Grayson Wyrembek: Father and Son Reunion - Home at Last!!

3-year-old returned to biological father

TOLEDO, OH (WAVE) - It was a heart wrenching day for a Southern Indiana family entangled in an adoption battle.

The Vaughn family has been fighting to keep a three-year-old boy they tried to adopt. On Saturday, they had to hand him over to his biological father, Benjamin Wyrembek.

Ed Vaughn, who considers Grayson his grandson, told WAVE 3, Christy and Jason Vaughn were in Ohio and turned Grayson over to Wyrembek.

Ed says it was traumatic for the Vaughn's to let go of Grayson who they've been raising since birth. Wyrembek, had an affair with Grayson's mother, who was married to someone else at the time. Wyrembek asked for a paternity test soon after the baby's birth, but the Vaughns' adoption was already in the works.

Wyrembek filed a lawsuit Friday against the Ohio adoption firm that handled the case...claiming negligence.

An Ohio Supreme Court ruled against the Vaughn's forcing them to hand Grayson over.

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As I read this story, I cannot help my mind from flashing back to the case of David Goldman of New Jersey.  

The case involved a five-year international custody battle between the U.S. Congress and Brazil, where Goldman's wife, mother of the child in question, Bruna Bianchi, took the child to her native Brazil in 2004. There, she divorced Goldman and eventually married a Rio de Janeiro lawyer. After she died giving birth to a daughter in 2008, the abduction case started getting attention around the world.

Goldman traveled repeatedly to Brazil to visit his son. But he did not get to see the boy until U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, began accompanying him last year.

POINT is that the whole country was on the side of the natural father of this boy. Everyone rooted for HIM!  They cheered when he finally got his son back!  No one in this country had one ounce of sympathy for the Brazilian grandparents (though in Brazil it was quite the opposite).  Here, there was unanimous agreement that the boy belonged with his father.

Why is any less clear cut when the word adoption enters the equation?  If anything, it should be more clear. In a case like the Vaughns versus a natural father, you have non-related STRANGERS fighting a father for his child!  There is no relationship or natural right as grandparents have.

So what is it about the word adoption that carries with it such strong judgmental overtones and negative stereotypes? Even in a case such as this where the father never agreed to any adoption - yet he was vilified - and the potential adopters adored by all!

As we enter into the month of November - the month of extreme adoration of adoption - we need to pres shard on all of our blogs and via letters to the editors of our local newspapers to demystify adoption.  Speak truth to power! 

Ed Vaughn may think of himself as Grayson's grandfather but he is no mor that child's relative than is any babysitter or neighbor.  he has no biological or legal right and neither do any of the Vaughns. They were vultures from the start - in the delivery room - grabbing a child away while expecting their second natural child themselves.  They knew from the tart that Benjamin was fighting to prove paternity and once porvcen sough the return of his son, yet they fought him tooth and nail. The held Grayson captive like kidnappers!

And the press played into their pleas for sympathy. See this video packed with LIES! Reporters incorrectly claim the Vaughns were trying to get a transition plan into effect! LIE! They refused the mediators suggestions for transition. 

The media pushes all the buttons, tears...and saying "it's... every adoptive parets nightmare" when they are NOT adoptive parents! And did they say it 2 times or 3 that he is being taken from "the only family he has ever known"?

Does that matter when a child is kidnapped?

Yet, even Jason Vaughn admits that Ben was involved from day one!! I am just glad the Vaughns didn't make a medic spectacle of the hand overas others in there position have.

NW Indiana official indicted in adoption case

A Case to Follow...

A Newton County (northwestern) Indiana commissioner has been indicted on misconduct and other charges over her role in her daughter and son-in-law's effort to adopt a Florida woman's children.

Newton County commission President Roxanna Hanford, 53, of Thayer, was booked Thursday and released on bond.


She was INDICTED on Tuesday by the grand jury on seven charges including official misconduct, profiting from an adoption, child selling, and obstruction of justice. State police say child welfare officials asked them to investigate.

Hanford tells The Associated Press she acted properly and sought no financial gain. The 53-year-old Democrat from Thayer says the pre-election indictment is politically motivated.

Hanford says her daughter and son-in-law now have custody and are working to adopt the four children, ages 2, 3, 4 and 6.

The grand jury probe, led by a special prosecutor out of Jasper County, stemmed from a December 2008 case in which four children from Florida were left in Indiana without proper legal guardianship, according to an Indiana State Police press release.


Charges were filed Thursday in Newton Superior Court, police said.

Hanford was booked Thursday in Newton County Jail and was released on bond. She released a statement denying the charges and calling the case politically motivated.

"The allegations that have been made against me are absolutely false and have nothing to do with the performance of my job."

Hanford claimed she only was helping a mother under duress.  [Apparently, by helping her OUT of her children!].






The mother of the children -- Ann Marie Hutcheson, 26, of Hosford, Fla. -- was charged in July with child neglect and profiting from an adoption.

Hanford, a Democrat, is seeking re-election for the District 2 Newton County commissioner seat against Republican Timothy R. Drenth.

Hanford is currently free on bond pending trial in Newton Superior Court, where she faces four felony and three misdemeanor counts.

Hanford, reached at home Thursday afternoon, said the charges are false and in a written statement said, "This is nothing more than a blatant political and personal attack coming just before (Tuesday's) election on me and my family."

Sgt. Ann Wojas, spokeswoman for Indiana State Police, said Hanford's arrest is connected to charges filed last July against Ann Marie Hutcheson, 26, of Hosford, Fla., on allegations Hutcheson brought four of her children, all younger than 5, to Indiana and left them without proper legal guardianship.

Wojas said the Indiana Department of Child Services discovered an irregular adoption scheme while investigating a complaint of child neglect and contacted state police. Authorities didn't release details of the charges Thursday afternoon. The Newton County Sheriff's Department referred all inquiries to state police.

Hanford, a Democrat running for re-election Tuesday and described on her website as a longtime resident and business owner, said her daughter and son-in-law were seeking to adopt children two years ago. "My daughter cannot have (their own) children, and she and my son-in-law were in a foster-to-adopt program," Hanford said.

Hanford said she and another Indiana couple came into contact with Hutcheson through a go-between who arranged for them to meet in Tennessee, where two children were given to Hanford's daughter and son-in-law and two to the other couple.

Hanford said the other couple were preparing to divorce in April 2009 and asked Hanford to take custody of the Hutcheson's two other children. However, Hanford said she and the other couple later had a falling out and the other couple involved DCS, who took custody of all four children.

Hanford said she didn't receive any money for the adoption and didn't use her office as commissioner to forestall any investigation. She said her daughter and son-in-law aren't charged with any wrongdoing.

"My attorney and I will fight this case, and when I am found not guilty of anything except kindness, everyone will know what a political act this all has been," Hanford said.

"Adoption Option"? Pro-Adoption Report Tries to be Progressive

"The Adoption Option: Adoption Won’t Reduce Abortion but It Will Expand Women's Choices" by Jessica Arons, Director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress, Oct. 2010. The Center for American Progress, Wash, D.C., is a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization. Its website states that the organization is "dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action."

I encourage all to download the pdf and read it in full.

It's a mixed bag: Mostly good news that of course falls short of my recommendations, and the best suggestions and recommendations are meaningless without enforcement.

