Friday, July 30, 2010

Unworkable Analogy

Canadian website Star.com reports on a terminated or "disrupted" adoption that "just didn't work out."  A brother and sister returned like defective merchandise, or drapes you purchased and then deiced they didn't quite match your couch as well as you had hoped. After all, one auto manufacturer is now offering a money back guarantee on new car purchases!

The tale of Paula, 39, and Byran, 47, Blatchford who were raising Paula's teen from her first marriage, wanted more kids. Why is unknown.  But, unable to have children naturally, they took in siblings from foster care after participating in a "rigorous" "mandatory preparation training of 27 hours in a program called PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education)."  Twenty-seven HOURS.

After an idyllic summer the boy got into a squabble the first day of school. This, coupled with "continuous lying and stealing" and the reported lack the children bonding with the Blatchfords.  What are they teaching them in the training classes if not to expect acting out and lack of ability to bond by children who have bene in foster care or institutionalized?

Bottom line: the report likens adoption to an arranged marriage. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.  !! WHAT?!!

NO WAY! Marriage involves two consenting adults.

Adults making a commitment to care for CHILDREN is totally different, or should be.

Typically, the children are pathologized for their normal inability to bond -- as if their purpose is to love their adopters, not the other way around -  in a sixteen month time period, when one of them was still expressing profound loss of her foster mother. Again, what is being taught in the training program?  Obviously reality not getting through to people attending these classes.

They need to be taught the definition of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE - something that it is not expected in a marriage but is expected of parents.

Full story and comment here.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The comments are already closed. I guess the adoptoraptors don't want to get a dose of reality.

Von said...

Just what do they teach and learn in this 'preparation' and it still doesn't make good parents.

Mirah Riben said...

No idea what they are being taught. I know when I went through foster parent training we were told that kids in foster care will TEST you every chance they can get! Stealing and lying in foster teens is almost a given. And I never expected them to give me anything, including love or "bonding." I was there to care for THEM, not vice versa.

I believe that a good part of the problem is people hear what they want to hear.

Anonymous said...

Oh my! Yuck! Although I must say, I'm not sure it's what's being presented at the adoption education programs that is the problem, rather the people there aren't hearing what is being said. We live in Canada and just finished the education and home study for our fifth adoption (hoping to adopt a teenager or two from foster care). They made it pretty clear to us these children WILL lie and steal and numerous other behaviors.
As for likening adoption that just don't work out to marriages that just don't work out, I recently read even "worse." A mother whose blog I started reading when she disrupted one of their three adopted children from Ghana, just posted a link from someone else equating disrupting an adoption with a first mother choosing adoption for her baby. She goes so far as to say disrupting an adoption is "choosing life" for the child.
http://imghanaadopt.blogspot.com/2010/07/now-choose-life.html
As I've stated before, I was adopted from an orphanage and had a wonderful experience which included the truth about my adoption (even my first parents names on my birth certificate!) and we've chosen to adopt our children (special needs children and from foster care) because I like to think there are those of us who can and do adoption "ethically" (open relationships with first families, etc.). Jennifer

Mirah Riben said...

Unfortunately in a way she is right. Adopters heartless enough to terminate an adoption likely would abuse the child if they were not allowed to end the adoption. We cannot make them be good parents, but they should be held financially libel for the support of the child they willingly went out of their way and CHOSE to take responsibility of.

Their choice is diametrically opposed mothers who are forced to relinquish because of poverty or coerced and lied to by baby brokers....or those who have their children taken form them.

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