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Adopting older children is very risky for everyone despite the best of intentions. This is an article about Joyce Maynard- J.D. Salinger's SO and her failed adoptions of 2 girls from Ethiopia. Be sure to read the new York Times article linked in the story. a cautionary tale for all considering adoption of older children.
So what are your thoughts about this, No Kudzo? I am a great champion of international adoption, and of adopting older children. We are thinking about currently adding to our family that way.
I am not sure what I think about Maynard's little Ethiopian adventure. I wonder if it might not have been a good way to provide fodder for a new book. It what way could Maynard not have improved the life of those girls? She takes off to an exotic location in search of adoption and encounters an existential crisis. How convenient.
Now she can write about her tormented experience.Hmm ...she has been doing this for quite a while.
The fact that an in country translator told the girls they would be sold is not unusual. In many developing countries the tabloids abound with stories of kids being sold for body parts pr even food. It is sad that they think this, but what has it to do with adoption?
No one forced her to consider adoption or doing it in Ethiopia while writing about it. But then to back out? I don't know, it doesn't sound right.
Adopting older children is very risky for everyone despite the best of intentions. This is an article about Joyce Maynard- J.D. Salinger's SO and her failed adoptions of 2 girls from Ethiopia. Be sure to read the new York Times article linked in the story. a cautionary tale for all considering adoption of older children.
I don't know much about all this, besides from the attached article I just read, so I may not be right to judge nor am I really trying to judge. But here is my opinion: When we have children, they often times do not turn out to be what/how we thought they would, or parenting is not what we thought it'd be. We don't just say "It's in the best interest for me to give this up, it's failing". Parenting is by far the best gift we are given, it's an amazing opportunity, but it's hard, it's not all roses, nowhere near it!! Adoption is CHOOSING to put in the extra effort to bond with a child, to create a parent/child bond that is not there through DNA! Adopting an older child(ren) is a risk in itself, you don't always know what the child has been through or how their minds process the things they have been through.
Could you imagine a stranger coming and spending a few days with you, taking you to new and exciting places, then taking you on a plane, to a whole new world, and the language barrier is kind of like isolation. How scary it must be, but then to be told she was going to sell them....These girls have already been through a lot, she knew that before she adopted them(CHOOSING them to become her daughters)! We can't/shouldn't just give up when things get sticky, hard or even miserable, those are YOUR kids, remember YOU CHOSE them?!?!
So now they are in another home, I hope the "new" parents put extra love and time into these girls, counseling, and patience. But most of all, I pray that these girls will not have to be 'given up' again. They, as all children, need constency and stabability above all!
Maybe this woman did what was best for her, her own(biological) family, or what was best for the girls...but I surely agree that she didn't take all things into consideration as she should have. Take off the rose colored glasses people and look at the whole picture, and the details, before deciding to jump in head first. Especially when it involoves the lives of our future generations!!
I've had a fair amount of experience with adoption as some of you know. I think some folks considering adopting older kids are extremely naive and egotistical. They tend to think "I can love away the problems" and it just doesn't work that way.
Many older kids available for adoption have been thru unimaginable heartache and upheaval and it will take more than love to straighten them out to where they can live a normal life.
While few of us would consider re homing our biological kids, it happens way too often with adoption, especially international adoption and that in and of itself is not a bad thing. Sometimes the child ends up in a far better place.
i knew people (wife really) who was hell bent on adopting a little girl from El Salvador. they had 4 bio boys. When they got to orphanage the child was too sick to travel and this woman was not about to go home empty handed so they got a 2 year old boy. Just what they needed....
So a few months later-after the boy became the star attraction of his family and community, they go pick up the little girl who had been so badly abused she lost an eye. Everybody told them this child was not as good candidate for adoption but Sue knew best and proudly brought her "poor little one eyed orphan" - her words- home.
It was a complete and utter disaster. Sue bought expensive wallpaper, dresses, clothes. She wanted a princess but what she got was a damaged and angry kid who walked into a hornets nest.
