Strollerderby : adoption

Ontario Opens Original Birth Certificates for Adopted Adults

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Monday (1 June) was a day that many thousands of people in Ontario will remember for the rest of their lives. It was the first day people adopted in Ontario (since 1921) could apply to the government for their original birth records.

A new law, similar to one already in place in other Canadian provinces, one in the UK and a handful of U.S. states, allows adopted persons over 18 years old to apply for their original birth certificates--containing their original names and the name or names of their original mother and perhaps father.

Detractors worried that people desiring privacy from contact by biological family members would be harassed if the law was passed. But experience in places where such laws already exist has shown very few problems. All the same, a provision was added to the new law allowing persons desiring so to "veto" the other party's right to the information. But although over 250,000 adoptions have been record in the province since 1921, less than 4,000 people have submitted "veto" requests or contact restrictions (such as asking that any contact be made via a work address rather than home, for example).

It is important to note, however that while some people seeking this information will use it to try and contact biological family members, the information itself includes no right to contact, no addresses or phone numbers, but merely names. There's certainly no guarantee that the parties will decide to build or maintain a relationship if they do meet.

But what's important about this law--in spite of the veto measure, which is less than satisfactory to many activists--is that is makes way for a flood of people hitherto denied a basic civil right to finally become first-class citizens. We don't tolerate secret arrests, secret evidence in trials, secret wiretapping of citizens. How silly is it to uphold enforced secrecy from a citizen of a thing as personal--and uninteresting to anyone but the individual in question--as a birth certificate?

Congratulations Ontario. And Happy Birth Certificate Day to adopted Ontarians!

Adoption After Having Biological Kids: What's the Big Deal?

JeanneSager — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:28:00 GMT

I got a bit ferklempt watching the recent New York Times video of a May Lee Wong, a NYC principal who just adopted a little girl from Ethiopia after giving birth to three boys. Maybe it was the fact that the little girl, Mebrat, was thought to be three-years-old when she came to the Wong family but was, in fact, a malnourished six-year-old.

More likely? The fact that a family has adopted after having children "of their own."

Because there is still a stigma attached to mixing families of biological and adopted children. There is the inference that the older, biologically-related children will feel cast aside by their parents' decision to adopt. The idea that an adopted child won't feel they can make a home in a family where they are the only ones who don't have a blood connection.

Raised in a family with a mix of biologically-related and adoption-related aunts and uncles, it's an argument I'm familiar with - and one I can tell you holds no water. My family is my family. Just the way mixed families of steps and halves mix together, so do the adopted and the biological.

The criticism is generally lobbed at parents as they make their decisions to adopt, but at the heart they are pointed at kids - that the kids won't adapt. You can't equate the rigidity of adults with children. Because kids are more accepting of change and of other people than adults, even the most liberal-minded adult. There's also a sense of equality among kids that is inherent - something we all too often lose as we grow up and begin to experience slights both real and imagined at work and in the grocery store. For kids, life starts out an equal playing field - it's up to adults to keep it that way.

May Lee Wong's attitude toward adopting Mebrat sounds just right: "It’s not that I didn’t think my family was complete with my three boys, I knew that we had room for one more."

Image: NY Times

Best of FameCrawler - Week of May 29th

Whit Honea — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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PBS Launching Dinosaur Train for Science Kids

JeanneSager — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:01:00 GMT

For parents who have fallen in love with Sid the Science Kid (who hasn't?), good news! PBS is going prehistoric this fall with a new show aimed at expanding their offerings for our little scientists.

Dinosaur Train will let our kids hop onboard with Buddy, a young T-Rex adopted by a family of Pterandons

I haven't seen the show yet, but I'm A. loving that there's a show out there for all those dinosaur fans - and we all know there are many and B. digging the fact that there's an adopted kid on TV for adopted kids to relate to . . . even if it is a kid with two giant feet and two teeny hands!

Produced by The Jim Henson Company, the show will feature two eleven-minute segments daily with live-action interestitials featuring paleontologist Scott Sampson (you've seen him on Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet) dishing out dino nuggets (with no extra calories). The train alluded to in the name will take Buddy and his family and friends on adventures through time, chugga-chugga-ing to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Can't wait? Set your Tivo for Sept. 7.

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Paper Girl Delivers Food and Shelter to Haitian Family

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:07:00 GMT

Taphatna Duncan is a normal sixth-grader with a paper route. But she does something extraordinary with her $100/month in earnings. She supports her family.

Taphatna was adopted at age seven from the "orphanage" where her biological father had taken her when he and his family could no longer afford to care for her. Her Canadian adoptive mother, Deborah Duncan, has four children, three of whom are adopted, and is an adopted person herself. She met Taphatna at age five, while on a trip to help deliver food for a relief agency. After volunteering in Haiti for years, she had decided to adopt a Haitian child in need of a home.

