Grandparent Adoptions

Discussed here recently (An Opportunity to Educate) was a letter from a grandmother raising her grandchild who thought whistfully that adoption - by non-related strangers - would have been a more suitable or beneficial arrangemet that raising the chidl within the fmaily.

Sandy Musser, who was recenty honored on this blog and who has been raising her now 6-year-old great-grandson since birth wrote to the above-mentioned grandma:

"I'm a 72 year old great grandmother raising my 6 year old great grandson who I've had since birth. Having a lost a child to adoption when I was 15 (in 1954), I never wanted to have another child missing from our family. My 24 year old granddaughter became pregnant and was an addict. I thought the baby would change her life, but it didn't -- at that time. I stepped up to the plate and took the responsibility. I have never regretted my decision and actually consider it an honor to have positive input into this child's life. He knows that he is loved by all his family members and that this is the clan he was born into, the one to which he belongs, and the one that cared enough to pull together for his benefit. He will never have to wonder "why was I given away?" Adoption is not always what it's cracked up to be and every child wonders at some point in their life - "why wasn't there someone in my birth family who cared enough to keep me." And I that's certainly a fair question. Adoption is always a permanent problem to a temporary problem. As for me and my house, we will keep our childlren, raise them and be responsible for them."

Now comes an interesting decsion in Korea on the subject from the The Korea Herald/Asia News Network:

Adoption of grandchild to help daughter's marriage blocked 

A couple's attempt to adopt their granddaughter to pave the way for their daughter's marriage was barred by the Supreme Court on Sunday.

The confusion the child will undergo after the adoption is graver issue than whether her biological mother has a smooth marriage procedure, Justice Min Young-il said in upholding a lower court's decision.

The ruling is expected to set standards for the adoption of blood relatives, which became increasingly popular after a law was enforced in 2008 deleting all past records of biological parents and foster families of the adoptive children.

According to the court file, the couple identified by their family name Lee has been taking care of their 5-year-old granddaughter since 2006, when their daughter and her boyfriend split right after the baby's birth. The cou­ple thought that the child born out of wedlock would be an obstacle for the daughter's future relationship with another man and decided to adopt the child to let the daughter start a new life.

The request was rejected by local and high courts.

Min said the amount of stress caused to the child would be immense.

"Her grandparents will become the parents and her mother will become the sister in no time. When the child learns about the abnormal family relations, she will be shocked. In the case of adoption, the first thing considered is the welfare of the child," he said.

"The plaintiffs have no trouble in raising the granddaughter in the current status and it should be maintained."

How very interesting! A decsion made truly in a child;s best interest and something we would never see here in the West - actually ordering agsint an adoption, especially by family.

The one unknown in this report is the wishes of the mother - or father - of the child,or in this case also the new husband who would bcome the step father. Is this court decsion forcing someone to be a mother who does not want to? From the little I have read of Asian culture, my guess would be that -- not unlike the US in the 50's and 60s -- the "shame" of the out-of-wedlock pregnancy is more tot he grandparents than to the mothers of such children. In China, the same is true for those who have relinquished girls - it was far more to please their mothers than for themselves.  This adoption for face saving is no doubt what has led the court in its widon to draw the assumption that the child might be told that grandma was his mother and cause confusion. This is the difference in the cas eof sandy Mussers raising of her great-grandson with truth.

When we weigh the pros and cons of in-family adoption it must always be with our finger on the deeper question of, would it be done in honesty or deceit.  Better still, remove formal adoption - which is in and of otself a deceitful process that always begins with a flasified birth certificate - and replace it wit a discussion of care, custody, guardianship... The idea that re-writing hitory with an entirely new - and flase - birth certificate is absurd and holds NO PLACE whatsoever in any child's best interets or care decisions. As this court decsion suggests deceit is stressful and whe the truth is discovered, as it almost is eventually, the person who has been betrayed is shocked and justifiably angry.

ALSO of interest in the Korean article is very sad the fact that aparrently adoption records became sealed there as recently as 2008.


 

Family Preservation First Annual Role Model Award

School Nurse Helps Student from Motherhood to College

School nurse Kathleen Hook remembers exactly the day she wanted to bring a student home with her.
Then-11th-grader La'Shay Ester walked into her office crying and holding what looked like a 20-pound calculus book. The 16-year-old was homeless and very pregnant.

Hook had given Ester food, and helped with her prenatal needs.

