To think that no one should be allowed to adopt 34 children

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30386348

It is impossible mother 34 children. I feel that it immoral to adopt so many children. 34 children stops being a family type enviroment and more like an orphanage. I feel it impossible to give sufficient attention to so many children. It's not like a normal family as many of the children are close in age and have complex needs. No one naturally has 34 children.

I don't think we can judge from an article.
I don't like the homeschooling aspect of it- that would make me far more critical.

Home schooling can be done very well just as it can be done not so well or badly. It is not in itself an issue

Leaving aside this family, I don't believe an adoption system is working well enough unless it is able to put limits on people adopting. Eg. allowing people to adopt unrelated children at the same time unless they are strongly bonded to each other already, or placing limits on the number of existing children under a certain age, and overall having a fully objective social worker doing a thorough assessment of what impact a new child would have on everyone. I agree with the limits we have in the UK - a 2 year age gap between your children and the new child (generally, exceptions for adopting your childs biological sibling etc), not adopting a child older than your current youngest, not adopting unrelated children at the same time. The system has to have enough safeguards in it, and one of them should be set limits which affect all families.

'Larger' adoptive families can work well. I remember Jim and Sue Clifford from 'A Home for Maisie' and they have 9 children, very spread out in age, and adopted many years apart, and it works really well. Because they really are able to devote a huge amount of 1:1 nurturing despite having about 5 children in the home at once, and had time for long therapy sessions etc. I take my hat off to a couple who have the internal reserves for that.

But there is a big difference between say, 5/6 at home, and over 20 at home.

I cant help wondering how things work with their children who have more significant emotional needs. I have 3 children, all adopted. For the last 7 years, I've had 2 at home at the same time (my eldest is an adult). And as DC2 has very significant needs, and DC3 some additional needs, it has taken every reserve I thought I had, depleted it and then some. I love the very bones of my children, but parenting them is also a relentless challenge. It's difficult to begin to appreciate what these needs look like if you don't have an adopted/foster child with them. I can't imagine this family have children with DC2's level of needs, or how they could possibly cope without disrupting if so.

But the reality is that older children from institutions are at very high risk of having these significant needs. So a good assessment should turn a family down for adoption if they want to bring an older child into a home with quite a few younger children, because the risk is unacceptably high, and it's very unlikely the family will hang on if these needs become apparent, which will result in a disrupted adoption

Disruptions are sadly common in very large adoptive families by the way. I can think of quite a few families approaching this size (15-20+ kids) and the majority have had adoption disruptions on the way because they couldn't cope with a new childs issues alongside their existing childrens needs, because they had too many children. So the system needs to be responsible for putting limits on, because the same system is approving ALL these families, not just one.

This is from her blog, which does indeed indicate that they are part of the quiverfull movement. (bolded by me, not her)

mommajeane
I love the Lord and have been blessed my whole life with His love surrounding me first with my parents and brothers and then with my husband.... I always knew I would be doing something with children and so when we met as childhood sweethearts our first "date" was a babysittiing job of mine. If he did not do well with the kids we would not have made it :) We have been married now 35 plus yrs.. I love anything to do with children. My degree from college is early childhood education. We have 5 bio children, and 25 adopted children so far..... We have an old fashioned sign on our mantle that reads," All Because Two People Fell in Love.... We did fall in love with the Lord and each other ... and we have "many quivers full" now that express our love.

Further to my earlier post, which agree that those children would now be dead, if they wasn't adopted.

I have had two children (well still do but my youngest is 17) with SN.

They have had children come to the UK and attend their SN schools, it has still taken years for them to adjust. That is without the added complications of not having a diagnosis and of having been Ill cared for/abused since birth.

Those posters who think that these children could of been slotted into a school system are being very naive.

These children would of been caused more emotional harm, in some of the cases, because of the volume of people they would of come into contact with.

Then there is the bullying aspect which isn't addressed in UK schools, so we don't know what they would of subjected to, they may of had Racism thrown into the mix.

