Good Bye National Adoption Awareness Month

This has been one long month!

I had no idea going into National Adoption Awareness Month that it was going to be so looong!  Race, religion, genocide, human trafficking, pre-birth matching, pass out cards, 40% off clearance sales, Hague Convention, zealots…

The message I would like to get out is that there are 1400,000 kids in the foster care system that need permanent homes.  They need support, time, honesty and respect. 

All kids come with some issues, but the ones foster kids come with are no more insurmountable than their international counterparts and apparently more attractive competition by any means.   

I have read a lot of great posts this month and I would like to thank al of my readers and my fellow post a day bloggers:

The Daily Bastardette

Real Daughter

The Declassified Adoptee

Once Was Von

The Adopted Ones

AdoptionTalk

I don’t think I could have done it with out you!

If I left you off please let me know, I am running on fumes.

(I swear my oldest has whooping cough, neither of us has slept in days, but after hours in urgent care prescriptions for antibiotics and cough syrup with codeine, I am hopeful tonight will be better for both of us.)




* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent.  It could change a child’s life.

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What in God's Name?

So how is it that well meaning people get it so twisted up? 

We have private adoption agencies offering up black children for adoption at a 40% discount, or as commenter Maryann pointed out 3/5 of the value of white children. (Anyone remember that from your High School History Class?).    

We apparently have some people who feel like they are “forced” to adopt internationally because they can’t afford a domestic white child and do not want to adopt a lower cost black child.

Some believe and I fear that what we have are some “racists” adopting cheaper black children.”

It has been my observation that people who hold racist beliefs do not view themselves as racist.    I absolutely think it is possible that white people who have racist views would adopt children of color, and believe that they are doing a wonderful thing in the process. 

When I clicked on the link to the Judge Judy commenter’s blog, I found that this infinitely wise and spiritual avid Judge Judy watcher is in the process of raising the “ransom” to pay for her yet unborn female infant who is apparently residing in some other woman’s uterus in Ethiopia.  She says this unborn child is already hers, because god has predestined it:

“This child belongs to no one. And she is female. She has no power. Any intellect and ambition that may be etched in her soul and personality would be cast aside in the daily struggle to survive. If she survives at all in a land of desperate statistics. We, by contrast, have all the power in the world. We're educated, we're healthy, we're wealthy, we're well connected. There is little we could not accomplish, if we chose to do so.”

“Somewhere there is a woman who is pregnant with a girl. The woman will make a great sacrifice to give her life - either by her own death, or by handing the child who has kicked her womb for months to strangers with a desperate plea for them to care for her. The sacrifice will not be easy. The sacrifice will be costly.”

 “We will give her our name so that all the world will know that she belongs to us and is a rightful heir to all of the riches we possess. We will ask her to call us Daddy and Momma and we will always answer her when she does. Then we will bring our child back to our life and our family and our home and our hearts and she will be an orphan no more.”

 ~ Missy At it’s Almost Nap Time

When I read these statements, I do not see “god’s love”, I do not see the beauty of charity or benevolence, as I am sure the author wholeheartedly does.

What I see is the images in my Jr. High Humanities book, my High School Black History book, clips from Roots flash through my head, I recall passages of The Autobiography of Malcolm X .  I am sorry, I do not see beauty.

I see an image of my Mother’s father in a bar trying to sell her to payoff a gambling debt, I story I was told so long ago, that I do not ever remember not knowing it. 

I see the British colonization of India, the Dutch colonization of South Africa;   I see The Trail of Tears, I see a long history of “Christian Missionaries” taming savages contingent on the acceptance of their god and their ways.  I see human trafficking.  I see the slave trade.   

I see an Ethiopian mother facing the choice of selling her daughter to ‘wealthy, powerful, connected Americans who could accomplish just about anything they choose’ to provide for her family. 

These saved, 'orphaned', bought children will grow up and go to your church and you will teach them about Moses the original so called Angry Adoptee, to your schools and learn about slaves like Nat Turner (He thought he was following god's plan too.), check out books from the library, will read poems by Langston Hughes, hear quotes by Malcolm X, see clips from Roots and they will see what I see.  They will not be grateful to be stolen from their land, their home, which you call hell, they will not be grateful for their stolen names, they will not be grateful for their stolen religion, they will not be grateful for their stolen culture.

