7rin on adoption

http://offbeatfamilies.com/2013/09/adopting-a-teenager#comment-133879

On September 11th, 2013 at 8:07 PM
Krista said
I was unofficially adopted at 18 by one if my teachers my senior year and her husband. They didn't have any children of their own yet (biological or otherwise) so I was it. The most important thing they did for me was make me feel wanted. I ate dinner with them and was welcomed to their family parties, get togethers, and outings. They spoke of me as their own and bought me things that parents buy kids – clothes and little surprises here and there. They took the time to know my likes and dislikes and they engaged me in conversation. When they had a baby three years later, they involved me in her life (and now, 9 1/2 years later, I am someone's beloved Sissy!). They gave me boundaries and rules while I lived with them. They tried to understand my dreams and encourage me in pursuing them. They encouraged me to maintain contact with my grandma, to whom I was very close. And they loved me, regardless of what I did or said in my hurt and pain that came with needing new parents at 18.

Reply to this comment over @ http://offbeatfamilies.com/2013/09/adopting-a-teenager#comment-133879

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/children-abused-and-tortured-by-adoptive-mother-866098

By Pete Bainbridge
21 Jul 2011 11:45

Leading scientist Dr Jill Newcombe-Buley assaulted and bullied her kids for a decade, making their young lives a misery. She slapped and suffocated the youngsters and even stamped on one with a stiletto heel at their affluent Cheshire home. Dr Newcombe-Buley was jailed for four years after admitting the child cruelty last year. But a serious case review into the care has revealed that the abuse was "both predictable and preventable".

Three children who were tortured and abused by their adoptive mother were "repeatedly let down" by schools and social services, a damning report has found.

Leading scientist Dr Jill Newcombe-Buley assaulted and bullied her kids for a decade, making their young lives a misery. She slapped and suffocated the youngsters and even stamped on one with a stiletto heel at their affluent Cheshire home.

Dr Newcombe-Buley was jailed for four years after admitting the child cruelty last year. But a serious case review into the care has revealed that the abuse was "both predictable and preventable".

The probe found that:

There were TEN missed opportunities to investigate the abuse
They were "badly let down" by all four schools they attended over the decade.
The children's teachers had repeated concerns about their home life, but did not raise the alarm.
The children should never have been placed in care with Dr Newcombe-Buley and her husband.
Many of the social care staff who spoke with the children "let themselves down professionally" and failed to fully investigate abuse allegations.
David Mellor, the independent chair of Cheshire East Local Safeguarding Children Board said the three youngsters were "repeatedly let down by the agencies supposed to protect them".

The agencies involved in the children's care were Cheshire Police; Cheshire East Community Health; Cheshire East Council; Cheshire East Primary Care Trust; Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust; East Cheshire NHS Trust and Staffordshire County Council.

Mr Mellor apologised to the children, and said: "All the agencies involved have clearly let these youngsters down by failing to take action. On behalf of these organisations, I would like to offer sincere and heartfelt apologies to all three children for this.

"The nine-year period of this review - starting with a flawed adoption process – shows a series of failings by a number of agencies.

"It is clear that teachers had concerns but never recorded or escalated those concerns to raise the alarm. One of the children repeatedly tried to report the abuse, which all the siblings had suffered, to social workers and police. Time and time again they were let down.

"This has been a particularly difficult case for everyone, not least because of the disguised compliance of the adoptive parents, which staff in many agencies were unwilling to challenge.

"We are taking action to ensure that failings which occurred will not be repeated in the future. I would stress that the children are now safe, being protected and helped to recover from their terrible ordeal."

Jill Newcombe-Buley, 45, from Prestbury, near Macclesfield, pleaded guilty to 15 charges of child cruelty and was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court in October, last year.

She sobbed as she was jailed for four years.

Newcombe-Buley – who was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder – also plunged the children into ice-cold baths and smothered them with a pillow. One child was hit over the head with a dustbin, causing a gash.

Her husband, top chemist Dr Nicholas Newcombe, admitted child neglect after he failed to report her to the authorities.

Newcombe, 43, of London Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport, admitted three charges of child neglect. He was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for a year, at the same hearing, last October.

He had been aware of ‘a small fraction’ of the abuse and did not witness it, the court heard.

The children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were assaulted and neglected at the former family home in Prestbury between 2001 and 2009.

