Harlow's Monkey

Stats counter is my friend

It's always so interesting to see who is linking to my blog, which posts, and for what reasons. According to some, I'm "angry adoptee" whose critiques of adoption -themed picture books for children is invalid because apparently I'm someone "who doesn't have a lot of experience reading books to little kids."

I think my own two children (I mean, chicks and bears) might disagree with that.

3/1 ETA: It seems the so-called "feminists" over at Feminist need to read Rickie Solinger's Beggars and Choosers. Some of them still think reproductive "choice" means priviliging their own while stomping on others.

Adoption workers receive probation for kidnapping children

Four Sentenced in Scheme to 'Adopt' Samoan Kids Prosecutors: Adoption Agency Tricked Samoan Parents Into Giving Children Up for Adoption

By BETH TRIBOLET, TERI WHITCRAFT and SCOTT MICHELS

Four employees of a Wyoming-based adoption agency, Focus on Children, were sentenced on Wednesday in federal court in Utah to five years on probation for their role in the scam. Scott and Karen Banks, Coleen Bartlett and Karalee Thornock have all pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of aiding and abetting the improper entry of an alien. A fifth defendant, Dan Wakefield, who helped find the children to be adopted in Samoa, will be sentenced next month.

Prosecutors say the adoption workers and others tricked unwitting Samoan parents into giving up their children for adoption, telling them that the children were being sent on an educational program in the United States and that the children would return to Samoa.

The families didn't know they were giving up their rights to their children forever. American families paid thousands of dollars for the adoptions.

U.S. District Judge David Sam ordered the four defendants never to work in the adoption business again and to contribute to a trust fund for the children.

Sam said the case "cries out for a sentence that's restorative rather than punitive."

read the rest of the article here

South Korean hearing on adoption law

At hearing on adoption law, frustration and calls for change

By Shin Hae-in

SEOUL, Feb. 26 (Yonhap) -- Local experts and adoptees expressed frustration Thursday at a public hearing on South Korea's antiquated adoption law over the country's lack of child protection programs and the slow pace of change.

* the women in the front row are adoptees, including Jane (thanks for the tip to this story!)

You can read the rest of the article here.

Documentaries that represent our stories?

Last Saturday I did a training for a local adoptive parent support group, along with two others, both adoption professionals (and adoptive parents of grown children themselves). One of the other trainers asked me if I'd seen Adopted and asked what I thought of the film. I had to confess: I have not seen the main portion of the movie. I have watched all the collateral materials, all 2 hours of interviews with many people who I know personally (and most of whom I know either by name or professionally).

My take on the educational materials, which were originally supposed to be the film before the filmmakers decided to take it in a different direction, is that they are pretty good. I would recommend those portions for adoption agency trainings. I know some of the sections are supposed to be more "challenging" (but honestly I don't know that they challenge enough - or at least I always think we could push prospective adoptive parents even more) but they are definitely sufficient and with a few exceptions I thought they were honest and educational.

But, as I told my fellow trainer, I have not been able to bring myself to watch the main film - the stories of Jen and Jacqui & John. I can not do it. I know it will bring up too much emotional baggage.

So, I was wondering how many of you have seen this movie, and what are your thoughts? Would you recommend it to prospective adoptive parents? What did you think of the filmmaker's choice to follow these two families? If you've seen the whole movie (including the collateral materials), what do you think about the film conceptualized initially as the collateral materials with the stories of the two families added later? Does that change how you think about the movie? If you are an adoptive parent, do you think John and Jacqui represent your story? If you are an adopted person, do you think Jen's story resonates with you?

I plan to watch the whole film, I really do, and I will write up my thoughts after I see it. But in the meantime, I'd be interested in what others of you think of the film.

Better her than me

"She's beautiful, and I love her, and she can like, adopt me if she wants to."

– Miley Cyrus, on Best Actress nominee Angelina Jolie, to E! host Ryan Seacrest

It all makes sense...

AHA! No wonder there's been so much griping about the Asian dude in Miley "Goofy-face" Cyrus' photo brew-ha-ha, and why he seems to be "going along" with them making fun of him and his kind. Some have speculated that he's a self-hating Asian.

Well, I got hint that this kid is a TRA -

Doesn't that just figure.

I wonder if it's his a-p who is on the forums, railing against all us "over-sensitives."

How to apologize for racism (plus a specific call to adoptive parents of Asian children)

First of all, I was appalled to see this about some adoptive parent reaction to the Miley Cyrus photo, and here is another piece of advice to transracial adoptive parents.

Loved these and had to share. Seems there's been too much of this lately.

The non-apology "apology"

Free apologies!

I heart resist racism.

New York Times article about single motherhood by choice

Not an adoption story per se, that is it's not the focus of this New York Times story. But, I think this is an interesting article nonetheless - especially since it's about a non-normative family structure. I think it's fascinating that they are featuring single moms who chose the adoption route rather than other routes to becoming parents.

Like Lili’s dolls, the circle that radiates out from this two-bedroom ranch house in the New Jersey suburb of Moorestown is a largely female world. Fran and her daughters spend much of their time outside school and work with a small group of other single mothers and their girls. Among them is Fran’s friend of 10 years, Nancy Clark. Fran is 49; Nancy is 50. Six years ago, they went together to China to adopt Lili and Nancy’s daughter Katelei, whom they called “salt-and-pepper twins" because Lili had fair skin and Katelei is darker.

In the summers, Fran, Nancy, their friends Lynne Rose and Susan Bacso and the women’s total of eight daughters, all adopted from China, drive south to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. At the end of a day of taking turns watching the girls on the beach, Fran drives the group (or at least part of it) down back roads in a Toyota minivan that she bought for these trips. There’s no contract for the women’s nonromantic relationships. They are not binding. But Fran and her friends sometimes half-jestingly imagine a kind of semi-permanence. “We kid about how when we’re old and decrepit, and we’ve sold our houses to pay for college, we’ll buy a trailer by the side of the road,” she says. “I’ll go, ‘Hey, Nance, how about that one?’ and Susan or Lynne will say, ‘We gotta get a double-wide, for all of us.’ ”

Read the rest of the article here

Et tu, Miley?

I'm glad my kids are not Hannah Montana fans.

Miley makes the Asian slanty-eye face. Read about it here and here.

Local Korean adoptee reunited with birth mother after 37 years

I can't help it. Everytime I see a reunion story it makes me cry. That this story involves someone from my own community (I'm not friends with Mr. Huston but I am friends of friends - in my state there's about a 2-degree of separation with Korean adoptees) makes it even more interesting to me. Local Korean adoptee reunited with birth mother after 37 years
 

The search for his birth mother took a Minnesota man more than 6,000 miles away from home to Korea, where he was given up for adoption 37 years ago.

Jon Huston never imagined he'd find his way back to Korea.

"I was very nervous. I didn't know what was going to happen. It was the most nerve wrecking thing, to know if I would be accepted or rejected," said Huston.

Watch the video of the reunion at KSTP-TV.