The good news - and some useful quotes - for adoption reformers:  

• "Abortion has not caused the low rates of adoption in recent years; rather the low placement rates are a direct result of more single women choosing to parent on their own. pregnancy, annual estimates" 
• Abortion certainly played some role in the initial decline of the adoption rate
  when it fell from 19.2 percent for white women in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was
  decided to 3.2 percent 15 years later.12 But it is the decreasing stigma of single
  motherhood that accounts for the low adoption rate now.13 Unmarried pregnant
  women also are more likely to be in their 20s than their teens these days, and they
  may therefore feel better prepared to keep their babies and raise them themselves.
• "the Guttmacher Institute has pointed out,14 that promoting adoption is not an effective strategy for reducing the abortion rate—if that is one’s goal. Indeed, some portion of women who choose adoption never consider abortion, in which case those adoption choices have no effect on the
  abortion rate whatsoever."
• "abuses in the present [adoption] system continue to occur and must be curbed. Reforms are
  necessary..."
• "most policy initiatives primarily focus on adoptive parents, addressing ways to streamline the system and make it more accessible and affordable for them. Too little attention has been paid to the needs of the pregnant woman considering adoption."
• " Increased difficulties with international adoption may put renewed pressure on the domestic adoption system and provide an even greater need for more protections here. But it is more likely that we will see our society’s newfound reliance on fertility treatments,18 including domestic and foreign surrogacy arrangements, increase even further in the coming years."
• "Women who chose parenting were more likely to report satisfaction with their
  decision than those who chose adoption (91 percent vs. 78 percent)"
• "Abortion opponents often trumpet the possibility that partners, parents, or even medical professionals may coerce a woman into an abortion. Yet abortion clinics routinely screen for coercion and will not perform an abortion unless they are sure it is what the woman actually wants. The adoption process should similarly guard against coercion."
• "Fueled in part by a particular political and religious agenda, as well as financial interests, a network of socially conservative crisis pregnancy centers,52 adoption agencies, and maternity homes have pressured vulnerable women to place their children for adoption."
• "Coercion can come from adoption professionals, from family members or male partners, or from extended social networks. It can range from subtle signals, such as referring to the pregnant woman as the “birth mother” before she has made a final decision, to more overt pressures, such as moving her to a maternity home in another state where she is alienated from her support network of family and friends and where adoption laws are more lenient."
• "Women participating in an open adoption may be pressured to be compliant and pleasant or else risk being shut out. And some women have fallen prey to bait and switch tactics, where they are promised an open adoption but told only after relinquishment that such arrangements are not “legal” in the state where the adoption took place. "
• "Child Welfare League of America found that some birth mothers are unable to get a copy of the paperwork following a relinquishment." [A personal pet peeve of mine!]
• "The Child Welfare Information Gateway has identified several potential responses to a relinquishment, including grieving the loss of the child; grieving secondary losses, such as the loss of a relationship with the birth father that may have occurred; guilt and shame; identity
  issues; and long-term issues around forming and maintaining relationships."
• The National Council For Adoption (NCFA) is identified as: "a prominent, federally funded adoption lobbying group with ties to conservative Christian adoption networks"

The report's suggestions represent slight improvements:

• To best serve the needs of women considering adoption, more research must be done to explore the pressures, motivations, and barriers surrounding that decision, as well to compare the
  long-term well-being of women who choose abortion, adoption, and parenting.
  
• States should require that women pursuing adoption be offered nondirective counseling with a qualified professional and an opportunity to consult with independent legal counsel. Congress also should work to ensure that women have access to unbiased and accurate information so that they can make well-informed decisions about their pregnancies.
   
• States should impose a waiting period of at least 72 hours between childbirth and the time a woman can consent to place a child for adoption and grant birth parents a minimum of one
  week to revoke their consent to relinquishment without having to give a specific reason. These rules ideally would be uniform in order to discourage agencies or adoptive parents from cherry-picking states with more favorable laws. States should also ensure that birth parents are entitled to a copy of all relinquishment paperwork as well as a copy of the child’s original birth certificate.

• States should recognize the benefits of open adoption arrangements and ensure that birth parents are informed of available mechanisms to implement those agreements. States should also guar-
  antee that affordable clinical mediation services are available when disputes arise over the terms of an open adoption arrangement. NOTE: This suggestions omits something very important, recognized later in the report: " a birth mother should receive complete counseling about which aspects of the agreement can or cannot be enforced so that she will have reasonable expectations going forward, as there are potentially devastating consequences when such agreements are unilaterally terminated."
   
• States and adoption agencies should ensure that birth mothers have access to affordable or no-cost postadoption counseling services throughout their lives, but especially in the two years following a placement.
   
• More information about what adoption entails today and the women who typically choose adoption would help to educate the public and demystify the process so that we can dispense with outdated stereotypes about birth mothers and the adoption process. Congress should
  provide grants to establish national public education campaigns to accurately
  inform the public about adoption and its potential benefits for all involved. 

Not included in the initial list (above), is this good suggestion:

"Congress also should work to ensure that women have access to unbiased and accurate information so that they can make well-informed decisions about their pregnancies. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced the “Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women’s Services Act” in the 109th Congress, which aims to hold crisis pregnancy centers to truth-in-advertising standards, and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a similar bill the next year. Congress could broaden such legislation to ensure
that adoption agencies and maternity homes also cannot engage in deceptive practices."

YET...the author believes "the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act, introduced by Reps. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). This proposed bill contained a provision that would provide grants to establish national information campaigns to educate the public about adoption. Such campaigns would promote accurate and
positive information about adoption and its potential benefits for all involved."  REALLY?   How is promoting the potential benefits of adoption, without likewise explaining the possible pitfalls, impartial?
 

While overall the report fails to go far enough, there are some out and out errors, such as: 

• "Closed adoption may raise a question of access to birth records" as opposed to open adoptions. ALL adoptions begin with a falsified birth certificate and open contact agreements have nothing to do with the fact that in 44 of 50 states adoptees are denied access to their original birth certificates.
• "Twenty-one states had established “mutual consent registries” as of 2000 that attempt to balance the interests of birth parents who have been guaranteed confidentiality with adoptees’ rights to obtain their birth information."  This unfortunate wording validates the totally unproven and unproveable lies of the NCFA that any promises of confidentiality (other than assumption of confidentiality from PUBLIC scrutiny) were made to any of us.

What a shame that researchers such as this do not attempt to avail themselves of the wealth of hindsight available from organizations and authors that represent those of us who have lived with adoption in our lives and have hindsight to offer. The paper includes suggestions for time limits for relinquishment and revocation without even utilizing the fine research and conclusions of Elizabeth Samuels' Time to Decide. Those lackings alone, detract from its attempt at neutrality, not to mention a disregard for the research on  the lifelong negative effects on mothers who relinquish, some of which is included in my presentation: The Universality Grief of Mothers Who Relinquish.

If the report itself lacks that level of impartiality, how much can be expected in any counseling it suggests be provided to mothers considering their options, when there is no admonition that such counseling be provided by an impartial party who is not funded by an adoption agency businesses whose livelihood depends on placements.

But then, the name says it. The report endeavors to maintain (or even increase) adoption as an option. But why?  If the real issue is women's choices, why not leave them to make them as they are?

