Beach. Pool. Turtles. Crabs.

More fun in the sun today, but equal fun by moonlight!  We spent the morning at the pool, visited Sea Turtle, Inc., in the afternoon, and walked the beach after dark.

We're staying at the Pearl in South Padre -- you would have thought from their excitement that the girls had built this sand castle themselves:

If you go to the Pearl's facebook page and "like" our photo of the sand castle, and we get the most likes, we win something -- I can't remember what!  I can't say I much care, but the girls would appreciate your "likes!"

The pool area at the Pearl is really nice, and though both my girls are too tall to be in the kiddie pool, they are obsessed with the tiny frog slide, sneaking over there any time no one was there.

I figured as long as there were no little ones for them to bowl over, we could bend the rules just a bit!

Sea Turtle, Inc., is a rescue organization in South Padre, and have been really instrumental in the come-back of the endangered Ridley turtles.  They locate their nests and protect the eggs and also bring in injured turtles and re-introduce them into the wild after they're healed.  They don't have many on site right now, but the girls especially loved the baby ones.

The big turtle in the picture above is a green turtle, not a Ridley.  The worker gave the girls lettuce leaves, and when the turtle saw them, it came right to the viewing window to have its picture taken!  The girls could then throw the leaves into the tank and watch the turtle gobble them down.  Great fun!

After dinner this evening we went for a walk on the beach.  Boy, it was windy, and no way were we going in to swim, but we had a great time walking in the surf and watching for crabs.  We saw dozens, none of which I managed to capture in a photograph, so you'll have to take our word for it!

The girls also enjoyed others' hard work, jumping in every hole dug during the day and circling every last remnant of sand castles.  And of course, they loved looking for clams digging themselves into the sand after the waves deposited them on shore.  It's the little things, isn't it?!



Looking forward to another day of sun (and moon) and fun tomorrow!

SPI!

Greetings from South Padre Island!  I have the misfortune of having to attend a work conference here (boo-hoo!), so brought along the girls and Mimi.  After a nine-hour drive and a short meeting for me, we hit the beach for an evening walk.  The girls really loved discovering sea creatures -- ghost crabs and coquinas clams along the shore.  You would have thought we were the only people on earth to have seen the little clams dig themselves back into the sand as the waves uncovered them, which led to many experiments when we returned to the beach this morning -- piling them into the sand sieve and watching them try to dig themselves through the plastic being one of their favorites!

We spent about an hour on the beach before my conference started, and then Mimi took over with beach and pool duty. 

After lunch, we had great fun at the SPI Birding and Nature Center, walking their boardwalk and seeing lots of birds.  Since Maya's class did a section on birds for Science this year, she's been bird-obsessed.  We saw great blue heron, little blue heron, willet, red-winged blackbird, tricolor heron, and who knows what all else!  Oh, yes, we also saw an alligator!  Zoe was pretty pleased since she was apparently the first person of the day to spot one at the center. Forgot the camera, so you don't have to suffer through more pictures of that!

On to dinner, and then probably more pool and beach time this evening.  Tomorrow morning is when my real conference work begins, and then over by noon and more fun in the sun!  I'm pretty sure Zoe and Maya approve!

Netizens' Reactions to Adoptee Searching for Birth Mother in China

A website that focuses on social media in China, Tea Leaf Nation, looks at Jenna Cook's search for her birth mother in China, as China watches through social media.  Read the whole thing to learn the back story, but I found this part about the reaction of Chinese netizens especially interesting:

I am happy that Jenna managed to spread the word regarding her project, and I hope that she manages to find the information she needs. Most netizens share my enthusiastic support for her project, and gave her their full-fledged blessing and approval. Although generally supportive, netizens also voiced their concerns. Many wondered why she still wanted to find her birth parents, given that they had abandoned her in the first place.

Jenna responded via her Weibo, “They gave me my life. I feel very grateful… [When I find them] I want to see how they are doing, and to give them my love. I will try my best to help them.”

Her kindness and forgiving attitude touched the hearts of many. @左海游子 wrote, “You are a kind girl. You are repaying misdeeds with kindness. You still love your birth parents so deeply, and have not forgotten the family who took care of you. Your story is so touching. I sincerely wish that you’ll be able to fulfill your dream of finding your parents!”