But it wasn't enough, Hook said. She could see the 5-foot-tall teen was underweight and tired from working 40 hours a week at Burger King while keeping up with school.

Hook, 41, hugged Ester — and broke the traditional barrier between staff and students.
"She just fell apart," Hook said. "She sat down in the chair and she didn't let go."
Hook, who is married with two school-age children, moved Ester to her Eagan house last fall — becoming the girl's legal guardian shortly after Ester gave birth to her son.

With Hook's support, Ester was accepted into St. Catherine University in St. Paul, which she will attend this fall on a need-based scholarship. Ester, now 18, also walked in the Eagan High School graduation this month after completing school early.

Ester said she owes it all to Hook, the school's nurse.

"I wouldn't have made it without her," she said.

It surprised Ester when Hook invited her to move in. It felt "like someone loves me, someone cares," the teen said, with tears running down her cheeks.

Hook's husband, 10-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son supported bringing Ester home. But the reaction at school was different. Some staff even ostracized her at first, she said. "It was mixed, but the only thing that mattered for me was that I had the principal's support," Hook said. Soon, the school community began helping Ester, too.

They donated food, a car seat and other items.

"If she needed something, it would just show up in my office," Hook said.

Today, Ester is a cashier at Sam's Club in Apple Valley. She lives with her son, Santana, at Hook's house but plans to get an apartment soon. She was able to save enough money to buy a car. But she still struggles to help support her mother, brothers and sister with money and rides.

"People say, 'Well, what if this doesn't work out? What if she doesn't show up to college?' " Hook said. "If anything — this kid knows she has someone who cares about her."

Ester's boss described her as a "great example" to others and credited her strength.

"You can see that go-get attitude that's gotten her to this place," said Jennifer Mercil, store manager.

"That's why she's been successful and able to overcome so much, I think."

FROM CHILDHOOD TO MOTHERHOOD
Ester said she never really knew what having a mother was like until she met Hook.

At age 12, Ester moved to Minnesota to be with her biological mother, who left her and her younger brother with relatives eight years earlier in Detroit. Ester's mother became a teen mom at age 14.
Ester requested the Pioneer Press not name her mother in this article. Attempts to reach her mother were unsuccessful.

For a year, Ester lived in St. Paul with her two younger brothers and her mom. In eighth grade, the family moved to Eagan, where she attended Dakota Hills Middle School.

"All I remember is not wanting to move," said Ester. She wanted to continue going to school with her friends, she said.

The move to Minnesota had been difficult enough, she said. Minnesota was a cultural shock for Ester compared to Detroit — a city that is predominately black. The suburbs had even fewer minorities.
"There were a few black people there that talked to me," Ester said.

At home, she said, her mother was more like a "friend" to her than a parent.

"I honestly don't think me and my mom ever got along," she said.

By the summer of ninth grade, Ester's mom had her fourth child. And Ester — who already was taking care of her brothers — worried she would have to parent a baby too, she said.

But two years later, Ester became a teen mom.

"What the heck am I going to do?" she thought.

The baby's father and Ester's mother wanted her to have an abortion, she said. But her great-aunt, who raised her in Detroit, helped persuade her to have the baby.

That's when Hook stepped into her life.

"She was nice," Ester said.

Hook would give Ester crackers and juice when she was hungry in school. She would let Ester lie down in her office if she needed to rest. She even stood up for Ester when she missed a couple days of school because she was fatigued from the pregnancy.

By December of 2008, Ester was four months pregnant, estranged from her family and living with a friend from school, she said.

Hook helped Ester find health insurance, sign up for free school lunch and register for Women, Infants and Children, a federal program offered through the state for low-income pregnant and postpartum women and children who are at a nutritional risk.

Ester gave birth to son Santana on April 28, 2009.

After his birth, she left her friend's house and moved back with her family. But the home was packed with four children, three adults and a baby. Ester struggled to find reliable day care.
She began staying home from school to care for her son, Hook said.

But she managed to earn a B in her contemporary literature class, her teacher Karen Keller said. As a student, she said Ester was quiet, observant and mature.

"She probably would have ended up with an A — had she had more time to do her schoolwork," Keller said. "She just worries about putting the burden on other people."

Hook helped Ester find a Dakota County grant to pay for child care. She also found a day care provider that agreed to watch Santana while the grant was being approved.

Every day, Hook drove Ester to and from the day care and school.

But arguments between Ester and her mother continued.