Last year, she received an email with the news that Taphatna's father had died, bankrupting her mother and younger brother with funeral expenses. They had been living on the street until someone was able to contact Deborah. The Duncans quickly sent money for food and the funeral and solicited help to find them housing. But rent in Haiti must be paid a year in advance, so the Duncans also borrowed $600 to rent a home for Taphatna's family. Now Taphatna is working to pay back that loan and earn next year's rent as well.

Mom, Deborah, helps Taphatna deliver the papers twice weekly and has organized a walkathon to raise money to help Haitians in poverty. To join in or otherwise help, visit To Hope For Haiti.

Adopted Brother Was Living Across The Street

Brett Singer — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:30:00 GMT

This is nice. And bizarre. But still nice.

Joellen Cottrell gave birth at the tender of 16. She gave the child up for adoption. Later, Joellen had a daughter, Candace Eloph, and told her that somewhere out there, she had a half-brother.

30 years later, Candace moves to Shreveport, Louisiana. Some guy named Jamie Wheat lives across the street. One day they're chatting, and find out that Jamie was adopted. And that Candace's mother gave someone up for adoption. They compare notes. Lots of coincidences.

Except that they weren't coincidences. Turns out Jamie Wheat was Joellen Cottrell's biological son.

To make sure, Joellen and Jamie took DNA tests, which showed a 99.995% chance that they were related. Bingo. CNN has video of the family opening the envelope:

Embedded video from CNN Video

If the video won't play, click here.

What are the odds? They have to be astronomical, right? It certainly beats the switched at birth story.

Side note: on today's Babble Talk Radio, Shannon gave us a lot to think about regarding adoption. Click here to listen.

Source: CNN

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Economy Down, Adoptions Up

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:30:00 GMT

Adoption agencies around the country are reporting a rise of between 10 and 30% in pregnant women and new mothers inquiring about placing their infants with new families, since the recession began.

The story of one such woman, a single mother to three teens who found herself unexpectedly pregnant again with no support from her baby's father, is outlined in a report at USATODAY.com.

As an adoptive mother, I understand the joy of adoptive parents. As an advocate of reproductive choice, I believe strongly in ethical adoption as an option for women who need it and choose it freely from other options. But I am saddened by this rise in adoptions due to economic crisis.

When adoptions happen strictly because a mother can't afford--financially--to raise her baby, society has failed both mother and child. When the cost of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare and education can only be met by some, all families are devalued. The only solution to a mother's financial desperation should not be sending her child to live with wealthier parents. When that is the case, it suggests that only people with a certain income deserve or are capable of raising children.

I can already hear the protests that people without the means to support their children shouldn't have children in the first place. But even if I believed that (which I don't), pregnancy is not 100% preventable by any means at all. I include abstinence, because sex is not always a woman's choice.

But I simply don't believe that the care and raising of children ought to be an exclusively private enterprise. In fact, neither do those involved in adoption. Adoption is all about the communal care of children. It is about people outside a family working with that family--becoming additional family--for the support of children who need more than just their birth parents' support.

But adoption has enormous consequences for all parties involved--adopted people, first parents, adoptive parents--and should be a last resort option when other alternatives are exhausted. Mere inability to pay a hospital bill should not lead to adoption.

If I thought my children were with me just because their first mothers were too poor to raise them, I couldn't sleep at night. I've been poor in the past, myself. Poverty does not make a person unfit to be a parent. And circumstances change. My family could find itself in financial trouble in the future. I would hope that under those circumstances, I wouldn't be told my only option were giving my children to others.

Before we celebrate a rise in adoptions, we need to rethink what society could be doing to help original families stay together. Universal healthcare, quality public education, fair housing costs and other supports are a few modest proposals to get us started.

Morning News - Government Issues New Fuel Standards

Brett Singer — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT

In an effort to reduce automobile emissions, the Obama administration is planning to issue "a new national standard for cars and light trucks that incorporates California’s tough auto-emission rules." The President will likely announce these new rules today (Tuesday). The New York Times says that "As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016." No one will have any money to buy them, of course. Well, maybe by 2016 we will.

Mel Gibson's girlfriend (not to be confused with his wife) has posed in lingerie. The New York Post has photos. Oh, and get this -- she's pregnant! (A commenter at the Daily News' web site says "mazel tov!" which is, frankly, hilarious.) Ah, Mel. How's it going, you anti-semitic hypocrite? Oops, did I say that out loud?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to get peace talks with the Palestinians back on track. BUT he won't endorse a Palestinian state. Bibi (that's Netanyahu's nickname, I didn't make it up) was at the White House to chat with President Obama.

