of everyone involved. We feel that it would be best to move the children into their new family as soon as possible so that they can begin bonding with their forever family sooner rather than later.
Wow. I truly mean to be respectful, I do, But HOW does a family do this? How can they go through all that they did to get these kids and treat it like a "return" at the store? I will never understand. What will these kids feel? How can they not feel broken, returnable, unimportant, disposable?
I have an adopted son who is VERY difficult and 2 bio kids with their own issues. I cannot return them or find them another home if they are not what I expected.
I understand they said they needed a certain thing, but medical issues can arise at any time. . . these children could've been involved in a very bad car accident and required medical intervention that far exceeds their expectations . . .
I guess what I am saying is that life is not predictable.
Adoptions cannot be ordered off a menu.
Help me understand.
(Out of respect for the other blog, I will not link to her site. I respect what she is doing in posting this, but I do not understand the intentions of the primary family. I am sorry I just don't)
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I don't understand either. I am very glad I don't have to. I try to leave understanding to God. Praying for the poor children.
Just.... WHAT THE FUCK YOU IDIOTS????
Ok, you can delete me if you find my language offensive, I will not be offended.
Something tells me their little brown angels are not acting grateful and the "parents" are hanging their excuse on the minor, correctable medical issues. FUCKING MORONS! NEXT TIME TRY A CABBAGE PATCH KID FIRST AND SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE THAT!
ARGGGGGHHH
I have to say that Essie said it best...
I had to refrain from commenting on said blog...I understand they didn't get what they wanted...well too bad...neither did many of us but we still trudge along...but to do this a week or so after getting them just blows my mind.
I'm hoping (and this is generously giving them the benefit of the doubt) that this has to do w/ not being able to procure medical help for them and they are hoping to find a family that might be able to...but less than a month...I would have been contacting every agency I could or seeing about fundraising to get the help.
Plus it bothered me that it had to be a "christian" family. There are many of us (Athiests, Agnostics...or just plain ambivalent!LOL) that could provide a wonderful home but would be out of the running...promise they made the dad my butt...I'm sure he wasn't couting on this nice "Christian" family doing this to the kids.
forgot to add...having said what I said, if this is the type of people they are then maybe the kids really would benefit from getting a new family so I'm glad the blog's owner is doing this for them...she gets attacked sometimes but honestly, someone has to do something to find them a new home regardless of the reasons so at least she's being proactive...but yeah...that original family...there's got to be something there that we just don't know about...way too strange to do this less than a month later.
I commented (positively) on the other blog - I was amazed at the people lining up to consider taking these kids. As for the adoptive families' intentions - that boggles the mind. I would imagine that adopting overseas would be much more stressful (and expensive) than my foster care adoptions, not to mention the time away from home, the language issues, etc. Why in the world would someone go thru all that only to do this a few weeks later? If the kids are as great as they have made them sound, you'd think they'd be moving heaven and earth to find a way to "fix" their medical issues - especially since they both sound like they're not even having any symptoms of these medical issues. I've learned that if something doesn't make a hell of alot of sense, you probably don't have the whole story. I hope they find them a home really quick, before they do any more damage to them (uprooting them from their country, promising to be their forever family then bailing, etc.)
I cannot help you understand. . .but I can mourn with you. So sad.
I bet we don't know all of the details.
Wow. That's tough. I don't know what to say because, as a social worker I have seen this EVERY day for the past 7 years and I have yet to figure it out myself. I will never understand. However, having gone through infertility I think I view children and parenting very differently than most people AND I also see first hand (over and over again) what it does to the kids. (I am talking about foster and adoptive parents who chose to back out of placements, BTW, not just about bio families giving up their bio children). Just recently I had a foster mom give up a speical needs child that she had raised from the age of seven (she is fifteen now) because her bio son developed a mental health condition.
On the other hand, I would rather people do these things than keep kids that they don't want and mistreat them, which is why I hesitate to be too harsh. If we shame them too much we run that risk.
Please, people, for the love of all that is holy, be sure you know what you are getting in to and that it is what you want BEFORE you adopt or take a foster placement.
You know that I don't get it! OH MY GOODNESS...do I need to adopt two more???? ;0)
So sad...that's all I've got.
How does she figure that hers is a "Christian" home? Christians are supposed to be loving, tolerant, charitable and grateful as hell for getting two beautiful children to raise. People who are all full of themselves and who start every statement with "I'm a Christian and..." as if that makes them better than everyone else are doing real Christians a disservice.
Those kids will be much better off out of there ASAP.
Don't understand it either. They're like the people who adopt a dog from the pound, and then return it the first time it pees on the floor. ::sigh::
I don't understand it either, but in the spirit of Christianity, may I suggest that we don't know the whole story, and that we should pray for everyone involved, rather than judging?
I find it problematic to suggest in a situation like this that because some people can cope with extreme situations or particular circumstances, everyone should be able to, especially when we have no knowledge of the situation. I can imagine that the people in question are also doing their share of mourning and are not taking this step lightly.
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