Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
we took a pre-adoptive class that scared us away - for good.
A bit of background. We have one biological son and one daughter through international adoption. (S.Korea)
In the early 2000s we wanted to adopt more children - but not infants - and we heard about hosting. We hosted many children from Ukraine while advocating for their adoption.
There was one little boy who clicked with us. He loved us. And we loved him. He fit our family and we fit him. Alas, his biological parent got her act together enough to convince the court to return her 2 children.
To this day we wonder if he was taken home when he was old enough to work, beg or steal.
We decided to try the US once more. It was worse that we had ever thought.
We were asked if we could maintain a relation ship with a woman who put her child in a full body cast. Could we light a candle on mother's day to remember a woman who left her child alone for three days or permited her boyfriend to beat or molest the child?
Our answer was no. We want a family. Not a therapeutic group home.
In the US, by the time a child becomes available for adoption, they are at least ten.
They are incredibly hurt and damaged. Some have become violent themselves.
At one time the US ripped children out of the arms of the poor. Today we have gone to another extreme - we do anything to keep people together who are related by blood. Even when biological parents are not particularly interested in their children, they are encouraged and shamed into accepting them back.
many times US children are returned to their biological parents and are physically, psychologically and emotionally abused - as well as neglected.
I am sickened by all of this. Children are being abused because our country seems to value "flech and blood" over loving and devoted parents.
While I understand where you are coming from, I have to take issue with some of your statements.
First, I hope you're not condoning poor children being ripped from the arms of their parents - I'm guessing that's not what you mean by that statement but I just want to make sure. Not all the kids who enter foster care come from poor homes, and not all poor homes are bad for children.
Anyway, what you have to understand that it IS important for these kids to have acknowledgement of their biological parents, even if you don't like it. If the kids are old enough to remember mom or dad, then they need to feel they have a place to express their feelings, thoughts, and memories about mom or dad, even if mom or dad turned out to be horrible, horrible people. They need a safe place to process all of that, and who could be safer than the people who chose them. They can't just be expected to forget about them or shut down their feelings because their new mom and dad don't want to acknowledge their connection to their biological parents. These kids are sad, scared, angry, and they have a right to their feelings and a right to express them. If you can't handle that then, no, you shouldn't take them in. But don't blame the system because social workers know that the kids need that acknowledgement.
I take issue with your statement that kids are at least ten. I - and I'm sure several others on here - could give all kinds of examples of foster children who were adopted well before the age of ten. It does happen.
Further, this idea that by the time the kids are older and/or available for adoption they are too "damaged" to bring into someone's home is exactly the reason why older kids are so hard to place - because of this assumed stigma that they are damaged goods. There are plenty of kids who - as I said - are angry and scared and they need help figuring out how to process and deal with those emotions. Yes, some of them act out, some of them need intense therapy, and some of them are better off in group or therapeutic homes. Guess what - the same things can happen to the biological children in otherwise "normal" homes. When people give birth or adopt babies there is no guarantee they will turn out "just right." The difference with adopting from foster care is that at least you will know what you are up against from the beginning.
There are people who are not ready or able to take on the challenge of adopting a child from foster care or adopting an older child, but scare tactics do nothing to help change preconceived notions about these kids. If you are not willing to accept a child exactly as they are with all their biological baggage, then no you shouldn't adopt them. But please don't try to frame the whole foster-adopt system like this. You were scared off but that doesn't mean other people need to be scared off too.
we took a pre-adoptive class that scared us away - for good.
...
We decided to try the US once more. It was worse that we had ever thought.
We were asked if we could maintain a relation ship with a woman who put her child in a full body cast. Could we light a candle on mother's day to remember a woman who left her child alone for three days or permited her boyfriend to beat or molest the child?
...
This is what many foster/adoption agencies just won't accept, that maintaining the relationship with the very ones who put the child at risk will result in no progress whatsoever.
It creates confusion for the child who needs stability and sanity. Sometimes the best thing to do is to separate the child from the situation that created all the problems in the first place.
Sheena12 & sirron, you are so right as that is what we saw even 25 years ago when trying to adopt through 2 different states, talking with a distraught social worker who had to go to court knowing the children that were now safe were going to be returned to a dangerous situation no matter how hard she fought it and the same with the foster mother that we knew with temp foster children coming back again and again being pulled from the same unfit home.
The horrors experienced by these children are unspeakable and that they are returned again and again to try to reunite a family (they obviously don't understand the concept of "family" in the first place) is a very serious problem.
We were interested in only adoption and not fost/adopt for the above reasons. We did not want to have a child coming out of abuse in our home and see the child returned. There was a 4 year old, special needs, who was available for fost-adopt. They said the mother's rights had been severed but that the father's had not so the child would have to be escorted to the prison once a month to visit the father who was there for a crime which the social worker said it would be very unlikely that he would regain custody of the boy. The social worker expected it might be at least 2 years before the father's right might be severed. We elected not to fost/adopt.
We, too, beginning in 1984, went through the photolistings of children from across the US. We ran into a lot of case managers who did not seem interested in placing the children. Calls were not returned. Information was not forthcoming. It was a very frustrating situation. The public is so ignorant of the realities of these children caught in the system not being able to move forward or back.
