• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

US family expels adopted kid to Russia

ALiberalModerate

Pragmatist
DP Veteran
Joined
Jun 23, 2005
Messages
32,327
Reaction score
22,548
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Moderate
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRsjyWtUxXA&feature=player_embedded#"]YouTube- Back Home Alone: US family expels adopted kid to Russia[/nomedia]


What kind of people do something like that? This is exactly why adopting should be hard.
 
looks like this topic is more than a little embarrassing to our fellow Americans

seems mommy had grandma drop off the puppy at the shelter for disposal once that puppy had gotten older and was no longer cute. at least she attached a note to it to explain her loss of affection. how touching [/s]

pity this will likely cause many russian orphans to lose out on an opportunity to enjoy a life as an adopted American

my only fault with the russians on this issue was is determining that this American woman was fit to be a parent of one of its children
 
Okay, now I agree that her response wasn't that mature, but it was hardly as evil as the media is portraying it.

She didn't get this kid when he was an infant and decide to "return" him now that he wasn't cute. The adoption occurred fairly recently, with some sort of confirmation from the adoption agency that this kid had no serious mental health issues.

Fast forward through several months of violent, aggressive behavior from the kid, including multiple threats to burn her house down (with pictures) and this woman is scared for her life. While there is probably some sort of legal process she should have followed, the Russian adoption agency should be shouldering most of the blame for this incident, since they adopted out a child without warning the parent of what appears to be severe behavioral issues.

She also arranged for the child to be monitored during the entire trip back. Again, I will state, she could have handled the situation better, but she is hardly some demon mother, unless new facts surface.
 
"return to sender"

a love note from an adoring mother


every kid has issues. some more than others. some worse than others. that is part of what one deals with when becoming a parent


she got a "defective" item and returned it
russia says she had no receipt and the time had expired to make the exchange
caveat emptor


and a bunch of russian orphans will be the ones who suffer the consequences
 
"return to sender"

a love note from an adoring mother


every kid has issues. some more than others. some worse than others. that is part of what one deals with when becoming a parent


she got a "defective" item and returned it
russia says she had no receipt and the time had expired to make the exchange
caveat emptor


and a bunch of russian orphans will be the ones who suffer the consequences

And when you are the biological parent, you can learn to handle these issues slowly, while the child is growing up from a state where they can't murder you in your sleep.

That is a big difference from adopting a child that is more than old enough to carry out his threats, who has probably suffered years of abuse at the hands of this oh-so-innocent Russian orphanage. If she was made aware of his mental illness, the blame is entirely hers. If she wasn't, she can't be expected to have the capacity to deal with a (literally) psychotic child.
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately, Russian orphans come from institutional settings- large state run orphanages which are not particularly well-managed compared to say, China's- and many suffer from some degree of diagnosed or undiagnosed Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, because alcoholism is rampant among the lower classes in Russia.
These orphans are seldom available for adoption before they are a year old; many are older than that. It is inevitable that they will have attachment issues, at the very least.
Russian adoptions have pretty much the worst outcomes of all international adoptions.
I'd adopt from Guatemala, China, or even India before I looked to Russia.
I guess it's a matter of which is more important to you: getting a white child, or getting a child who might conceivably be able to fit into your family at some point in the future.
 
Russian kids, grown up in their orphanages, are famous for developing an attachment disorder that can make them uncontrollable and violent.

... in an orphanage, a child is not able to form an affectionate bond with a permanent caregiver.

"You need one person to take care of you," Johnson said. "That's why you have Mom."

In Russia, it is not uncommon for orphans to have more than 100 caregivers in their first year of life, he said.

"How do you attach the way we're supposed to attach to a caregiver if you've got 100 of them?" he said.
Experts: Orphanages can lead to kids' problems - The York Daily Record

While it seems heartless to do what these folks did it probably saved them: tons of money, their marriage and possibly their lives. I believe them when they say the Russians didn't tell them about that kids problems. I give them credit for dealing with the situation so quickly and surgically. Hopefully, their actions will convince the U.S. authorities in control of these adoptions to look into the conditions in these orphanages these kids come from.

My heart goes out to these parents.
 