I think we sometimes have to realise there are not going to be an "ideal" in these children's lifetimes.

We then do have to use a Maslows hierarchy of needs POV.

Hester, when you say "I'm not against home schooling but story after story show that it is used to cover up childrearing practices which are cruel and illegal.", you are not allowing for the fact that for the majority of families, this is just not the case. Choosing to home ed a large family often makes logistical sense and has no negative agenda. With respect, the very last thing home ed families or indeed any other family type needs, is the creation or encouragement of unwarranted suspicion.

It's probably fair to say that homeschooling by Christian fundamentalists is not ideal and can be harmful.

Women/girls in particular suffer from such an education, or, more accurately, from a lack of education.

Morally it's a tough decision, where would these kids have a worse fate? In orphanages in their home countries or with this family?

Obviously you can't tell from an article and a couple of photos. But I'm leaning towards these kids having a better shot in life with the family.

I think they have done and are doing a amazing thing, these children now have a better life, most would still be living in very poor conditions, some may have died if left where they were, sadly there are not many people willing to adopt children with disabilities and sn's. They all look well cared for, well presented and happy.

I wonder if some people on this thread have read Mutters link. It doesn't seem like there is much scrutiny of these adoptions at all and the children don't even have the advantage of being in the school system to protect them. I don't think it's obvious at all that we can say these adoptions are definitely a "good thing".

BerniceBroadside, that is possibly slightly fairer, however I personally know an extremely religious family, who home ed and are disinvolved with 'the system'. Obviously, given it is the one family, I can't state my experience of them as a generalisation but they are fantastic parents, raising lovely children, fairly and kindly. They are cautious about who their children mix with but this isn't to the children's detriment. One is now attending college. I see that from the outside, they might be viewed as fanatical nuts and with suspicion but from what I have come to know of them, this couldn't be further from the truth.

I should add, the child at college is indeed female.

...and that I'm an atheist!

"And the Ghanaian babies are relatives of one (or more) of their existing children."

The Briggs have said they were "abandoned in the bush". Reading those shocking links about Quiverfull & similar, it's quite amazing how many of their babies were found in the bush Particularly when you read about the agency guy rushing up to them and saying they must follow him into the forest, where a baby has been abandoned.

The logical assumption is that parents, who've been conned into handing their kids over for medical treatment or education, are also conned into leaving them in a given spot at a certain time for the sake of (supposedly) minimising the trauma of handover. I bet they're watching from a distance :(

but with a choice of being adopted by them or left to die I know which I would choose

But the children at the mercy of the system don't get to choose between them and death.

The system that created the family in the article allows for mass overseas adoptions with inadequate oversight pre, during or after adoption.

The kids who are the "supply of product" in this chain of demand have precious few choices.

Some are "procured" to order. They were never orphans, they had a mother, a father or extended family who cared for them. But they were attractive commodities in what has become in some areas an industry of human trafficking to satisfy the religious needs of some Americans. This has been documented by members of the Quiverful movement themselves, who via their experience of large scale overseas adoption in their community have questioned the fundamental ethics of what is being promoted from the pulpit. Those same people have raised awareness of what it can look like in families who are somewhat less "media friendly".

Some kids end up being mentally, emotionally and physically abused in the name of godly discipline. Some are "disciplined" (starved, beaten, poisoned, caged, sexually abused) to the point of lifelong trauma, permanent injury and even death.

Some girls have been deliberately deprived of an education beyond "being a good wife/mother/housewife" and are manoeuvred into early procreation to expand the fullness of the family's quiver. There is no oversight as to wether all of the children born to these girls/young women were the result of a consensual union or not. In some cases there has been procreation via the sexual exploitation of adopted girls, by the man who calls himself their father.

Some boys become little more than unpaid labourers in the family homestead/farm/business. Unable to to move away or question their status due to social isolation, minimal formal education and ingrained obedience due to years of Godly Discipline. There have been cases reported where the conditions in which some young men/boys have been discovered ... looked uncomfortably similar to forced labour and/or slavery.

