Posted on 09/09/2013 9:23:41 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
When a Liberian girl proves too much for her parents, they advertise her online and give her to a couple they’ve never met. Days later, she goes missing.
KIEL, Wisconsin – Todd and Melissa Puchalla struggled for more than two years to raise Quita, the troubled teenager they'd adopted from Liberia. When they decided to give her up, they found new parents to take her in less than two days – by posting an ad on the Internet. Nicole and Calvin Eason, an Illinois couple in their 30s, saw the ad and a picture of the smiling 16-year-old. They were eager to take Quita, even though the ad warned that she had been diagnosed with severe health and behavioral problems. In emails, Nicole Eason assured Melissa Puchalla that she could handle the girl.
"People that are around me think I am awesome with kids," Eason wrote.
A few weeks later, on Oct. 4, 2008, the Puchallas drove six hours from their Wisconsin home to Westville, Illinois. The handoff took place at the Country Aire Mobile Home Park, where the Easons lived in a trailer. No attorneys or child welfare officials came with them. The Puchallas simply signed a notarized statement declaring these virtual strangers to be Quita's guardians. The visit lasted just a few hours. It was the first and the last time the couples would meet. To Melissa Puchalla, the Easons "seemed wonderful." Had she vetted them more closely, she might have discovered what Reuters would learn:
• Child welfare authorities had taken away both of Nicole Eason's biological children years earlier. After a sheriff's deputy helped remove the Easons' second child, a newborn baby boy, the deputy wrote in his report that the "parents have severe psychiatric problems as well with violent tendencies."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Why do people feel the need to cite self-explanitory exceptions to otherwise sound generalized opinions?
Best post of the thread!
personal experience?
I have 2 internationally adopted 4 yr olds who are doing fine after 11 years and a cousin with an adopted-at-birth American infant who is now in an institution -
I have been through multiple neuropsychological exams and conferences,, pediatric visits etc with my kids by experts who have experience with thousands of adopted kids and tell me what they know from research
and I have been networking for 11 years with parents of adopted kids- all avenues - and their experiences, especially when they look for support because that adopted infant or toddler turns out to be autistic, develop RAD, or have FAE/FAS, which you can screen for in adopting an older 4-6 yr old child
So what use is your “sound generalized opinion”?
Reflective of to your personal multiple adoption experiences?
People these days seem to think that adopted children are property, akin to pets. They feel they can transfer “ownership” at will.
This is no different than dropping of pets at the pound ...
All in all, we spent several futile years trying to adopt in the USA.
When a friend of mine, an experienced adoptive mother herself, started her own "on a shoelace" nonprofit to help other adopting from Russia, we saw it as a stroke of Divine Providence.
The system in the USA is thoroughly biased against mature couples with modest means.
And now, our local newspaper just ran the dearest article about two lovely young homosexual guys who have got their nursery all stocked with teddy bears and sweet little onesies emblazoned with "I love both my dads." Waiting for "their" baby from an agency that specializes in "family diversity and nontraditional adoptions." All Families Are Equal. Love=Love.
So I have to add that the US system is increasingly biased against normal married moms & dads.
With all the experience you cite, you know the intuition expressed by the other poster is as sound a “rule of thumb” as one is going to get with regard to adoptions: so why do you feel the need to quibble?
My brother adopted two from Guatamala.
Nearly bankrupted the family with all the problems.
We almost need the technology to be able (and i hate to say it) “Mind Wipe” some of these severly abused adopted childrent to help clear out all the psychological trauma that remains in them. While this tech would be a god send for the children themselves as long as they were sent to caring loving non-abusive families, as well as for the families adopting them. I know it would definetly be abused by people who enguage inhuman trafficking.
The question is, when the tech becomes availible to do this thing, when and how if ever should it be used?
Wouldn;t it be the death of a child personality for the convienice of the adoptive parents? Or would it be a mercy in that the child could be wiped clean like a computer with malware that has the whole OS re-installed? Meaning it would be a mercy for the child in that it would give them a better “shot” at a sucessful adult life.
“please just let people make their own decisions about who to adopt and why”
‘Best post of the thread!,
Agreed! I run an adoption agency so I know that there are no easy answers. I finally wrote a book about how adoption works today for prospective adoptive parents because there is so much bad information out there. But I have to warn them it is brutally honest. I probably am discouraging some people from adopting after they read it.
” People these days seem to think that adopted children are property, akin to pets. They feel they can transfer “ownership” at will.
This is no different than dropping of pets at the pound ... “
And then we have people who treat their pets as their children in some cases ones who actually have children whjo treat their pets like children and their children like pets....
Pinged Travis for a “Alas New Babylon” ping.
I probably am discouraging some people from adopting after they read it.
If you are discouraging those who are adopting for all the wrong reasons then that is a good thing.
Some people really should not, or are not yet ready to adopt. And there is no shortage at all of adoptive parents. But the system sometimes discourages people from adopting who really are ready to adopt. So it goes both ways. I just want people to have a realistic idea of how adoption works these days before they get started.
I have friends (who are wonderful parents) who fostered (or adopted) an older boy early in their marriage when they just had one little girl of their own. I did not know them then, so I’m not sure exactly what happened. As I understand it, the foster child molested (or attempted to molest) their daughter so they sent him back.
Many years later he looked them up to tell them that their home was the best he had throughout his whole childhood and that he was sorry. They felt really bad about the whole thing and were uneasy about his visit, even though everybody was grown up by then.
Now why didn’t *I* think of that when my three were teenagers...all at the same time? ;)
What is today? Abuse a Kid Day? Yeesh! Lots of articles on this subject today. :(
Another sick operation.
Right, we need more government. Look what it has done for children to date: government school, housing, welfare, and child protective services never harm children.
Go big government conservatives, go!
I am totally against open adoption and think these laws are a big mistake in that they don’t let the families make a clean break. They’re very destructive and were driven to appease the mainly female adoptees.
Better a wholly private system run by religious charities via orphanages. Let the parents decide where to place their kids. Get government out of the ‘family’ business.
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