When you adopt in many ways it is just like having a biological child in that you do not know what you are going to get. However, just like with having a biological child it is your responsibility to deal with any issues or problems your child has. Parenting is not a job. A job you can just up and quit if you can't hack it. Parenting is a responsibility. When you adopt from Russia, you make at least 2 trips out to Russian before the adoption is finalized. During those visits you get to spend time with the child you are adopting. Now sure, that doesn't tell you everything about the child, but you know more about that child you are adopting than a biological parent would know about their baby when it is born.

Adopting older children is hard. When you don't even speak the same language, its even harder. However, when you adopt a child, regardless of whether they are 1 month old when you adopt or 10 years old when you adopt, they are your child, just like a biological child is your child, from the moment the adoption is finalized. Anyone that took a biological child and put them on a 15 hour flight by themselves to another nation simply to discard them would be viewed as a monster. Why should an adopted child be any different? That child was her son just like her other kids are.

When you adopt older kids, you should go into it expecting that the kid will probably have some issues, and you may well have to involve a child therapist at some point to work through them. These orphanages over there are like The Lord of The Flies for older kids. Older kids from them are going to be socially retarded in some ways at first, and they are going to have issues with empathy, and in some cases knowing right from wrong. When you adopt an older kid dealing with those kinds of issues are what you sign up for. Anyone that has adopted an older kids in through foreign adoptions will tell you that much of what they were told prior to the adoption about their kid was not true. That is just how it works unfortunately, and its not an excuse just to discard your kid like that.

1. She never actually put the child in therapy.

2. If she found that she simply could not handle being a parent, then the legal avenue to take is to contact social services and deal with it that way. You don't just ship your kid back to Russia. If you believe the child has the problems they have because of the conditions they lived under prior to be adopting, then who other than a complete sociopath would ship them back to the same conditions when they could not hack it as a parent? A cat is a better mother than that.

Moreover, their selfish and unconscionable actions have resulted in Russia shutting down foreign adoptions. Now thousands and thousands of kids in Russia get to stay in those hellish orphanages rather than get the family they always wanted. All because of the actions of this woman and her mother. The results of their actions have not only hurt the 7 year old she adopted, but also countless families waiting for their adoption to be finalized, and the thousands of kids that those families would have adopted.

Finally, I have walked in this woman's shoes. We have have adopted a 4 and an 8 year old in foreign adoptions. We know a lot of people that have done that. Many of them have had a very hard time at first. That is how it goes when you adopt an older child from another country. It is what you sign up for. If people cannot accept the responsibility of being a parent, as hard as it can be at times, then they have no business at all being a parent. What kind of a message does she send any future kids she might have when they will know that if you give mama too hard of a time, she will just throw you away like a pair of jeans that didn't fit.

Let me put it to you this way. If their actions result in Russia shutting down foreign adoptions for good, most of those kids that would have otherwise been adopted will come out of those orphanages at 18 with nothing but a life as a prostitute and or drug addict waiting for them. What they did could very well have some terrible consequences for a lot of orphans in Russia.
 
It must have been emotional for the woman to go through the process of adoptiong, have high hopes for the kid, and then have it turn out this way. You can tell she cared based on how she sent the kid back. The title of the clip is too sensational.
 
It must have been emotional for the woman to go through the process of adoptiong, have high hopes for the kid, and then have it turn out this way. You can tell she cared based on how she sent the kid back. The title of the clip is too sensational.

You can tell she cared by how she sent the kid back????? Are you f***ing serious?

If she cared, she would not have sent the kid back like a pair of jeans that didn't fit right. The kid is a human being.
 
I would have thought that there are many American children in need of adopted parents.
Why go to uncivilized places like Russia or other Ex-Soviet countries to obtain children?
 
I would have thought that there are many American children in need of adopted parents.
Why go to uncivilized places like Russia or other Ex-Soviet countries to obtain children?

If you are willing to adopt an older child, more often than not, older American kids in the adoption system have several siblings and you have to be willing to adopt all of them, which most people cannot do. Moreover, there are really not that many older kids in the domestic adoption system.

If you want an infant, the cost of adopting domestically can be upwards of 50k. Moreover, many times the birth mother will back out at the last minute, and the would be adoptive parents are both emotionally devastated and have been out potentially tens of thousands of dollars.

Foreign adoptions are usually less expensive than domestic adoptions. You can adopt in China for between 15 and 25k. You can adopt in Russia for 30 to 40k (the most expensive foreign adoption option). In both cases it is less than many domestic adoptions.

In the end, a child is a child no matter where you adopt them from.
 
Back
Top Bottom