Act of God

Act of god requires
Children taken
Birthmothers erased

Act of god requires
Blindness
Denial

Does god receive payment
For what is done in his name?

At the end of time

I’m sitting in the emergency room with an elderly lady who’s being admitted into the hospital, and after that, a nursing home.  It is what it is.  She has brought a plastic bag with her (and 2 purses).  She unties her little bag and pulls out a home phone and a red box.  She opened the red box to show me her most prized possessions; 4 costume jewelry necklaces and 3 cheap rings.  That’s what she had to show for her life.  A home phone that wasn’t charged, and a box of cheap jewelry. 

What will be in my box at the end of my life?  What will be in yours?

Adoption agencies suck ass!

At the asian festival, what is wrong with this picture??

Soooo….today I went to the Asian festival.  It’s been a coupla  years since I went last, but a friend of mine wanted to go, so I thought “what the hell”. 

Last time I went, this adoption agency was there.   I remember feeling both offended and violated that an adoption agency would actually be represented.  At that time, I called and complained to the Texas Institute of Cultures and to the Great Wall of China agency.   In fairness, the lady who I spoke with at the agency was nice and actually offered to have me come and speak to PAPs, which I agreed to do.

My friend, Trish, and I went and spoke at the PAP get-together.   All of these potentials sat there, a picture of some nameless asian child encased in a picture frame.    This was a meeting for those who had finally been assigned a child.    I remember one lady who walked in with the picture in a very expensive frame, trailed by her hen-pecked hubby who was actually carrying their lap dog!    Of course, this couple also decided NOT to stay for the talk that Trish and I were giving.    The one that probably needed it most didn’t stay.   I remember thinking, what kind of screening do these agencies do?!

Anyways, two or three years laters, this agency is still out there, peddling their wares at the festival.    I wonder what goes through their minds.   I wonder if they really think they can pull in more money by setting up a booth.   I, as an adoptee, come to the festival trying to connect with some of my roots.  While there, I feel happy and sad, angry and contemplative.  What I don’t want to come face-to-face with is a business that profits from our losses! 

So, I’ll voice my complaint again this year as well, but I’m guessing it won’t make a difference.    After all, I’m sure that the Great Wall of China is paying a hefty sum to be there, and as we know in adoption, money speaks louder than….well, everything.

I Am Loved

My parents said "she left because she loved you"

My husband said" I love you but I must leave you"

Is it any wonder I flinch

When I am loved?

 

©2006 Kim Eun Mi Young

The Test

We hurt ourselves
To feel alive
We hurt others
Because we must
Test
Always
Testing
To find worthiness
Of being loved
To find acknowledgement
That we are not worthy
Of love
We, who were left in trash cans
Sidewalks
Hospital waiting rooms
Search always
for that first love

 

©2006 Kim Eun Mi Young

 

 

 

From The Moscow Times – a followup story

This follow-up from The Moscow Times:

 

2 Adoption Agencies Barred After Boy’s Death

15 July 2008

 

By Svetlana OsadchukTwo U.S. adoption agencies have been barred from operating in Russia, but authorities denied Monday that the decision was linked to the recent death of an adopted baby in the United States.The Education and Science Ministry said it had withdrawn the accreditation of the two agencies — the Cradle of Hope Adoption Center and Family and Children’s Agency — after inspections found that they had violated the law.

The ministry supplied a list of the purported violations, which primarily focused on failures to keep the ministry informed about the well-being of adopted children.

“For the first three years, they should inform the Russian education ministry about the situation regularly,” ministry spokesman Andrei Nedrov said.

He said the ministry was considering toughening the conditions for agencies seeking to reapply for licenses after being barred.

Officials at the two U.S. agencies declined comment. The agencies were among 33 licensed to operate in Russia.

State-run RIA-Novosti and other media outlets have linked the ban to the death of Dmitry Yakolev, a 21-month-old boy who died last Tuesday after his adoptive father left him in a hot car in Virginia. But Vladimir Kabanov, head of the education ministry’s adoption department, denied any connection. “They were banned because of numerous violations uncovered during the checks. This has nothing to do with Dima Yakovlev’s death,” Kabanov said.

Yakolev’s father, Miles Harrison, 49, managing director of a real estate consulting firm in Herndon, Virginia, left the boy in the back seat of his sport utility vehicle for much of the day as he worked in his office, The Washington Post reported. The temperature in the vehicle rose to about 55 degrees Celsius before a passerby saw the dead child late in the afternoon and alerted the office receptionist.

Harrison, who with his wife adopted the boy three months ago, has been charged with manslaughter and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

He adopted the boy through the European Adoption Consultants, not one of the banned agencies, Kabanov said. His ministry is now carrying out a check of the European Adoption Consultants, he said.

The agency’s executive director, Margaret Cole, declined to comment on the case Monday.

