Adopted Boy Sent Back To Russia

[Skeptic Ginger]

Even if we allow that this person is a horrible mother because of what she did, I still can't fault her actions. Because of what she did, the Russian adoption officials have a second chance to place the child in a proper caring home, yes?

Like I said, the serendipity of all the attention this child is now receiving may very well result in a much better outcome than had the US mother tried and incompetently managed the child's care.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Her actions may have negatively affected the future adoption alternatives for thousands of children. Do you see that as beneficial too?

There's no doubt the adoption ban is political posturing and won't last long.

In the long run, the attention the case is getting will most likely have a very beneficial impact. More parents and agencies that might help will pay more attention to the problem of emotionally disturbed children who need adoptive homes.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

"Adamant": unyielding. A reasonable person could judge by your posts in this thread that you are intent on finding this woman blameless in spite of any evidence suggesting the contrary.....

"Adamant": unyielding. A reasonable person could judge by your posts in this thread that you are intent on finding this woman blameless is evil and callous in spite of any evidence suggesting the contrary there might be at least some circumstances where the mother wasn't evil and callous here, but was instead simply trying to deal with the problem, right or wrong, the best way she knew how.....

 

[kerikiwi]

No matter whether she was lied to or not, no matter whether the child was dangerously disturbed or not, no matter whether he was fine for the first few months or not, no matter whether other people have been lied to or not, no matter whether a family chose to put their disabled child in care or not:
the way she dealt with the problem was contemptible.

 

[quadraginta]

"Adamant": unyielding. A reasonable person could judge by your posts in this thread that you are intent on finding this woman blameless is evil and callous in spite of any evidence suggesting the contrary there might be at least some circumstances where the mother wasn't evil and callous here, but was instead simply trying to deal with the problem, right or wrong, the best way she knew how.....

I've never disputed that circumstances might exist which would cast this woman's behavior in a different light. In fact I said as much. Perhaps you overlooked that.

I am open to alternative interpretations as more evidence is made available. I was commenting that Checkmite appears not to be, since he made the claim,

Even if we allow that this person is a horrible mother because of what she did, I still can't fault her actions.

Why do you find the differences in those positions difficult to discern?

 

[quadraginta]

....
Working only with the evidence at hand it is not unreasonable to suggest that the adoptive parent (and her mother) acted inappropriately. ...

In my opinion, this ignores the potential situation when an unprepared person finds oneself caring for a seriously emotionally disturbed child.

So you consider pinning a note to the kid and sticking him on a plane by himself to be an appropriate way of handling this hypothetical situation. Is that a professional opinion?

Having an understanding just how serious such a situation might easily be gives me more empathy for this mother and grandmother than some other people in this thread seem to have.

This is where you play the "I'm a Nurse Practitioner, so everyone that doesn't agree with my every word must be wrong." trump card?

Sorry. Not buying it.

 

[quadraginta]

There's no doubt the adoption ban is political posturing and won't last long.

Cool. Fortune telling, too.

In the long run, the attention the case is getting will most likely have a very beneficial impact. More parents and agencies that might help will pay more attention to the problem of emotionally disturbed children who need adoptive homes.

You say this as if the issue was hitherto unknown, and somehow the woman has performed a public service by revealing the truth to an unsuspecting world.

What tripe. If the woman had taken adoption at all seriously and devoted even a scintilla of effort to learning about the subject then she would have been perfectly aware of the difficulties and potential outcomes, and would not have responded with the incredible incompetence and cluelessness that she did.

I have good friends who adopted from Russia nearly twenty years ago. Two kids, with physical, mental and emotional problems that were by no means all completely obvious at the time of adoption. You know what? They were not utterly stunned by such a development. I wonder why not, since your heroine's revelations had not been made yet. Perhaps they were prescient.

 

[Helen]

It bears repeating: Whether adopted or biological, a child may turn out to be severly disabled physically and/or mentally. This could mean that the parents may need help in caring for that child. It may even mean that the child has to spend great parts of its life in some kind of institution. I don't think that is in dispute here at all.

