Posted on 08/08/2005 2:17:45 PM PDT by jb6
Looking at it from the other perspective - I was told this by an elderly friend of my wife in Russia over chocolate vodka- "you may have won the cold war, but now we conquer the world with our beautiful women" He is correct.
Sun Staff
Originally published August 4, 2005
A poster of the Ten Commandments stands behind the mailbox outside the Harford County home of Samuel and Donna Merryman, and a hand-painted sign on the front of the house reads, "Pray and Trust in God."
The couple -- both Sunday school teachers -- are on home detention, freed from jail Monday on $50,000 property bonds after being charged with manslaughter, first-degree child abuse resulting in death, and reckless endangerment.
An autopsy report says their adopted 8-year-old Russian-born son, the youngest of seven children they were raising and home-schooling, died in January of starvation -- a finding disputed yesterday by Samuel Merryman's mother, who called the charges "totally false" and maintained that young Dennis Merryman's death was the result of one of his many ailments.
"I was here every day. I saw him eating, I know he was fed," said Olivia Merryman, grandmother of Dennis Merryman and the six other children. "He had cystic fibrosis, digestive problems, and he may have had other problems."
Family members said Dennis, who was adopted with his older brother and two older sisters from an orphanage in Prem, Russia, in 2000, died in January after playing outside in the snow.
"He came in, laid down and never got up," said George Merryman, Samuel Merryman's father.
At his death, Dennis weighed 37 pounds -- 2 pounds less than when he was examined by doctors in October 2000, according to charging documents. He was 3 feet, 5 1/2 inches tall.
---snip---
"the pious teachers at a Sunday school"?
Actually, Christian Scientists, aren't much in favor of medical attention. Then there are the fringy splinter groups from hundreds of "shopping center churches."
Their guilt I don't know about but I DO know that if my eight year old weighed 35 pounds there would be plenty of medical authorities with a file on him as to why.
Horrible as this is it certainly is not unique and there are lunatics capable of doing it to a child.
I can't speak to the truth of this. But we do have friends trying to adopt from Russia. Two American families were FALSELY accused of child abuse before they even left for home with their kids. There seem to be some folks in Russia that don't want Americans adopting their orphans. That's all I know.
Well, a diagnosis of CF is one.
And may also be the motive his new owners could have decided to Terry Schiavo him
"and he may have had other problems." hardly builds confidence they were putting themselves out in seeking medical attention.
My understanding is that rickets is a disease of malnutrition.
As with other things like this, the horrid things is not that these cases don't get covered in the news, but that they happen at all.
Just today there was much exalting that the NYC murder rate is so low. It's down to about 500 murders a year, but that still means that, averaged out, nearly 2 people are murdered every single day in NYC, a city with 3 daily papers. Five now, if you count the 2 free ones. Most of those murders don't make the paper, but the poor victims are still dead.
Offhand, I'd say that the chance of a Russian child ending up a victim after being adopted (at great expense and trouble) by an American family are so small as to be incalculable. OTOH, the odds of these same kids ending up doing smack and drinking and selling themselves in the alleys of Moscow are great. They should do the math.
Attachment disorder run amuck. Lord have mercy.
It's not so easy to parent these kids. We adopted one in 95, one in 96, and a third in 97 and spent the next 4 years in family counseling. They don't come home trusting you and they have a special way of making you want to hit them at times.
It's a very difficult life before they turn around. And thank God, our two oldest have so far turned around wonderfully. The youngest is still in the midst of making that choice.
But I do understand why some adoptive parents go over the edge with these kids. At least while hitting them. It's much harder to understand starvation.
Amen to that. Thousands of Russian/Eastern European children await loving homes and many get them every year, here and abroad. Their life after they've outgrown the homes (dyetsky dom) and are released is even more abysmal, at least at this time. The statistics are devastating. The recent deaths of this child and 2 others are all the media over there sees, not the thousands happily adopted and living in loving homes. Jeopardizing adoptions for them all, especially by Americans at a time when there is already some anti-Americanism.
It's all part of the counter-media pr.
I agree.
The author of this piece is painting with a very broad brush.
I had the advantage of being able to speak Russian so most of our experiences went pretty well. Some other host families never seemed to connect to their kids and they spent the whole time in a state of conflict.
After having spent a lot of time with Russian girls, who are certainly going to be gorgeous, my gut impression is that I'm not sure what it will take to satisfy them. I don't mean specifically such as materially or sexually, I mean in life in general. I get the distinct impression that a relationship with some of them would be a temporary proposition at best, and high maintenance. So much for a mail-order PHD supermodel bride ;)
With the boys, they were merely mischevious and naturally wanted all they could get while they were here. I was surprised to find that with both boys and girls that even though they greatly enjoyed their Summers, they didn't want to come and live here. And I have to admit that some facets of their life over there are simpler and better than over here. As long as you have a source of money, you can live well over there. Very well indeed.
My mother gets paranoid when I travel, and that's her thing about the murder rates. Of course she forgets about our high rates in the US, it's every day news and gets passed up.
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