The death could raise fears about a clampdown on international adoptions. Russia tightened controls over adoptions a few years ago after several children died at the hands of U.S. parents.

Boris Altshuler, head of The Right of the Child group, said 14 Russian children have been killed by their adoptive parents in the United States over the past 15 years, compared with 12 in Russia.

Adoption agencies must be held accountable for their work, said Moscow ombudsman Alexei Golovan. “If they fail to meet their responsibilities, they should be barred from operating in Russia,” he said, adding that he would like to see more Russian parents adopt children.

About 3,500 children were adopted by Americans in 2006, or 71 percent of all boys and girls adopted abroad, according to the latest government figures. That same year, more than 5,000 were adopted by Russians, and 68,000 were placed in foster families.

 

Russia Bans Adoption Agencies

Russia bans 3 adoption agencies following baby’s death in U.S.

21:31 | 11/ 07/ 2008

MOSCOW, July 11 (RIA Novosti) – Three international adoption agencies, including one that failed to inform Russia of the death of a baby in the U.S. this week, have been banned from operating in Russia, the country’s adoption authorities said on Friday.

 

 

A 21-month-old baby adopted from Russia three months ago died in the U.S. state of Virginia on Tuesday after being left by his foster father for several hours in the back of a car, in searing heat.

 

 

The Russian Education and Science Ministry’s adoption commission said in a statement: “The agencies to be banned from working on the territory of the Russian Federation include a representative office that violated the requirements of Russian law on swiftly informing us of the death of an adopted child.”

 

 

The baby, born with the name Dmitry Yakolev, was left strapped in the back seat of his foster father Miles Harrison’s car when the man drove to work in the town of Herndon. The boy was left in the car in the hot sun as the temperature in the vehicle rose to around 55 degrees C (130 degrees F).

 

 

Harrison, 49, was supposed to take the child, who he had named Chase, to a day care center on Tuesday morning but went straight to work, leaving the child in the SUV with tinted windows until late in the afternoon, when a passerby saw the child and alerted the office receptionist.

 

 

Herndon police spokesman Jeff Coulter told RIA Novosti earlier on Friday: “Mr. Harrison is in the hospital, where he was admitted in a state of shock after the death of the child. We will give him time to recover, and then we plan to arrest him.”

 

 

Coulter said no charges had been filed against Harrison, but that he would be charged with manslaughter, and if found guilty could face up to 10 years in prison.

 

 

WTF??  How do you “forget” that your child is in the car?  I mean, even if you do forget for, let’s say an hour, wouldn’t SOMETHING prompt you to remember that you left a live being in the car?  Someone in the office says “hey, how’s that adopted child of yours doing?”  Or you’re thinking about the list of things you have to do that day….one of those being ‘drop kid off at daycare’. 

  In all my years of driving, I left one half gallon jug of milk in the car overnight.  I have never left one of my dogs in the car.  I love my dogs; I always known what’s going on with them.

  Sheesh!

The incident had been expected to prompt new calls in Russia for tighter controls on adoptions following several other scandals, notably the killing of a two-year-old girl from Siberia by her adoptive mother in the United States. The woman, Peggy Sue Hilt, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in May 2006 for beating the child to death.

 

 

Here’s a question of APs…

You make a conscious decision to adopt.  You spend $20k-30k on fees and paperwork.  You go through an extensive background check and psychological evaluation.  Then, after you’ve received the prize, you beat your child to death.

This is why they make those big boxing dolls, you know, the ones that you punch and they come back up?.  I think every parent, AP or not, should have one of those inhouse, because hey, kids can be a major pain in the ass.  When you get to the point where you wanna knock your kid around, you just take 5 and go punch on that for awhile.  Everyone’s happy—you’ve gotten your stress out of your system, the toy company is happy that they’re making money, and your kid gets to

live.

Around 120,000 Russian children were adopted both in Russia and abroad in 2007, a 6.4% increase on 2006, according to the Science and Education Ministry.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080711/113805362.html

 

 

 

 

Adoption agencies MUST be held accountable for their fuck-ups.  If an agency isn’t doing a complete psych exam, if they’re only in it for the money, and if an adoptee dies because of their greed, they should be banned from adopting children out in EVERY country that they are operating in!

Goodbye to Two Sisters, One Known and One Unknown

I recently lost two “sisters”.  Not biological siblings.  One of them was a friend of 20 years.  The other, I hardly knew.  I mourn their loss equally.

 

Julia was a fellow KAD (see http://juliasworld.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/i-cry-for-you/).  After a long battle with leukemia, this young, wonderful woman passed away on 5/31/08.  She left behind people who really knew her and people who only knew her through the KAD group and her blog.  She is mourned by all.  Her story of her struggle with adoption is one that most adoptees know all too well.  She handled it all with grace, compassion, and love.