What happened in this case is something very different, based on the facts that we know. A child was adopted, and then abandoned. Skeptic Ginger, you seem to be saying that perhaps his adoptive family did not know how to ask for help, but they had managed to get through the process of adopting the child, so I find it very hard to believe that they are somehow so very simple that they are not even able to ask for help for that child. Instead, they abandoned the child by putting him on a flight to Russia. Their situation may indeed have been very difficult, but that is till not an acceptable solution.

Families with severly disabled children have my empathy. I have met several such families (adoptive as well as biological), and I do not for one second envy them. But had they done what this family seems to have done, my empathy would have been reserved solely for the child. (And by the way, I don't really think the situation of your friends is at all similar to the one we are discussing, Skeptic Ginger, since I cannot believe that they sent their child alone halfway across the world, to be put in an institution, and never to be seen again.)

What it comes down to is that an adopted child is still your child. You have taken on all the responsibilites of a biological parent, and the fact that you and the child are unfortunate enough to face severe difficulties, does not change this. This may be a drain on all your resources; emotional, financial, physical, but it still does not change that fact.

 

[Checkmite]

"Adamant": unyielding. A reasonable person could judge by your posts in this thread that you are intent on finding this woman blameless in spite of any evidence suggesting the contrary.

I really don't see anybody's opinions changing in this thread; so the observation is true, but it's true of everyone here, so I'm not sure how useful it is.

What response do you suppose they would have had if the incident never took place? What responsibility do you think she has for the fact that it did?

I think Russia is to blame for Russia's decision to turn a civil matter into an "international incident".

Trust me, they're going to allow Americans to adopt kids again, if that's what you think is a "positive thing" for the "millions of children" waiting to be adopted. Only now, there might be some stricter regulation on what kind of people will be allowed to adopt. Not holding my breath, now....but it's a possibility at least. How can that not be a good thing?

 

[Checkmite]

Like I said, the serendipity of all the attention this child is now receiving may very well result in a much better outcome than had the US mother tried and incompetently managed the child's care.

That's it exactly. If this mother was such a bad parent, we should actually be glad she did what she did, rather than insisting on keeping the child in a toxic environment, potentially neglecting him, or even snapping at some point and physically abusing him. An institution is an institution; and whether he was placed in one in the US or Russia, he was still placed in one.

Question to everyone here: assume you're all completely, 100% correct. This parent got fed up with their kid and stuck him on a plane to be dropped off on the other side of the world. What do you suggest? That he be sent back? That this horrible parent should be forced by law to take the child back and raise him? What kind of life are you sentencing the child to, in that case?

 

[iknownothing]

Question to everyone here: assume you're all completely, 100% correct. This parent got fed up with their kid and stuck him on a plane to be dropped off on the other side of the world. What do you suggest? That he be sent back? That this horrible parent should be forced by law to take the child back and raise him? What kind of life are you sentencing the child to, in that case?

Of course he should not be sent back to that mother.

But parents, adoptive or otherwise, do need to be held accountable for their parenting.

She should simply not have adopted, period. She was at best unprepared and unrealistic, and apparently without any clue as to how to handle a potential problem. By adopting the boy and then returning him, she did more damage than if he'd stayed there in the first place. She took an active part in damaging the child -- if disapproval on internet forums is the worst punishment she gets for that, she's lucky.

That has nothing to do with what is best for him going forward.

 

[kerikiwi]

That's it exactly. If this mother was such a bad parent, we should actually be glad she did what she did, rather than insisting on keeping the child in a toxic environment, potentially neglecting him, or even snapping at some point and physically abusing him. An institution is an institution; and whether he was placed in one in the US or Russia, he was still placed in one.

Question to everyone here: assume you're all completely, 100% correct. This parent got fed up with their kid and stuck him on a plane to be dropped off on the other side of the world. What do you suggest? That he be sent back? That this horrible parent should be forced by law to take the child back and raise him? What kind of life are you sentencing the child to, in that case?