You know what's great about religious people? They're so tolerant. Like Charlotte Allen, who wrote the following in the Los Angeles Times: "I can't stand atheists -- but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores." Why do I think that Charlotte would be the first to shout "discrimination" if anyone said something against Christians? Feh.

Apparently Angelina Jolie is all angry at Madonna for trying to adopt another Malawian child. Assuming this is true, I have a question for Ms. Jolie -- when did you become the queen of the world? “Angie sees what she and Brad Pitt do as being about saving a child, but she thinks Madonna does it for publicity," an "insider" told Us Weekly. I really do wonder if these "insiders" and "sources close to the star" actually exist. Can gossip magazines just make stuff up like that? Even if they can, isn't it unbelieveably tacky? I know, dumb question.

File this one under "for what it's worth": Next time bloggers get accused of sensationalist journalism, let us remember how the news of Mitchell Weiner's death was reported here on Babble. Allow me to quote myself: CNN reports that a "New York middle school assistant principal who was hospitalized with the H1N1 virus died Sunday. BUT he might not have died of swine flu. Compare that to the New York Post: yesterday's front page headline was "SWINE DEATH." But if you bothered to read the story, the second paragraph said "Complications besides the virus likely played a part in Mitchell Wiener's death." Even the usually sober Bloomberg News went with "New York Has First Swine Flu Death." They quoted a hospital spokesperson as saying that "Wiener had swine flu and no other pre-existing medical conditions that the hospital knows of." BUT then CNN reported the following: "An assistant principal who died after being hospitalized with the H1N1 virus did have an underlying condition, the New York City's health commissioner said Monday." So who is the more responsible reporter? That would be ME. The blogger with no resources other than my rapier wit and hands that are either typing or changing a stinky diaper. HA! Take that mainstream media!

Finally, Woody Allen won $5 million from American Apparel. The Woodster sued the clothier with the creepy ads because they used his image without first getting permission. I'm no fan of Allen's personal life, but in this case he was right and I'm glad he won. I still wish he hadn't, you know, married his own daughter. But we're none of us perfect, I suppose.

Image: Amazon

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Is Your Employer "Adoption Friendly?"

Shannon LC Cate — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:51:00 GMT

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has announced its top 100 most adoption-friendly employers of 2009. At the top of course, is Wendy's International, Inc., the late Thomas's own company, which offers up to $24,300 and six weeks of fully paid leave to employees who adopt children.

The rankings are based first on the adoption cash benefit and then on the amount of paid or partially paid leave given to employees who adopt. Some companies offer considerably more than six weeks, like #7, Bowen Engineering which offers up to 13. Those lengthy paid leaves can be very helpful to parents adopting older children or others with special attachment challenges. In those cases, it's critical for parents to spend virtually all their time for quite a long time, just being with and providing for their new children's needs.

Adoption benefits are important because unlike the biological route (without complication) to parenthood, health insurance doesn't cover the adoption process. The cheapest public adoptions are usually covered by the federal tax credit for adoption, but most other adoptions will cost something--sometime quite a lot--out of pocket to adoptive parents. Every little bit helps, but most employers offer little to nothing in the way of adoption benefits.

On the other hand, often employees don't realize their company does offer adoption benefits. If you are considering or planning adoption, be sure to check with your employer about this. There might be something available to help.

Meanwhile, check out the top 100. Maybe you're lucky enough to work for one of these!

The Orphan Trade and International Adoption

Madeline Holler — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:26:00 GMT

E.J. Graff has investigated and written extensively about international adoption, and what she has found is hardly a feel-good story of child rescue. Rather, she concludes that hopeful parents from wealthy nations (the U.S., European countries, Australia) have created a market where babies are bought and sold.

Here's what she has to say, in a New York Times editorial, about international adoption and Madonna's latest attempt to add to her family.

But in trying to adopt a child who already has a family, Madonna is inadvertently exposing the seamier underside of international adoption: the fact that, too often, the amounts of money that Western adoption agencies spend in poor countries is helping to defraud, coerce or kidnap children away from families that wanted to raise them to adulthood.

Graff writes that happy families created in the adoptive countries have, in countless instances, left anguished ones in search of their missing children. Even more heartbreaking is that families who search for -- and, against all odds, eventually find -- their stolen children aren't necessarily reunited with them. So has been the case of a number of children born in Nepal and adopted in Spain.

In a slideshow on Slate, Graff tells the stories of some of the families who were affected by an often corrupt international adoption system.

So how has this happened? With millions of abandoned babies and toddlers throughout the world, how could a baby-selling market thrive? For starters, those millions of babies? Total myth, Graff writes.

From Slate:

Westerners have been sold a myth that poor countries have millions of healthy abandoned infants and toddlers who need homes. But it's not so. In poor countries, as in rich ones, healthy babies are rarely orphaned or given up—except in China, where girls have been abandoned as a result of its draconian one-child policy.

