You Can Help!

It’s overwhelming reading the responses to my last several postings.  Over 1K shares on FB alone and many, many times re-posted within social media.  Change is definitely needed in the area of adoption of older children and teens.  There are too many broken families to keep things the same and this has hit a nerve in the adoption community.

Some of the stories you’ve read are our own personal experiences.  Others I’ve written about were told to me by mothers and fathers devastated and with no where to turn to make things right in their families.  This has got to change.  We need to step up to safeguard our families.

And remember these are good families.  Families that have put everything on the line to bring one, or more, children/teens into their family.  They’ve gone through the gamut of social worker visits for home studies, had FBI background checks and invasive medical examinations of the entire family to ensure they are healthy; physically, mentally and emotionally in order to adopt.   And they have invested tens of thousands of dollars and racked up enormous debt, both for the adoption and for post-adoption care including counseling and court costs.

At that point all investigating goes out the window.  None is done on the potential adoptive child/teen.  In fact, in many cases when it comes to international adoption medical and emotional issues are kept hidden, medical records are non-existent and adults in control lie about the attributes in order to make the child/teen more appealing.

For one of our teens we got a bio that said something like the following:  loves to cook, garden and do crafts.  Dearly wants a mom to do things in the kitchen with.  She is so loving and affectionate.  Getting that teen home they have not once in 16 months helped out in the kitchen or garden unless pressured.  And we’ve been told countless times that everyone, including the teen, lied in Ukraine in order for them to be adopted and how much they hate our family.

Some have commented that I sound angry.  I wonder if those who state that would be willing to walk in my shoes for awhile?  And please get this, I am not angry at the teen, I am angry at this broken system.  A righteous anger that needs to happen in order to make a difference.  And we should ALL be angry that even one family is going through what we have. We should ALL want to make a difference.

I will state once again that I know there are some good adoptions.  Some great stories of redemption and amazing futures for adopted children/teens.  And I’m over the moon happy about them.  However, until the system is changed so that stories like mine and hundreds of others don’t happen then I will continue to fight this good fight and have a righteous anger.  It’s not right that even one family goes through this trauma.

A friend of my, Shannon Dulock, along with some others have started a petition that they are sending to Washington about this issue.  We would love to have you sign the petition.  Please go to https://www.facebook.com/Reforming-Laws-142988966065566/?fref=ts and ask to be added to the group.  Then post or message in the group that you want to sign the petition.  And then share this information.  Together, we can make a difference!!