One night, Ester's mom woke her up at midnight. The two began to argue. Her mother asked her to leave for a while.

Hook said she and Ester had suspected that day would come.

"We were talking about it," Hook said. "When it happens, it happens," she told Ester.

IN TUNE, BUT STIIL A TEEN
Once she moved in with Hook, Ester was hit with more bad news. Her son was diagnosed with severe asthma and several allergies.

He was in and out of the hospital three times during Ester's senior year. The longest stay was for 16 days.

"It was scary for me, as a nurse," Hook said.

Santana uses a nebulizer 30 minutes a day to control his disease, she said. When he has an asthma attack, his treatments can increase to 30 minutes every four hours.

"As a teen parent, she's pretty tuned into him," Hook said.

But although she's mature, Ester is still a teenager.

That was evident when Ester was looking to buy a car, Hook said. The teen wanted to buy a red, two-door Honda Accord Coupe. "What about the car seat?" Hook asked her.

So the two decided on a red, four-door Kia.

They also disagreed on whether Santana would sleep in a portable crib. Hook suggested he sleep in the crib. But Ester insisted on him sleeping with her in bed.

So the crib turned into a giant laundry hamper.

"I had to let stuff go," Hook said. "I thought I would offer solutions and she would just embrace them.

Everything I offer isn't going to be embraced with a smile."

Back at school, Ester didn't meet the attendance requirements or credits to graduate. She appealed the decision to a school committee of teachers, administrators and other staff members, who eventually overturned the decision.

Ester graduated in March, a trimester earlier than her classmates.

LAUNCHING HER FORWARD
The next step for Ester was college, Hook said.

Ester always wanted to go to college, but she saw herself at a two-year school, she said. Hook knew Ester could do more. She pushed her to apply to a four-year university.

"In my mind, that's what moms do, they challenge you," Hook said.

Hook suggested Ester apply to St. Kate's, where she got her degree. Hook e-mailed the admissions office at the university to explain Ester's situation before she applied.

Officials at the all-girls private school immediately wanted to meet Ester.

For the application, she received recommendations from her high school principal, Polly Reikowski, and her economics teacher, Mitchell Snobeck.

Keller helped Ester with an essay about her struggles — a story that was tough to write. "It's awkward to have it out there for other people to see and know about," Keller said.

Ester said she didn't think she would get into college. But she did and plans to study forensic nursing. She also is on a waiting list for family housing on the university's St. Paul campus.

Hook considers herself simply the "launch pad" for Ester.

"What I could offer her is a place to stay," she said. "There must be something in this kid that is inspired for greatness — because we can't all be having the same delusion."

Baby Buying Gone Bad

A retrospective surrogate contract?

Cristiano Ronaldo facing battle with the British mother of his baby over access rights

Footballer (Soccer player)  Cristiano Ronaldo is allegedly coming under pressure from the woman who had his baby - unveiled for the first time as an attractive British student - to give her access to the child.

The 25-year-old former Manchester United player stunned the world last summer by announcing he had become a father.

At the time he said his son would be raised under his 'exclusive guardianship' and it later emerged he had allegedly bought the 20-year-old mother's silence in a £10million deal.

But sources say she now bitterly regrets handing over her baby - said to be the result of a one-night stand after she met the Portuguese superstar in a London nightclub - and regularly phones him saying she has changed her mind and offering to pay the money back.

The woman is understood to be so distressed at her decision that she has become deeply depressed and dropped out of her course.

A clause in the contract drawn up by Ronaldo's lawyers prevents her from discussing the situation with anybody, including her family and friends.

She has explained her sudden wealth on an unexpected windfall.

'She's often calling him late at night. She cried down the phone to him and pleads with him,' a source close to the woman told the Sunday Mirror.

'He shouldn't even be in contact with her but they have got into a twisted sort of routine.
'She even calls him after matches to congratulate him on how he played, hoping that one day she can appeal to his better nature.

'She feels like she has sold her soul. She has this millionaire lifestyle but can never tell her friends and family the truth about what has happened and that makes her feel incredibly lonely.'

A friend of Ronaldo, who moved to Real Madrid for a record £80million in 2009, said: 'As far as he is concerned it was her choice, her decision.'

Ronaldo has apparently said of the woman 'I've only spent time with her naked' - a reference to their single night of passion in a hotel.

After discovering she was pregnant, she contacted him through his agent, Jorge Mendes.