Newcombe-Buley, a doctor of chemistry and high-flyer in pharmaceutical research, became the ‘main carer’ while Newcombe worked for pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca.

The court heard the eldest child ‘courageously’ alerted the authorities.

There is no suggestion the abuse was sexual.

@ http://www.policymic.com/articles/52449/adopting-a-black-baby-is-cheaper-than-adopting-a-white-baby

By Evangeline Furton

When Minneapolis native Caryn Lantz and her husband, both white, decided to adopt, they were open to adopting any child, regardless of ethnic background. According to NPR, the two were shocked to discover that some babies could be adopted more economically than others. They were faced with an uncomfortable truth of American adoption today: it is far cheaper to adopt a black child than a child of any other race.

For a black child, the process of adoption is quicker as well. A social worker at an adoption agency the Lantzes visited explained to them that this was because they had many black children waiting for families. Adopting a Caucasian, Asian, Latino, or Biracial child would take longer because there were more people willing to adopt them. Lantz says “I remember hearing this and just sort of being dumbfounded that they would sort of segregate — to use a loaded term — segregate these children by ethnic background before they were even in this world.”

Another adoptive parent, Dawn Friedman of the blog "Love Isn't Enough," found that the three adoption agencies she looked at charged full price for children of all races besides black, and around half price for black children. When Friedman explained that she would take whatever baby came her way, she was advised by one agency that “You may as well get the fee break. If you are open to adopting a black baby, you will get a black baby.”

There are reasons why this has happened. A study published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research found that the probability that a non-African American child will have interested potential adoptive parents is at least seven times as high as the probability for an African American child. This preference against black babies turns into differing adoption costs. The rationale is that people are more willing to get over racial preferences if they can adopt for less. Some adoption professionals also say that generally there are fewer non-African American infants available, and more demand for them.

"Obviously, any time … somebody brings up the word discrimination, everybody's going to … draw attention to the issue, whether or not there's an issue there," said Sean Lance, the director of American Adoptions, an agency whose price ranging results in parents paying more to adopt non-African American babies, “It's not set up as discriminatory.”

He says that minority mothers often qualify for financial support like Medicaid, which pays for their expenses while carrying babies and sometimes even the cost of delivery. White mothers often don’t, so those expenses are added to the cost of adopting the baby.

For the Lantz couple the cost to adopt a Caucasian child was approximately $35,000. For a full African American girl, it was about $18,000. Lantz says, "When they told me the fees for the white child, I was in a Babies R Us and I remember having to sit down in the aisle and say to myself, 'I don't think we can afford to adopt this child.'"

Some states and agencies are using a different system: instead of making some babies cheaper or more expensive to adopt, they base prices on the incomes of prospective families so that lower-income families pay less to adopt. Other agencies are trying to move towards a system where all adoptive parents pay an identical fee for all adoptions.

There is much to recommend such a system, although not everyone agrees on its practicality. The Economist opined that “No doubt, the idea of placing a lower value on children based on race or sex is repugnant. But if it results in finding a loving home for children, and sparing them years in foster care, it may be the lesser of two evils.”

A question facing adoptive parents of African American children is what they will tell their children when they are older. Doubtless, it will be painful for these children to hear that the adoption agencies their parents located them through gave them up at a discount.

Caryn Lantz worries: "I am a little nervous about what we're gonna do when he (her son) starts to understand why someone approached us at Target and thanked us for saving babies.”

Dawn Friedman writes: “I have a friend who is also an adoptive mother in a transracial adoption and who also used an agency with a racist fee structure. She says, ‘My child will NEVER know that our adoption cost less because of his skin color!’ Her argument? Knowing will cut to the core of his self-esteem.” Friedman herself will tell her daughter the circumstances of her adoption. As she says: “It is her right. It is her story.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/07/troubled-families-support-cameron

David Cameron has pledged to help 120,000 families turn their lives around before 2015. Amelia Gentleman gains exclusive access to three families on the list

Sometime after midday, Daniel Smith, 19, gets up from the sofa, where he has been sleeping beneath a grey, coverless duvet, and races upstairs to his mum's room, which is open because in a fit of unexplained fury last week he kicked the door off its hinges. The door is leaning against the wall, waiting for someone to fix it. He rummages through some papers on the windowsill and finds an appointment letter for a meeting with the Work Programme, the government's initiative to get people off benefits and into jobs.

