Muy Triste

“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is a very simple and effective one: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge” - Elbert Hubbard

In the State of Georgia and probably many other states it is a misdemeanor for a biological parent to willfully and voluntarily abandon their child. It is a felony if they abandon that child and leave the state.

Yet, in places like Hong Kong, or others, adoptive parents can “disrupt” their adoption and return a child they no longer wish to parent.

WTF? 

Yes, this story has continued to bug me. I have heard of these stories before. I even know of two adoptees who were purchased from the Kurtz agencies that were returned to their adopted States. I have heard it before yet I don’t know why this one is particularly grating to me but it is. 

In my opinion the instant the adoptive parents turned their adoptive daughter over to someone (who?) and said “We don’t want her anymore” they should have been arrested and charged with child abandonment. The fact that they weren’t, the fact that they were allowed to do this sends a very bad message.

By no means do I want to dismiss the horror that poor young girl is living, but I cannot help but think about how many more children – in the future – this will happen to.

Why do we find this acceptable? When we do we stop the insanity? We all gasp and wince and post on our blogs and carry on but when does someone, anyone, DO something about this?

Guh. I feel so helpless.

I suspect what bothers me even more – on a personal level – is that this could have been my daughter. I never even knew this could be possible. It never occurred to my naïve 17 yo pregnant, locked away, self, that adoptive parents would ever ponder this let alone be permitted by law to actually do it.

Oh, how easy it is for the American adoptive parents to dismiss this horror with their statements like “Well, that doesn’t happen HERE.” Or “Well, I would never have done that” therefore the horror doesn’t exist. 

Get out of your bubble. Your ignorance and denial does not erase the fact that it does exist. It exists for that seven year old girl and will continue to be a risk for all future adopted children.

Please, dear somebody’s God, at least make agencies inform expectant mothers that their children can be given away AGAIN without their knowledge and not back to them.

Tell mothers like me that adoption is not a permanent solution to a temporary situation. Tell us it is only as long as the prospective adopters want it to be.

Tell us that our children can be thrown away at any time, for any reason, should the adoptive parents decide they no longer want our child. Tell us that if our child isn’t thin enough, smart enough, assimilated quick enough or well behaved that our child may be discarded like yesterdays trash. Tell us that bio chilldren frequently come after adoption and those bio children are sometimes deemed more valuable than the adopted children.

Maybe if agencies started telling expectant mothers the truth – the positives and serious negatives of adoption, more mothers would realize the best thing they can give their child is themselves. The only way to truly know if your child is better off – or not – is to keep your child with you.

My heart aches for that little girl and for her first mother – wherever they may be.

I feel sad yet I find myself equally perplexed. Perplexed state to be discussed in a seperate post.

Comments

[Libby]

I cannot stop thinking about this story. To compound everything else, they never got her Dutch citizenship - so she is in limbo there as well. She is still legally a Korean citizen, although she hasn't resided there since she was 4 months old, and speaks English and Cantonese. How could they do that to her on top of everything else? I have tried to think of why they would do this to her - the only thing I can think of is that perhaps they feel that she is a danger to their younger children? I have no idea, of course, but she's 8 years old and has lost the only family she's ever (consciously) known, as well as her first family, of course. It makes me cry, the whole thing.

[joyceregina]

You are darn right! We all have reason to be afraid, be very terrified. How many other children are out there abused, frightened and unloved.

Its like crying all over again, forced to believe I could not have taken care of my child and therefore someone was better off than I to offer a better life.

It is said there is nothing deeper than a Mother's love. It is the nature of things, this adoption is not.

Comparitively the supermarket, pick the shiny apples, discard the bruised ones.

I am sick. Sick to think that an abused woman could also be forced by her husband to adopt a child that he wants. She may not want any child! I guess thats another post.

[Theresa]

I hate the word disrupt. It sounds so polite and sanitary. 'Oh, excuse me for disrupting.'

[Judy]

1. I agree with you.
2. It happens here. I was utterly appalled this past summer when I saw "ads" in a regional newspaper showing children who were up for "readoption" -- kids whose adoptions had been disrupted. And to advertise them, no less. Disgusting!!

It all breaks my heart for the kids.

[Cath]

Just terrible - it beggars belief.

[Denise Roessle]

Indeed, aparents who "give back" a child should be just as culpable as natural parents who abandon one. This is truly criminal, so sad and infuriating. Goes to show, once again, that adoption isn't about the children, but meeting infertile couples needs. (Oh, until they don't the child doesn't meet their needs anymore!)

I'm among the mothers who learned in reunion that my son was abandoned by his aparents once he became too much to handle, at 13. They tried to have him institutionalized as insane, and when that didn't work put him into the state's custody (Person In Need of Supervision), claiming that they could no longer control or be responsible for him.

Hell yes, mothers need to know that adoptions don't always work out, that their child could end up without a family at all. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, why isn't the natural mother/family contacted when something like this happens. As difficult as it might have been -- me newly married, my son a rebelious teenager -- I would have done just about anything to have him back.

[Mo]

I am so complete devastate learning that anything like this could and has happen, I am not at a loss for words, I just do not have nice ones to post here. And I agree, these people SHOULD be arrested - how F'N dare they!!!! That poor little child, she must be so confused, scared and lost. My heart aches for her.
Mo