Yes, tens of thousands of needy children around the world—many languishing in horrible institutions—do need families. But most children who need new homes are older than 5, sick, disabled, or somehow traumatized. Quite reasonably, most prospective Western parents don't feel prepared to take on those more challenging kids, preferring to wait in line for healthy infants or toddlers.

The result is a gap between supply and demand—a gap that's closed by Western money. Adoption agencies spend sums in-country that are enormous compared with local per-capita incomes. In poor countries without effective regulation or protections for the poor, that can induce locals to buy, coerce, defraud, and kidnap healthy children away from their birth families for sale into international adoption.

To use the language of globalization, orphans are sometimes "manufactured": Children with families are stripped of their identities so that Westerners can fill their homes....

Families who lost their children aren't the only ones who suffered. More than one adoptive family has found out -- once their child learned English -- the circumstances they truly left behind, including a mother, father and siblings.

Still, others argue that shutting down international adoption ignores the needs of children who truly are abandoned or facing a childhood of institutional living. Four others who work in adoption or study the laws and consequences weigh in on the international adoption in the Times "Room for Debate" feature. Some argue, like Graff, that a lack of oversight and regulation has created this baby market. Others defend Madonna and other families who look overseas for children, saying forget politics, forget money, these kids just need a loving home.

Be sure to check out antiracistparent.com for arguments against Graff's conclusions.

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Possible Father of Malawian Orphan Opposes Madonna Adoption

Brett Singer — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:00:00 GMT

James Kambewa might be the father of Chifundo "Mercy" James, the girl that Madonna wants to adopt. And he's decided that he can take care of her. He feels that his little girl should be "raised as a Malawian", according to BBC News. So Madonna should step off.

I say "might" because it's not clear that the man is, in fact, Mercy's dad. In an interview with 'The Early Show' on CBS, he said that "he wore a necklace bearing his daughter's name around his neck, even though he had never seen her in person." He said that he wants "to take care of her, and I'm capable to take care of my baby." A big question, of course, is why Mercy was in an orphanage if she had a parent "capable" of raising her.

The whole thing is getting somewhat silly. Personally, I think Madonna should be able to adopt Mercy James, because that would mean a much better life for the girl. A court ruled that the adoption wasn't legal (Madonna's appeal will be heard on Monday), but if that's true, how was she able to adopt David Banda?

I'm not going to get into a debate about Malawian legal matters. I just think that it would be too bad if this little girl is forced to live in an orphanage when she could have moved into the lap of luxury. Especially if the only reason her dad came forward is because there were TV cameras around.

Source: BBC

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Pregnancy, Birth and HIV: The Good News

Shannon LC Cate — Sun, 03 May 2009 15:02:00 GMT

I have two kids adopted as healthy newborns. But shortly after my children came home, the agency that handled my adoptions began a new program for the placement of HIV+ babies and children. When I have casually mentioned this program to friends and family I have encountered a surprising amount of confusion about HIV and children born with it. It seems that much of the good news about HIV are in fact, little known facts. After reading a nice feature in a Scottish newspaper about two women living through HIV+ pregnancies (both have negative children), I was inspired to share these facts with Strollerderby readers who might not have heard some of them.

Little Known Fact #1:

Few HIV+ women transmit the virus to their babies.

Our adoption agency identifies orphaned or relinquished babies and young children born HIV+ and matches them with adoptive families. Most of these children are born abroad. Why? Because transmission of HIV between a positive woman and her baby is almost completely preventable with the right drug regimen and has almost vanished in countries with access to those drugs.

Little Known Fact #2:

Babies born "positive" often serio-convert to negative by the time they are a year old. Even without the proper drugs, the odds of transmission between a woman and her baby are less than 50/50. In the early days of HIV, doctors tested such babies and found them positive, as they were carrying their mothers' antibodies. But over 70% of these children "outgrew" their positive status, testing negative six or nine months (sometimes longer) after birth. Families who adopt HIV+ babies may find that their children are negative after all, with later testing.

Little Known Fact #3:

HIV is no longer an automatic death sentence. Even children who are truly HIV+ can be expected to live long, happy lives, even potentially having and raising biological (HIV-) children of their own. Don't get me wrong: HIV is not a simple thing to deal with. It requires adherence to a drug regimen and regular doctor visits and testing to make sure that drug regimen is still the best one. Depending on the overall health of the positive child, she may suffer more than her share of childhood illnesses and they may hit her harder than the average child. But they may not. Some people living with HIV have virtually indistinguishable basic health from those who are negative.