It is not a case of either she takes the reprehensible action she did, or she keeps the child in a toxic environment and abuses him.
The whole point people have been making is that she should have accessed help rather than abandoning the child.

And you seriously don't know that 'institutions', like familes, can be good, bad or ugly?

 

[Checkmite]

By adopting the boy and then returning him, she did more damage than if he'd stayed there in the first place. She took an active part in damaging the child --

Remote psychoanalysis - by telepathy, even; that's something.

 

[Checkmite]

It is not a case of either she takes the reprehensible action she did, or she keeps the child in a toxic environment and abuses him.
The whole point people have been making is that she should have accessed help rather than abandoning the child.

People keep throwing around this platitude - "she should've gotten help". The letter wrote explicitly stated that she was immediately afraid for her life and the lives of the rest of her family. Any kind of help would require the child to be removed from the house.

Here's a question that everybody seems to be avoiding. This kid obviously has severe issues; yet what did the orphanage do? Did they "access help"? Or did they abandon the child and deliver him halfway across the world into the hands of some strangers? If this mother is accountable after a matter of a couple of weeks, what happened to the orphanage's accountability?

 

[kerikiwi]

People keep throwing around this platitude - "she should've gotten help". The letter wrote explicitly stated that she was immediately afraid for her life and the lives of the rest of her family. Any kind of help would require the child to be removed from the house.

Here's a question that everybody seems to be avoiding. This kid obviously has severe issues; yet what did the orphanage do? Did they "access help"? Or did they abandon the child and deliver him halfway across the world into the hands of some strangers? If this mother is accountable after a matter of a couple of weeks, what happened to the orphanage's accountability?

Any kind of help would require the child to be removed from the house?
Now who was it one post back who made a sarcastic comment about remote psychoanalysis? It couldn't have been you, could it?

As to the question everybody seems to be avoiding: it is not relevant. Assuming that the child does have 'severe issues', how another party dealt with it has nothing to do with the morality of how the adoptive mother dealt with it.
And do you understand that the time was considerably longer than 'a couple of weeks'?
So, yes, I stick to the 'platitude' that she should have got help, rather than the platitude that she shouldn't.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
Why do you find the differences in those positions difficult to discern?

Because your posts were directed at me and my comments, not at Checkmites.

 

[Checkmite]

Any kind of help would require the child to be removed from the house?
Now who was it one post back who made a sarcastic comment about remote psychoanalysis? It couldn't have been you, could it?

Didn't require psychoanalysis - there's a letter that explicitly states how the mother feels, in so many words.

In the US, when CFS agencies have reason to believe that a child is a danger to other people in the house, they usually take the child away, yes.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So you consider pinning a note to the kid and sticking him on a plane by himself to be an appropriate way of handling this hypothetical situation. Is that a professional opinion?

I don't believe that is an accurate description of what the news media reported.

The family made arrangements for the child to be managed by the airline (that is commonly done with young unaccompanied minors). They arranged transport for the child to the welfare agency, and despite the characterization of that as arranging with some stranger on the Internet, the outcome suggests they took proper care to arrange a reliable transporter. And the 'note pinned on the child' was a formal letter explaining the circumstances to the child welfare agency.

Was this ideal? No. But it wasn't as atrocious as you are describing it either.

This is where you play the "I'm a Nurse Practitioner, so everyone that doesn't agree with my every word must be wrong." trump card?

Sorry. Not buying it.

I don't recall saying anything about my experience as a nurse and nurse practitioner. I did cite my experience with disturbed children as a weekend group home parent. And I cited a link to multiple personal stories of just how badly disturbed some very young children can be, including the record of 2 ten yr olds who purposefully, actively murdered a 2 yr old.

I have empathy for the mother as well as the child. The bad people here as the story appears are the adoption agency and orphanage or anyone else involved in dumping the child into a home unprepared to care for the child.

