12th December 2007

News making the rounds

posted in Adoption, Adoption News, Family, Issues, News, Parenting |

I found it first on Twice the Rice.  Then PAGent posted about it.  Then Figlet.

The gist:  a diplomat and his wife, while living in Korea, adopt a 4-month-old little girl (and choose, of all stereotypical names, "Jade" for her name).  When the girl is 3, they move to Hong Kong.  At that point, they have two biological children.  At age 7, they decide to abandon their child to the social welfare system in Hong Kong, apparently citing "culture shock" or "inability to integrate into our lifestyle" or "problem with our foods" or "inability to integrate into our family", depending on which story you read.  Oh, yes, and then there’s the fact that she hasn’t been made a citizen of the diplomat’s country, or of Hong Kong, so she’s still a Korean citizen–but she doesn’t speak Korean–but she’ll probably have to go back to Korea in order to be legally adopted out again.

Dudes, OmegaDotter is almost six.

I simply cannot imagine taking her by the hand, taking her to Catholic Social Services or the county borough welfare system, and saying, "Eh…she’s too much for us.  She doesn’t like to eat the same things we do.  And, geez, she still won’t sleep in her own bedroom, and does the Foot Thing, and bashes against us as a sign of love, and we can’t take it any more.  Find her another home."

I find myself desperately hoping that there’s more to this story, that this couple aren’t as clueless and obnoxious as it seems.  That the child was threatening their smaller children.  That she had RAD and this is the end of a years-long struggle.  Or something.  That the "she doesn’t fit into their lifestyle" commentary was made by a grumpy social worker without a clue, rather than coming from the mouths of the adoptive parents.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Adoption, Adoption News, Family, Issues, News, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 9 responses to “News making the rounds”

  1. 1 On December 13th, 2007, ezfez said:

    I read about this in the Guardian. It seems like the Korean official stance is that they’re jerks, and the Dutch official stance is that it’s very much the tragic scenario you describe. I guess the truth is probably somewhere in between–hopefully closer to the latter.
    Here’s the article with the official statements:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,,2226521,00.html

  2. 2 On December 13th, 2007, Brooklyn Mama said:

    It is shameful.

  3. 3 On December 13th, 2007, Johnny said:

    I checked the story with my Dutch a-Mom pal. And sadly, it’s true and it’s caused an understandable furor in the Dutch adoptive community.

  4. 4 On December 13th, 2007, Julie Pippert said:

    That makes me feel nauseated. That poor child. NOTHING can make up for that, regardless of reason. It is a permanent gig, this parent job. And adopted children are your real children. That’s why I hate the word real. It undermines the relationship. I hope poor Jade gets a loving home but I also know this will scar her. Nothing can make up for her REAL parents abandoning her. At 7. I feel sick.

    Julie
    Using My Words

  5. 5 On December 13th, 2007, Scott Ocheltree said:

    Let’s give the “diplomat” and his wife the benefit of the doubt and assume the reasons for their abandonment of this child has been miscommunicated in the press. Now how do we get around loathing and despising them for never attending to establishing citizenship for their daughter?

  6. 6 On December 13th, 2007, Jean said:

    Sounds like the worst kind of insensitivite social climbers - the acquisition of a trophy child.

  7. 7 On December 13th, 2007, Lisa said:

    Ugh. I can only think of my 9-year-old cousin, who was adopted domestically as an infant. He’s been with our family for only a couple of years longer than this young girl, and from the moment he came home he was incontrovertibly a member of our family forever. Period.

    And the fact that this guy is being supported by his employers is ridiculous to me. If the situation was reversed, and he was dropping off one of his two biological children at the Social Services office, would his employers still support him? Somehow I don’t think that would be excused, but to me, it’s exactly the same thing.

    I can’t believe this guy still has a job representing his country.

  8. 8 On December 13th, 2007, figlet said:

    Like many people, I’m upset about this on so many levels and ir raises so many issues. I think that we need to discuss why it seems more acceptable to return/reject adopted children when something goes wrong. Obviously there is more to this story than we know but I cannot help thinking that a biological child would not have been dropped off at a social welfare office. Why was the child in this story expendable? There’s a cryptic little comment on my blog that would seem to indicate perhaps the wife had serious issues. But why not dump her? A 40/50 year old has coping skills that a young child does not. Why not return the wife and hold on to the vulnerable child? Sigh. Sob.

  9. 9 On December 14th, 2007, FTG Meg said:

    It just boggles my mind that someone could do that. My daughter is only 3, I can not even begin to imagine a circumstance that would lead me to abandon her to child services. Both because she is my child and you just don’t do that to your child and because it would breach every promise I made to the Chinese government when I adopted her. In a logical world, adopted children should be able to feel MORE secure than biological children that their parents will take care of them and not abandon them because of all the hoops we have to go through to adopt. There are no accidental adoptions. The decision to adopt is not one that can be made quickly and should not be done lightly. Of course the world is not logical, and so we have idiots like this who give substance to what should be irrational nightmares.

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