 

My other “sister” was a dear friend.  We’ve been through a lot together.  We’ve laughed, fought, and shared each other’s secrets.  Even when we came at issues from opposite sides, we remained sisters.  I cannot call her sister any longer.  She has become an anti-semite and a racist.  Her words are rabid and destructive.  Fear consumes her.  I wonder if she would have hated Julia too, simply because she was a Jew?

 

How twisted life is.  One woman died, loving.  The other lives, hating.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heroes

For some reason this morning, as I was getting ready for work, the word “hero” came to mind.  Musta been something I read recently.   

Anywho, I always find it amusing when people name actors as heroes.  Actors?  Musicians?  These aren’t heroes.  They’re just normal people, like you and I, who have a job that they go to on a regular basis, and make tons of money doing it.  Sometimes they give to charities.  Most of the time, they’re just dysfunctional human beings, trying to be as happy as they can—just like the rest of us. 

Heroes are people who have gone above and beyond, who sacrifice worldly goods, or go to extremes to save someone, or give their lives for others. 

Heroes are also us…..the adoptees of the world.  Who else is disconnected from their primal bond, handed over to a complete stranger, and for transracial adoptees, plunked down into a community that doesn’t look like them at all?  And we SURVIVE, or at least most of us do.   Some of us don’t; some of us make the ultimate sacrifice and end up in a family that is abusive or worse, like the family of 4 who were killed by their adoptive father recently. 

To all of my adoptee heroes, I wish you well, I wish you love.

Poundpuplegacy.org: “Not for Profit?”

 Please check out this link:  http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/14774

Getting paid to sell children

 Not for Profit?

Thu, 2008-02-21 17:46 — Niels

In my never ending quest for information about the adoption industry, I started plowing through the IRS 990 forms of the various adoption related organizations. I was already aware that the non-profit status of the organizations doesn’t imply a non-profit attitude of the people working within those organizations. The complete list of non-profit organizations was far too long for me to go through, so I took the 50 organizations I knew best and created a list of the people earning more than $100,000 excluding benefits and expenses that can be as $125,465 in the case of Buckner International’s president. This list is by far nor representative, because of the preselection I made, though I hope it is indicative of the personal income being made by these officials of non-profit organizations.

Organization	Year	Position	Income
The Children’s Aid Society	2005	CEO	$387,683
Frank Foundation Child Assistance International INC	2005	President	$357,787
The Children’s Aid Society	2005	Executive Director	$305,508
Gladney Center	2006	President	$248,312
Buckner International	2006	VP-COO	$243,443
Adoptions from the Heart	2006	Executive Director	$239,581
Buckner International	2006	President	$233,256
Buckner International	2006	VP-CFO	$196,795
Gladney Center	2006	Exec. VP	$169,751
Chinese Children Charities	2006	Executive Director	$169,162
Buckner International	2006	VP-General Counsel	$161,820
Chinese Adoption with Love INC	2006	President	$161,178
Chinese Children Charities	2006	President	$158,625
Spence-Chapin	2006	Executive Director	$156,023
The Children’s Aid Society	2005	CFO	$150,416
National Council for Adoption	2006	President	$150,104
Adoptions from the Heart	2006	Director	$146,214
Bethany Christian Services	2005	CEO	$143,564
Gladney Fund	2006	President	$138,750
Buckner International	2006	VP-Information Services	$133,905
Buckner Adoption and Maternity Services INC	2006	VP	$134,679
Evan B Donaldson Adoption Institute	2006	Executive Director	$132,653
Holt International Children’s Services	2005	President	$132,000
Adoption Associates Inc	2006	Executive VP	$127,904
Frank Foundation Child Assisance International INC	2005	VP	$126,691
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute	2006	Executive Director	$125,427
Cradle Foundation	2006	President	$125,099
Pearl S. Buck International, Inc	2006	President	$125,000
Bethany Christian Services	2005	COO	$122,709
Illien Adoptions International	2005	Executive Director	$121,800
Bethany Christian Services	2005	VP	$121,602
Holt International Children’s Services	2005	VP	$120,990
North American Council on Adoptable Children	2006	Executive Director	$120,608
Cradle of Hope Adoption Center INC	2006	Executive Director	$119,500
Buckner International	2006	VP-Facilities Management	$118,132
Gladney Center	2006	Exec VP and General Councel	$116,971
Great Wall of China	2006	President	$115,139
Holt International Children’s Services	2005	VP	$113,543
Spence-Chapin	2006	CFO	$109,216
Sunny Ridge	2006	President	$107,004
Gladney Center	2006	VP	$106,322
Foreign Adoption Associates LTD	2006	President	$105,875
Beacon House Adoption Services INC	2005	Director	$105,335
Bethany Christian Services	2005	VP	$102,348
Adoptions from the Heart	2006	Director	$101,014
Alliance for Children INC	2005	Program Director	$100,385
Wide Horizons for Children, Inc	2006	Executive Director	$100,241