A DNA test was carried out while he was away playing for Portugal in the World Cup in South Africa and he announced he had become a father on Facebook on July 3.

The first proper sighting of the six-month-old, who has curly brown hair and blue eyes, was in the crowd at a Real Madrid game on December 8. He was being carried by Ronaldo's mother Dolores, 55, who is raising the baby with the player's sisters, Elma and Liliana Catia.

A friend added: 'Somehow the child's mother has managed to get in touch with him and is hounding him to see the baby.

'She will tell him about the millionaire's life she is now leading, with trips to exclusive London nightclubs. Her friends think she is a lottery winner and that's exactly how she's been behaving.

'But she is finding out that nothing will take the place of seeing her own child grow up. If they carry on talking like this she will only get more and more hurt.'

Ronaldo won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League while at Manchester Utd and was voted FIFA World Player of the Year in 2008.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1343750/Cristiano-Ronaldo-facing-battle-British-mother-baby-access-rights.html#ixzz1A0af8jl0

2011 Family Preservation Hero of the Year

Scott A. Nordstrom found me online via  blog comment.

He told me that after the death of their daughter, Faith, he and his wife "attended an adoption seminar and [were] pulled in the direction of helping Orphans....my wife and I decided to opt-out of our adoption.  We were approved to proceed and were on the wait list...as we learned more about the need, it became apparent that there was much more to do to serve Orphans that merely getting them adopted one at a time.  Our biggest project to date is the House of Faith Orphanage in Zambia, Africa, where we currently host 38 children and will grow to 72.

"We have resisted to get involved with adoption from our Orphanage.  The Zambian Government makes this somewhat difficult, but in addition, my perspective has changed as it pertains to the children.  They are currently living in their culture, and many have extended family nearby.  In addition, as you have noted, some have one parent –somewhere.  What if the parent put their life back together and wants to share their new circumstances with their children?  This is one reason making it important for the family to know where to find child.  They are being raised in a loving home with a big family (one house-mom and 12 children per home), and to believe that it would be a dramatic improvement to be with a family in the U.S. is difficult to justify for me.  In addition, with the enormous costs of the adoption process, and the costs of the raising the child in the U.S. versus Zambia, so much more can be done with the funds to care for the children in their own communities.....

"GO! is an all volunteer organization, and since our inception we have used less than 3.5% of the total donations received for administrative costs. ... We aren’t profiting financially from caring for Orphans, and have no desire to do so."

Happy Birthday, Sandy Musser: Tribute to an Unsung Hero

Sandy Musser, who celebrates her birthday today, January 3rd, 

is an unsung hero of the adoption reform movement.

Sandy's Facebook bio is a very brief understatement of her life's work. It says merely: "Dedicated to adoption reform since 1976."

Sandy, a mother who lost her firstborn to adoption. is a true martyr and freedom fighter for the cause in way that can only be matched to people like Rosa Parks without exaggeration. She has been referred to as a political prisoner because her major crime was speaking out against an archaic system.

Sandy lost her child to adoption when she was just fifteen years old. Her bio is available at her website, Angelfire.comhttp://www.angelfire.com/fl2/musser/Bio.html.

Sandy was indicted in March 1993 by the federal government and sent to prison for her work of reuniting families. She had reunited over 500 families separated by adoption, divorce, foster care, etc.

Sandy was investigated for 3 1/2 years  before finally being charged with 39 felony counts of "conspiracy to defraud the government of confidential information" because of sealed adoption records. 

Sadly, her two books: To Prison With Love and I Would Have Searched Forever  are out of print. But if you can find a used copy, i highly recommend you do. You will reading some of the proudest and simultaneously the most shameful history of our movement. 

MAY IT NOT BE IN VAIN

Sandy Musser
Political Prisoner #51963-060
Written while in Federal Prison Camp
Marianna, FL - 11/5/93 - 3/3/94

IF MY BEING IN PRISON
enables the masses to understand the
desperate need for adoption reform;

IF MY BEING IN PRISON
brings a fresh awareness of the blatant
discrimination and unconstitutionality
of sealed records;

IF MY BEING IN PRISON
leads adoption triad member to speak out
on their own behalf in a more dynamic way
and arouses them to speak, to act, to paint
or to write passionately about their
tremendous loss of family connections;

IF MY BEING IN PRISON
causes the leadership to question and rethink
their ultimate purpose and goal and how to reach it;

IF MY BEING IN PRISON
starts a fire burning within the hearts & minds
& souls of those committed to this cause;

or

IF MY BEING IN PRISON
simply gives courage to you, my friend ---

THEN MY ININCARCERATION
WILL NOT HAVE BEEN IN VAIN! 

