Interesting article

There is an article today in The Moscow Times, called The Politics of Adoption (click to read). Most of us in the Russian adoption world have heard all the stories and read the articles of adoptions gone bad, parents losing control and hurting, even killing their newly adopted children. While these cases are such a minority in numbers, they have created a backlash in Russian adoption over the past several years, regions closing, new rules, psych and 8 doctor medical evaluations for potential parents, push to ban independent (non agency adoptions in Russia). Obviously this is completely understandable, there should be as many safeguards as possible in place. But what always bothered me was the twist put on these cases by the Russian media. Adoptive parents in the US were made out to be monsters, people who only wanted adopt the children to hurt or kill them, there were articles that children were being adopted so their organs could be harvested! Americans were the evil doers that must be stopped!
Never in these articles did it mention how many children were languishing in Russian orphanages, how many parents had their parental rights stripped, how many children in Russia were harmed or killed by foster parents, adoptive parents or while in an orpahange, there was never any comparison.
This was the first article that actually states some of the facts, statistics and comparisons, so it was actually nice to read. I give the author a great deal of credit for writing this article. For once Americans were not monsters.

One child's death is one too many in my book. So much more needs to be done on educating parents during their homestudy process, throughout their adoption and once home. pre-adoptive parents need to know that it isn't always sunshine and roses, yes in many cases it can be, but it is good to read about the other side as well. Though as much as we read and educate ourselves, we just will never know how will would react in a given situation.
And while education is a big piece, I believe that more importantly parents need to have it instilled in them that it is OK to ask for help, it is ok to acknowledge that they are drowning. This does not make them bad people or bad parents. I think all parents should be given a list of phone numbers of people they can contact in an emergency situation. It would be great if there was a hotline or something like that. Maybe agencies and social workers should follow-up more frequently once the family is home, know the right questions to ask, encourage the parents to talk openly.
I think the more these issues are talked about openly and honestly, the less taboo it becomes and the less people will feel like failures if they ask for help.
I know the knee jerk reaction is to think how horrible these adults are (which well may be the case), but It is easy to see how alot of these situations occur. You work and wait long and hard to build your family, all the while having this vision and dream in your head of what your family will look like, all the great things you will do with your child, how perfect it will all be. Then all of a sudden there is this reality, nothing like you have ever thought about or picture, like a bad nightmare, a raging angry child, who won't sleep, wants no part of you, is injuring themselves or maybe others in your house. How can a parent not get overwhelmed or feel like they may lose control? We read and researched and I have always felt prepared, but truthfully I don't know how I would have dealt with any extraordinary situation. I consider ourselves extremely lucky and blessed that all of our issues thus far have been minor.
Hopefully things will change with agencies and professionals and hopefully soon we will see less and less of heartbreaking stories.

Ok so I am rambling now, that means time to end this post!