There is too much emphasis on the abusive, neglectful and exploitative parent(s) and not enough on the vulnerable child. I know how heartbreaking it is to realize that you cannot make the situation any better. How frustrating it must be for the parent(s) that adopt internationally and have to hear people comment about how kids in the US are waiting for homes. I am betting that all or nearly all of those that adopted internationally looked at US adoption first.
We adopted a special needs infant through a private agency after waiting, asking and pleading to adopt a waiting US child and there were several of them. And, after reviewing some records on some, we knew that we could never parent children with so many issues, most of the kids being 10 plus years old as we had a biological child in the home that most would have presented a threat to.
I know even when babies are surrendered to the state system, they hold them for a minimum of two years generally waiting for the parent(s) to get their act together. Then a few years in several different foster homes.
No one agrees with taking children away from poor families unless there is abuse, neglect or exploitation. That hasn't been done in years.
In the years we were trying to adopt, I wrote a lot of letters and made a lot of phone calls trying to expose what was going on. No one really took an interest though.
I will always remember the profiles of the worse of the abused. One little boy was 3 years old and seriously mentally and physically disabled. He had been born normal and then shook to the point that he was now.......... Not unusual are children that have been sexually abused and now had issues with sexually abusing other children.
In my mind, children are always a priority. They should be so for society. At our house, both of my husbands always understood that my first loyalty was to my children, not to them. The children are vulnerable and have to be the priority. It is unbelievable to me how many women allow abuse, neglect and exploitation of their children by their boyfriend(s), husbands and other family members.
From what I was understanding the last time we looked at adopting another child was that they were holding them even longer before letting the birth parents try to get their act together. It was sad as I know many of the birth parents don't show up for visits or classes or rehab and the children wait in the foster care system.
While I understand where you are coming from, I have to take issue with some of your statements.
First, I hope you're not condoning poor children being ripped from the arms of their parents - I'm guessing that's not what you mean by that statement but I just want to make sure. Not all the kids who enter foster care come from poor homes, and not all poor homes are bad for children.
Anyway, what you have to understand that it IS important for these kids to have acknowledgement of their biological parents, even if you don't like it. If the kids are old enough to remember mom or dad, then they need to feel they have a place to express their feelings, thoughts, and memories about mom or dad, even if mom or dad turned out to be horrible, horrible people. They need a safe place to process all of that, and who could be safer than the people who chose them. They can't just be expected to forget about them or shut down their feelings because their new mom and dad don't want to acknowledge their connection to their biological parents. These kids are sad, scared, angry, and they have a right to their feelings and a right to express them. If you can't handle that then, no, you shouldn't take them in. But don't blame the system because social workers know that the kids need that acknowledgement.
I take issue with your statement that kids are at least ten. I - and I'm sure several others on here - could give all kinds of examples of foster children who were adopted well before the age of ten. It does happen.
Further, this idea that by the time the kids are older and/or available for adoption they are too "damaged" to bring into someone's home is exactly the reason why older kids are so hard to place - because of this assumed stigma that they are damaged goods. There are plenty of kids who - as I said - are angry and scared and they need help figuring out how to process and deal with those emotions. Yes, some of them act out, some of them need intense therapy, and some of them are better off in group or therapeutic homes. Guess what - the same things can happen to the biological children in otherwise "normal" homes. When people give birth or adopt babies there is no guarantee they will turn out "just right." The difference with adopting from foster care is that at least you will know what you are up against from the beginning.
There are people who are not ready or able to take on the challenge of adopting a child from foster care or adopting an older child, but scare tactics do nothing to help change preconceived notions about these kids. If you are not willing to accept a child exactly as they are with all their biological baggage, then no you shouldn't adopt them. But please don't try to frame the whole foster-adopt system like this. You were scared off but that doesn't mean other people need to be scared off too.
1. I neversaid that children should be "ripped out of the arms of poor people". If you read my post, you will see that I said that we have gone "from one extreme to another".
Because a woman became pregnant by accident, does not mean that a family was created that must be zealously preserved at all costs. There are actually ambivalent birth parents who are preferred by social services.
2. They are damaged because of the system that forces many failed attempts at reunions, many foster placement with people who are "in it for the money", many, many more incidents of abuse than they ever would have had, if they were removed earlier. There are some crimes so egregious that attempts at reconciliation defy common sense.
3. The idiotic hypothetical question that we were asked -" could you have lunch with a woman who put her two year old in a full body cast? My answer is a resounding NO! I can not.
The system is broken when thought is even given to returning this child to her parents. The incident was real. NO. I could not associate with brutal, angry or violent people. I would not want them in my life.
Why would I "light candles" to horrible failed parents? Enough is enough!
Social services does not understand - or will not recognize that termination of parental rights frees a child to accept NEW parents and a NEW family. No, mostly - their FIRST FAMILY.
Parents by adoption do not necessarily want to adopt a dysfunctional and abusive family. We don't want to invite them over for Christmas dinner or to socialize with them. The whole idea of adoption is that it creates a NEW SEPARATE and DISCRETE FAMILY UNIT. We did not want to be "foster parents" we wanted to add to our family through adoption and welcome a new child into our home. Not an entourage.
