Americans use Net to abandon children adopted from overseas

[Kitsune]

Reading a lot of heartbreaking stuff today

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/ado ... icle/part1

Part 1: 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.

Had trouble reading through it to be honest
At least Yahoo shut the boards down that we on their servers

[Ahriman238]

Alright, I can wrap my mind around how, legally, you could farm out your kids with a power of attorney letter pretty easily. What I don't get is how anyone can claim to care for a child and then just give them up to someone found online. If you have to give them up, you should involve lawyers and childcare professionals as early as possible, not try and dodge them.

And any attempt to seriously address this will remove the ability of people to say, send their child to live with a couple of cousins on the other side of the country with authorization to make any on-the-spot decisions as needed. This is why we can't have nice things, America.

[Broomstick]

Part of the problem is the Cult of the Child. Far too many people buy into the notion of having a child at any cost and, when they can't adopt in the US, turn to international adoption as "easier". It's not. And when reality hits, particularly the reality of an older child rather than an infant, an older child with a prior history and emotional issues, they can't cope.

In truth, this happens to a certain number of biological kids, too, their parents abandoning them or foisting them off on someone else. A difference is that biological children often have more people looking out for them as they have an extended family here whereas adopted kids may or may not be accepted by the extended family.

I wish more people would just not have kids. I know my spouse and I have been pressured for years to adopt (since we can't conceive) because, you know, having a kid is just so damn vital to life. I have to wonder if some of those people adopting overseas were rejected by domestic agencies for good reason.

[fgalkin]

The sad truth is that the American foster care system is so bad that third world orphanages may actually be superior to it. I did some reasearch into the matter, simply put any child that goes through the system and is not sexually or physcically abused can count themselves lucky.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Broomstick]

Adoption and foster care are two different things.

[fgalkin]

Adoption and foster care are two different things.

Both are in the shitter due to inadequate attention from social services.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

I wish more people would just not have kids. I know my spouse and I have been pressured for years to adopt (since we can't conceive) because, you know, having a kid is just so damn vital to life.

To be fair, you sound like you'd make a pretty good mom, et cetera, so it's not totally unreasonable. But yeah, I can see it getting excessive.

I wonder if a person here should be worried if they don't have people saying "you should have kids!"

[Kitsune]

I wish more people would just not have kids. I know my spouse and I have been pressured for years to adopt (since we can't conceive) because, you know, having a kid is just so damn vital to life.

To be fair, you sound like you'd make a pretty good mom, et cetera, so it's not totally unreasonable. But yeah, I can see it getting excessive.

I wonder if a person here should be worried if they don't have people saying "you should have kids!"

I don't think I should have kids and don't have any

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but it would be a bad sign if people were saying "seriously, don't reproduce."

[Kitsune]

Yes, but it would be a bad sign if people were saying "seriously, don't reproduce."

I think some people might be alright people generally but should not have children
Besides, the Earth has about 7.1 billion humans. . . Do we really need more?

[Broomstick]

Adoption and foster care are two different things.

Both are in the shitter due to inadequate attention from social services.

The difference is that, while in adequate and spotty, a child in foster care has someone from outside the family checking at least occasionally. Once adopted no one tracks the kid any more.