Instead the author seems concerned over the Guttmacher Institute estimates of unintended pregnancy outcomes, giving them in full view via a pie chart to illustrate dramatically how miniscule a slice of the pie adoption represents: 

• 1.4 million women choose to keep the child

• 1.2 million women choose abortion

• 14,000 women choose adoption

But unanswered in the 30 page report is why this is of concern. If the perecnt of married people choosing diovrce decreased, would this be an issue of concern, or reason for optimism?  As numbvers of smokers decline, do we not see this as a move twoard greater health? Is it not an issue of cocnern only for the tobacco industry?

Yet the report talks about a need to "de-stigmatize" adoption without presenting any evidence that it is sitgmatized or that women are unaware of it as an option - and without any reason that it should be encouraged.

^{Read it and let's discuss it...}

 

International Adoption Warriors: Their Goal 50,000 a Year by 2050

The anti-family, pro-redistrubition of children for profit folks are at it again in full swing with a new web page.

The mission of the Both Ends Burning Campaign

A family is a child’s most basic human right. Both Ends Burning is a broad-based campaign to create a new system of international adoption so that the world’s orphaned and abandoned children can benefit from the support of a permanent family. [Why can't that permanent family be the one they were born into?]

Children who have families thrive and lead healthy, meaningful lives. [So why do these people take children away from their fmailies?] Children who do not suffer from unmet needs and developmental, emotional and intellectual challenges, and even permanent damage.

They lead wasted lives, wrongfully detained in substandard orphanages, or worse, left to fend for themselves in homelessness or slavery.

Through creative works, grassroots outreach, and social and traditional media, the Both Ends Campaign works to shed light on the crisis that is strangling international adoption. [Boo hoo] Adoptions to the U.S. have fallen by 50 percent in the last six years. [And yet there are 129,000 kid sin US foster care who COUYLD be adopted!] Countries are closing their adoption programs to overseas families. [Because of corruption!] Would-be parents face hope-crushing delays, expenses and bureaucracy under the existing system. [Boo F*&KIN' HOO] Meanwhile, the number of orphans continues to grow. [A number that is intentionally escalated and most of which are not orphans, but kids with families in orphanages temporarily!]

Both Ends Burning provides an alternative common-sense solution to replace the current process. What’s needed is a new international adoption system that works to match waiting children with eligible families in a time frame measured in a few months, not several years.

The current process is broken. Help us force the creation of a new one. Please sign our petition calling for a new international adoption system. Your involvement will  help us provoke change.  The time to act is now — too many children are suffering, too many families have lost hope and given up.  Help us provide orphans with what every child deserves: A loving family.

Campaign Plan

• In its initial stages (2010-11), the campaign is building a grassroots organization using traditional and social media. We are creating a movement rallied around a solution for the international adoption crisis;
• We are producing a documentary, Wrongfully Detained, which will depict the depth of the international adoption crisis. The movie is designed to have strong emotional impact and motivate people to join the movement;
• We will engage with a proven, leading public relations firm to gain national and global exposure for this issue, develop a market strategy, execute a promotional plan, and secure media appearances;
• We are working to recruit three additional board members reflecting business, systems, logistics, and operational expertise;
• We will also recruit a celebrity spokesperson for the campaign;
• We have launched a petition drive to collect 1,000,001 signatures to take to the UN and demand substantive and lasting policies that will promote international adoption;
• We are planning a nationwide bike ride to showcase the Sept. 1, 2011 release of the film, raise awareness, fuel the petition drive, and advance fundraising, outreach, and marketing activities for the movement; and,
• In 2012, we will convene and facilitate a Summit of Nations to establish a process for expanding pathways for adoption all over the world. The summit will bring together receiving countries and sending countries to develop a better global system for international adoption.

The Summit of Nations is the catalyst to create real, tangible change for the orphans of the world. Our ultimate goal is a streamlining HUB (pilot launch set for 2013) to facilitate all international adoptions so children can be matched with families in a time scale of months, not years, and at reasonable expense.

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They are creating a documentary to spread their lies. They are organized and and their claims are believable and garner sympathy...

Quote of the Day

“There are many possible interpretations of what it means to create dangerously... it is creating as a revolt against silence, creating when both the creation and the reception, the writing and the reading, are dangerous undertakings, disobedience as a directive… Create dangerously is for people who read dangerously. This is always what I’ve thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them." Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
by Edwidge Danticat

Adoptive Mom Hoarder on Discovery Health Network

Discovery Health/TLC Network has a series called Hoarders: Buried Alive.

One of the people featured, is a woman named Mary, 55, who is the adoptive mother of a six-year-old. She is a compulsive shopper. When she buys her daughter a bathing suit, she buys one in every color and size. the child's room is so cluttered, she can barely move about in it!

Mary reveals that her obsessive buying and hoarding began after her baby son died. Now she cannot let anything go.

And someone saw fit to allowed her to adopt a child!

Her sister visits and confronts her with that very reality in an effort to help motivate her. She suggests that unless she gets help and changes her ways welfare might come and take the child she adopted "who has other problems" according tot he sister.

Rod Stewart Lyrics in a New Light...

In light of Stewart's revalation of his reunion with the daughtrer he fathered and relinquihed for adoption 46 years ago...read some of his lyrics:

Baby Jane 

by Rod Stewart and Jay L. Davis

Released in 1983, it was a number one single in the UK

Baby Jane don't leave me hanging on the line
I knew you when you had no one to talk to
Now you're moving in high society
don't forget I know secrets about you
I used to think you were on my side
but now I'm no longer sure
I wish I knew what I know now before....

Baby Jane I've said all I want to say
go your own way don't think twice about me
Cause I've got ideas and plans of my own
so long darlin' I'll miss you believe me
The lesson learned was so hard to swallow
but I know that I'll survive
I'm gonna take a good look at myself and try, yeah.
 

 YOUNG TURKS

Reached the Top 5, 1981

Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket and a head full of dreams.
He said somehow, some way, it's gotta get better than this.
Patti packed her bags, left a note for her momma, she was just seventeen,
there were tears in her eyes when she kissed her little sister goodbye.

They held each other tight as they drove on through the night they were so exited.
We got but one shot of life, let's take it while we're still not afraid.
Because life is so brief and time is a thief when you're undecided.
And like a fistful of sand, it can slip right through your hands.

Young hearts be free tonight. Time is on your side,
Don't let them put you down, don't let 'em push you around,
don't let 'em ever change your point of view.

Paradise was closed so they headed for the coast in a blissful manner.
They took a tworoom apartment that was jumping ev'ry night of the week.
Happiness was found in each other's arms as expected, yeah
Billy pierced his ears, drove a pickup like a lunatic, ooh!
  ....

Billy wrote a letter back home to Patti's parents tryin' to explain.
He said we're both real sorry that it had to turn out this way.
But there ain't no point in talking when there's nobody list'ning so we just ran away
Patti gave birth to a ten pound baby boy, yeah!

 Also note that Rod Stewart left school at just 15.  He worked in the family shop and as a newspaper delivery boy, and later as a grave digger, a fence erector and sign writer. In 1962 he had his first serious relationship, with London art student Suzannah Boffey (and a friend of future model and actress Chrissie Shrimpton); he moved to be near her.  She became pregnant, but neither Rod nor his family wanted him to enter marriage; the baby girl was given for adoption and Rod and Suzannah's relationship ended.  