If children were removed swiftly, there would be less confusion in anyone's mind about who "the real parents" are. And in our experience, there were no children under 10 who were available. Actually, ten was young.
Why should a parent who has burned their baby of a gas stove, of beaten them with a cast iron frying pan and broken every bone in their body - be anything but ARRESTED? The same goes for teenagers who permit multiple boyfriends to molest, beat and horribly abuse their children?
Reuniting babies, toddlers and preschool children into situations such as these - is wrong headed.
A child's life is at stake. However, the system seems more concerned with the people who created the problems in the first place - the bio parents - than with anyone else.
Sheena, we are going to have to agree to disagree. Again, I understand where you are coming from but I also know what is going on from the other side (I'm involved in social work). Steps have been taken to sever biological parents rights faster when their behavior is criminal or they are simply not interested in being parents - I have seen it happen. I know of two cases personally where the children were adopted by their foster parents - their only foster parents - in less than two years and both children had been placed with them as infants. It happens.
Every state's laws are different as far as what steps must be taken to remove a child from the home and to terminate rights. I don't know what the laws are where you live. I do know, however, that there are laws the social workers must obey, and contact with the bio family is encouraged even after termination. Maybe mom was terrible, but grandma loved her grandchildren with all her heart. These children shouldn't have to lose everything because their parents made terrible choices.
You and I have different ideas about adoption - I don't think adoption should wipe out the bio family and pretend as though they never existed. That is damaging to the adopted child, whether that child was adopted as an infant from another country or a 7 year old from one city over. Adopted kids have rights too, and their right to know their family needs to be respected.
Adopted kids know their "family", MoonBeam33. I am thinking that you define "family" differently than those of us that adopt. We accept the child that came through adoption as part of our "family". We didn't want to raise a child for someone else. In every profile that I read, and I read a lot of them, the birth parents were generally unable and/or unwilling to accept the responsibility of children. I can tell you that having people fade in and out of a child's life does more harm than good.
We came back to KS 9 years ago and I looked the kids on the adoption exchange. Most of those children are still waiting today.
With parents whose rights have been severed, a lot of those parents are dangerous and I would not have wanted them to have information about our family and showing up on the doorstep.
Personally, I think the kids are considered not more than work count for the state system and my opinion is not unusual for those of us who tried to adopt through a system that seemed stacked against the children in foster care. Calls never returned. Heard of the adoption maze?
Choosing to keep a child locked in foster care because they can't find a family willing to raise the child for the birth parents, take the financial and emotional upon themselves and have the birth parents drop in and out for the "benefit" of the child seems not to be in the best interest of the child.
Adopted kids know their "family", MoonBeam33. I am thinking that you define "family" differently than those of us that adopt. We accept the child that came through adoption as part of our "family". We didn't want to raise a child for someone else. In every profile that I read, and I read a lot of them, the birth parents were generally unable and/or unwilling to accept the responsibility of children. I can tell you that having people fade in and out of a child's life does more harm than good.
We came back to KS 9 years ago and I looked the kids on the adoption exchange. Most of those children are still waiting today.
With parents whose rights have been severed, a lot of those parents are dangerous and I would not have wanted them to have information about our family and showing up on the doorstep.
Personally, I think the kids are considered not more than work count for the state system and my opinion is not unusual for those of us who tried to adopt through a system that seemed stacked against the children in foster care. Calls never returned. Heard of the adoption maze?
Choosing to keep a child locked in foster care because they can't find a family willing to raise the child for the birth parents, take the financial and emotional upon themselves and have the birth parents drop in and out for the "benefit" of the child seems not to be in the best interest of the child.
I AM adopted, and I have also reunited with my birth family, so I know both sides of the equation. My bio family is my family too, and it would be unfair to characterize them as not my family because I was given up for adoption 40 years ago. My definition of family is not so narrow that it is only defined by legal terms. I wish more adoptive parents would realize that there is more to family than legal documents and/or biology.
It is so difficult for those outside of the social work world to understand what has to be done behind the scenes. You really shouldn't judge what social workers are required to do as though they are willingly trying to hold kids back from finding adoptive homes.
In the US, by the time a child becomes available for adoption, they are at least ten.
They are incredibly hurt and damaged. Some have become violent themselves.
.
False, false, false. Look, I agree that in many, many cases biological parents are given WAY too many chances and the children suffer at the hands of the system. I've also seen SO many wonderful, beautiful families formed through foster care. And every single one was younger than 5 at placement. I don't know where you live but I promise you in Hawaii, Colorado, Ohio and Maryland your statements are not true. I'm sorry you've had bad experiences. There is no doubt the U.S. is in desperate need of having the entire foster care system overhauled. But please don't scare away potential foster/adoptive parents with such sweeping generalizations. The children cannot afford it.
You and I have different ideas about adoption - I don't think adoption should wipe out the bio family and pretend as though they never existed. That is damaging to the adopted child, whether that child was adopted as an infant from another country or a 7 year old from one city over. Adopted kids have rights too, and their right to know their family needs to be respected.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Enough is enough!
