Thursday, October 1, 2009

Anita Tedaldi at it Again

Once upon a time adoption was secretive. Now the doors of reality have swung wide open revealing every nuance of ugliness...

You might recall my blog post about adoption give-backs and great deal of hubub in the adoption blogger community and general media about the woman who terminated her adoption after 18 months because she and her other five kids just "didn't bond" with the adopted baby...and her military husband was away a lot, etc...

Well, this woman seems to be a major glutton for attention - albeit mostly very negative attention, appearing on an NBC Today show segment

Although in the original Times blog, Tedaldi wrote that she "wasn't connecting with [the baby] on the visceral level I experienced with my biological daughters" she blames the child as well, telling Matt Lauer: "The child, D., wasn't connecting with us."

Ironically, Tedaldi wrote a column for Military.com called "We Can't Trade In Our Children or Husbands" back in January 2008. (Military.com has pulled the piece, but the Adoption Talk blog has some of the text.)

Is she sharing this to unburden her guilt or for those who praise her for her honesty? or is it just one more aspect of the "tell all" generation, who reveal on Orprah having "consensual sex" with their father as Mackenzie Phillips did recently. Is it just all about the shock value and selling books?

More importantly...

We have all read of cases of people suing adoption agencies for “wrongful adoption” because the agency did not disclose all medical facts.

Someone should sue Anita on behalf of Baby D for failure to disclose she was not prepared to parent another child, and to pay for the lifelong psychiatric care he will need for having been rejected by her and her family. She should be made to pay dearly for what she did and so too anyone else who does likewise.

Adoption is a forever commitment. When one decides to divorce, and end another lifetime commitment, one often has to pay the piper in terms of spousal support for the partner who may have given up a career to parent or is simply the lesser earner and depended on the promise of of forever. Seems perfectly logical to me to make people for destroying children’s lives by adding to the burdens they all ready have to bear.

If she gets away scott free - and gets to “brag” about it, and/or gets pity or support for her honesty — what lesson is learned? The person who originally posted her story on Motherlode and went on the Today Show with her says:

she is now loath to sit in judgment of other parents because she has come to understand how one can end up in a place they never thought they would be. That’s the message that resonated with me. That is why I published her guest post. Today’s parents are often too stressed themselves, leading them to be too quick to judge others. Perhaps seeing how easy it is to mess things up in spite the best of intentions — and Anita is the first to say she completely messed things up — might make all of us pause and realize that we could just as easily become “that kind of parent.”


But what does it say to other prospective adopters: I can give this a “TRY" and if it doesn’t work, the public will be sympathetic and forgiving? Is that the message we want to send?

We need to always put the rights and needs of children above adults. She is not the one who deserves sympathy and pity here - Baby D is.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The sad sick truth about adoption is that it has always been about the adopters and not about the adoptees.

If it was about the adoptees, children would not be allowed to be adopted by drug addicts, nut jobs, and child molesters just because they have money.

AdoptAuthor said...

I would like to see an abused adoptee sue the agency that placed them with their abusers

Anonymous said...

I agree that the woman is an SELFISH despicable human being but in a way the child is better off now that she has "returned" him. Could you imagine being RAISED by that b*tch?

RussiaToday Apr 29, 2010 on Russian Adoption Freeze

Russi Today: America television Interview 4/16/10 Regarding the Return of Artyem, 7, to Russia alone

RT: Russia-America TV Interview 3/10

Korean Birthmothers Protest to End Adoption

Motherhood, Adoption, Surrender, & Loss

Who Am I?

Bitter Winds

Adoption and Truth Video

Adoption Truth

Birthparents Never Forget