Imagine - the major reason for relinquishing was that they were borke!

Adopted: For the Life of Me

Two great pieces of news about Jean Strauss’s feature film Adopted: For the Life of Me.

The film is being broadcast on PBS! with a prime time screening in New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York City on Sunday, November 7th, at 7:00 p.m., and at other times and regions throughout the coming year!

The film has been recut (to 57 minutes) and powerfully illuminates the lifelong impact that secrets can have, not only on adoptees, but on birthparents and adoptive families.

The second piece of news is that the film website is officially launching today! You’re the first to know: adoptedforthelifeofme.com

On the home page you’ll find screening dates and times (be sure to check back often for new screenings – dates are being added daily!) and all kinds of other cool tools and things to do! You’ll find news clips, other short films, maps of adoption policies and legislative efforts, and most important, simple actions you can take to be involved in adoption reform. Please visit and:

Consider joining the brand new Adoption Reform ACTION! List (in partnership with AAC and to be used only by national and regional reform groups directly involved in legislation). Just visit the Action page on the website. It only takes your name, email and state. As a member of the list you will only be sent alerts when there is critical legislative reform action you can take where your voice will make a difference.

Consider sharing your own story on the About page. Comment on the home page.

Host a Community Screening for free! on the Tools page. Help educate your friends and neighbors about the need for adoption reform. With our free loaner dvd program, you can host a screening and all it will cost you is the $1 postage to return the dvd. Please contact Cindy at Carmcguigan@aol.com.

Please join in the outreach regarding the need for adoption reform in the forty states which continue to withhold original birth records from adopted citizens.

States which have taken the bold step of reversing sealed records laws have proven that access to records is an empowering, healthy change in adoption policy – benefiting all members of the adoption triad. To learn more, please visit us at:

www.adoptedforthelifeofme.com

The Mother of Rod Stewart's Relinquished Daughter Tried and Failed at Reunion

Stewart's ex-girlfriend 'doesn't care' about lovechild

Copyright WENN.com - World Entertainment News Network

The mother of ROD STEWART's lovechild has spoken out about her long lost daughter - insisting she "doesn't care" about the child she gave up for adoption.

The singer was just 17 years old when his girlfriend Susannah Boffey gave birth and the young couple decided to put the baby up for adoption.

Stewart has been in contact with his daughter, Sarah Streeter, in recent years and they are attempting to build a relationship.

The girl's mother, now Susannah Hourde, has now opened up about the daughter she never knew, admitting she doesn't want any contact with her because it would be "impossible" for them to reconcile.

She tells Britain's Daily Mail, "I don't care about Sarah any more. I used to but I don't now... I think it's almost impossible that we will be reconciled now. It's all been so tough. There were attempted reconciliations and they didn't go very well. It has all been very hard."

And Hourde insists she is "very bored" of seeing Stewart's private life in the news.

She adds, "I don't see why his having another baby is news. I find the whole thing rather tedious. I am very bored of hearing about Rod. It's really something I'd like to put behind me."

HE waited until the aps were deceased. Likely it was the daughter's loyalty to them that hindered the mother/daughter reunion.

Stranger with my Face

August 2009 Lifetime TV Movie based on the novel by by Lois Duncan.

While Orphan got all the hoopla because it was on the big screen, this is also a film about a dangerous, homicidal adoptee.

After the death of her father Laurie is haunted. then her mother suddenly tells her: She was a twin and they only adopted her and left her twin sister. That's who's haunting her!

It goes on with outer body soul travel and gives new meaning to "good adoptee/bad adoptee" or the classic good twin/bad twin archetype.

Adoption - though central to the plot - is made almost non-existent as an issue, with no one addressing whether her "sister" was likewise adopted! A really dumb movie!

WA Apology for Past Adoption Practices

Evelyn Robinson writes:

I've just watched the apology and, even though I was there and experienced it in person, I found it very moving to watch it again. I highly recommend it to anyone who is at all interested. If you are unsure about whether or not an apology is appropriate, or what exactly the Western Australian government was apologising for, then I suggest that you watch it here. The speakers made it very clear and it truly was a momentous occasion. You will hear us applauding from the gallery. We gave David Templeman a standing ovation. Someone asked him afterwards if applause from the public gallery was allowed and he replied, "No, but it was very welcome." You will see that many of the politicians looked up at us as they spoke and some wept.

It runs for about two hours. The first hour is question time and you will most likely want to skip that. I was unable to fast forward and so you may have to do what I did ie let it run for about 55 minutes and then you will be there for the beginning of the apology part of the session, which runs for about an hour. Again, the link to is is here.

I've been told that the transcript of the apology is now available on line, which is great. You can read all the speeches if you want to here.

This apology is a world first and has provided hope for so many around the world. I hope that you will watch it and feel uplifted by it. Of course, everyone's experience of adoption is unique, but this speaks to so many whose lives have been affected by adoption separation. It's a tribute to the dedication and determination of those who made it happen.

Please feel free to share this with others.

-------------

 

Being an American, I find this whole apology - and forthcoming inquiry - business very depressing.  

It depresses me (and angers me too a bit) that the coercive practices being apologized for, and which have stopped in Australia, still go on here...

I am angry, depressed and embarrassed to live in a nation that in the the 21st century is still coercing mothers, lying to them about "open adoption" - or at not being totally honest (is there really a difference?), not providing separate legal counsel for relinquishing mothers, enmeshing them with couples who want their children and creating indebtedness by allowing prospective adopters to pay their living and medical expenses in direct violation of the intent of laws that prohibit pre-birth contracts as baby buying and selling.

 

AND...every adoption begins with a lie that receives government legitimacy and prevents adopted separated people from knowing their truth in 44 of 50 states!

 

   

Rod Stewart Reunites with Daughter Who Was Relinquished

For the first time, music legend Rod Stewart is opening up about his first daughter, who he and his then-girlfriend put up for adoption at birth – and it’s leading to a new chapter in both of their lives!

Stewart, whose wife Penny is pregnant with his eighth child, reached out to Sarah Streeter, his first child, after Streeter’s adoptive parents both passed away.

“Since her mom and dad have died, we’ve tried to come together and be close together, and it’s working out pretty well,” Stewart said. “I never felt like I was her dad, because I didn’t take her to school, change her nappies, there was no paternal thing there, but I’m trying.”

Streeter, now 46, does not carry a grudge against the music icon, either.

“There’s no anger there,” Streeter said. “I never was angry about what happened really, just sad. But now I’m older; I see things differently and realize that it has been as difficult for him over the years as it has been for me. Now we’re at the start of a new chapter, and that’s wonderful.”

Streeter was born when Stewart was 19 years old, broke, and without means to take care of her. It would be another fifteen years until Stewart would become a father for a second time, and this time with his first wife. The Stewarts are expecting in early 2011.

Rock singer Rod Stewart revealed why he gave his daughter up for adoption when he was a teenager, saying he was “absolutely stone broke” at the time of her birth.

In an interview with Joy Behar, Stewart says he put his first daughter, Sarah Streeter, up for adoption when he was “17 or 18.”

Trying to FORCE Adoption!

October 18

Guy can't force ex-girlfriend to give baby up for adoption

Kennebec Journal Staff

Dear Annie: My 27-year-old son broke up with his 23-year-old girlfriend after a three-month relationship that was largely based on sex. Six weeks after the breakup, the girl announced that she was pregnant. My son is sure that he is the father, but marriage is not in the picture.

