Comments on: Adopting “Problem” Children

By: sylvia Smart

sylvia Smart — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:29:43 +0000

I have three adopted sons: 32, 17, and 15.
The oldest turned out great and is a wonderful husband, father and son (adopted at 6 months WITH NO DRUG/ALCOHOL ISSUES WITH HIS BIOLOGICAL MOTHER).
The youngest who suffered from RAD at age 5 when he came to me as a foster child, was born to a Heroin/Cocain/Alcoholic biological mother. He is doing well after therapy and temporary incarceration – went to 4 months of “boot camp” and has turned around.High I.Q. and high achiever, now getting straight A’s. He is Hispanic/Philipino.
The 17 year old is a disaster. Born with FAE (pickled in alcohol).He is African American. He has no motivation, no conscience, no remorse, is lazy, has no plan for his future, is disrespectful, lies, steals, cheats, uses drugs when he can get them, is failing in school, has been arrested for drug possession. He cares nothing for me or anyone else (after 10 years). Has a low I.Q. and no energy. I am waiting for him to turn 18 and leave – but where would he go? Is this why the U.S. Army is overrun with substandard recruits?
Two successes out of three attempts is not too bad. If I hadn’t taken in the 17 year old and the 15 year old – I believe they would both be dead by now. They were impossible to place in adoptive homes – and even foster care was difficult to find for them. I took them on an emergency basis for 10 days – and here we are 10 years later! They have taken years off of my life and created untold stress and worry. I cannot recommend these types of adoptions to anyone – they wreck havoc on your existence and take the joy out of living. Adopting from the foster care system is a crap shoot and the odds are against you. How many people actually want to sacrifice their lives to help kids who give nothing in return and end up just like their biological parents. I shudder when I think that they might very well reproduce and continue the cycle. If it were legal I would say they should not be allowed to have children of their own.

By: Emilia Liz

Emilia Liz — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:20:26 +0000

I’m personally considering adoption to expand my family (have one biological child already), and I know what I can and cannot handle. Race would not be an issue, and a purely physical disability would be acceptable for me. On the other hand, I know myself well enough to realize I couldn’t handle a child with mental retardation, behavioural problems or psychiatric issues due to, for example, fetal alcohol syndrome. For that reason if I ever adopted internationally I probably would not choose to do so in Russia or Eastern Europe because of the high incidence of alcoholism there. I admire people who choose to adopt children with mental problems, but I couldn’t be one of them.

By: Ninette Freitas

Ninette Freitas — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:09:02 +0000

It took me a long time to decide how or if I was going to comment on this.
My initial reactions was anger. I felt that the article was very anti-domestic (foster) adoption and my defenses went up.
After re-reading the article I am a little less angry.
I see and agree with the point you are trying to make. I have 3 adopted childern (foster-adoption) ages 11, 9, 7 they have been with me for almost 3 years.
Yep, there are problems, diagnoses and trips to therapist. But this could happen with any child birth or International.
However, (and you knew that was coming) I felt like there wasn’t any postive stories about domestic/foster adoption. I love my childern, sometimes they make me crazy, but they have brought so much more to my life then frustration, medication and violence.
I agree that it takes a certain type of person to adopt. I also think it takes a certain “marriage” to adopt as well. There is no way that we could have made it thru without taking the time to work on our relationship.
I like the fact that you stress that one can get a “problem” child regardless and if you think that it is all baby smiles and happy endings your wrong.
We have a large a wonderful support group. There have been countless parents “pass thru” our group who’s child, now a teenager, is falling apart and/or the family is falling apart. Without exception the stories are the same.
1) Adopted internationally as infant/tobbler
2) Post adoption support nonexsistent or in the parents pov not “needed”
3) Never thought that the adoption was really an issue
Now the child is growing up and has no identy and has questions and the parents are amazed at the information they are now getting. In my opinion it is something they should have done from the beginning.
So I guess what I am sayings is good points, but I still would have liked a few postive stories as well.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:03:24 +0000

Thank you for posting this. Many people go into adoption blind. I’m glad that you pointed out that while people go overseas to avoide the “foster care issues” those issues sometimes manifest anyway.