Some netizens were more skeptical. @鱼不离水 voiced his opposition: “I advise that you stop trying to find your birth parents. I believe that they don’t have nearly the compassion and broadmindedness of your adopted mother, or else why would they have abandoned you in the first place? Even if you find them, it will only bring them regret and humiliation. Why bother?”

@范凯俊 elaborated, “In China, things are often more complicated. We have an old saying: ‘the birth mother is not as dear as the adopted mother.’ [生母不如养母亲] When you were born, the old concept of favoritism for boys was especially widespread. Your birth parents might have abandoned you for that reason. It’s possible that the truth will disappoint you.”

While some netizens condemned Jenna’s birth parents for their supposed heartlessness, others took a more sympathetic view. @我的春天来了 posed the question, “What if your birth parents were in a awkward position themselves? Suppose that you were born out of wedlock. In that case, your birth parents might have their separate families now, and your sudden appearance would turn their lives upside down. In China, parents usually only abandon their children when they have no other choice. What parents can stand losing their own children?”

We're Deporting Adoptees

At Huffington Post, Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute writes about the Kairi Shepherd case:

Imagine that your daughter, whom you raised from infancy, was convicted of forgery. You certainly wouldn't be surprised if she were prosecuted for that felony and, while it would be heartbreaking, you'd expect her to be punished, probably even imprisoned. Now let's add one more element to this real-life scenario: How would you feel if the penalty imposed on your 30-year-old child -- who suffers from multiple sclerosis -- was deportation to another country where she knows no one and doesn't speak the native language?

I am not making this up. It is happening today. It is obviously devastating to the woman facing a jarringly disproportionate punishment for the crime she committed, but it is also much more than that. It is a vivid example of the unfairness and inequality that sometimes exist in the world of adoption.

What may be most unnerving is the fact that this is not an aberration; while it is hardly commonplace, it has happened again and again. And there has been virtually no media attention, or public outrage, or embarrassment on the part of immigration officials, or concerted effort to reform law and policy so that people who were adopted into their families are placed on a level playing field with their biological counterparts.

African Child Policy Forum: Rise in IA from Africa Alarming

The BBC News on a report from the African Child Policy Forum about the rise in international adoption from Africa:

The number of children from Africa being adopted by foreign nationals from other continents has risen dramatically, a report has said.

In the past eight years, international adoptions increased by almost 400%, the African Child Policy Forum has found.

"Africa is becoming the new frontier for inter-country adoption," the Addis Ababa-based group said.

But many African countries do not have adequate safeguards in place to protect the children being adopted, it warns.

The majority of so-called orphans adopted from Africa have at least one living parent and many children are trafficked or sold by their parents, the child expert group says.

More than 41,000 African children have been adopted and taken out of home countries since 2004, the ACPF report says.

More than two thirds of the total in 2009 and 2010 were adopted from Ethiopia, which now sends more children abroad for adoption than any other country, apart from China.

"Compromising children's best interests while undertaking inter-country adoption is likely and adoption can become a vast, profit-driven, industry with children as the commodity," the African Child Policy Forum report said.

The group's director, David Mugawe, said that adoption in some parts of Africa had indeed become a business.

"It's got an element where adoption has now become commercialised. And so it's an industry that some orphanages are benefiting [from] - and they are promoting adoption basically to be able to sustain and maintain the orphanages," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

Theater Artists Find Depths in Search for Families

From the Twin Cities' StarTribune, a profile of two Korean adoptees, each performing one-woman shows about their experiences:

Twin Cities actor Sun Mee Chomet was playing Lady Macduff in "Macbeth" at the Guthrie in 2010 when she got a call from Korea saying that her birth mother wanted to meet her. This fulfillment of her years-long process to know more about her biological family hit Chomet hard. She cried that day in her dressing room.

Not long before the phone call, Chomet, a Korean-American adoptee, had appeared via webcam on "I Miss That Person," a Korean reality TV show for adoptees. The show is a hit in a country from which an estimated 200,000 children were adopted by Western families over the past 50 years. Many are seeking to reconnect with their birth families, hoping to fill out everything from health histories to emotional voids.

"There are 10,000 Korean adoptees in Minnesota alone," she said.

Chomet's reunion with her birth mother was a complicated dance of Western expectations and Korean tradition. Her mother is now married to a man who is not Chomet's father. The daughter will not be able to spend a night in her mother's home until after he dies. Still, Chomet learned many things about herself during her reunion with her mother in Korea. For one thing, her mother wanted to become an actor -- a dream cut short when she had Chomet.