Here's the sad part: This girl has had rheumatoid arthritis since she was 10 years old and is on disability. She does not work, attend school or care for herself in any capacity. She is unable to lift 10 pounds or cut her own food. However, she is quite capable of drinking beer, smoking and singing in karaoke bars. She's been told that her disease will go into remission during pregnancy, but will return in spades once she delivers, making it necessary for her to have 24/7 assistance. This girl has had at least one abortion before, and we are now aware of past drug abuse.

All tests show the baby to be healthy. My son does not feel that either of them could offer this child a good life, and he would like to pursue open adoption. The ex-girlfriend, however, is adamant that friends and family will help her raise the baby. I am beside myself with concern for my son and his unborn child. What is our next step? -- A Concerned Mother

Dear Mother: You cannot force the ex to give up the baby for adoption, even if it would be in everyone's best interests. Your son will be obligated to pay child support, like it or not. He doesn't have to marry the ex-girlfriend or assist in her care, but we hope he will take an interest in his child. Please have your son seek legal counsel to iron out the details about support payments and visitation, and put them in writing.

--------------

RA is NOT genetic. I gave birth to and raised three kids after having it.  And two perfectly healthy people can give birth to a "defective" child. Happens all the time. It's a crap shoot!

This is a case of an overprotective mother trying to protect her ADULT son from taking responsibility for what he did instead of teaching him to be a MAN!  I love that the ex is all kinds of bad NOW, but she was good enough for him to impregnate!

Call for federal inquiry into forced adoptions

Posted Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:49am AEDT

A group of mothers who gave up their babies gather at parliament to hear a formal apology (Marcus Alborn)

The WA Labor MP David Templeman is calling for a federal inquiry into the forced adoption practices of last century.

The West Australian parliament yesterday formally apologised to the women who were pressured to adopt out their babies between the 1940s and 1980s.

It is the first state in Australia to say sorry for the practice.

David Templeman was one of the architects of the apology and says the next step should be a national inquiry.

"These practices and policies of adoption took place across the country and to really make sure that we lift a lid on this issue and to make sure we get to the real truth, the real stories, we need a national inquiry, and there should be a national apology in the federal parliament," he said.

The Greens MP Alison Xamon has told parliament her colleagues will introduce a motion in Federal Parliament next week for a national inquiry and an apology to the women.

"I hope that WA's example is just the beginning," she said.

"I'm aware that there were women from around Australia who flew over here to hear the apology who were desperate to have the role of their own state governments and departments and churches admitted and acknowledged."

Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy

While at the recent St. Johns conference, I got to see the film, Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy. It is a difficult to watch - for me and many others who reviewed it. Stephanie Wang-Breal is the filmmaker of this co-production of American Documentary/POV and the Diverse Voices Project, presented in association with the Center for Asian American Media, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that follows a Long Island family, the Sadowskys as they adopt an 8-year-old girl from China.

 

The description asks: What is it like to be torn from your Chinese foster family, put on a plane with strangers and wake up in a new country, family and culture?  

Unlike other films I have seen where the family brings home a baby, Wo Ai Ni is unique and Wang-Breal does an excellently insightful job as film maker and at times interpreter thus allowing viewers a first ever glimpse into what this experience is like  from the child's perspective, as well as that of her new family. 

Fang Sui Yong is 8-years old as she is made to leave her loving foster family (Mom, Dad and sister) she had lived with for four years, to be taken of by total strangers.  Her journey to America begins with Donna Sadwosky counting out a pile of crisp, brandy new $100 US dollar bills: $3000 in all - the standard "donation" to the orphanmage.

Having never even seen a non-Chinese before, the petrified child is immediately instructed: "This is your Mommy. Tell your Mommy you love her."

Her trauma is palpable as she is expected to accept this stranger immediately as "Mommy." 

She is then forced to suddenly and immediately be immersed in total English language.

It was very painful for me to watch. It felt to me like abuse.

I went online to see how it was reviewed by adoptive parents and others. I suspected that some would see the end justifying it all. I was pleasantly surprised that adoptive parents experienced it, to some extent, as I did.

CreatingAFamily.org writes:

The focus of Wang-Breal’s documentary was on the transformation of Fang Sui Yong to Faith Sadowsky and the resultant losses and gains.  I think she did a masterful job portraying the difficulties of incorporating an older child into the family without a common language.  By the time a child is four or five, we mostly parent through language, and the child mostly interacts with their environment and parents through language.  Without a common language, we have to revert to an earlier way of parenting, and the child has to revert to a younger form of behavior.  It is awkward for both parent and child.  This film captured that awkwardness well. ...when Faith has been in the country for 8 months, Donna Sadowsky takes pleasure in recounting a phone conversation between Faith and her Guangzhou Mommy and Mei Mei (foster mother and sister). Faith can no longer speak Chinese very well, and ends the conversation saying, “I don’t like Guangzhou Mei Mei. I like Darah! Darah is my sister!” Donna is so incredibly pleased, and all I could think was, “Wow. How selfish can you really get?”

I, as well as most viewers I’m sure, cringed at the scenes of Donna reviewing English flashcards over and over with Faith while still in China.  Faith quickly bores with repeating the names of strange foods (hamburger, salad, bagel).  Donna, no doubt feeling anxious about the lack of a common language and wanting to speed the process of being able to communicate, gets irritable.  I so wanted to take her aside and tell her that these early days together could be much better spent just enjoying and getting to know her daughter through shared experiences. 

Irritable? When the child laid back on the bed refusing to participate, Donna repeatedly admonishes her,  demanding "Sit Up!"  Later, she rejects the idea of hiring a translator because she fears Faith will “use it as a crutch” and while none are capture don film, she claims Faith has really bad “hissy fits” when she doesn't get what she wants. Donna interprets all of her daughter's behavior as lazy, selfish and stubborn - instead of sad, grieving and dealing with great loss and lost of stress to assimilate and be what they demand her to be. If she felt or showed any compassion, it was not included in the final version of the film.

ChinaAdoptionTalk writes:

When Faith, on day 3, threw herself on the bed saying she didn't want to learn English because it was too hard, instead of offering sympathy, the mom kept insisting, "Faith, sit up.  Faith, sit up!"  Who even knows if Faith understood that her mom wanted her to sit up! ....I thought the film really showed the worst part of adoption -- the expectation that the CHILD would do all the changing.  She was the only one who had the responsibility of learning a new language so that there could be communication between her and the rest of the family.  Her struggle to comply seemed emblematic of the larger identity struggle going on -- it wasn't just about language, it was the  "process" of becoming American instead of Chinese, of becoming Faith instead of Fang Sui Yong, of becoming a Sandusky instead of a child of "Guangzhou MaMa & BaBa"...It seems that Faith is the only one expected to work to create a relationship.

Yet, Donna, the adopting mother, arrives back from 10 days in China and the first thing she says at the airport is how good it is to hear English again, while forcing this child to learn English from DAY ONE in the hotel in China.  Within weeks Donna uses long English words and  sentences in response to her daughter's sulking: "I cannot help you if you cannot communicate to me what it is you want!" It was excruciatingly painful to watch.

