To want to adopt a child from Haitai?

[booyou]

Well....just that really. We have discussed adopting a child in the future and there are up to 1 million oprhans or one parent has died.... would like to help....

is your name Madonna?

My 15 year old DD just changed her Facebook status to say "I want to persuade my mum to adopt a bay from Haiti".

YANBU.

It will be a hard slog though I suspect.

duh, "Baby" obviously

Where's Haitai?

might be an idea to get the spelling of the country right first

They were talking about this on radio 4 today an saying how hard they are going to try and keep the orphans in their own country.

bigbadmummy Ur no not 'baby' - a child who needs to be rescused.

(and)

paisleyleaf I have read on the net how it may not be a good idea for various reasons.

Sorry for rubbish spelling but what has that got to do with it?

totally unreasonable

they have lost their family so you want to strip them of their culture also....?? bring them here to all that is alien...

yep great idea, whip them away from everything they are familiar with, their whole way of life, their community, their extended family and "rescue" them.

go on...admit it, im talking to madonna arnt i? or maybe Angelina....

or someone who hasnt got a clue.

ilove tiffany I know hat you are saying however what is the alternative? Stay in a country where their chances of surivial are limited.

OK Ok I'm.....

'one million orphans or one parent has died'. Because of course having one parent is almost the same as being an orphan

yabu

I have never understood that argument Tiffany. Surely it is better to be raised by a loving family then stuck in an orphangae buckling under financial pressure and overcrowding. And nowadays there is a great deal of emphasis placed on adoptive parents to keep the childengaged in their birth culture.

Most 'orphaned' children will have many extended family.

Adopting children on an impulse after a big catastrophe is never going to be a good idea. It will take a long time to sort all those babies out and find out if they have relatives- in many cases, there will be extended family. What they need now is stability: their own language, their own culture. And adopting a child from abroad needs long preparation, and evaluating the new family to see that they will really be able to deal with all the issues that particular child brings. Not something that one can do on the spur of the moment in a disaster-stricken country.

If you want to help- send money.

Pre Earthquake there were estimated to be 50000 Haitian children living in orphanages
There is a link about Haiti/Euro adoptions
here

Cory that makes a lot of sense. But in time there will be some children needing homes. Adoption is a long process anyway.

Just because both parents have died doesn't mean there will be no other relatives who can look after the child. Many children will no doubt stay a limited time in orphanages before an aunt or a grandmother or a cousin once removed can be identified. And no doubt some parents who have been thought dead will resurface too.

If it is the financial pressure you worry about, there is a simple solution- send the money there instead.

I am not totally against foreign adoption- my own brother was adopted from abroad and it's been great- but it did carry its own trauma for him (ending up in a new culture where people looked strange and spoke incomprehensibly and everything was different) and that was without any previous trauma and despite the fact that the orphanage had him deliberately fostered to prepare him for his new family.

The Americans seem to have started the process already if an item on tonight's news is anything to go by. I'm in two minds about it. Good to give a child a loving home but I do think that efforts need to be made to ensure that child grows up aware of their cultural identity. It takes a very special parent to manage that sensitively.

pollyanna....take a look at the news,do you seriously think they would fare better over here knowing they were dragged away from their country at a time of disaster.....how much guilt will they feel in later life? is that in long term best interests?

i think to adopt a child,you have to actually want to just adopt. not because you've seen something on tv....it has to be something you want to do anyway,regardless of where the child is from or circumstances.....

But I was agreeing with you Cory. Time should be taken and every effort to find existing family. And I never said they should be "dragged away at a time of disaster" IloveTiffany. I said in time, in years to come there will be children who need homes and as adoption procedures take years it is unlikely to happen now. And noone would go through these procedures unless they really wanted to adopt a child. I simply said that a child is better in a loving home than in an orphanahe and then added after reading Cory's post that yes it should certainly not happen immediately.

I think people are so used to being argued with on mumsnet that they find it hard to believe that someone has taken their comments on board and agreed with them.

There's something a bit vulture-ish about it. Maybe not. The whole thing's horrific, I can't begin to imagine rushing over there to adopt some child so recently bereaved. Better to try and stabilize the country as much as possible first.