Little Known Fact #4:

HIV doesn't live well (or for very long) outside the human body. Once blood is dried, the risk of transmission is statistically zero. In fact, researchers have had a difficult time keeping HIV alive outside carefully controlled conditions. While wet blood spills need to be treated with care (generally, rubber glove and bleach are advised), a scab or some dried blood on a surface carry virtually no risk for transmission. And people on a good drug regimen are able to keep what's called their "viral load" so low that even wet blood has a small infection risk. (For more details, see the CDC website.)

With these things is mind, I urge you to support efforts to get antiretroviral drugs to those in countries with high rates of HIV but little drug access. It is criminal that a single child should be born HIV+ when the drugs to prevent this are ready and available.

In the meantime, I'd humbly suggest that if you are considering adoption, to consider an HIV+ child. One thing is certain when you adopt such a child: there is no long waiting list of parents available. Many HIV+ children are what the UN calls "true orphans" with deceased parents and little social support in their home communities. You are unlikely to run into a Madonna situation when you adopt an HIV+ child. Instead, you can know that the child you bring home truly needs a new family. I have met a number of families with a mix of positive and negative children, all thriving and growing happily.

There are also ways to support AIDS orphans who will never be adopted, or whose biological relatives are still in their lives but need help providing health care and other basics for these children.

HIV does not have to be a death sentence. Children with HIV can have normal childhoods and long, healthy lives. The more people understand this good news, the better off these children will be.

image: child awaiting adoption; adoption-link.org

Lose the Guilt and Shame, Lose the Pain: Open Adoption Records

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:33:00 GMT

Last week, I attended the American Adoption Congress's annual conference in Cleveland. There I met many fabulous people and learned more about adoption. The conference was full of adoptive parents, adult adoptees, mothers (and the occasional father) who placed their children for adoption and a bunch of social workers. We were uniformly on board with the movement to open the "sealed" records of adult adoptees, granting them the right to their original birth certificates, which most of them do not have today.

The frustrating thing about this movement is that few people outside what we call the "adoption triad" (birth parents, adoptees, adoptive parents) know much about the issue, so when state legislatures consider open record bills, they don't hear from many people but insider activists.

Here's a short briefing of the issue:

In most U.S. states, when an adoption occurs, the child's birth certificate is locked away in a vault and a new fake birth certificate is issued with the adoptive parent(s) in place of the birth parent(s). The adoptee is not allowed to ever see the first, real, original birth certificate.

My children, though in open adoptions, have no right to the birth certificates issued at their birth. Rather, even more oddly than other adoptees, they have birth certificates saying two women are their biological progenitors.

This is a lie. I don't want my children's origins to be obscured by a lie. Even if they know who their first mothers were, I want them to own the piece of paper documenting their entry into this world. They have a fundamental, basic human right to the government's paperwork about their very existence.

I blogged here last week about Darryl McDaniels (DMC) of Run-DMC and Zara Phillips, a British singer-song writer and their advocacy work to open the records in New Jersy, where a bill to that effect is before the state legislature this year. To assist in this basic human rights effort, you can do a simple thing. You can download "I'm Legit," the song McDaniels and Phillips wrote and recorded together to raise awareness. I had the exciting opportunity to hear both Phillips's and McDaniels's stories told at the AAC conference and to see them perform the song live.

Whether you're a member of the triad or not, please support open records. As DMC says, "If we lose the guilt and shame, we can lose the pain." Listen to the song and download it here.

Image: Phillips and McDaniels sign cds in Cleveland

Is Madonna a Bad Parent?

SunnyChanel — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Note to self – always get your personal chef to sign a confidentiality agreement. Madonna is learning this lesson the hard way. Eric Ienco, Madonna’s former chef and house manager, has publically spoken out and questioned the quality of the material girls’ maternal instincts.

The timing on this? Not so good. Madonna is currently attempting to adopt Mercy James from Malawi to join her adopted son David and son Rocco and daughter Lourdes.

In the revelations to the National Enquirer, Ienco claims that Madonna spends only about thirty minutes per day with the children. He stated, “that's why it's a puzzle she wants to adopt again. She's hardly ever with her children. She's got two full-time nannies and one part-time nanny. So why adopt a kid if somebody else is raising them?"

What is Madonna doing instead of hanging out with her three kids? Ienco tell the Enquirer that:

"She gets up and has a coffee, then she does two hours of yoga. Then there's two hours of Pilates and exercise. That's six days a week. After that, she deals with her e-mail, her calls and the rest of her business. And after that, she spends maybe half an hour with the kids. If Lourdes comes in and says, 'I want to see Mom,' she is told, 'She's doing yoga' - and Lourdes knows she can't disturb Mom. Madonna puts herself before her kids. When she adopted little David, he arrived at her home from Africa - and three hours later, she left to do Pilates. Wouldn't you think she'd want to spend the entire day with her new son?"