As shocking at is to see, it is more shocking to me that the post doc interview with Donna indicates she was pleased with the film's Mommy Dearest portrayal of her!  She did not try to say that it painted her in a bad light or that there were lots of hugs not filmed.

Does it not feel the same to the child no matter who is doing the pulling away and the tearing from the known to the unknown? Watching it played out in the film was like witnessing a kidnapping...with the kidnappers sometimes dying the child's hair and changing their appearance...only in this case it was the language that was changed to make her "American."

 

TransracialAdoptions.com writes:

I definitely think that adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents should see this film. Most of what the Sadowskys did could probably be put in the “What Not To Do When You Adopt a Child From Another Country” bucket. However, they truly do love Faith.

The one right thing Donna does right is allow Faith to have contact with her foster family, both in China before they leave, and via the Internet once in America. However, Donna's delight when Faith says - after 8 months - that she hates her foster sister and loves, instead, her new sister made it obvious to me that Donna's love was conditional upon this and faith was performing as she felt she had to to not be rejected yet again.  She preformed for them; became what they needed and wanted her to be.

The film culminates when, after 18 months her transformation is complete and she can no longer communicate with her foster sister at all because she lacks can no longer speak Chinese. Her foster sister cries, and I think back to the scene of the two dancing together in choreographed unison. The film maker sees this as a success.   The child is asked if she is Chinese or American and she, of course, says she is American and tells her foster family that she is Jewish and celebrates Chanukah, not Christmas.

Success? I could not help but have a vision of prisoners of war being taped admitting to crimes and  denouncing their homeland .  Beaten into submission (not that I am suggesting any physical abuse was used here). Brainwashed.  That too is success depending on whether you are jailer or prisoner. 

What I find most amazing is how in contested adoption - such as these current cases involving Grayson Wyrembek, Noah Lentz, and Perri Moquin.  we hear outcries NOT to tear the child from "the only [unrelated stranger foster] family they have ever known" and yet we do it all the time to children identified as "orphans" and praise it!!


I cannot help but wonder why she - or any other orphan - couldn't have stayed in China and find it hard to buy the explanation that her club foot and twisted wrist would have held her back in terms of discrimination and employment. Perhaps so. It is still all a trade-off....and all the work was put on this child, 

ThirdMom agrees, calling Donna S. "authoritarian" and "stern" she writes:

Why, for the love of God, was it necessary to take this child of eight from everything she knew? Wasn’t there in all of humanity someone who could have said Wait, there’s another way!?...
Was this family prepared in any objective, substantive way to parent an eight-year-old child from another culture, race and language?....
...the emotions that have stayed with me are resignation and frustration: resignation to a process that just doesn’t seem able to get it right, and frustration that in spite of all the information that is available in books and on the internet and from organizations and individuals, adoptions continue to take place with their focus on the adoptive parents and little concern for this children who lose so much in the process.

This film has an important place in adoption: as a nagative model. What NOT to do!


Update on adoptions from China 6/16/11:
Adoption 'donations' encourage crime


See also:


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\06\12\story_12-6-2011_pg11_3

http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/10/6617979-chinese-babies-sold-for-adoption-in-the-us

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/05/chinese-babies-confiscated-for-overseas-adoption/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adoption-stories/200909/la-times-chinese-babies-stolen-foreign-adoption

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/5824/

http://ouradopt.com/adoption-blog/jan-2009/juliafuller/was-baby-you-adopted-china-stolen-or-purchased

Pain of adoption still raw, for mothers and children

Katherine Fenech, WAToday.com.au

October 18, 2010 - 8:53AM

Adoption carries some scars that never heal.

When Julie found out she was pregnant at 18 she was so afraid of the consequences she left WA, went East, and ended up hitch hiking from Sydney to Queensland to have her illegitimate child.
Julie, who did not want her surname published because her own mother still fears the stigma attached to unwed mothers, was one of thousands of women forced to give up their children through aggressive adoption practices in public hospitals between the 1940s and early 1980s.

When the West Australian government tomorrow becomes the first in the nation to apologise to generations of single mothers who were stopped from seeing, touching or naming their babies immediately after they were born, Julie will be in State Parliament.

The women were also asked to sign adoption papers earlier than five days after they gave birth. The practices were illegal under the Adoption of Children Act, but were widespread at public hospitals across the country.

Fearful of her strict parents, Julie fled WA for Sydney when she realised she was pregnant. She worked to save enough money to survive and go to hospital to have her child.
Utterly alone and without any support, she hitched rides across the Queensland border and had her first and only child there.

As soon as Monique was born, Julie said nurses swooped and took the little girl away. They met her inquiries about her daughter’s well-being with terse replies.

After days of consistent pressure from nurses, Julie relinquished her right to take her daughter home, signing adoption papers in exchange for a chance to glimpse Monique for the first time before giving her away.

"I was too scared to come home because I just felt the shame on my family, and my father had been very strict," Julie said.

"I thought I wouldn't be welcome anywhere."

Even her first look at Monique didn't allow for any bonding. She was encased in a plastic crib so her mother couldn't touch her.

"I went and sat outside by myself and cried for a little while and then I just went and got my things and left," she said.

"I can’t say exactly how my life would have been had I not fallen pregnant and gone through the pregnancy on my own at 18 with no support.

"I’ve never had any other children, I didn't marry until after my daughter had found me and I guess I just didn't feel I had a right to marriage and more children so it's been quite a journey to come to terms with it all."

Julie, now 57, guarded her secret closely until her 40th birthday, when a friend told her it would be a shame if she never had children.

"After a few of those conversations I said 'I’ve had a child' and within a month my daughter found me and I didn't think I should keep this a secret any more," she said.

"I went to tell my mother but my father had died a few years before. My mother said 'I wonder what she looks like?' and then said 'I don't think anyone needs to know about this'."

Julie and Monique's reconciliation was fraught and their relationship was initially a rocky one. Monique, who lives in northern NSW, had a son of her own at 14 and could not comprehend how a loving mother could give up her child.

"Abandonment is a very big thing and (adopted children) never grow up having themselves reflected back in the people around them," she said.

"We've had quite a journey my daughter and I. It's taken 17 years. She was very angry and just couldn't understand, and I was reacting with my own guilt and shame."

A daughter’s story

Work is the only thing stopping Samantha Tarling from travelling the 1000 kilometres between Wiluna and Perth to see Premier Colin Barnett move the apology motion.

"It has occurred to me how powerful it will be and how much it will mean to me," Ms Tarling said.
"That someone is saying 'we acknowledge your pain and hurt through the separation'."

Ms Tarling's unwed mother gave her daughter to a Port Hedland couple who thought they couldn't have children, after she found herself six months pregnant and working as a barmaid at the local hotel.
Her mother had already had a child, which was being looked after by her parents, when a doctor sent her on holiday to stave off depression. It was during that holiday that she became pregnant with Ms Tarling.

"I was told when I was eight years old that I was adopted and that just blew my whole world apart," she said.

"There was such a closeness between me and my adoptive parents, but the very substance of my identity and my life had been messed with."

The couple later went on to have two children of their own and Ms Tarling, 44, said that while she had a good upbringing and felt loved, there was still the "open wound of my relinquishment".

"My life's been really screwed up by adoption, by relinquishment of my birth mother, but I look at my birth family now and I think my life could have been as equally screwed up there," she said.

