People who should just not be allowed to adopt

[Lilka]

This is mostly exasperation, and the judgy pants are very much ON

It's not so often I come across parents and I think 'you know what, whoever approved you to adopt should be dismissed/if you get approved to adopt, the social worker who did the assessments deserves to be sacked'

But, sometimes I can't help thinking that.

I got roped into watching old TV programs (online) about people's adoption stories and we watched 2. The first was nice, but the second, in which two US families went to Siberia to adopt...oh my God, I do not understand how this first couple were approved, I just don't.

The mother, who along with her husband and their birth sons, is white with blonde hair and blue eyes, starts off in great form by saying about Russian children,

"you know what, they're beautiful babies. And they look American. You can't get American babies in America"

Nothing like a good dose of racism and stupidity on a Sunday evening. And I disliked her from that moment forward, obviously

But no, it stayed just as bad the whole way through

Dad (who looks eerily like a Ken doll): "It's like I'm going to another country to buy somebody else's kid"

Sigh

And I warmed up slightly when they said goodbye to their new baby and said they were bonding.

But then, when the subject of birth parents came up and reunions and:

Mum: "We don't wanna spend $35,000 on a baby that's going to turn against us" [and find theur birth parents]

I was so finished listening to them I clicked on the red x button.

Seriously? How do these people get approved?? HOW?? Some agency needs a more thorough assessment process

Oh and the other day I came across a blog of a family who were planning to adopt transracially

And they said they were really excited about that because everyone who saw them would be reminded of adoption and their child would be a tesimony (or something like that - they were one of those fundamentalist 'adoption is all about rescuing children so they can become Christians, and that's way more important than a child getting parents' types ) and basically how fabulous it was that their child would look different to them, so that the child is a visual reminder to everyone they meet about adoption and Gods command to take care of the orphan

Oh My God, if anything a prospective parent says should be an immediate 'NO WAY, you do NOT have the right attitude to adopt' THAT is. It is the most stunning lack of empathy for the feelings their adopted child might go through about being 'different' and about a childs right to privacy I have ever seen.

Who parades their child round like "look at our child, see, he/she's black/Asian, see? It's because we adopted, our child was an oprhan and now he/she isn't, isn't it great??"

If I was the social worker, it would be insta-termination of the homestudy

I cannot be the only one who's ever come across idiocy like this?

To be honest, there were some people on my prep course who made my eyebrows twitch - particularly the man who was OBSESSED with women in prison and talked endlessly about his mission to adopt a child whose mother was in prison... (I don't know if they got approved, though).

Other than that, I can only think of that documentary about the American woman adopting from China, who was determined to breastfeed. The video of her going to collect her daughter was dominated by her increasing stress and desperation to make this work (the child was a toddler). There's been a couple of threads about this on MN and other posters seemed to like this, so maybe it's just me who felt really disturbed by it (and I bf dd1 for almost 2 years).

Both cases in which the actual child was completely lost from the picture.

Oh, your racist American reminded me of that Chris Rock line in which he takes the piss out of those who proclaim they are proud to be American. He says, basically, that you're entitled to be proud if you fought for your country, or if you struggled halfway across the globe, through poverty and/or war and/or oppression, to reach it. Everyone else is just lucky.

It's a lot easier to get approved in the US I think.

I know a couple who adopted a little girl from abroad. The father has a pretty terrible reputation for his behaviour towards young girls and women, to put it politely. I suppose they just managed to keep it quiet.

One of the men on our course when faced with a scenario (how to tell children about their background): Child was result of rape by step father aged 12. Stepfather in prison for said rape...

HIs comment: Well you can at least say that father must have really loved their mother.

We all I mean exactly like -> and said all defensively "I was just trying to find something positive to say.

They were in their 60's ans odd - if they got approved I'll eat my hat.

Oh good LORD. As an American hoping to adopt at some point, I...I just...wow.

I think it's unfair to suggest that only Americans have that kind of attitude. I'm met several UK families who very very keen to tell all the details of their children's terrible past to anyone who would listen. They obviously wanted the kudos for rescuing the children from their birth families.

And the public attitude towards adoption in the US is much more positive than it is the uk. I know of community groups who have fund raised to help families adopt SN children from overseas. I can't imagine that happening in the UK, where people are much more xenophobic. Even on MN I've seen adopters asked " why can't you adopt a British child instead " . The sub text is clearly " we have enough foreigners here already " .

And there are many excellent support services for adoptive families in the USA, we are years behind them in this regard. They are world leading in therapeutic services for adoption medicine and psychological services

I agree that some families need a lot more education and support before they are allowed to adopt. But that's true in the Uk as well as in the USA .

Kew I am actually speechless

That is just.....no words

Devora, that is just odd. Why prison? I know you don't have an answer, but that is truly odd

I haven't met any people like that in either the 2 prep groups I was on or the 2 I've spoken at. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or not!

You don't fund raise to help people adopt?