They will learn math and they will see that with all of your wealth you chose to destroy their family, so that you could ‘ransom’ them and make them ‘your own’ rather than save their brothers, sisters and Mothers.  They will calculate that with the cost of a $1,600 plane fare to rescue your ‘ransomed’ infant from their rightful place on earth you could have provided for their entire natural family for 8 years.  They will calculate that the tens of thousands of dollars you paid for their ‘ransom’ could have feed their entire village and provided the women with free birth control for a decade.   They will not see your act as charity; they will learn to see it as it is, commerce, arrogance and American greed.

These bought children will grow to read, calculate and think for themselves.  They will come to have their own vision of the truth and they will not see their desperate mothers and countrymen as their captors from which they needed to be ‘ransomed’.  They will reserve that judgment for you. 

And they will be ANGRY.

No, I do not see the face of Jesus in the buying and selling of children. 

There are 140,000 kids who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  (No 'ramsom' required)




* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent.  It could change a child’s life.

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Q & A Gym Mom to Gym Mom / Coach

This was a great question I got from one of my readers, it could have been written by me 10 years ago!  I decided to reprint it (with permission) because I think so many of us as parents have been in this spot ourselves.

Thanks for the great question.  

Hi !

Here is my situation.  L is my gymnast.  Always has been very good motor skills, very, very physical and utterly fearless. She tried gymnastics starting last spring.  It was a class where the parent was the spotter, which made me more relaxed.  It also meant I could help her to remain focused.  I didn't really have to say much to do that, but I think my just being there did.  This fall they decided to move her up to a new level because she is ability wise beyond that class she was in.  but this has meant a new coach and parents are not on the floor. The new coach has a much quieter personality and L is not as engaged.  Also the sequences that they are supposed to remember are long and seem to be more than I would reasonably expect a 3 year old to retain.  Ex:  crawl through the tunnel to the incline, do a straddle roll, run to the tumble track, jump on each of the dots, forward roll into the ball pit, slide out.  She seems unable to remember the sequence so she might do tunnel, skip the straddle, jump the track and go down the slide.  Also they are working on their own and not spotted until they get to the beam or the Uneven Bars.  Also the warm up routine varies weekly in this class and L definitely craves routine. She had the warm-up down cold in her old class and this one keeps changing up. Do you think it would be pushy to bring these concerns to the owner (who was also L's former coach?)  I know that her present coach is new to the gym and I don't want to cause any problems but I want my daughter to be safe and confident.

Thanks and sorry for being so long winded! :-)  L

Hi L,

I love your email!  I guess first things first:  pre-school gymnastics always looks a lot like herding cats to me no matter who is coaching!  It is never as chaotic in reality as it LOOKS.  Both of my older daughters have done pre-school classes, I coach kids 6 and older.  

The first think I would do is to ask the new coach if you could talk to her privately, (away from the other parents) after class, and explain your concerns in terms of your daughters age possibly being an issue.  Not that that is the whole picture but people (coaches) are more receptive to “helping” your child than feeling like you are criticizing them and their job.  Being new her coach may just be trying to find her groove.

“L seems to be having a problem remembering what she is supposed to be doing in the circuit, and in warm-ups. I am wondering how we can help her with that.”  

Maybe your daughter can be put between two older kids who she can watch for reminders, which is something I tell my gymnasts to do, watch the person in front of you for clues and if I have kids with attention problems I put them behind a kid I know will remember the instructions.  Our warm ups and conditioning are always the same, and after about the second week I start asking the kids “what do we do next?”  Sometimes I have kids who have a hard time paying attention or tend to slack be my leaders and demonstrators that added incentive can bring miraculous results.

If after your chat you do not see any changes, I would absolutely talk to the gym owner.  Don’t ever let the fear of being labeled a “Pushy Gym Mom” keep you from advocating (respectfully) for your child.   We are all labeled that from the moment we submit payment for the class!  ; )

 I hope this helps!  Please keep me posted.