As for trying to convince others, I'm not emotionally attached to the outcome of the discussion here. I'm not bothered by people who have drawn the conclusion the mother is horrible. Just because I am supporting a different conclusion doesn't mean I'm upset at anyone who believes the mother was evil.

It does appear to me, however, with comments such as your last one here attacking me personally, that you are emotionally attached to the conclusion. So everyone should find this mother despicable and those who don't agree are bad people also.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Cool. Fortune telling, too.

You don't believe that is an evidence based opinion? I stand by my opinion of the obvious. We could take bets on how long the posturing will continue.

You say this as if the issue was hitherto unknown, and somehow the woman has performed a public service by revealing the truth to an unsuspecting world.

What tripe. If the woman had taken adoption at all seriously and devoted even a scintilla of effort to learning about the subject then she would have been perfectly aware of the difficulties and potential outcomes, and would not have responded with the incredible incompetence and cluelessness that she did.

I have good friends who adopted from Russia nearly twenty years ago. Two kids, with physical, mental and emotional problems that were by no means all completely obvious at the time of adoption. You know what? They were not utterly stunned by such a development. I wonder why not, since your heroine's revelations had not been made yet. Perhaps they were prescient.

I don't recall saying, no family is prepared to raise such children.

Again, your anger is palpable. You are angry I have a different opinion. There's no reason for that.


But back to the ultimate outcome, there is no doubt this problem will eventually benefit from the attention this case is attracting. The degree the problem will be addressed is not so certain. People have short memories.

The news has already reported the child is getting special care in Russia. You can bet the gazillion other kids in Russian orphanages are not so lucky.

But I should point out, Russian people are likely as caring as Americans. They've already been addressing the serious problem of alcoholism there. This case will draw Russian attention to fetal alcohol syndrome and to children in Russian orphanages. Regardless of what happens here, I'll wager in Russia they are not all seeing this as, evil American parents they best not let have Russian children. The government doesn't do itself any favors admitting the conditions in Russian orphanages is harmful to children. But I'd wager the public is not all snookered by government posturing.

People in Russia will surely benefit from the attention the case is drawing to their orphanages. As bad as the foster care system is here, it is far better than orphanages, especially for young children who need bonding of some kind to develop normally. Countries that still maintain orphanages need to modern up.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It bears repeating: Whether adopted or biological, a child may turn out to be severly disabled physically and/or mentally. This could mean that the parents may need help in caring for that child. It may even mean that the child has to spend great parts of its life in some kind of institution. I don't think that is in dispute here at all.

What happened in this case is something very different, based on the facts that we know. A child was adopted, and then abandoned. Skeptic Ginger, you seem to be saying that perhaps his adoptive family did not know how to ask for help, but they had managed to get through the process of adopting the child, so I find it very hard to believe that they are somehow so very simple that they are not even able to ask for help for that child. Instead, they abandoned the child by putting him on a flight to Russia. Their situation may indeed have been very difficult, but that is till not an acceptable solution.

Families with severly disabled children have my empathy. I have met several such families (adoptive as well as biological), and I do not for one second envy them. But had they done what this family seems to have done, my empathy would have been reserved solely for the child. (And by the way, I don't really think the situation of your friends is at all similar to the one we are discussing, Skeptic Ginger, since I cannot believe that they sent their child alone halfway across the world, to be put in an institution, and never to be seen again.)

What it comes down to is that an adopted child is still your child. You have taken on all the responsibilites of a biological parent, and the fact that you and the child are unfortunate enough to face severe difficulties, does not change this. This may be a drain on all your resources; emotional, financial, physical, but it still does not change that fact.

I understand this point of view. I just think it leaves out the serious problem of dumping a disturbed child on unsuspecting, unprepared adopting parents. All the judgement here against this mother makes little if any attempt to consider incompetence in dealing with the child.

Lots of parents dump their natural children on to society for care. Maybe that's what happened to this child in Russia in the first place. Some of the parents own the blame for these actions. But some of the parents are just as disturbed as the kids, and some are just plain incompetent. Every disturbed and/or incompetent parent is not an evil parent.