The actor, writer and director said that she felt a familial ease being around her mother and aunts, and got a deep sense of belonging. (Her birth mother's husband was kept at bay during their meetings.)
"Going into the search, I envisioned, as many adoptees feel, that meeting my birth mother would make me feel more whole," she said. "If anything, I felt some deep emotions starting to surface that I wasn't aware were there, including shock."

* * *

Writer and performer [Katie Hae] Leo, 40, was not as successful as Chomet in her search for her Korean birth parents.

Leo, who grew up in Indianapolis in a white family with three other adopted children, made two attempts, one hopeful, the other halfhearted. In 1998, Leo visited Bucheon, the former agricultural village where she was born and where, the story goes, she was left on the doorstep of a police station. She placed ads and searched records. She got no results. She returned to Korea in 2007 as part of a large gathering of international adoptees, again unable to find her biological mom.

"The search is fraught with a lot of emotional baggage," she said. "I feel self-conscious about not speaking the language, although I look like I should. I'm fearful about how I would be received. It's all so daunting and a little scary."

All she has is stories, some of which she has made up.

"The story that I was told when I was growing up was that my mother was a teenage prostitute," Leo said. "To me, that sounded Dickensian. She did the best she could for me by giving me up."

In her 20s, Leo wanted to find out more about her ancestry for identity reasons.

"Now," she said, "I need that genetic knowledge for my health. I have a neurological disorder that the doctors say is genetic. I need to know more about it."

From a Russian Orphanage to American Stardom

From the New Haven Register:

Mikel Beaukel’s story begins as he’s playing with puppets in an orphanage in war-torn Russia; the ending might be scripted by Hollywood.

He’s 20 now, featured in Pop Star magazine as one of its “fresh faces!” and he’s recording a disc of his songs while working toward that big break.

“Good grief, Mikel’s sexy!” Pop Star raved. “He is so hot!”

* * *

The beginning wasn’t pretty nor was it fun. “When my mother gave birth to my twin brother, Alex, and I,” Beaukel said, “she used a fake name so we could never contact her.”

After spending the first six months of their lives in a hospital, they lived in the orphanage for 3-4 years. This was in Moldova, which emerged as an independent republic after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991. While Beaukel was in the orphanage, war was raging outside.

* * *

Beukel uses the word “rescue” to describe his adoptive parents’ role in getting the twins out of there. “They used an adoption agency in New York. When they saw a picture of us, they fell in love!”  

Alluding to his parents, Carol and Bill Snee, he said, “They gave me everything; I came from nothing. I grew up in a beautiful town on Long Island.”

“Then,” he said, “Pierre came into my life.”

That’s Pierre Patrick of New Haven. You might remember him as the entertainment industry manager, record producer, writer and big-time Doris Day fan I profiled about eight weeks ago.

Beaukel had already attracted the attention of the Suchin Company, the management agency that signed him. “They recommended Pierre.”

As soon as he met and sized up Beaukel, Patrick was ready to be his manager. “I said, ‘Fine, let’s make it happen!’” Patrick recalled. “I AM well-connected.”

You know how I feel about the whole rescue thing, but he's the adoptee and he can tell his story however he wants.  I just hope his adoptive parents didn't tell it that way. . . .

Irish Couples Flock to Florida to Adopt

From the Herald (Ireland):

IRISH couples wanting to adopt are increasingly turning to Florida in the US, new data shows.

Some 17 babies were adopted from Florida last year, statistics released by Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald reveal.

In fact, more children were adopted from the US by Irish residents in 2011 than during the nine years between 2000 and 2008.

The International Adoption Association (IAA) said the proven track record of "transparent and ethical" processes in Florida has made the state a popular choice for couples.

A spokeswoman said: "There are many reasons for this but primarily because other families have effected legal and transparent adoptions from this state and the children are very young when placed for adoption."

It is easier to travel back and forth to Florida from Ireland than the west coast of the US, she pointed out.

There is also an agency in the state which works with Irish parents and in which the applicants have confidence.

So, it looks like Florida is the new Mexico. . . .