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Race, Religion, Foster Care, Adoption, and Cultural Genocide 2



The way I understand the evolution of lower adoption fees for black children is that initially it was meant to encourage black families to adopt black child with the assumption that adoption fees were prohibitive for blacks.  Some may find that racist and offensive with in it’s self.



My experience tells me that there is more “adoption”, foster care, and kinship care going on in the black community informally than the record may show.  As the same (black) family that took me in and “adopted” me as a teen and young adult had also taken in and raised a boy from down the street.  A good friend of mine lived with a woman for 7 years and was never formerly in the system.  One of my “nieces” is now raising a child of an acquaintance, with out intervention from out side.  The assumption that the black community dose not adopt or take care of their own, would be unfair and inaccurate.  I also believe a long standing mistrust of government agents and the disturbing thought of paying for another human being could well explain the hesitancy of some black families to adopt formally.  



Going back to Malinda’s post at ADOPTIONTALK on Race-Based Adoption Fees, I assume she posted it and I was reading it from the perspective of how sad it is that our society thinks some humans are more valuable than others, and that it is outrageous!  But of course that is how I would take it, I was reading it from the perspective of the child.  



To some Perspective Adoptive Parents (PAPs), the outrage in the fee differences is not that it is offensive that some children are valued more than others, but that the children THEY value cost more to adopt and that is unfair to them, the PAPs.  Forcing some PAPs to chose international adoption instead, settling for their second choice in child styles, rather than settling for their 3 choice (a black child).  What ever the case when money is an object to PAPs and they chose to settle for the Ford Focus of children when they really wanted the Cadillac instead, well, it can’t be good for that poor kid to be raised by people who settled for them.    

It was this statement in one of the comments that made me shudder:



Anonymous said...  - “The people who complain most about this issue in my experience are white couples who are less wealthy then the average OR have "money issues" either real or psychological. Some will even tell you they resent that it forces them to adopt a child of color instead. So you have racists adopting children of color as a result.”

How scary is that thought?    

In my opinion no child should ever have to be raised by parents who didn’t really want them, let alone be adopted by them.

 

Fostering and adoption are not for everyone.  It is hard and sometimes thankless work, as all parenting situations can be.  But in the case of raising other people’s children, they come to you wounded and grieving for their natural families on some level, no matter how impossible that family situation may have been for them.  And it is going to take a whole lot more than love and Jesus alone to get them through.  

  

I see some trans-racial /trans-cultural adoptive parents I respect who seem aware of their added responsibilities they have to their children.  Some I have seen out here in blog-land as well in the real world seem generally clueless.

Some PAPs are just utterly clueless.  This was part of a comment that made my blood boil, left by a PAP on a post about whether their was coercion in adoption.

“I know that sometimes a birthmother can absolutely parent and do a wonderful job. And maybe I am just jaded. But as a court appointed child advocate who saw more heartbreaking cases than I care to remember, someone who has seen personally the devastation of children raised by women who were not ready to parent, and just a person who watches society, and hey, an avid Judge Judy watcher where 90% of the cases are a woman with 3 kids by 2-3 different dads suing one of their fathers for the rims she bought for his car or something similar, I very, very rarely see the moms who have a deadbeat boyfriend, little to know support, and no education who do it well. I know they are out there. But it is my opinion that they are not in the majority.”

 And then she says this:

“However. We have a CRISIS of children in poverty in this country. We have a CRISIS of child abuse and it is almost always the mother's boyfriend who is torturing her child. We have a CRISIS in our foster care system. We have a CRISIS of drug addicted babies. We have CRISIS of out of wedlock births which statistics prove is always the primary precursor to child abuse, poverty, dropouts, and repeating the cycle of out of wedlock, ie, unfathered, children. And all of these children were born to women who thought parenting their child was the right choice. I beg to differ."

First things first, if one wants to be viewed as having a valid opinion about society, or a segment of society maybe sighting “Judge Judy” a TV SHOW, as a source of your information isn’t they way to go.  TV shows are not real, dear, they are not a fair and accurate representation of anything other than what some programming director thinks people like you will find entertaining.  They are playing on your need to feel superior, and it is safe to say they have you pegged.

Apparently this PAP thinks “Poverty”, you know…the kind you see on Judge Judy.  American style “poverty” warrants putting ones children up for adoption.