They kept her for 2 years and then sent her to another family who had great past results with troubled kids. They too could not handle her and this poor child was handed off to yet another woman-single woman. I hope it worked out for them.
regarding Ms. Maynard, I think she was blinded by naivete and love of travel. I don't think she set out to "get a book deal, travel and add 2 girls to my family" but that is exactly what happened. She is to be commended at least for not talking anymore about the details of the failed adoptions as it is the story of the girls involved.
There are so many resources for folks considering adopting older children and if they don't take advantage of those resources everybody will suffer. I thought I could adopt an older child from foster care. 3 months of foster parent training opened my eyes to potential problems I knew I could not handle. I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I don't know much about all this, besides from the attached article I just read, so I may not be right to judge nor am I really trying to judge. But here is my opinion: When we have children, they often times do not turn out to be what/how we thought they would, or parenting is not what we thought it'd be. We don't just say "It's in the best interest for me to give this up, it's failing". Parenting is by far the best gift we are given, it's an amazing opportunity, but it's hard, it's not all roses, nowhere near it!! Adoption is CHOOSING to put in the extra effort to bond with a child, to create a parent/child bond that is not there through DNA! Adopting an older child(ren) is a risk in itself, you don't always know what the child has been through or how their minds process the things they have been through.
Could you imagine a stranger coming and spending a few days with you, taking you to new and exciting places, then taking you on a plane, to a whole new world, and the language barrier is kind of like isolation. How scary it must be, but then to be told she was going to sell them....These girls have already been through a lot, she knew that before she adopted them(CHOOSING them to become her daughters)! We can't/shouldn't just give up when things get sticky, hard or even miserable, those are YOUR kids, remember YOU CHOSE them?!?!
But what if keeping the kids is not in THEIR best interest? Should you really hold on to the kids with both hands when you can't give them what they need? Maybe it's not always best to keep the promise of forever. Sometimes I think it's best for everyone to come up with a different solution for the kids. Keeping very troubled children that you don't have the tools to help out of principle is NOT doing anyone a favor, the kids in particular. I do believe that any adoptive parent do have an obligation to ensure that this child will get what they need and stick with them in some capacity to ensure that the child don't end up in foster care, juvenile detention limbo. It's inexcusable to do what the Ohio mother did who put her adopted 8-year old son on a plane back to Russia by himself or the parents who send their adopted kids to the facility in Colorado (I believe) and then choose to terminate their parental rights and end the relationship with the child. Once you take on the obligation you have no choice but to keep it. But that doesn't mean that the child has to remain in your home if that's not what the child needs.
I think the public in general has a poor understanding of the problem many of these kids face and thereby the sentiment against the parents in failed adoptions. Don't get me wrong. Some of these parents deserve all the criticism they get and more. But I don't think most people understand the situations they are judging. What do you do with a 6-year old who will put a screwdriver in the back of their sibling when the sibling is just sitting around watching TV? Or when that child sticks pins into the family cat and leaves them there? Or when the child bangs her head into the wall so ferociously that her head bleeds and then switches to cutting herself with a broken light bulb? Or when the same child tries to rig the stairs so that you will fall down the stairs next time you go there, hoping that you will break your neck? I know of a child who did all those things and constantlly. That girl is not a bad child and doesn't deserve to be thrown away. But she needs more than a regular family can provide. She's also a danger to the other kids and pets in the home. Without professional help for that kid she will end up hurting someone else or herself seriously and things will get worse and worse until she ends up in the criminal justice system as a teenager. Should the family just continue to keep her at home during those circumstances putting everyone at risk? I don't believe it's fair to blame the adoptive parents if they choose to place the child elsewhere.
Quote:
Adoption is CHOOSING to put in the extra effort to bond with a child, to create a parent/child bond that is not there through DNA!
I think most adoptive parents are prepared to put that extra effort into creating a bond but in some situations the child is not able or willing to have such a bond. Effort and love is often not enough. The fact that people think so is, I believe, a big part of the problem.
Failed adoptions, especially international adoptions of older kids, is, I believe, a big part the fault of the adoption agencies who miserably fail to properly educate the parents of the problems these kids could have and ensure that the prospective parents are prepared for. I've heard of way too many situations where the parents received no information about the possible ramifications of being raised in an institution as many of these kids are, especially those adopted from eastern Europe.