Along with her equestrian pursuits, beautification regimes, spiritual quest and being one of the most famous pop stars on the planet, it’s a wonder she’s even able to fit in just that 30 minutes of kid time a day.

What is the minimum amount of time do you think is acceptable to spend with the kids per day? And is Madonna a bad parent for not spending more time with her kids, even though she is providing for them in many other ways?

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Source

Genetic Mom Gets OK to Adopt Baby Carried by Partner

JeanneSager — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:31:00 GMT

It happens every day - kids get adopted. In forward thinking parts of the country, they even get adopted by members of same sex couples.

But this was a first. A woman who supplied an egg so her female partner could carry their baby has secured the right to adopt her own genetic child - and there was no dispute between the two parties. No divorce, no acrimony. This was all about protecting the child.

Surprised this hasn't happened before? Me too. Same sex couples carrying each other's eggs is not exactly new - celebrity chef Cat Cora and her wife just made news a few months ago because they're both pregnant, and both carrying a fetus made from the opposite's eggs.

But where a woman carrying a baby with sperm donated by her husband via IVF wouldn't have a problem naming him as legal father of the child, too many states still deny same sex couples the ability to name their spouse as the baby's legal parent. Which is why Mona A., the egg donor in this case, petitioned to be named son Sebastian's legal mother shortly after his birth in 2008.

Mona and wife Ingrid A. were legally married in the Netherlands shortly after the country legalized same sex marriage. Their marriage is recognized in some states, where Mona is automatically afforded the rights as parent of the baby her wife delivered. But in other states, where the Defense of Marriage Act reigns supreme, their marriage means little in the eyes of the law - and Mona would be denied her rights as Sebastian's mom.

It was in the best interest of their son that Mona and Ingrid made this petition. It's in imperfect solution to the fight to have their marriage recognized, but it's what they have done to ensure they can both provide for their child.

According to the judge who presided over the case, "Sebastian's genetic mother has other potential legal avenues: first, to be listed on Sebastian's birth certificate; second ... to execute a statutorily prescribed acknowledgment of paternity [filiation]; and third, to obtain a judicial order of filiation."

But Judge Kristin Booth Glen didn't have jurisdiction to secure any of those options for Mona. What she could do was grant an adoption, making both Ingrid and Mona Sebastian's legal parents. Glen says it's the first time a court has had to look at whether two women can be listed on a birth certificate when one is the gestational mother and the second the genetic mother. Although certain states already grant that both members of a same sex couple earn equal legal status as parents, this is the first that takes into account genetics and egg donation.

I am happy for Mona and Ingrid that their case was successful, and I understand that they were doing this in order to retain Mona's rights across state lines. However, it's pathetic that this the means two women have to go through to ensure they both have rights to their own child. Moving to Arkansas or Oklahoma or any other Defense of Marriage BS state is not going to make Mona any less genetically tied to this child. No more so than a move across state lines would make a man's genetic "donation" into a baby any less potent.

But I guess I'm not taking into account that this sweet little baby boy is demon spawn in Arkansas or Oklahoma. . .

Image: Best Quality Wallpapers

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Does Madonna Spank Her Kids?

Brett Singer — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Somewhat buried in the news about Madonna's adopted son David Banda meeting up with his biological father in Malawi was this little tidbit (this is David's dad Yohane talking about his chat with David):

He told me his mum likes riding horses and that he too rides horses. Then he told me a story when one day he and his brother, Rocco, rode horses and fell. He told me his mum spanked him because they are not supposed to ride horses on their own. (Emphasis added)

Whoa, Nellie! Hang on a minute. Madonna spanked him?

Well, maybe. When I first saw this, Shannon pointed out that sometimes little kids exaggerate. I've never hit either of my children but my oldest once informed someone that I had. Somewhat out of the blue, I might add. Luckily it was a person who was inclined to take my word for it (a relative). But if it had been a teacher, I don't know how that would have gone over.

Still, it's interesting to think about. Do you think Madonna spanks her kids? Or maybe she has the nanny do it? Or is David just a little kid exaggerating?

Source: PerezHilton

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Musicians Rock Out for Open Adoption Records

Shannon LC Cate — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:35:00 GMT

"DMC" of Run-DMC and English rock musician Zara Phillips, both New Jersey residents, have written a song together to support their state's proposed legislation to open records to adult adoptees. Both adopted as infants, the musicians' new song "I'm Legit" was written to raise awareness among people not involved in adoption of the issues for those who are.

Adoptee rights to their personal histories have been a central issue in the world of adoption for years now, with a handful of states granting opening of records, but many others still refusing to do so. The argument against opening records is that doing so would break the confidentiality agreement made with birth mothers at the time of placement.

