I was one of the first to post on this thread. Some of the replies were actually making me sick, so I swore off this reading more posts.
GMA had a segment about it this morning. I almost turned off the tv, but thought it was best to be pro-active and discuss this with my kids. I didn't want them to go to school and hear things from classmates that might upset them.
I haven't read any posts, but the GMA story was very interesting. It seems this boy was living in some type of family compound. He was not schooled. There is no record of him attending school or the family homeschooling. The mother gave glowing reports to her home adoption agency. She contacted a Russian lawyer to have the adoption anulled.
I could go on forever about this story, but I only wanted to point out another factor that I didn't realize in my initial posts. Yes, the most important tragedy is the boy, second the effect it will have on future adoptions. Lastly the effect it has on adopted children. My kids listened to the story and had tons of nervous questions afterward. I'm confident they understand how this was one story about a crazy, evil woman who abused her child. Unfortunately the reality is that many children, some even DIS children, will hear their parents discussing this story and share their distorted view. My children then have the possibility of running into these confused children and hearing these lies. Children could also tease my kids about this story. It's so sad.
This reminds me of the damage control I had to do shortly after adopting our first child. We had our Russian born daughter baptized shortly after coming home. We were delighted to share this celebration with many friends and family members. Our delight turned to sadness when our pastor discussed our daughter's adoption during in his sermon during the service. We thought of this man as a trusted family friend. He married us, comforted us during the tragic death of my husband's twin brother and mother, etc. How surprised we were to hear him explain how we dared travel to a "communist" country where people sold their children to buy alcohol. Needless to say we never returned to that church.
It is amazing to me how people have such misconceptions about other countries and adoption. I guess it's an extention of racism.
The irony is that shortly after you adopt a child from a different country you see the child as YOUR child, not your Russian, or Chinese, or Haitian child. My children are proud of their heritage and participate in culture camps, etc, but I never preface my relationship with the term adopted. They are my children, period.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am far less concerned with this woman than the ramifications of what she has done. (The more I read/watch, the less respect I have for her anyway.) I have mentioned the THOUSANDS of children who may never be able to find loving homes because of her thoughtless actions and heaven knows, that is bad enough. I know that if I was the woman waiting to go pick up my child and someone like her ruined my chance at motherhood, I'd want to do her bodily harm. I think of when we left our DD after our first meeting and went home to await our court date. If, in between trips, an incident like this had happened and kept me from my DD forever, it would have crushed me. After all we had been through and to be so close to having that precious child, only to have our future together ripped away because this woman couldn't get rid of that kid fast enough.....
Magnify that by the several thousand families who may never exist because of her.
But you raise a valid point. What is this going to do to so many adopted children (not only those adopted from Russia) to get the message that adoption is NOT forever, not matter how many times we have assured them it is? Will they be teased by classmates about being "sent back"? Lord knows the general public will be fed a steady diet of "Russian adoptees are dangerous and defective." Will children hear about this story and experience anxiety about their security within their families? Yeah....probably.
This woman has done a world of harm not only to that child by shipping him off like excess baggage, but to who knows how many adopted kids. You're right....Attitudes about adoptees are a lot like racism, but it seems some people feel to spout ignorant attitudes about these children openly and this story will only feed their prejudices.
If my child wants to know anything about it, I know what I'll have to say.
I'm now sitting back, waiting for details. I fear this woman may be what I have long categorized as a "saver." Some pieces are falling into place. Without going into detail, savers tend to be more disappointed than the average adoptive parent (who usually adopts of of the desire to have a child to love and care for) when the child is not suitably grateful for being "saved." When the child does not live up to the expectations of the saver parent....and those expectations were unrealistic to begin with....the fallout is not pretty. International adoptive parents run into their fair share of saver parents. Oh well....I digress. Those who are not familiar with savers would need multiple posts to get my drift. But there will be some among the posters who know exactly what I speak of.
Halloweenqueen's experience was the same as ours. The baby home had a finite amount of resources to spend on getting children paper ready. There would never be enough money to get all of them paper ready.....not even most or many of them. Only a small percentage would be paper ready at any given time. We often heard 10%. So they concentrated their efforts on the "most adoptable" children. Say the social worker could only get 2-4 children paper ready at a time, she would pick the ones most likely to be selected for adoption. Russians tend to be very practical people. They have to be. To spend your limited time and money getting "unadoptable" children paper ready when there are "adoptable" children in the same group makes no sense. It is a waste in their eyes. You will then have a paper ready UNadoptable child and a non-paper ready adoptable child on your hands.
They tend to concentrate their efforts on the children most likely to be desired by adoptive parents. It only makes sense. I'm not saying all these kids will be Gerber babies with chunky thighs, the way DD was, but it is a myth that they foist off the most unhealthy and unstable on to foreign adoptive parents. Let's face it, they want repeat business.
). The agency's answer was another question, "What would you do if your biological child was mentally ill?" 
. I told him that there was nothing so horrible that would make me do that to him. I told him there are always consequences to bad behavior, but even if he was mentally ill and had to be institutionalized, he will always be mine - I would still visit him, take responsibility for him, love him, etc. I had to reassure both of my adopted boys that they are mine, no different than our biological child. 
