How Could She?!

Probably by now you all have heard or seen something about the woman who put her seven year old son on a plane back to Russia. The adoption community is all a-flutter about it. There are so many things to think about this story. The knee jerk reaction is how could she!?!? He's her son! But if everyone really believed that, then it doesn't look as bad since people put their young children on airplanes under the care of airline staff all the time to go be with other family members. In a twisted way, this mother arranged for her son to go be with his other "family" again. The catch is she meant for it to be a permanent visit and he has no other family- life in an institution doesn't count as a better option for him. She was only thinking of the better option for her. Rather than deal with her troubled son here in the US where there are indeed support systems and safety nets for kids like him who are exhibiting nasty, threatening behaviors, she stupidly attempted to bypass all the right ways to cope with her situation. That a social worker visited the home in January and left feeling like everything was going along swimmingly only to find out a couple months later that he was "sent back" is crazy. This is one woman who must have a total mental block about asking for help.

This is far from the only Russian adoption to go bad. Statistically more adoptions from Russia end in a disruption/dissolution than from any other international adoption program, even Guatemala's which has its fair share. That this woman did not know the right/better/proper/legal way to cope with her troubled son is far fetched. She would have HAD to sit through adoption training sessions or online courses before being approved as an adoptive parent. In that training she would have been told about all the bad things that can happen when a child as old as seven comes home to a new family. The training probably even mentioned how Eastern European countries have a higher risk of things going poorly. She was told about seeking support from her adoption agency and social worker and other support services available in this country. She had to be living in a bubble if she was having enough trouble parenting her son to chose to end the parent-child relationship but not ask anyone about how to do so. Google it, lady!

This child is legally hers. He is legally a US citizen despite Russian authorities attempts to claim otherwise. She is a single mom which means this child came to the USA with an IR-3 visa since as with any Russian adoption the parent(s) must travel twice therefore "viewing the child" before the adoption was finalized which is the USCIS requiremnet for granting and IR-3 visa. An IR-3 visa gives the newcomer automatic citizenship upon landing on US soil in that airplane that brought this boy here in September. Every int'l adoptive parent knows this if his/her kid came home with an IR-3 visa. Citizenship status is not revoked simply by returning to one's country of birth. And putting one's child on a plane to his birth country does not revoke parental rights although in this case authorities should probably push for it to mean just that. This child is still a US citizen and still the legal son of the woman who visited him twice in Russia and went before the Russian court as per their adoption procedure to promise that she would never abandon, abuse, or neglect this child and to prove to the Russian judge that she deserved to parent this child.

She didn't know how bad/difficult/excruciating it could be to do so. Once she felt that she could not parent this child, she went about it all wrong and caused a big international media mess taht could cause thousands of waiting children and parents to wait even longer. Here's the sticking point: the longer kids wait before joining their forever families, the higher the risk of the adoption disrupting. Governments put all these safeguards in place and halt adoptions while they revamp processes thereby keeping kids in institutions or temporary homes longer which leads to more problems, not less. That goes for the adoption system right here at home in the USA too.

Here's the other thing that keeps gnawing at me about this whole "Russian boy sent back alone on airplane" story: there is little, less, or even sometimes no media coverage about adoption disruptions that went down in even worse ways. This mom shelled out to get the child all the way back to Russia so it's all over the int'l news. What about the mom who left her newly adopted Guatemalan son in the Gainesville, FL airport upon returning home from Guatemala?!?! He was taken into foster care where he began to thrive only to be kidnapped months later by the original adoptive mom who, of course, still held all legal rights to the child. Then she gave him back to the foster parents. Then she reclaimed him again. WHAT?!?!?! She's even more of a nutcase than this latest scandalous mom, but there's no news report about it. And what about the couple who were fellow clients of our Guatemala-adopt agency who were allowed to bring home several children from Guatemala only to end up currently on the run from charges of homicide and multiple felony charges of child abuse. Those adoptions all disrupted too.

Not sure if I have a point to all this writing other than to simply comment on the Russian case. The fact is adopting a kid is hard. It is also an amazing experience, good and bad. Thank God it is an option for all the children in the world who would otherwise not know the love of a family and for all the parents in the world who would otherwise not have the experience of parenting these children. Some statistics state that 10-30% of adoptions of children beyond toddler age end up with a disruption, dissolution, or residential treatment facility placement. It happens. It sucks for everyone involved. But this woman from TN went about it all wrong and now tons of great parents willing and ready to meet the challenges of adopting from Russia will have to wait even longer and maybe have an even harder time with their new children.

Anyway, here's a shout out to a good friend who wrote a piece about this case that you can read here.