"What to Expect When You're Expecting" and Adoption

Yes, I knew there was an adoption thread in the movie "What to Expect When You're Expecting."  Hard to miss it, with multiple reports that J Lo, who had never ever thought about adoption before, sorta kinda maybe thought she could understand why people adopt after her character in the movie did the same, not that she is actually going to adopt, of course. But there's more info about the movie from SisterHaiti UgandaMama, who also puts it in a larger context of unrealistic expectations of prospective adoptive parents:

For several months, I’ve been thinking about a blog series on unrealistic adoption expectations. Off & on, I’d draft rough notes on the topic. But in the last week or so, I’ve really gotten motivated to move forward with the series. One of those motivators was seeing the new movie “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”. I knew that one of the couples in the movie adopted a child and I was eager to see how that was portrayed in the movie.

Wow. What a disappointing, unrealistic portrayal of international adoption. I know it’s Hollywood, and we shouldn’t expect much, but still, this kind of thing only serves to increase the unrealistic expectations of first -timers thinking about adopting internationally.

(Slight spoiler here for anyone concerned.) The desperate-for-a-baby mother and the freaked-out father choose Ethiopia. Just a few days or weeks (!) later they get a referral for and a picture of an adorable, six week old, perfectly healthy baby boy. There’s an “awwww,” from the audience, of course. Months later they travel to Africa and arrive at the care center with a large group of other adoptive families (each and every family carrying an infant baby carrier!). There is a short ceremony where they all stand in a line and repeat an oath about caring for the child and keeping them in touch with their Ethiopian heritage. They then exchange a lit candle for their baby and are pronounced to be a family. More awww’s from the audience.

Easy enough right? Apparently many people assume so.

* * *

Friends, it is time to paint a more realistic picture of what international adoption looks like today.

I am not aware of any adoption program, anywhere in the world where healthy, adoptable infants are sitting in orphanages waiting for families.

An important reminder of what to expect when you're expecting to adopt internationally.

"Children Are Not Tourist Attractions"

Last year I posted about the problems of orphan tourism, the well-intentioned but potentially harmful volunteerism that takes unscreened strangers into orphanages that crop up to take advantage of the money-making opportunity that these charitable impulses create.  Now AlJazeera reports on orphan tourism in Cambodia:


From the print article:

Between the 1970s and 1990s, Cambodia was ravaged by civil war. Since its return to peace there has been a boom in tourism with over two million visitors every year. Keen to help this war-torn country, increasing numbers of tourists are now also working as volunteers. Most come with the very best of intentions - to work in schools and orphanages, filling a gap left by a lack of development funding.

But, inadvertently, well-intentioned volunteers have helped to create a surge in the number of residential care homes as impoverished parents are tempted into giving up their children in response to promises of a Western-style upbringing and education. Despite a period of prosperity in the country, the number of children in orphanages has more than doubled in the past decade, and over 70 per cent of the estimated 10,000 'orphans' have at least one living parent.

And perhaps most disturbingly, stories have emerged that Cambodian children are being exploited by some of the companies organising the volunteers or running the orphanages.

* * *

Most shockingly, in a country which has made international headlines as a playground for Western sex offenders, Sok seems happy to allow Ruhfus and Haan to take children off for an 'excursion'. He even lines the youngsters up so the 'Western volunteers' can choose which ones they want. A short time later, the pair who have taken the precaution of asking a social worker to accompany them (in the guise of an interpreter), drive away with four of the children.

* * *

The Cambodian government says it will clamp down on failing orphanages, and in 2011 launched a campaign entitled "Children are not Tourist Attractions". Meanwhile UNICEF asserts that 'orphanage tourism' and the related increase in the number of children in residential care is in contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Colombia Opens the Door to Gay International Adoption

I posted an article about this case back in December 2011, and here's an update:

A Colombian court has restored custody of adopted sons to a homosexual man, opening the door for gay adoptions.

The Constitutional Court found that the country's Family Welfare Institute simply assumed the father's sexual orientation was a threat to the two boys and did not give any reasons, Colombia Reports said. The court said the agency "cannot rely on appearances, preconceptions or prejudices" when it removes children from their homes.

Chandler Burr, a U.S. citizen, has been separated from his sons since March 2011. The court said the institute ignored the boys' wish to be with their father.

The ruling appears to open the door to adoptions in Colombia by otherwise fit gay parents.
Colombia Diversa, a gay rights organization tweeted: "Individual adoption legitimized for LGBT persons in Colombia with Burr case."