"I met my birth mother for the first time at 18 and it just opened up a wound. It was a real hollow in my life and a whole can of worms came out."

Ms Tarling said she felt angry that her mother, who lives in Queensland, didn't seem to be carrying any scars from the adoption.

"I had real issues with trusting the universe, trusting people and being in relationships because my first cellular memory is that the very person who loves you will leave you," she said.

It took a lot of hard work and two decades of lost contact before they could begin to heal the relationship. They now they speak regularly.

"The bottom line is that it’s about the crime of separating a mother and her child and the social behaviours of those days."

Article and comments here.

Michel Pollard, 13, Jailed for Poisoning Adoptive Mom

Beyond the Headlines; Update on My Previous Post

Janet Tinoco, 50, told  Orlando detectives that she recently learned that Michel Pollard, whom she had adopted from Mexico, was placing insecticide in her food.


The adopted mother, Tinoco said that over the past year her health had deteriorated and she learned recently from doctors that traces of arsenic were found in her blood.  Pollard later confessed during a therapy to putting insecticide in Tinoco’s food.


Pollard, who attends Good Shepherd Catholic School and is in 7th grade,  was placed in a secure juvenile facility on August 13.


Tinoco said tests were being done on her other two biological children to determine whether or not they too were poisoned.

Is anyone upset that her other two kids are identified as being her biological children?

I wonder how long ago she adopted the girl; how old was the child when adopted? Neighbors said they adopted her "years back" and "even sent her to private school." Catholic School according to the report I read.

I wonder why they have different last names?

And, FOX News reports: "If a charge is brought against the girl, it likely would be for felony poisoning. Because she is adopted, she can not be deported." !

Was this child torn from "the only family she has ever known"...a fact we only seem to bemoan as a society when they are being taken from unrelated strangers to their natural parents but never in reverse!

My heart is with this Mexican child until we learn the details. A child doesn't do harm like this for no reason...and why did the mother make a police issue of it and not just a matter for family therapy and help for the child?? 
 

GEAR UP for NOVEMBER ACTIVISM!

It's coming....November: National Adoption Month...

GEAR UP NOW!! Shirts! Tote bags! Coffee Cups!

Pick your item; pick your logo...or choose a shirt with one on the front and another design on the back!

Get them here!

What Does Adoption Have to Do With Poisoning Your Mom?

The headlines read:

• "Police: Girl Tried to Poison Adoptive Family With Bug Spray" 

• "A 13-year-old girl is accused of poisoning her adoptive family in the Orlando, Florida area."

And just as with the insane uproar over the fictional movie, Orphan, the PCAPs (Politically Correct Adoption Parent/Police) are at it again complaining against a distinction identifying a child as adopted!

One absurd CafeMom blogger points out that it is 2010, after all!  This bugged-out blogger writes: "We get it. She was adopted. Which means the people she tried to poison are her family. Not her adoptive family."

No.  They are her adoptive family, NOT her real, natural family that she was born into.  The law and biology say so!  You don't have to believe in evolution or in God to believe that fact.

It's the huge, enormous, large tusked elephant in the room.

And a girl of 13 KNOWS IT! She knows it every day of her life when she looks into a mirror and when she looks into the face of the stranger she is told to call Mommy.  She knows it when she learns about procreation and when her class does a family tree assignment. She may also know it when she is teased at school, or told by "cousins" that she is not related, which many adoptees are made to endure, albeit silently

And yes, it is 2010 when the majority of non-relative, non step-parent adoptions are inter-country and a majority of those are inter-racial as well -- making it pretty darn obvious to one and all that adoption played a role in the formation of this newly re-constructed family unit!  It's no secret, nor should it be.

David Kirschner wrote a BRILLIANT article in the Fall 20110 Bastard Quarterly, reviewing the DVD of Orphan. In it he gets to the root of this fau-phobia or faubia about revealing the truth of one's adopted status when it is not in a way that flatters or nobilizes the adopters for rescuing a wretched unwanted street urchin...and of course that real reason is that it dents the flow of kids and thus cuts into the livelihoods of those who depend upon the redistribution of kids for fun and profit!

Yes, it's the adoptive parents who are screaming in protest...but that is because they are vested in justifying their roles in perpetuating the demand that creates the supply and the corruption, coercion and exploitation it takes to keep up the supply. When one adopts they seem to automatically gain membership into the choir and as part of the price they must pay, they must sing out loudly in praise and become door-knocking, blog writing evangelic proselytizers for the joys of adoption, Hallelujah, brother...pass the tambourine and the collection plate!

The choir leader and papal head of the religious zealousness, no other than the NCFA.  The church of REBIRTH through adoption - with actual birth certificates to prove it!

So much a part of adoption is this flag waving and drum beating that adoptive parents who speak out against any aspect of adoption...who dare to claim the King has no clothes - are ostracized and called bad parents!  It's a sacrilege, after all.

At the recent conference at St. Johns University in NY, David Smolin was one of the keynote speakers. he described how he had and wife discovered that the sisters they adopted from India to add to their already large family, had questionable beginnings. It was alleged that they were stolen from their mother. When the girls learned enough English they told the Smolins that they were told by the orphanage never to reveal the truth.

The Smolins went back to their very reputable state-side agency for answers and were blocked every step of the way. The mother who had allegedly been available to sign final papers just three months prior suddenly became unable to be found! And the Smolins were told the truth didn't matter. It was their job to help their daughters cope with what was and their continued pursuit of their biological family indicated their lack of commitment to parent the girls! They were bad parents for seeking the truth!

The message is clear: lies are to be protected and the truth kept secret in the upside down backwards world of adoption. the truth is only to be revealed at the behest of the adopters - as EVERYTHING in adoption is under THEIR total control and caters to them and their wishes. When it is in their favor to reveal it, when it makes them shine in the light of nobility as saviors...Hallelujah and Amen...let's BRAG to everyone that these are our ADOPTED children!

At the same recent conference Adam Pertman (EBDAI) led a panel discussion on adoption in the media and this very subject was discussed: When is it appropriate to reveal a person's adoption status in a news article and when is it as insignificant - or even in poor taste - as revealing one's race?


The answer was very simple: When it is germane to the story.

A very young girl attempting to kill her mother is not a common occurrence. It's news. The fact that the mother is not her biological mother, or that the child may have a "checkered" or troubled background (i.e. multiple foster care placements) prior to being adopted is likewise quite relevant to the story! or, she may, after all, have "bad blood"!  Inquiring minds want to know, and hopefully further new reports might even reveal some more juicy details.

Shook-up CafeMom blogger wants us to know that biologically related children kill their parents. Yes, it even has a name: parenticide. But it is also true that there are a disproportionate number of adoptees who have committed these types of crimes. David Kirschner knows this all too well as he has been involved in the trials and or sentencing phase of many of such cases, explaining the role of adopted child syndrome as a causal factor, as a history of spousal abuse is a factor in some spousal murders.   Also making it relevant.

Dr Herbert Weider, a psychiatrist: "The traditional blood-kin family is composed of one mother, one father, and their child or children. The adoptive family is composed of two mothers, two fathers and a child common to them. Although society, and to some extent adoptive parents, would like to pre-tend that it is exactly like a traditional family, it is the differences that are extremely significant in each member's life. [emphasis added]"

Weider was speaking about it being important the importance of the difference being recognized within the family. However, when a crime takes place, when one is identified as a suspect or us charged with a crime...the ever shrinking post Internet "private" becomes public.