When he sees the time of the appointment (11am) he swears and curses the programme officials because he has missed it. His mother, Estelle, who is lying on her bed in a pink leopard-skin onesie, looks at him kindly but doesn't say anything. Tara, the oldest of his three sisters, who is dressed and sitting on the bed, leaning against her mother's knees, stroking the family's black-and-white cat, says maybe he should call to try to rearrange. Daniel shouts that his benefits are going to be sanctioned and stamps downstairs in a fury, but does not make the call.

No one in the house is aware that the family has been placed on a list of the 2,385 most troubled families in the city where they live, Manchester; and among 120,000 across the country. Their key worker, Julie Cusack, is reluctant to tell them they are part of the government's troubled families programme, anxious not to alienate them unnecessarily. She tells them the council has decided to offer "extra support".

( Read more... )

Delayed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Model for Schizophrenia and Depression
(The Unification Theory of Mental Illness)
Clancy D. McKenzie, M.D., B.C.E.T.S
Philadelphia Psychiatric Consultation Service


A combat veteran exposed to a loud noise 10, 20, or 30 years after combat reacts in a predictable way. Any event, sufficiently intense and similar to earlier combat experience, can precipitate a flashback or even a delayed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. The reaction is understood because the initial combat experience was life-threatening.

Few realize that separation from the mother to the baby can be more frightening than war trauma to the soldier. For 150 million years of patterning of the mammalian brain, separation from the mother has meant death, and thus the human infant is very sensitive and easily overwhelmed by events that would seem non-traumatic to the adult.

To the soldier, a loud noise in the present precipitates a flashback to a loud noise in the distant past. To the schizophrenic, separation from a "most important person" (husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend) - or group - in the present, precipitates a flashback to separation from the "most important person" (mother) in the distant past. The author has found that each initial psychotic episode - if the history is known - is precipitated by a separation from a most important person (or group) in the present.

To the soldier, the flashback is to combat experience, behavior and reality. To the schizophrenic, the flashback is to infant experience, behavior and reality. Each piece of bizarre reality and behavior of the schizophrenic matches in some way that of the infant at the time/age of the original trauma.

( Read more... )

©1998 by The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, Inc.

DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families
By Nev Moore
Massachusetts News

Child "protection" is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12 billion a year on it.

The money goes to tens of thousands of a) state employees, b) collateral professionals, such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators and guardians, judges, and c) DSS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, more "evaluators", junk psychologists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, etc. This newspaper is not big enough to list all of the people in this state who have a job, draw a paycheck, or make their profits off the kids in DSS custody.

In this article I explain the financial infrastructure that provides the motivation for DSS to take people’s children – and not give them back.

( Read more... )

By Anne D. Slagle, adoptee
Originally found @ http://www.unlockingtheheart.com/A_eight_fallacies.htm

Adoption is one of those subjects that everyone thinks they know something about – and has an opinion on. Unfortunately, many of these opinions are wrong, since most people are not adopted, and have no first-hand experience of the adoption process or the effects it has on the families involved in adoption. There are many fallacies concerning adoption – some of them may surprise you!

One: Adoptive parents make better parents than ordinary people because they wanted a child so badly and went to so much trouble to get one. ( Read more... )

Two: Happy adoptees, who are completed satisfied with their parents and home will never want to search for their birth kin, only the unhappy and maladjusted will feel a need to search. ( Read more... )

Three: Adoptees who search are looking for fantasy, the "perfect parents" who will love and cherish them, and they will inevitably be cruelly disappointed when they meet with reality. ( Read more... )

Four: A searching adoptee poses a real threat to the security and anonymity of the birthparent(s). ( Read more... )

Five: An adoptee belongs to his or her new family forever – and owes them something more than the ordinary offspring owes his family. ( Read more... )

Six: Sealed records protect the birthmother from intrusion into her life by the child she relinquished for adoption. Sealed records protect no one, least of all the birthparent. ( Read more... )

Seven: Adoptees are better off not knowing that they are adopted. They will never need to search, and will not grow up feeling "different." ( Read more... )

Eight: An adoptee is bound to honor the agreement of adoption and to never challenge the wisdom of the sealed records, he has a right only to the information that others are willing to give. ( Read more... )

Anne D. Slagle, adoptee
THE ALMA SOCIETY
Adoptees Liberty Movement Association

From TakenUK
Tammy tells her shocking story to the conference of professionals in London
30th October 2006:-

"In the best interest of the child" that's what the professional's state, but even the professionals and the family courts can be wrong as they were in my case.