Sandy served four months in federal prison.  She says: "I always said I would go to jail for the cause - so I guess the Feds took me seriously! I just didn't think it was going to go down the way it did - I thought we'd all be laying our bodies down in front the vital stat offices and they'd be hauling all of us off together."

The sad reality is that, to my knowledge, [please see comments] the movement was in such an infancy stage at the time that no one had the courage to stand up for sandy and to publicize and use her arrest as a call to arms. We all - myself included - shied away from it and her for fear or retribution.  I who had likewise been active in search abd reunion at the time was terrified of guilt by association!  In hindsight, we blew a perfect storm opportunity for publicity of the ridiculousness of sealed records!

Sandy should have been hailed as a civil rights activist on the same level as those who helped free slaves through the underground railroad!  We should have been staging protests outside the prison she was held in and press conferences...galvanized by her unjust imprisonment.   Instead, she was, for the most part, ignored and left to serve out her time with little fan fare. it was something we chose to try to ignore and NOT bring light to.  A big mistake, in hindsight, but we were so new at all of this activism and so very afraid. For many of us, living in the shadows of our imposed secrecy, enforced shame and lies, just writing a letter to the editor and signing our real names was a huge step!

With the deaths this past year of BJ Lifton and Annette Baran, Sandy Muser takes on the role as the matriarch of adoption reform and deserves the honro and respect she has never received as the sole person to be imprisoned in the U.S. for helping families reunite. 

Sandy has 12 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren! One of her grandsons, who recently got married, lived with Sandy during his junior and senior year.  And, she has raised her now 6-year-old great-grandson (in both photos) since he was born! 

Happy Birthday, Sandy! 

A Freedom fighter and woman who lives what she believes!!

UPDATE 1/4/11: See comments 


ALSO, please see quote from Sandy on follow-up post about grandparent adoptions here.

Animal Rights

The animal rights movement traces its roots back to the late 18th century and early l9th. Anti cruelty to animals bills were first passed in New York in 1828, Mass. in 1835, and in Connecticut and Wisconsin in 1838.

On on April 10, 1866 Henry Bergh began the ASPCA, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (details here). In the late 1800s, several Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had been established throughout the United States.
 
By 1870 four years later, delegates from 27 humane organizations from 10 states joined together in the first forum where they could combine their strength and unite their missions. It was at this meeting that the American Humane Association was founded,  Today there are animal shelters and political activism of all kinds to raise awareness against factory farming practices, pharmaceutical testing on animals, animal fighting and abuse, and other inhumane acts against our four-legged friends. I have been unable to find membership and budget numbers of the various animal rights organizations. I know it's huge, but if you know exact numbers, please share!

At this time, children were treated as property owned by the parents. Parents, particularly fathers, had great latitude over the treatment and discipline of children. This English common law outlook was carried to the American colonies and incorporated into early laws in the United States.

Eight years after the ASPCA was founded, a young girl - of the humanoid variety - was found tied to a bed like an animal, neglected and brutally beaten by her foster parents. 

In 1874, animals were legally protected from inhumane treatment, children weren't.  Child abuse and neglect was considered a family matter and there was no one to intervene on behalf of the child.

It was until1875, in New York -- with the assistance of Henry Bergh -- the first organized child protective institution in the world: The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) was created. The foster care  system quickly became an overstocked warehouse of allegedly neglected and abused children.  Louise Armstrong reports, based on 1993 reports of the national center on Child Abuse and Neglect, that:

"Neglect" continues to account for twice as many removals (49 percent) as physical abuse (24 percent), three times as many as sexual abuse (14 percent) [although mother's neglect may be the official charge in sexual abuse cases, as may the child's conduct, getting her declared a child in need of supervision.] Something called 'other" [other than medical neglect, emotional maltreatment, or unknown!] accounts for 15 percent.

It wasn't until 1962 with the publication of an article "The Battered-Child Syndrome", by Dr. Henry Kempe in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that attention focused on the cruelty and abuse of children, bringing national attention to the issue.

The article resulted in widespread awareness of child abuse and prompted further public discussion on ways to address the problem. By 1970, every state had enacted laws requiring certain professionals, such as teachers and doctors, to report incidents of suspected child abuse to law enforcement agencies. In 1974, the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (42 U.S.C.A. §§ 5105–5106) became law, authorizing federal funding for states to identify child abuse and to offer protective services for abused children. 