Kristina, I absolutely don't believe that it's anything to do with any of those people being American, I'm sorry if any of my posts came across that way. Number 1 couple were just shallow and lacking in empathy and racist and the second one's problem was also a complete inability to put herself in her childs shoes. And possibly also a bit about being a fundamentalist

And goodness knows, I see enough racist, stupid, unempathetic people in my own daily life

Actually, now i think about it, quite recently I read a forum post by a UK prospective parent, who said that many of thse birth parents should be sterilised or put down

I was I wished I was a forum member just so I could say "Did you get lost on your way to join the Nazis?" (and I really dislike it when people compare to Nazis inappropriately, but seriously, 'put down'?? That's definitely Nazi-ish)

Cheerful -the children needed surgery after they were adopted. I'm guessing they weren't covered by the family's insurance .

It's very alien to our British culture, but these kids got a loving family and a normal life when they would have been living on the street in their country of origin. So I can't knock it

" put down " ?????!!! [ shock]

You don't fund raise to help people adopt?

I've never heard of any family fundraising. If you don't have enough for an international adoption without fundraising, you just don't do it

Unless I've missed a family fundraising somewhere, but I've never come across it

And obviously domestic costs very little, maybe a couple of hundred pounds in medical and court fees

I know one adoptive parent who certainly shouldn't have been approved to adopt - can;t say too much about it but she's in prison on child cruelty charges of a bizarre kind now.

She was American but she'd been in UK so long I don't think she really counts as American and the issue certainly wasn't one of nationality. She was just fucking screwed up.

I always thought so and had distanced myself from her but had no inkling of what was going on behind the scenes (which was so outlandish you really wouldn't be expected to have guessed). It actually hit the press heavily censored to protect the children but glaringly obvious if you rknew them as it transpired that the dozy court in allowing the countries the children had been adopted from as the only identifiable detail hadn't considered that one of the countries had a minute number of children in the UK and that we all knew each other.

Awful awful situation

no fundraising.

If I'd even had a garage sale to raise money (which I gather isn;t uncommon in the US) then my neighbours would have been

The UK on the whole is very resistent to intercountry adoption.

Yes Kristina really - put down!!!! I was truly speechless

I may sometimes feel less than charitable towards DD2 and DS birth mum but whenever I see someone saying something like that about birth parents, I get really really defensive, almost protective of her! How dare you say something like that about my kids birth mum etc!!

To be fair about xenophobia, it seems to me that most US families who adopt internationally also get asked 'why go to X, when there are loads of American kids in foster care'. And of course the families who adopt US domestic get asked, 'why didn't you go to China?"!

sorry not "charges", she was convicted

My mum would only tell people she knew we were adopted and that was usually if

1. They didn't know anyway, small town, parents were well known in the community
2. They commented on how much I looked like mum.

When I was adopted it says on my notes that I was placed with mum and dad because of similar family backgrounds (turned out to be a lie) and similar looks. That was the 60's though

Kewcumber I actually think I know the case you're on about. Odd I know!, but I read family court transcripts sometimes and I can only think of one court transcript about an American mother who adopted IA, that fits what you've just said. I'm probably completely wrong now!

Someone on my husbands FB posted that she felt compelled by God to adopt a child from overseas, but as she couldn't actually afford it, was asking for donations so she could do Gods work.

A note in my own adoption records said that they thought I might be hard to place because of my olive skin. The 60's, eh?

Ok, I have a question not worth another thread so apologies for the derail.

Personally I don't think I could ever get over being bought. How do parents tell their dc about this.
When at school I remember a child being unkind and crying to mum that they called me weirdo adopted or something similar.
She told me to go back and tell them I was special, they chose me, went to court 3 times to get me and their parents had to have them.
I felt so special, loved and wanted and still do to this day, even though they both passed away.
How can buying a child make them feel special.
Please excuse the ignorance, I don't want to offend, but would like to understand.

Morethan my parents told me the exact same thing!

Well, I don't think IA is buying a child personally

Nowhere do you actually pay for the baby. You pay for your homestudy because the government won't fund them for people who don't adopt UK children, you pay for documents and translations, you pay for airfares and hotels and other transport, in some countries you might make a donation to the orphanage or otherwise buy the orphanage more supplies, etc etc, but that's not the same as buying a baby at all

Funnily enough, some of the fundamentalist "adoption is all about saving babies from a life of Budhism/Islam/Hinduism/Atheism" people refer to the cost of the adoption as a 'ransom'!! Eg. "We need to raise the $25,000 ransom for Julia (made that name up) by next month, please help us". I really hate that

This reminds me of the chaplain when I was at school. I thought he was a bit of a smug twat even then, but now I wonder how he could so obviously think of his own child as a charity project even over a decade after she had joined the family.

He and his wife had two birth DSs and decided that they would help a less fortunate child (yes, really) so they adopted a DD from India. I never heard any comment about her that wasn't to do with how he and his wife had done a very good thing for her, and without them she would have been doomed to a harsh life and she would sometimes express gratitude to them (WTF, like any child would spontaneously do that). Maybe he loved her and was grateful to have her in his family but I never got that impression from the way he spoke about her. Anytime he mentioned the DSs it was about them, their achievements, their likes or interests etc, but there was never anything that was about his DD herself, only about what a great reflection it was about him that she was in the family.

She was a lot younger than me so although I saw her around school I didn't know anything about her except that she seemed very quiet. I hope she grew up happy.