Russia Demands Inquiry Into Death of Child

A Russian child dies in the U.S. under suspicious circumstances, and there's a question about whether he counts as a Russian adoptee or not:

The United States government tried to head off a diplomatic row with Russia on Tuesday after Russian officials demanded an investigation into the death of a Russian child in an adoptive American family. American news media reported last week that Anton Fomin, a nine-year old Russian child adopted into a Nebraska family, died in a house fire while his parents were gone. On Monday, Russia’s children’s rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, demanded an investigation, saying that American investigators had established that the child had been locked in the basement. “Either the boy was punished or he was neglected and got into the basement accidentally,” Mr. Astakhov said, according to RIA Novosti news service. “Why the boy was locked in the basement and why he could not get out, we will ask the U.S. attorneys about this.” The United States Embassy in Moscow expressed its condolences to the child’s family on Tuesday, and corrected what it called “unsubstantiated reports” that he was brought to the United States through an adoption program. “Anton immigrated to the United States with his biological parents, not through intercountry adoption,” the statement said. Russian authorities have repeatedly criticized lax checks on adoptive American parents after a spate of high profile deaths involving negligent and abusive families.

But he was, apparently, adopted, not something really made clear in the NYT article, but only after he emigrated to the U.S., says the Moscow Times:

Nine-year-old Anton Fomin immigrated to the United States with his birth parents, not through intercountry adoption, the embassy said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Children's Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov confirmed that Fomin was given up for adoption after arriving in the United States.

Fomin died last week in a house fire at the home of his adoptive parents in Davey, Nebraska.

So yes, Anton was an adoptee, but a domestic adoptee. Does that make it none of Russia's business?

Why Are Teen Moms Poor? Does Why Matter?

This piece in Slate sums up some recent research I've been relying on in a project I've been working on on minors' consent to adoption -- the research shows that teen moms are poor because they were poor to begin with, not that they become poor because of the consequences of parenting:

Delivering the commencement address last weekend at the evangelical Liberty University, Mitt Romney naturally stuck primarily to “family values” and religious themes. He did, however, make one economic observation that intersects with some fascinating new research. “For those who graduate from high school, get a full-time job, and marry before they have their first child,” he said, “the probability that they will be poor is 2 percent. But if [all] those things are absent, 76 percent will be poor.”

These are striking numbers, but they raise the age-old question of correlation and causation. Does this mean that the representative high-school dropout would be doing much better had he stuck it out in school for a few more years? Or is it instead the case that the population of high-school dropouts is disproportionately composed of people who have attributes that lead to low earnings?

When it comes to early pregnancy, surprising new evidence indicates that Romney and most everyone else have it backward: Having a baby early does not hamper a young woman’s economic prospects, as Romney implies. Rather, young women choose to become mothers because their economic outlook is so objectively bleak.

* * *

Kearney and Levine used data on miscarriages to isolate the impact of giving birth from background characteristics that may contribute to a decision to give birth. When used this way as a statistical control, the negative consequences of teen childbirth appear to be small and short-lived. Young women who gave birth and young women who miscarried have similarly bleak economic outcomes. Similarly, when you compare teen mothers not to the general population but to their own sisters who aren’t teen moms “the differences are quite modest."

In the article I'm working on about minors' consent to adoption, I've been exploring why it is legislatures are so comfortable in allowing minors -- who aren't allowed to make legally-binding decisions like signing a cell-phone contract -- to relinquish their parental rights, which has to be one of the most consequential decisions one can make, given the importance we accord to parental rights. 

We talk about parenting as a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. We won't allow involuntary termination of parental rights by the government absent a showing of harm by clear and convincing evidence, a standard higher than the usual preponderance of the evidence standard we use in other civil actions.  Yet we allow a minor, unassisted by parents, lawyers or counselors, to voluntarily relinquish these parental rights in the vast majority of American states.  In only 15 states are there additional protections accorded to minors who are relinquishing parental rights -- compare that to the 36 states that require parental notice or consent when a minor makes a decision about abortion.

So why is that? I think the prominence of the idea that being a teen mom causes poverty plays a big part in the comfort level we have with separating young moms from their children.  If being a teen mom is the cause of poverty, then it is obviously in the best interest of the teen to relinquish the child so that she can escape from poverty.  Since her decision to relinquish is so clearly the only rational decision she could make, we don't need any additional protections to make sure she makes a reasoned and informed decision.  We can explain her relinquishment as not only in her child's best interest, but as being in her best interest, too. 