Let me explain about my birth family, and myself. I am a young adopted adult; I was taken from my mum nearly 17 years ago on a false allegation, I was seven months old and sitting in my bouncing chair, my mum had gone into the kitchen to make me a night feed. I was happily playing with an activity toy, which I dropped on the floor; I leant forward to reach the toy but the chair followed me arid tipped forward falling on top of me. I sustained a bruise on my cheek. And that's where my life was changed forever.

( Read more... )

From UNC School of Law
8 June 2010

When Children Become Commodities: Fees at Private Adoption Services Often Based on Race of the Adopted Child

Fees paid by prospective adoptive parents for private adoptions are poorly regulated and, in some cases, are based explicitly on the race of the child, says UNC clinical assistant professor of law Barbara Fedders. Her findings are published in a forthcoming article titled "Race and Market Values in Domestic Infant Adoption" to be published in the North Carolina Law Review, volume 88.

Fedders recently completed a survey of private domestic adoption agencies to better understand factors affecting adoption costs. About 20 percent of the agencies Fedders studied openly advertised race-based pricing, but she says that some adoption professionals believe that as many as half of all private agencies engage in the practice.

"There are a significant number of private agencies that facilitate adoption that charge different fees based on the race of children being adopted," she says.

( Read more... )

I'm gonna try to tidy this up to make it more readable, but I suspect if the thread continues, it's gonna wind up being dumped in comments too because I'm gonna run outta character spaces.

How do you feel about adoption?

Jennifer Randazzo Good.

Gloria Orange-Barnett The gift of a safe and loving home to a child in need is truly a gift to oneself.

Lynn Early Brown It is truly a blessing...I was adopted as an infant and my husband and I have adopted both our children thru foster-to-adopt! It is amazing and a gift from God!

Liz Larson-Shidler The best alternative.

Linda Wallin Thrilled! My son comes home from India today with his new son!

Angela Jensen Dunigan We are in the process of my husband adopting my daughter, which will legalize what has already existed for the past nearly 6 years - their father-daughter relationship. I love that she will now have our name too. She's 13 and I can think of no more critical an age for her to have this security of a loving, legal father. I also have loved ones with children whom they adopted at birth. I'm a fan of adoption.

( ...and then the adoptees start answering )

The comments section on KSL.com article after this picture...



...demonstrate clearly the forces of socialisation that work against the adoptee for the entirety of the adoptee's life. This is what we grow up hearing. Even if it's not in the immediate family, the wider world tells us this, and it's not something you can shield us from because it's endemic in English speaking society[1].

Yet people still fail to see how this impacts our perspectives of ourselves as adoptees. Why?
Genealogy is a massive industry, so why wouldn't adoptees want to know who and where they come from?

This is why we shouldn't be losing contact totally in the first place.

People shouldn't NEED to be putting begging pictures up on Fakeblag because they've run out of other options. This information should never be lost to us in the first place.

Even if it's not safe for them to know who and where we are while we're children, as adults that information should be available to us so that WE can decide what we want to do with OUR lives.

Not knowing who you're from is a complete mind-fuck.

[1] I don't know enough about all other societies to be able to say, but I'm sure it's a topic @TransracialEyes is likely to have information on).

July 12, 2011 @ 11:26am · Posted by Tara · Filed under Adult Adoptee, Birth/First parents, Talking about Adoption
From Guest Blogger Tamera Slack, birth mother and adoptee

Don’t refer to our children as “gifts”

Gifts are something you “create or buy” with the intention to give away. ( Read more... )

Perhaps the most valuable resource I ever happened across was the information on creating a Deed Poll FOR FREE @ gorge.org. Unfortunately, the site now appears to've vanished, thus I'm snagging the info. from Google's cache while it's still available, just in case the site never returns.

This is (a copy of the sources of - somewhat edited and reformatted) Google's cache of http://www.gorge.org/experiences/deedpoll.shtml and http://www.gorge.org/experiences/deedpoll-wording.shtml. It is a snapshot of the pages as they appeared on 24 Oct 2012.