Thus, while animal abuse is a crime, reports of child abuse are not investigated by the police as a criminal matter but rather by Child Protective Services who notoriously  are too quick to remove children for "offenses" such as being nursed "too long" by someone's judgment while failing to act in cases that have resulted in children's deaths.  The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported an estimated 1,740 child abuse fatalities in 2008. This translates to a rate of 2.33 children per 100,000 children in the general population. Many researchers and practitioners believe child fatalities due to abuse and neglect are still under reported.

Killing children has resulted in sentences of 2-1.2 to 18 years. The most notorious child abuse killer. Joel Steinberg was sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison after six years of sexual and physical abuse led to the death of Lisa, a child he illegally "adopted." Steinberg and is a free man after he was paroled under the state's "good time" law after serving just 16 years.

Jacob Lindorff age 5, of Gloucester Twp, New Jersey died of blunt force trauma to head. He also suffered from 2nd degree burns on feet, hemorrhaging in 1 eye; bruises, and seizures. Adoptive mother Heather Lindorff, was found guilty of 2nd degree endangering, aggravated assault and sentenced to 6 years. Adoptive father, James, sentenced to 4 years probation and 400 hours of community service for child abuse. Adoptive mother claimed that the injuries were accidents. Jacob was in the US 6 weeks before his death.

Yet many fight harder to convict those who abuse animals resulting in these sample sentences;

Deshawn Brown  was sentenced in Dallas to four years in prison for stabbing his dog, dousing her with gasoline and setting her afire in April 2006.

Christopher Adam Bagwell was sentenced to the maximum one to five years in prison for breaking into a Florida  home and performing an act of bestiality on the family pet.

I personally know of people who have stated that they are far more passionate about the rights of animals than they are about humans.

Because of my association with some of the most fanatical animal rights activists in my home state, and as a result of my dear friend saying she is far more passionate about the rights of animals than humans. When I replied with some shock, saying: "Really?"! She clarified her position by stating that she believed animals to be more helpless.  My mouth was too agape to ask: What about infants and young children?

This thought sat with me, causing me to construct the following scenarios in my mind:

If my house was burning, I WOULD rush in to try to save my pet (and family photos, if I could!).  If your house were burning with your pet in it, far less eagerly would I risk personal harm to save YOUR pet and if it were a pet store I would shed many tears.

However...if a building were burning and inside were animals and infants and young children, there is absolutely no question in my mind who would get priority. I'd save every single human child before attempting to go back in for one single animal! 

I wonder: Are there animal rights activists who do the reverse??? 

What about the case of an animal attacking a child viciously...  unstoppable without resorting to harming the animal to stop him from killing or permanently mutilating the child?  Would it be justifiable homicide to kill or maim such an animal? For me, there is no question. Even animals fighting one another are often exposed to human harm to be stopped.

One very interesting phenom I have observed - in my very small microcosm of a very unscientific test group: many of the animal rights activists I know personally are childless. Is this, I wonder, intentional because they intentionally chose not to create more environmental impact by further populating the world?  Is there love of animals to such an obsessive degree they substitute and sublimate all parenting "instincts" and desires human children into animals? 

Surely for some who address their pets as "their children" the answer is a huge yes. As it is when you read the obscene amounts of money people spend on their pets. Besides THOUSANDS on veterinary bills for surgeries (some I would not put myself or any other human through) and prosthetic limbs etc... I am talking about the people who buy clothing and strollers, etc for their pets...which in fact be UNKIND and even a form of cruelty to animals in the name of overbearing love!  Of course many of these big spenders are NOT the animal rights activists as most of these big spenders have purchased their pedigree pups from breeders and even supported puppy mills, rather than adopt a homeless animal from a shelter.

But I digress in my wondering if childlessness is the cause or the end result effect of an obsession with animal rights?  And is there a connection at all? Would children's rights seem more important to these same people if they held in their arms a totally helpless newborn infant who relied solely on them for all sustenance and care? I know it changed my life forever in untold ways!!

In any event, I am dismayed at the amount of money and effort expending on animal rights versus child rights, which we simply all assume is a matter for the government.