Some children are brought over by a family that raises few question marks in terms of suitability. Unfortunately these adoptions are at an increased risk of interruption. These children can then end up in illegal adoptions, sometimes with the sort of family who would stand little to no chance of adopting legally.

Some of the children with complex medical, emotional and behavioural issues do not get the basic treatment and care that they need. They get prayed over as a distinctly less expensive form of treatment. And discipline if they fail to "get better" cos God never fails, so it must the child's fault they still can't be "normal".

I think what is notable is how much information regarding the state of affairs is coming from the Quiverful community itself. People who have been able to observe the process, from all angles, with full access to a non sanitised, non media friendly, version that is likely a damn sight closer to to reality than anything TLC is going to put on air.

I think people need to look beyond a glossy image of a single family created for media promotion and look instead at the system (that the single family in the media is a part of) and ask themselves if there are the sort of checks and balances required to keep children safe.

If we don't do that then we are playing Russian roulette with children's lives and wellbeing. Unconsciously revealing a colonial mindset that underpins acceptance of two tier standards for adopted children, "ours" and "the others". Condoning a system that has allowed human trafficking and a trade that can look uncomfortably close to slavery to pluck children from "poor" African/Eastern European parents and place them with an American family who may have a similarly precarious economic status, as well as boatload of other issues that the biological family didn't suffer from.

I have no issues with adoption, be it domestic or overseas. I'm a homeschooler and have been for years.

And since apparently you need "do something" qualifications in order to be allowed to criticise a system that fails to provide even "barely adequate" checks and balances, here are mine. I have volunteered in an educational capacity on and off for the last 25 years to help provide deprived children with a specific skill aimed at lowering their barriers to employment in the longer term. Originally in Asia, latterly in Europe.

Rather than searching for the next Duggars I wish the American media would do some digging in the murkier side of religiously motivated family expansion on an industrial scale and what it reveals about the inadequacy in terms of checks and balances in the system that oversees internstional adopion. But it would probably make a lot less money and cost a damn sight more to produce.

This couple started off by fostering but "didn't like the system". Then they applied for legal adoption within the US system but were rejected.

Does this tell you anything?

It does say though, that the children do keep in touch with their birth families where possible. I'd be interested in knowing how many of the children this is possible for and what the birth families feel about the adoption of their children/ circumstances of the adoptions.

In an ideal world, the birth families staying together would be facilitated. It's not an ideal world. I have heard stories of women, forced to place their newborns in boxes to be run over in the road, over there. There are extensive and horrific problems there and until they are addressed, I think children who are adopted out of the country are often fortunate.

So very sad.

Any child can suffer from attachment disorder. If you travel a lot you will notice that, in some countries, you will think that all children suffer from an attachment disorder.

You see attachment disorder isn't necessarily a negative thing, just something that is different form your own social norm: independent, clingy, etc.

It is disorganised attachment that may be a problem, may be a stressed out, anxious, lonely adult.

But attachment theory shouldn't be used as a diagnosis, just an explanation and starting point for treatment (CBT etc).

And those kids looked happy... just wondering about the homeschool possibilities!

Nomama, it's not 'just' about attachment disorder as experienced in the UK.

Firstly, very many of the children have PTSD and/or other pervasive emotional developmental disorders due to having watched their families murdered in front of them, been bombed, or been neglected in East European orphanages. These conditions need long-term, specialist, one-on-one treatment. Which they do not get.

Secondly, positive attachment is defined by fundamentalist christians as total obedience.

Oh well, the children look happy in the photos so everything must be ok....

Garlic, I know that, I thought I had said as much. OP doesn't seem to though, the comment I was responding to was too simplistic. Now it seems I need to be more simplistic too!!

Think it's a lovely story. Better the kids are with them than left where they are.
I don't agree that kids from a culture should just be bought up with people from the same culture.

Been wanting to say this for a while, but from OP's usual posts I often wonder if it about social research

Wow, what a heartwarming story.