( Page One - The Explanatory Text )

---

( Page Two - The Deed Poll Wording bit )

http://birthpsychology.com/

APPPAH is a public-benefit educational and scientific organization offering information, inspiration, and support to medical professionals, expecting parents and all persons interested in expanding horizons of birth psychology. Come explore, learn, and work with us!

The Association for Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology and Health

The "prenatal" in our title refers to the period of about nine months including conception and the whole of gestation, while "perinatal" refers to the very short but crucial period of hours involving labor, birth, and establishment of breastfeeding. We believe that both these prenatal and perinatal experiences are formative for both babies and parents, and tend to establish patterns of intimacy and sociality for life. At stake here is quality of life--the quality of personal relationships and the quality of society itself. Ultimately, we like to point out, "Womb ecology becomes world ecology.

These pages are made possible by the APPPAH COMMUNITY which has been generating news, research, conferences, books and journals since 1983. You are invited to enrich your personal growth, parenting wisdom, or professional skills by joining the APPPAH Community, accessing our resources, and signing up for our conferences.

APPPAH task forces publish The APPPAH Newsletter and the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, hold regional and international conferences, promote research, serve the public with valuable directories and resources, work to enhance the pregnancy experience and prevent birth trauma. APPPAH members have been at the forefront in recognizing the multiple traumas of modern pregnancy and birth and developing practical therapeutic methods to deal with them.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633676/ @ Cell Adhesion & Migration [journal]

2007 Jan-Mar; 1(1): 19–27.
by Gavin S Dawe, Xiao Wei Tan, and Zhi-Cheng Xiao

Abstract
Fetal cells migrate into the mother during pregnancy. Fetomaternal transfer probably occurs in all pregnancies and in humans the fetal cells can persist for decades. Microchimeric fetal cells are found in various maternal tissues and organs including blood, bone marrow, skin and liver. In mice, fetal cells have also been found in the brain. The fetal cells also appear to target sites of injury. Fetomaternal microchimerism may have important implications for the immune status of women, influencing autoimmunity and tolerance to transplants. Further understanding of the ability of fetal cells to cross both the placental and blood-brain barriers, to migrate into diverse tissues, and to differentiate into multiple cell types may also advance strategies for intravenous transplantation of stem cells for cytotherapeutic repair. Here we discuss hypotheses for how fetal cells cross the placental and blood-brain barriers and the persistence and distribution of fetal cells in the mother.

Key Words: fetomaternal microchimerism, stem cells, progenitor cells, placental barrier, blood-brain barrier, adhesion, migration

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See also: http://lauragraceweldon.com/2012/06/12/mother-child-are-linked-at-the-cellular-level/ which is the blog I finally tracked the link to the research down on while I was drifting around Google looking for the right search terms.

‏@FamilyRightsGp

http://www.frg.org.uk/need-help-or-advice/advice-sheets

Information available as of the date of this post:

Advice sheets

The following Advice Sheets are available from Family Rights Group.
Click on them [over at the FRG site] to view online or download as a PDF.

A. INTRODUCTORY ADVICE SHEETS
1. Introduction to local authority children's services
2. Parental Responsibility
3. What is a family group conference?

B. SUPPORT SERVICES
4. Family support services
5. Family support services for asylum seeking families
6. Social care services for disabled parents
7. Social care services for disabled parents who are asylum seekers
8. What happens to your benefits when a child no longer lives with you

C. CHILD PROTECTION
9. Child protection procedures
10. Advocacy for families in local authority decision-making

D. LOOKED AFTER CHILDREN
11. Duties of local authority when children are in the care system
12. Immediate placement of looked after children with relatives or friends
13. Contact with children in accommodation
14. Contact with children in care
15. Care proceedings
16. Support for young people leaving the care system
17. Reuniting children with their families from local authority care

E. FAMILY AND FRIENDS CARE
18. DIY Residence Orders: information for family friends carers
19. DIY Special Guardianship Orders- information for family and friends carers
20. Special Guardianship - what does it mean for birth parents?
21. Support for relatives and friends who are caring for children
22. Family and friends care: becoming a foster carer

F. ADOPTION
23. Adoption
24. Open adoption

G. CHALLENGES
25. Challenging decisions and making complaints
26. Access to records

by Heather Lowe

One of the things I hear most frequently from parents who have recently lost children to adoption is, "If ONLY I had known." People in a crisis pregnancy are especially prone to denial, and it's very hard to accurately imagine what adoption will be like. I am posting these items in an effort to share the things I wish I had known when I was considering adoption (and was stuck in major denial myself.)
Adoption might well be the best thing for you and your child, but in order to be a truly good thing, it needs to be a well-considered decision, and you need to hear the negative aspects as well as the positive.