Out of wedlock births…adoption!  If an unwed poor mother doesn’t love her children enough to put them up for adoption, those children just may be poor, drop out of high school and get pregnant.  According to this woman’s standard half of my friends should have relinquished at least one child to adoption, but none of those friend’s children experienced any of her dire predictions.  As a matter of fact most the children of my single mother friends are now in college.  Further more,  if we were to follow her guidelines as a society for what would warrant relinquishment there would be a CRISIS of a whole shit load of kids languishing in the foster care system waiting for some “good Christians” like her to save them.  

Maybe a better choice is to provide low income teens and women free birth control.

Don’t fret ya’ll, this crazy cracker isn’t going to adopt an African-American.   No, she is going to adopt a yet unborn female "orphan" from Ethiopia!

More on Religion and Cultural Genocide later.

 

 

* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent.  It could change a child’s life.

Read more »

Race, Religion, Foster Care, Adoption, and Cultural Genocide

"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation." ~ Malcolm X

Over this past week during Nation Adoption Awareness Month, I have not only read things that have made me shake my head, but have straight up pissed me off!  

Let me start off with this from Malinda at AdoptionTalk: Race-Based Adoption Fees, then on to this little gem that Cricket at out of the fog called to our attention: 

“10 Days Left for National Adoption Month Promotional Pricing – Don’t Miss Out

November 21st, 2010 | Author: Carol Shepherd

In recognition of November as National Adoption Month and in an effort to help all of our prospective adoptive parents in these difficult economic times of today, we have made the decision to lower our fees for the BI-RACIAL THROUGH CAUCASIAN program to $5000 total and the FULL AFRICAN AMERICAN PROGRAM TO $3000.
You can call us to schedule a day and time for a free, informational phone consultation where you will get detailed information on our program.  We do phone meetings during the day, lunch times, evenings and even weekends to accommodate your busy schedules.
We look forward to hearing from you, and we will be grateful if you take advantage of this extremely attractive offer.  Here at Everlasting, we feel we have been very blessed in life.  We want to make the blessing of building your family through the miracle of adoption more affordable to YOU in these challenging times.
We are only offering this pricing for the month of NOVEMBER.  Please consider taking advantage of this for the short time it is being offered.  Email:  carol@everlastingadoptions.com or call
1-866-406-2702.
Please click on our SUCCESS STORIES tab while you are visiting our website.  We are very proud, and we would be grateful if you allowed us to be the ones that guide and support you through your entire adoption journey.
God Bless You All Always,
The Staff at Everlasting Adoptions

http://www.everlastingadoptions.com/blog/2010/11/21/10-days-left-for-national-adoption-month-promotional-pricing-dont-miss-out/”

I decided to reprint the post in its entirety since Carol has since decided to remove it.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  I called the number thinking it must be a satire like The Onion or something…it was just to crass to be for real, nobody could possibly have that bad of taste to talk about actual human babies this way, what ever the race.  

My god Only 10 days left to get your bump and dent black baby on a 40 % off clearance sale.   We are talking about babies, children, humans on what could be best described as a K-Mart blue light special.  Hurry on down!

When Carol from Everlasting Adoptions answered the phone, I was so shocked I hung up.  Then I thought what, am I in high school? so I called her back and apologized for being rude and immature,  and said that I was just calling to see if she was from a real agency or if her post was just a bad joke.  She wondered why I would have thought it was a joke.  Well, to those of us who were in foster care or adopted, you know abandoned by our parents in any way, the wording was a little offensive.  Humm, I have getting a lot of comments on it, and I don’t understand she said.  I must say she sounded truly hurt that her post might have been offended anyone, and she just had no clue how it could have.  

Personally I grew up in foster care I said, side by side with black children and somehow the thought that I, with my red hair and blue eyes alone would fetch a whole 40% more on the auction block than my best friend would, who was better behaved and a better student than I was, some how dose not sit well with me at all. 

How am I supposed to look my black friends in the eye now that I know I am worth so much more them in U S dollars?

It was not just the black babies who were being discounted for “National Adoption Month” it was a special for all of them, and it is not the price for the child it was the price for advertising to get birth mothers, she explained as if that made anymore sense and was any less offensive. 