This research turns this thinking on its head.  If poverty is not the inevitable consequence of teen parenting, then perhaps relinquishment isn't the only rational decision.  And if it isn't the only rational decision, maybe we should consider altering the requirements for relinquishment when the mother is a minor.  Maybe more than 15 states should consider requiring some grownup other than the adoption agency representative be in the room when a young mom is making that decision. Some options include requirements that minor moms be appointed independent legal counsel or a guardian ad litem, sign relinquishment papers only in the presence of a judge, notify the minors' parents, and/or require independent psychological counseling.

What do you think?

Genetic Sexual Attraction

GSA is pretty well known in the adoption community, but it makes the mainstream with this ABC News piece, where adoptee Julie DeNeen talks about these inappropriate feelings during her reunion with her biological father:

"I realized how similar we were … We could finish each other's sentences," she said. "It was a combination of elations. And there was the adrenaline and on top of the grief, thinking why can't you go back in time. And in that combination of grief and need and feeling that you fit with someone, you get a concoction that made things very confusing."

"I had this strange falling in love feeling, holding my Dad's hand," said DeNeen. "It wasn't like a daughter, it was like something else."

Psychologists say that taboo is normally in place when family members grow up in close proximity by virtue of reverse sexual imprinting, or the Westermarck effect, which desensitizes them to later sexual attraction. Researchers hypothesize it evolved so biological relatives would not inbreed.

The phenomenon was first identified by Barbara Gonyo in the 1980s. She wrote a book, "I'm His Mother, But He's Not My Son," that recounted her personal story of reuniting and having sexual feelings for a son whom she had placed for adoption when she was 16. Gonyo fell in love -- a byproduct of delayed bonding that would normally have taken place in infancy, had they not been separated by adoption.

Gonyo, now a retired grandmother, created an online support group and DeNeen, who has a background in psychology, has taken up her work on a new website that she launched just two weeks ago, educating and intervening when others fall into the dangerous emotional trap of GSA.

* * *

GSA is "not incredibly common," but is seen among parents and adult children and between adult siblings, according to Susan Brancho Alvarado, an adoption therapist from Falls Church, Va.

And because of that, mental health experts are not experienced in helping patients. They often mistakenly confuse GSA with incest or sexual abuse, shaming adoptees.

"They just don't have the training and the topic is completely foreign," she said.

Alvarado, who has treated four families with GSA, also blames the adoption process itself.

"It fuels the secrecy and builds up the fantasy about what the other family might be like," she said. "It is mitigated when you have open access to records and birth certificates and the family from infancy is included."

The website DeNeen started, mentioned in the article, can be found here.

Crowdfunding Adoption

At the New York Times Motherlode blog, a piece about crowdfunding (a fancy way to say fundraising) fertility treatments and adoption:

In vitro fertilization (I.V.F.) and adopting a child are expensive ventures. They’re also dreams that many people can sympathize with — when someone tells a friend, or even a stranger, “we’re trying to have a baby” or “we’re trying to adopt,” people often just want to help. Crowdfunding — putting your hopes on a Web site that allows others to donate money to their realization — is the latest way to make that possible.

“After two long hard years of trying on our own to conceive,” Kimberly Sparkman writes at her campaign on Indiegogo.com, “we were diagnosed with infertility.” Insurance, she says, doesn’t cover the procedure, and she tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who’s been through it: tests, procedures, hope, loss and none of it free.

* * *

For years, crowdfunding, in some form or another, has been common in the adoption world. As an adoptive parent, I’ve seen online auctions and other fund-raisers, and many Web sites have a “ChipIn” button that allows friends, family and readers to contribute. With I.V.F., too, it’s mostly friends and family — Adam, who with his wife Arielle created a campaign to pay for an adoption (they asked that I not use their last names, as the domestic adoption process is fragile), says that of the 100 donations they received in raising $6,935, only nine came from strangers. They did receive many donations from “Facebook friends” they hadn’t seen in years, “people we would not initially have thought to reach out to.”

* * *

Would you finance your infertility procedures, or an adoption, this way? Donate to a friend’s campaign, or to a stranger’s? (There’s a kind of seductive quality to the idea of anonymously helping someone else’s dreams come true, isn’t there — like being the genie in the lamp?) Or do you find something off-putting in raising money for so personal a cause?