This list will likely change and grow as input from other first parents is received. Please visit the guestbook on my website if you are a first parent wanting to add advice to this site.

---

( Read more... )

Note: The terms "unwed" mother, "birthmom", "biological" parent make a parent appear to be less than the mother or father they are. These terms dehumanize and limit the parent's role to that of an incubator. Using the honest terms "mother", "single mother" or "natural mother" help the public to understand why real family members must not be separated to obtain babies for adoption.

It is entirely possible to have an abortion and not feel guilt because you knew it was the right thing to do: http://www.imnotsorry.net/

{quote}
A site where women can share their positive experiences with abortion. The stories posted on this site may contain graphic descriptions of medical procedures, as well as attitudes that may not be in current vogue. We welcome visitors of all opinions as long as they are respectful of our views.
{/quote}

From Just Say Yes: Abortion...

Not all women think abortion is cool for themselves, but all women have the right to make this choice.

Abortion is a simple medical procedure which ends a pregnancy. Throughout history, around the world, and in many religions, women have used abortion as a part of our healthcare. Other options for an unplanned pregnancy include adoption or keeping the child.

( Read more... )

From Adoptive Families Circle

Are you familiar with the Portal video games? You play as a a character, Chell, and solve various puzzles as you progress through the levels. As you work on the puzzles, you are challenged by an artificial intelligence character, GLaDOS.
Portal was released in 2007, and Portal 2 in 2011. In the original, it was told in Chell’s backstory that he was adopted.

While playing Portal 2, an adoptive father was shocked to hear two characters teasing Chell about being adopted.

An online character Wheatley says, “Alright, fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty, fatty, no parents,” which GLaDOS follows up on by whispering to Chell, “For the record, you are adopted, and that’s terrible, but just stick with me.” Click the above link to see this footage from the game.

The father, Neal Stapel, was playing the game with his 10 year-old daughter, adopted from China. Luckily, she didn’t seem to have fully heard this conversation. Her father however was very upset by the character’s conversation.

He is unsure what to do about it. He and his daughter still play the game, but just avoid the level where the adoption teasing took place. He did alert the local media about this part of the game in hopes that other adoptive families don’t have to hear the game’s adoption “jokes.”

What’s your reaction to this?
What do you think should be done?
If you, or your child, has played the game, did you hear these adoption “jokes”?
Why do you think this is acceptable by the makers of this game, which is made to be played by children?

My own lovingly designed t.shirts for adoptees with style, and available at the Post-Adoption Charity CafePress store. :)

The first image I created was the lovely nRFU that points out we're not Rainbow Farting Unicorns...


...which was created after yet another day of bouncing my head off a brick wall trying to educate people as to the HORRORS of adoption - even in a "good" or "successful" adoption (however you want to define those terms :p).

There's only, currently, two images available (not least because I am so inartistic that I have trouble drawing stick peeps!) in the Post Adoption Charity store, the second of which shares with the world the absolute TRUTH about why adoption hurts so damn much. To the point that I think if we could shift paradigms and remove the expectation of gratitude - there'd be a lot less screwed up adoptees. Thus, the t.shirt I spend the vast amount of my waking time wearing is the Adoption Loss quote...


"Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful"
- The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE

Feel free to purchase, and any money made on the store is staying there until I can get the head space to get Post-Adoption Charity (completely and utterly still in its infancy) up and running properly.

See also: http://www.cafepress.com/7rindom :}

(All bolding = my emphasis; all italics = my comment)

From: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/09/13/parents-to-sue-mich-dhs-for-adoption-fraud/
September 13, 2012 6:39 AM

DETROIT (WWJ) - Some Michigan parents are planning to file a federal lawsuit in Detroit Thursday, claiming that the state and adoption agency officials withheld crucial details about the physical and mental disabilities in the children they adopted.

WWJ Legal Analyst and Talkradio 1270 morning show host Charlie Langton said the parents claim their civil rights have been violated.