…And that’s another thing I said, it is National Adoption Awareness Month, not National Adoption Month.  It was founded and is meant to call attention to and highlight adopting children out of the FOSTER CARE SYSTEM, not private infant adoption. And I as a former foster child who had friends growing up who were available to be adopted but who never were, I would appreciate it if you private adoption folks would refrain form honing in on OUR MONTH.  We foster kids always get the short end of the stick as it is, we don’t need our month over run with Blue-light specials on yet unborn babies!  There enough kids here already who need homes, we don’t need you advertising to create anymore!  

So you are NOT interested in adopting a child? What!  Are we not having the same conversation here?  No, no, I am not.  If we were ever to consider adopting a child it would be out of the foster care system.  I would never be comfortable adopting a child in a private adoption, especially where pre-birth matching was involved.  I am the third generation of my family affected by adoption and child abandonment, I know first hand the pain that creates for the children involved and it never goes away.   As a matter of fact it carries over, generation after generation.  I would never want to be a part of starting that cycle in another family.  I told her.

She said I had made her think about things a little differently, she was sorry that her post had offended people; she said she thought maybe she should take it down.  Her passion is in helping people create families.  She had not intended to hurt anyone.  She truly meant that, I could hear it in her voice.  I told her that I would be writing my own post about this; and that if creating families is truly her passion maybe she would consider talking to adult adoptees about their experiences so she could have a better understanding of how children are affected by adoption.  Yes, she said, she would be open to that.

There is the thing; folks…so many people involved in child abandonment, adoption, foster care think they have good intentions.   But action without understanding the long-term ramifications has long lasting consequences.

Since my post is already at 1,236 words, I will be continuing with may rant series on Race, Religion, Foster Care, Adoption, and Cultural Genocide in another post. 


* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent.  It could change a child’s life.

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Happy Turkey Day

This is my superfluous Thanksgiving what we are grateful for post.

My DH is not playing along – at all.

As I walked out the door to go to Sam’s Club today I asked the kids to please pick up everything off the floor and put it away while I was gone so I could mop.  I arrived home to discover a miracle had occurred in my absence.  Not only had the toys been picked up, but Mad had swept the whole house!  (I am also grateful that I can flush the toilet now.)

When Mad saw me with the Thanksgiving dinner fixings she said “Thank god we get to stay home for Thanksgiving this year!”  (Yeah, I agree)

I asked Amélie what she was grateful for and she said “Christmas”.  She is totally psyched; she has made 3 different lists today alone.   

CoCo keeps saying “Kiss-miss Sunday, ammalow….I eat pie a Santa’s hows!”  Wouldn’t that be great we could just do Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s in one day, all we would have to do to make CoCo happy is eat pie.  

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from me and mine!  



More about waifs and dealing with Holiday cheer:
Angie at Just Girl
Campbell B at Peculated Paradox

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A Wild Ride

Malinda at ADOPTIONTALK posted this article

The Truth about Adoption - it's a wild ride! by  parenting

While on one hand it is good to see a realistic perspective on the truth about adoption, I was a little stunned that it kind of left the kids who are in foster care flapping in the wind again labeled as damaged goods and pretty hopeless.

Here is the comment I left on the article:

 “Oh, my I am not sure how to react to this article.  As a 40 something former foster child, I agree that dealing with foster children is not all “sweetness and light.”  However, as some one who still has a panic disorder and some PTSD, I think that caring for foster children is well worth the effort.

At one point in my life the death poll had me “dead by 21”.  At 42 I am the loving mother of 3 children, wife of my husband, and coach of 60 great kids.  

I was a difficult child that is for sure.  Thankfully there were many adults in my life who were able to see me as “worth the effort”, and their influence made it possible for me to transcend the limitations of my circumstances and become the person I am today.”

The other thing about articles is that they give Perspective Adoptive Parents (PAPs) the impression that international adoption and infant adoption are less risky.  There are no guarantees with children…whether you bore them yourself or bought them out-right.  If you need an issue free child…you should not be trying to parent anyone!




* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent.  It could change a child’s life.

Read more »