It is germane to a news story when an abused, tortured or murdered child is a step child or an adopted child of the abuser. Familial connections are important!

The answer lies right in the question: What Does Adoption Have to Do With Poisoning Your Mom? Everything. It is part of their relation to one another as much as the fact they are mother and child. If a husband kills his wife, is it relevant that they were just married a week ago? If a wide murders or attempts to murder her husband, is it relevant that she was a mail order bride?

Adoption, adoptees, adoptive parents are not subject to, nor do they need or want,  special rules that apply just to them Adoption is NOT sacrosanct! Let's stop infanticizing all the parties and "protecting" them from the truth and their reality.

Defining Ethics in Child Adoption Practice

 Click image or here. Then click image again.

It was well received by a small audience, mostly professionals.

Kevin Cohen: NY Adoption (Scamming) Attorney on Trial

Jailed Attorney Charged with Assualting Guard

Kevin Cohen, who I first reported about here, a jailed Long Island attorney is currently on trial for allegedly stealing at least $300,000 from clients who had hired him to help them arrange adoptions was charged last week with assaulting a corrections officer after the officer told the lawyer to stop hogging the only copying machine in the law library.

Cohen of Roslyn was charged with second-degree assault, a Class D felony, and obstructing governmental administration, a Class A misdemeanor, in connection with the incident on Sept. 24 at the Nassau County Correctional Facility at East Meadow. He pleaded not guilty to the charges for which he could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison. Bail was set at $30,000.

Michael Adams, the president of Nassau County Sheriff's Officers Association, said Cohen had been using the copying machine for a while and other inmates were waiting. When the officer told Cohen that he would have to step aside and give the others their turn, the two had words, and the attorney attacked the guard, Adams said. The officer sustained bruised ribs, but he is already back at work.

Cohen was restrained, but he was not injured.

Cohen has been in jail since Sept. 29, 2009, when he failed to make $500,000 bail after being arrested on 69 counts tied to schemes to scam 13 families for whom he allegedly promised to help facilitate adoptions. Jury selection is scheduled to begin today in his trial before Supreme Court Justice William C. Donnino.

Cohen plans to represent himself, as he did at his arraignment in the assault case, the Nassau County district attorney's office reported. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge. Efforts to negotiate a plea bargain were unsuccessful, and the district attorney plans to seek consecutive sentences.

One defrauded plaintiff, Brigid Vogt, of Long Island, said Cohen had given her a sonogram of the baby she and her husband were promised.

"I was carrying it around with me," Vogt told PIX News. "I was kissing it...I thought this way going to be my baby."

I encourage you to to read details here.  It seems clear to me that Mr. Cohen is yet another very troubled adoptee who is bent on getting back at what was done to him by making a mockery of what adoption has become: vultures paying money, hoping mothers do not "change their mind" but give them what they have paid as much as $60,000 for!

I have confirmed fisrt hand by those who knew his now deceased adoptive parents, that his adopton is perhaps one thing he told these people that was true. It also confirms that his actions say a lot about what he thinks of adoption and those who adopt!

Be AWARE of the TRUTH of Adoption

November is Adoption Awareness Month.  It seems a fitting time for all in the adoption community with blogs to post the REALITIES.

In your own words, as an adoptee, adoptive parent or mother of a child she was convinced to relinquish...TELL IT LIKE IT IS!

** All during the month of November use your blog and write letters to the editors of your local newspapers sharing YOUR TRUTH about adoption. Help combat the industries push to promote unnecessary family separations, and more pain and loss! Help stop commodifying children to meet a demand and fatten the pockets of baby brokers and child traffickers! Help STOP THE INSANITY and support Family Preservation. And help restore EQUAL... ACCESS for adoption separated people who are discriminated against! Stop falsified birth certificates!

It's a mockery for the U.SA, to declare National Adoption Awareness Month when those of us living with adoption are DENIED any awareness of our own truth!! When we are forced to live in the dark, shrouded by secrets and lies, "protected" from one another.

RAISE YOUR VOICES as the TRUE EXPERTS: those who live with adoption...those whose lives have been changed irrevocably by it; victims of a bizarre human experiment promoted by a lucrative industry.

** Head your blog post with the words "Truth in Adoption" and use that phrase as a keyword.

** Send links to your blog posts and published letters so we can all cross post!

Lots of blogging will get the media's attention!

A wonderful blog from last year: http://www.mantlethought.org/content/are-you-aware

* * * * IN ADDITION: * * * * Organize IN-PERSON DEMONSTRATIONS at your state building, or local NOW or ACLU, or the NCFA Hdqrtrs - anywhere locally appropriate ON NOVEMBER 20 - National Adoption DAY! She details here! And be sure to send out PRESS RELEASES for your event.  Attract the media. !! Do street theater. Wear costumes. Come in chains.

** ALSO: Sponsor an Awareness of Truth in Adoption night at your local library! Compile a list of suggested books and ask the library to have as many as possible on hand. Compile information sheets listing website and places to access the TRUTH. See http://AdoptionResourceCenter.org/

FORWARD MESSAGE WIDELY!!!  SPREAD THE WORD!!! 

If enough of us participate it will generate media attention.

Stay in the loop on all related events and to share your links via Facebook.

WIN FOR GRAYSON & BEN!!

Late Breaking News: "The Vaughns have signed new papers agreeing to give Grayson Wyrembek back to his father, Benjamin Wyrembek, by the end of the month, never to see him again, and to drop all further resistance to the law and justice and to stop trying to take this child from his Ohio family.

Pray it's true and conformed shortly...

REPORTED: October 8, 2010 at 10:46 PM

(WHAS11)  Unwilling to surrender in their fight to adopt the boy they have raised since he was an infant, a Southern Indiana couple may never see three-year-old Grayson Vaughn again after the end of October. 

What a choice for the Vaughns on Friday behind closed doors in a judge’s chambers.  As described by Ed Vaughn, Jason’s father, they are risking never seeing Grayson again in order to hold on to whatever chance they might have to become his adoptive parents.

So Friday, there was another setback for the Southern Indiana couple; Ed Vaughn told us mediation had failed.   The court wanted to make mediation contingent on the Vaughn’s dropping the adoption; they refused.

Speaking by phone from Toledo, where Grayson is in extended visits with his biological father, Ed Vaughn said they threatened to take Grayson if they didn’t agree to the terms and they would take him today.  “I’ve never seen judges threaten to take people’s kids if they don’t do what they’re told, and have them sign mediated agreements where they have to sign that they weren’t coerced.  You know, it feels to me like North Korea, or some communist country.   We’re all relieved right now.  We’re all relieved that we get to leave here this weekend with Grayson,” said Ed Vaughn.

Ed Vaughn told us it would not be surprising if Grayson had to stay in Ohio.  Another hearing was held late Friday afternoon, but there had been no word yet on what happened in that court proceeding.
  
UNCONFIRMED: The judge had both sides in his chambers. Ben Wyrembek offered the Vaughns visitation of Grayson and to still see him sometimes (similiar to Grandparents right).  They said they wanted all or nothing.  So the judge said there will be a transition period.  Ben will have Grayson on the weekends and the Vaughns during the week days and at the end of the month Grayson will be with his dad solely.