As an adoptive mother with two openly adopted children, who, nevertheless have no legal right to a copy of their own birth certificates, I am staunchly in favor of opening records. While a small minority of birth mothers--as far as anyone can determine--may want to remain anonymous, others--like the members of Concerned United Birthparents (CUB)--are vocal advocates of opening records for the children they placed years ago.

Many involved in the debate feel that closed records are a preference of adoptive parents. This adoptive parent says no way. Adoptive Strollerderby parents, what do you say?

image: Willie Davis, New York Times

Madonna Adoption Denied, Appeal Filed

Brett Singer — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

A Malawi court ruled on Friday that Madonna could not adopt 4-year-old Mercy James because she had not been a resident of the country for 18 months.

As my son sometimes says, "I didn't see that coming."

Why do I say that? Well, here's the thing. She already adopted a kid from Malawi. David Banda. Remember him? Cute kid, rides horses, visited his hometown with Madge so he could hang with his biological dad?

According to the Telegraph, the rule about adoptive parents being residents of Malawai for 18-24 months was waived back in 2006 to allow Madge to adopt David. Now a local judge is concerned about setting a "dangerous precedent" if she is allowed to adopt again.

Except that the precedent was already set! You let her do it before! When you train puppies, or discipline children, you try to be consistent. I know that's an oversimplification, but isn't it silly to talk about "dangerous precedents" when you already did the thing that you now say you are worried about?

That could be why Madonna has decided to appeal the ruling. I don't know much about the law, and I know even less about Malawian legal issues (to be fair, I probably know more about brain surgery than I do about Malawian legal issues), but it seems to me that she's got a pretty good case. Because they let her adopt David Banda in 2006. Did I mention that?

It's possible that the adoption was denied because of Madonna's recent divorce from Guy Ritchie. The Telegraph quotes a government official as saying that, "Our official policy is that we do not encourage our children to be sent into broken homes." Because being raised by a single parent is clearly much worse than living in an orphanage. Never mind the fact that this particular single parent is wealthier than most of the people on the planet. And while I agree in general with human rights groups who have been saying that "whisking a single child off to a fairytale lifestyle in Hollywood" is not the answer to the world's problems, it's also not the worst thing that could happen to a kid from an impoverished country. (It's also worth noting that Madonna lives in England, not Hollywood. But whatever.)

I should point out that this is not, in my opinion, a major issue in our world today. But everything Madonna does is news, and while I don't care much about her music (or her movies, which, except for "Desperately Seeking Susan" are considerable unwatchable), I have to give her credit for commanding attention with every move she makes. I'll also give her props for starting a charity, Raising Malawi, to help other orphans in Malawi. According to the Telegraph, "She has already built a multi-purpose community centre at Mphandula village, 30 miles from Lilongwe, which looks after more than 8,000 orphans from scores of villages in the area." That's a lot of kids. So, in the language of her adopted British homeland, good on ya, mate. (Or something like that.) Of course, as Shannon pointed out, it's fine for Angelina Jolie to adopt a kid every other week, but Madonna we have a problem with. That's another topic, but one worth mentioning.

What do you think? Should Madonna be allowed to adopt Mercy James?

Source: Telegraph

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What Do Madonna and Peanut Butter Have in Common?

JeanneSager — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:32:00 GMT

With the plight of children in Malawi back in the news (thanks Madge!), a little part of me hopes some extra attention will go the way of the groups working to help fight malnutrition in the poverty-stricken African country.

It's never boasted a pointy cone bra, but Project Peanut Butter is a trendsetter in its own right. Created by Mark Manary, M.D., a pediatrician at St. Louis Children's Hospital and a professor of pediatric medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, the non-profit has revolutionized feeding protocols for malnourished kids in Malawi.

The miracle drug? Peanut butter, a paste that's easy to swallow, rich in nutrients, high in protein and lipid dense. Dubbed "ready-to-use therapeutic food," peanut butter can be stored for months with no refrigeration without spoiling. It doesn't need to be cooked (so homes without gas or electric can use it). And it can be easily transported by truck to the rural villages of Malawi, where seventy percent of the children go hungry every day.

Until recently, twenty-three percent of children in the country died before their fifth birthdays (unless, of course, a mega-celebrity swooped in to rescue them). Thanks to Project Peanut Butter, that number is dropping.

Since most of us can't pull a Madonna, Project Peanut Butter accepts donations to help the kids.

Image: Project Peanut Butter

Foster Parents TOO Special for More Kids

JeanneSager — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:27:00 GMT

Note to parents up for interviews with the foster care system in Australia: don't mention your stellar parenting.

Although experts on how to be a good interviewee have long said you have to sell yourself, a set of Australian foster parents who were trying to bring home their foster son's biological siblings were denied. The problem? A psychologist said the couple thought they were too special.

