I always hesitate to make posts like I did yesterday. I am well aware that many people only like to read happy posts. But my blog is called a stuffed life, and while it's about my life making collectible stuffed toys...it's also about my life which is stuffed with lots of things. Some of those things aren't pretty, happy or good. Life is like that, it's messy and hard sometimes. I just throw it all out there. Once in a while it's nice to not read something happy and pretty...and just know you're not alone in whatever kind of garbage you have gone through.
I want to thank everyone for your very kind comments. But I also want to express my shock at what I have learned by how many of you told me that either you or someone you knew heard this same over qualified to be parents response to adoption. I honestly thought this was something weird that just happened to us, but apparently it's not. It's a comment that many, many people have heard. I had no idea.
I have gone from sad to outraged that people are being told this so often. How can anyone be over qualified to be a parent? If you are over qualified for the toughest job on the planet...then the system should throw open the doors and welcome us in to choose all the children we want. Dear God, there are children that need loving, safe homes where they will get the attention and care they need. So what is going on? Why are they being allowed to sit in orphanages or being passed around to foster parents when they could have a decent, steady home that so many of us are willing to provide???
Many people told me it's all about the money, and I believe this is true. But I also believe this is completely sick. Who designed this system? And where can I go to give them a piece of my mind?
Between all the places that my blog posts are posted to, I have heard countless stories since yesterday. I am heart broken for all of us, and all the children that didn't get the benefit our homes and sharing our lives. Something has to change. It can't be all about the money, it has to be about these children and what they need.
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3 comments:
Agreed, Kelly! It needs to be about the children and what they need, not the money. We went the route we did (adopting older children from Ukraine) because the costs of assisted reproduction and adoption of an infant were so high...of course, we found out that adopting from another country was astronomical, too. But God provided the needed money, and we've been home from Ukraine with our 15-year-old girls for 17 months as of yesterday. It has been a HUGE challenge, and it gives me pause in recommending adoption, but these children need the love and guidance that only parents can give. And the powers that be need all the overqualified parents they can get!
Bless your heart. Hugs to you,
Debora
Can I just say I love you blog both the happy and the not so happy posts! I cant belive the madness that says you could ever be over quilfied to be a parent! My nephew came into my care 6 years ago via social services,he was practically given to me on a plate with no questions and no checks on me what so ever just because I was family and it would cost them nothing to do so. Its all completly wrong!!!
I'm sorry to hear that these problems exist the world over. A guy I used to work with and his wife were desperately tryign to adopt, and were told to foster first. They did, and took in a family of 3 who they worked and worked with on their behaviour, on understanding that people loved and cared for them, and on gaining their respect and trust. And then social services took the kids back and put them back with their drug addict mother. 4 months later they were back again, and started all over again. 5 months after that it happened again, back to mum, back to the beginning. After the 3rd time his wife could take no more, at which point they were told they were too old now to adopt. She was heartbroken. They were such a lovely couple, and weren't short on money, but apparently they just didn't fit whatever it was that social services were after - who knows how their minds work :o(
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