“There’s a claim that the civil rights of the parents are being trampled upon by the state because of the state’s failure to disclose information. Who is in the best position to gather information about a child when the child is put up for adoption? It is the state. And if the state is not taking on the responsibility of gathering that information and disclosing that information, that becomes a civil rights violation, that’s a federal issue,” said Langton.

Lansing-area attorneys David and Stephen Kallman told the Detroit Free Press officials from the Department of Human Services and adoption agencies routinely withheld medical records and information about financial subsidies for special-needs children, misled prospective adoptive parents about their rights and stonewalled their attempts to seek assistance.

At the time of adoption, they were presented to parents as healthy babies. But in reality, the lawsuit claims many of the children had significant mental and physical health issues after being born to mothers who were addicted to drugs and alcohol — something the parents claim they were never informed of. Other children were handicapped or had diseases – something the parents claim the state also failed to mention.

Some parents claim their adopted children, most of whom were removed from homes of their biological parent or parents by court order, tortured pets, attacked family members and set fires.

The lawsuit also claims that several light-skinned ethnic minority children were “passed” as Caucasian for the sole purpose of depriving them [is that "them" the kids or their buyers?] of federal and state assistance to which they were entitled.

“It would be in the best interest of everybody if the state would disclose whatever information the state knew about these children before they adopted. I mean, disclosure is the name of the game in so many things. We have disclosure laws when you buy a car or a house, so why shouldn’t we have disclosure laws when you adopt a child,” said Langton. [Absolutely, which is why ALL records should be OPEN to ALL adoptees!]

If disclosure laws were in place, Langton said he thinks the number of adoptions would actually increase.

“You have to know what you’re buying, what you’re getting. I don’t want to make it on so impersonal terms here, but we’re talking about the life of a child, that if the parents are doing something good for the children, they should know what they’re getting so they can plan ahead accordingly… I think the state has a duty to go out there and investigate the background of this particular child and the family as well. It would help not only people in Michigan, but across the whole country,” said Langton.

Families included in the lawsuit are seeking as much as $13 million.

Lifton, B.J. (1994) Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness. New York: Basic Books. pp259-260

During a trip to Hawwaii, I met a therapist who had been invited to work with a group of adoptees who were in various stages of search and reunion. The adoption experience was new to him, but he was no stranger to grief and loss and pain. He was an empathic man, and he seemed puzzled. He said that the adoptees in his group, and the ones he has begun to see in his private practice, seemed traumatized. They do not shed their symptoms like his other patients. Their trauma seems deeper, as if it were very early - almost as if it were cellular.

Trauma is earlier for adoptees than for most other people, I told him. It begins at birth, with separation from the mother. And it's more persistent because adoptees have no pre-traumatic self. And then I explained what I meant by this.

We know that when adoptive parents have been traumatized by not being able to conceive a child, they already have adult selves that can absorb and work through the shock. So too, the birth mother may have been young when she was traumatized by her unwanted pregnancy, but she had a self to fall back on as she continued her life. But the adoptee, who experienced separation and loss early in life, usually at birth, has no previous self - no pre-traumatic self - from which to draw strength.

On Saturday, I gave a speech at the Child Stealing by the State conference in Birmingham: [Wordpress post link]

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7737JgmFdlsV2pJZ3E3ZE1sMGc is the powerpoint that never happened due to lack of pootah equipment

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7737JgmFdlsZm9SV2MxVmd4aDQ is the script I was stumbling over

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7737JgmFdlsTHYyT3RzNl9XOTg is the Avengers film clip everyone's been ranting about (see http://adoptedintheuk.wordpress.com/tag/the-avengers/ for more details)

Do we need a law against incest?

The European human rights court has upheld a German ruling against sibling incest, but some questions remain unanswered

Paul Behrens 15 April 2012

The European court of human rights is no stranger to controversy. Last Thursday, however, Strasbourg played it safe and did the expected. The court ruled it was all right to have a law against incest.

The man who brought the case was Patrick Stübing – a young German, who was separated from his family as a little child. When he was in his 20s, he looked for and found his biological mother. He also found his sister, with whom he fell in love. After their mother's death, the siblings began a sexual relationship, which produced four children.

It is not the only case in which biological siblings met only later in life and began sexual relations. One of the theories to explain the phenomenon is that the absence overcomes the "Westermarck effect" that usually applies: kids who grow up together tend to become desensitised to mutual sexual attraction.

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