Part of the problem, I think, is the fact that a lot of these agencies are for profit. It's in their financial interest to make sure that the adoptions happen and happen at their agency. Giving out information that could cause parents to change their minds or decide to go a different route would cause them to lose out on income and it's not hard to understand that a for profit company will avoid doing that. Maybe legislation is in order here, to require adoption agencies to provide adoptive parents with sufficient education for them to make an informed decision and also to provide supportive services after the adoption. I don't mean to say that adoptive parents should be talked out of adopting or that adopting older children is not a good thing. But not properly preparing the parents does nobody a favor.
I only wish people would not equate "throwing away your own child" with a failed adoption of an older child. It is apples and oranges. A failed adoption is not like being angry at the antics of a small child or a teenager. Usually it involves the scenario Litiza so well described or my "friend" who was so ill prepared for the extremely troubled child she adopted.
Once we were in line for wednesday night supper at church when another adult came up to "Sue" all out of breath and red in the face :
"Sue, little Betty is locked in your car banging her head on the window and she is screaming and bleeding and won't unlock the door"
Sue: " Oh don't worry about her. She can't get her way and she always does this. I'm sick to death of her drama and we are just sitting down to eat."
Those of us who heard this dialogue were dumbfounded as were the people who saw the girl. Sue just calmly got her dinner and sat down to eat with the rest of her family. Today I think somebody would have called the police but this was 20+ years ago and nobody "wanted to get involved."
Eventually( and years after the failed adoption) Sue's family was exposed for what it was. Husband arrested for possession of child porn, one son deep into goth, drugs and heavily tattooed, one son killed himself, another son in jail for drugs. And this was not some trashy family. he was a Delta pilot, Sue a school teacher. "Pillars of the community" and all that. The best thing that ever happened to that child was the disrupted adoption.
Todays News: Adoptive Mother of Russian boy who was sent back to Russia on a plane alone is ordered to pay child support.
the way this woman handled this situation is horrible. She acted in a selfish and cruel way while there were resources available to her which she refused to explore. Doubtful this child will ever get over this experience. The orphanage should be held accountable as well for trying to get rid of a very troubled child.
I've had a fair amount of experience with adoption as some of you know. I think some folks considering adopting older kids are extremely naive and egotistical. They tend to think "I can love away the problems" and it just doesn't work that way.
Yes -- I have a cousin who was adopted (not international) as an almost 5 year old but he didn't have any serious emotional problems and turned out to be a dream child and has grown into a successful adult.
But some kids are going to have serious psychological issues and I think they would require special people.
It's difficult being a parent of completely normal kids - and especially those who never raised normal kids, they may not even realize what is normal and what is not right.
I only wish people would not equate "throwing away your own child" with a failed adoption of an older child. It is apples and oranges. A failed adoption is not like being angry at the antics of a small child or a teenager. Usually it involves the scenario Litiza so well described or my "friend" who was so ill prepared for the extremely troubled child she adopted.
Once we were in line for wednesday night supper at church when another adult came up to "Sue" all out of breath and red in the face :
"Sue, little Betty is locked in your car banging her head on the window and she is screaming and bleeding and won't unlock the door"
Sue: " Oh don't worry about her. She can't get her way and she always does this. I'm sick to death of her drama and we are just sitting down to eat."
Those of us who heard this dialogue were dumbfounded as were the people who saw the girl. Sue just calmly got her dinner and sat down to eat with the rest of her family. Today I think somebody would have called the police but this was 20+ years ago and nobody "wanted to get involved."
Eventually( and years after the failed adoption) Sue's family was exposed for what it was. Husband arrested for possession of child porn, one son deep into goth, drugs and heavily tattooed, one son killed himself, another son in jail for drugs. And this was not some trashy family. he was a Delta pilot, Sue a school teacher. "Pillars of the community" and all that. The best thing that ever happened to that child was the disrupted adoption.
How did these parents pass the psychological screening and home test? My parents had to go through rigorous testing and I'm sure if the agency picked up on child porn, suicide, etc. they wouldn't have let my parents adopt me. Or was this family just extraordinarily good at hiding the truth?
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