I've posted before about fundraising for adoption, a topic that tends to produce strong opinions pro and con.  It seems to me, though, that they're asking the wrong question at the NYT blog -- how about asking what effect fundraising for adoption has on adopted children who were the objects of those charity campaigns?

Mother Lists 3-year-old for Adoption on Craigslist?

The story from a Fresno TV station:

Two days after launching a website to try and give away her son, Corenna Waller of Fresno pulled it down. Not because she had second thoughts, but because she says it served its purpose of getting the attention of the media and Child Protective Services to take her seriously.

At face value, you would think the webpage was one for adopting a puppy, but as you read closer you find that it's a 3-year old boy who is up for grabs.

"Yeah it's way outside the box, but I never felt I was putting my son in danger because I had no intention of him meeting anybody,” said Corenna Waller.

Corenna Waller is the 27-year old Fresno woman who created the site. The overwhelmed single mother even posted a link to it on Craigslist. Her objective? To temporarily give up her son until she could get her life on track.

She's claims to have cried for help to agencies like child protective services, but no one would listen.

"I just felt I had exhausted all my resources and I kept hitting walls when it came to finding new resources. I finally felt that if I got the word out people would take me seriously,” said Waller.

And people have. Folks who spotted the page became concerned. They notified us at CBS47 as well as social workers at C.P.S. They are now involved with this case trying to draw up an alternative game plan.

Reactions?

Race Day

 That would be Dragon Boat Race Day, of course!  One exciting change from Saturday's practice, this time the boats were decked out with their dragon heads and tails.  Zoe definitely had a ball, declaring after the third and final heat that she was ready for a fourth!  After 7 hours melting in the Texas heat, I was ready for HOME and some nice chilly air conditioning. 

Both girls also enjoyed the rest of the festival -- lion dances, dragon dances, various Asian dancers, and festival foods both familiar (funnel cake!) and exotic (Thai corn patties!).

Oh, and we're pretty sure we WON the youth division -- it helps that we were the only youth boat entered!

Dragon Boat Race -- Practice Run

Tomorrow is the DFW Dragon Boat Race & Festival, and today the FCC youth boat team practiced!  This is Zoe's first year -- she finally hit the age 11 minimum.  She was the youngest, but not the smallest.  With a whole 45 minutes of practice, I have full confidence that this team will WIN -- or at least have tons of fun!

How should adopted kids be included in family history?

That's the question for advice columnist Amy:

Dear Amy: My sister and I are the family historians.

While getting all of my other siblings' information about their children, I was asked if I would put the adopted children down as children born to the family. I said I would add them, but not as born to the couple. This has caused a real problem.

Am I right (I would add them as adopted and the year in which they entered the family unit)? I'll stand by your answer.— Family Historian

Dear Historian: I solicited opinions from several different family historians and received opinions across a wide spectrum.

You don't say exactly what sort of family history you are pulling together.

My own view is that you should include all children in your family as children in your family, no matter the circumstances of their birth.

For you to do otherwise, and to note the date of their entry into the family but not their actual birth date makes it seem that on the one hand you are denoting them as not quite "real" and on the other hand you are implying that their lives started not on the dates of their birth but on the date they entered the family.

Include all children of the family in your family tree. If you are compiling a "key" or narrative to accompany the family tree you can note adoption dates, etc.

You want to tell as complete a story as possible, but adopted children are "real" family members and your history should acknowledge this reality.

Hmm, what do you think about the advice? I'd give Amy big points for acknowledging that adopted children actually have lives before they joined their adoptive families, something that not even all adoptive parents seem to get. . . .

Artyom's Mom Ordered to Pay $1000 a Month Child Support + $100,000 in Damages and Attorney's Fees

So says a Tennessee TV station:

A judge in Tennessee has ordered that an American woman who sent her adopted son back to Russia pay more than a $100,000 in damages, child support, and legal fees.

In 2010 Torry Hansen was living in Shelbyville in April 2010 when she put her then 7-year-old adopted son back on a plane to Russia alone with a note saying she no longer wanted to care for him. The adoption agency sued, and in March, a Tennessee judge ruled she's liable for child support.

On Thursday, that same judge ordered Hansen to pay her adopted son $58,000, the adoption agency $29,000 and attorney fees of nearly $63,000 as well as $1,000 a month in child support.

Next fight -- trying to execute on the judgment!