 

Bottom line is that while I am foremost a human rights activist with a focus on mother, father, child and family rights...I also love animals. I wish some of the animal rights activists would likewise share some concern and try to be a bit more educated on the issues of foster care, adoption, family preservation and child trafficking. Human animals are worth saving, too!  

Learn what the issues are and the proper solutions. Do not simply accept the mass media reports of children needing "saving" by adoption!  Read articles such as The Lie We Love by E.J. Graff and Save the Children? by Patricia Williams. This topic does not have to be your prime focus in order to educate yourself to the simple fact that all adoptions are not equal and most are not altruistic, but rather children being commodified to meet a demand with what is parallel to the puppy mills you work so hard to close.  As with pets being sold and bought while thousands of homeless animals need adopting, so too are tens of thousands being spent PER CHILD for international and domestic INFANT adoptions, while ignoring the kids in foster care and the real orphans!

Unlike animals, human beings suffer on a very deep level being separated from their kin and clan and all who look like them. Thus any such separation should be a last resort!  [See UN quotes under the header of this page.]


Animal lovers are compassionate, caring people. Please join us!! Don't limit your compassion to the needs of four legged creatures. 


UPDATE 1/20.11: Just announced: "Justin Bieber Joins PETA Campaign for Animal Adoption"
And this adds to my frustration. Celebs will publicly support animal rights. They sing song for the poor abused animals while CHILDREN are caged, burnt, beaten, starved and killed....and who is standing up against those abuses??? WHO? 

Who is standing up against those abuses??? WHO? Who speaks for the 16 kids from Russia who were MURDERED by their abusive adopters? Who cares about the kidnapped children - and the families they were taken from, some at gunpoint in Guatemala who are living in the US with adoptive parents and the US won't even do DNA tests to confirm or deny a felony has occurred? But we campaign against animal cruelty. Animal rights came first and they still get far more press coverage and money than child rights. SHAMEFUL, IMHO. 

The Human Ability to Rationalize - Normalize? - the Surreal

It's a romanticized, spiritualized tale of two simultaneously ordered surrogacies made into real life scifi wherein “actually, there is no biological mother” an a newage fairy tale replete with human "carriers" and, the only anonymous party in the story, a "Fairy Goddonor" - had she donated God? - a woman who didn't know if she wanted children, also known as “donor-angel.”  The eggs are as magical as a seeds that when fertilized turn into a bean stalk and carry a boy to a giant's home.

The innocence of a child who asks why don't they get a puppy is shared and tossed off just as is The Handmaid's Tale and the unsettling discovery that many people "disapprove of surrogacy and egg donation." She has the ability to filter all she sees and hears, rejecting all that disagrees with her master plan.

Above all else, it is a self-serving story painting the author as half saint and half the creator of "honesty" while constantly needing to create an entire language to describe the children created in sterile laboratories.

It's the story of a woman who believes that "having children was one of life’s great acts of self-definition" but cannot. A woman too old - 40-something - to be chosen by an expectant mother seeking adoption in a world in which "the widespread use of birth control and abortion, among other factors, has caused the supply of infants available for adoption in the subsequent three decades to plummet to a fraction of what it was" in the 1970s.

“TELL EVERYONE or tell no one,” the director of an egg-donation agency advised me. “If you tell even one person that you used a donor, word will spread. But if it were me, I’d tell no one,” she added. “Look, I run an agency, so it’s in my interest to promote these kinds of families, but to be honest, if I couldn’t have children naturally — God forbid — I wouldn’t want anyone to know!”

They call their creations "Twiblings."

Some will no doubt applaud the choices of this woman and her husband as "brave" (as in Brave New World) and even selfless. She very adeptly paints herself as a courageous warrior on a noble path, providing details intended to yield admiration for being far superior to those who don't face all the weirdness as openly as she is able to...a super woman, able to triumph over fears and insecurities that  most - lesser humans - succumb to.

For myself, it's super creepy tied up with a bow. It has all the obscenity of those with as much disregard for the thousands of homeless pets put to sleep every day as they have money and use it to  clone their pets. Just replace pets with human beings.

For me it is akin to the made public accounts of adopters who terminate adoptions as if bearing their souls will somehow abdicate them from guilt, like adulterous public figures who - after being caught - make public apologies and expect pity and pats on the back for the "courage" of their "honest" revelation.

Taking the analogy further, it brings to mind a pedophile deeply entrenched in his belief that the children he molests love him and want him to do these abhorrent things to them. It is that self-absorbed and out of touch with anyone else's reality, for me.

Full story here.