The parents description of themselves as "excellent foster parents" denoted "perceptions of omnipotence and specialness," according to Toni Single, a psychologist for the department of community services. Single also considered the couple rude for saying no to a plate of sandwiches. Perhaps they weren't hungry?

There are myriad reasons to deny potential foster parents children, and it is important that social workers take seriously the role of handing kids off to foster parents (in general, I would say they do!). But doesn't this strike you as splitting hairs? This couple has already been deemed good enough to care for their foster son, who has lived in their home since 2002, and his sister, who lived with the family from age eleven until eighteen when she aged out of the system.

So they called themselves "excellent foster parents." Would it have been better if they described themselves as good-for-nothing shitheels? Would that make you hand over two more children?

The sad thing here is that a set of siblings will be housed in separate foster homes rather than kept together. The couple's foster son, in particular, is distraught - he asked that his parents gain custody of his two little brothers. And this isn't the first time Single has taken it upon herself to come up with a wacked out reason for denying foster parents' kids - check out this story my colleague Shannon wrote about her earlier this year.

Would you describe yourself as an "excellent" parent? Do you think that means you've inflated your opinion of yourself?

Image: Center for Family Studies

Do We All Have a Right to Procreate?

Miriam Axel-Lute — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:48:00 GMT

Though we would rarely admit it, most of us, upon hearing about some abusive situation, have muttered about requiring a license to parent or "fixing" the offenders so at least no child will have to go through that again. But when push comes to shove would we really think either was a good idea?

Carter Dillard, writing in the Georgia Law Review, is not exactly recommending either (in fact, he speaks, rightly, of parental licensing schemes as "comical"). But he is, very seriously, arguing that there should be no fundamental right to procreate, that there is a duty on prospective parents to be "fit," and that courts should have the right to issue no-procreation orders in certain limited circumstances.

In the narrowest case that Dillard focuses on, it's hard to argue: If, due to egregious harm to previous children, a no-custody order has already been issued, such that any child born is immediately taken into state custody, wouldn't it be better for all to prevent such a pregnancy in the first place with a "no-procreate" order?

Trouble is, this seems to me almost as rife with problems as parental licensing. Much as Dillard wants to separate out the principle from how it would be implemented, I can't.

Dillard never manages to acknowledge that the state does a pretty awful job in most cases of determining "fitness" now, and often gets it wrong (in both directions). Some of that can't be avoided: We need to be able to take kids out of danger, even if we suck at it. But I heard in Dillard's writing a disturbing willingness to expand the definition of "fitness" tests to include finances (how much money is "enough"? does it matter how you spend it?), "pending neglect cases" (and if they were ruled to be unfounded, as many are?). It just seems like a clear slippery slope to pre-emptive sterilization of people who are different, poor, etc.

But even if we do set aside implementation for a moment, Dillard's argument that his "no-procreate" orders could be good for everyone by shifting resources from helping kids who have already been harmed to prevention rings a bit hollow.

For that to work, the no-procreate orders would actually have to substantially reduce the number of children born into abusive situations. But only a tiny fraction of the worst cases already have no-custody orders. And even then, how to ensure the order works? Foricble abortion? Sterilization? (Long sordid history of that already) Court-ordered Norplant (serious side effects for many people)? Criminalizing sex? Imprisoning people? Sending them to a convent?

The answer, of course, is you don't. You just say it, and if it's violated, it changes to a "no-custody" order and unspecified penalties are applied after the fact. Could that have a deterrant effect? Unlikely. At least for women, if carrying a pregnancy you know you're going to have to give up isn't a deterrant, it's hard to know what would work better. And most men in this situation are unable to pay the child support they already owe and any other penalties may suck for them, but it'll make it even less likely that they end up paying. Pregnancies are not always preventable, and in stressed families like this, are also rarely planned.

Would the orders make a point? Perhaps. But they're not going to make some huge difference in the number of kids who are born to "unfit" parents or who end up abused.

Here's what might work better:

If you want to put resources into prevention—of unwise pregnancies and of abuse—do it. Don't wait for some neat legal principle to make you feel better about it. Fund health care, birth control, abortion, good sex ed, parenting education, respite services, and domestic violence response, etc. and improve access to them. There's plenty of info out there about how to do these things well.
If you want to ensure that babies born to parents with a history of serious enough abuse that they already have a no-custody order in place aren't bounced around from foster home to foster home and maybe-maybe-not back to birth parents sometime (which I agree is not a good plan), make no-custody orders include automatic termination of parental rights for any child conceived after they are issued and allow the kid a permanent adoptive home from day one. It's still subject to errors in judgment, but at least you know it'll have real results. (And, frankly, it might be more of a deterrant than some random legal penalty.) (Note: This suggestion works when both bio parents have the no-custody order. What is the proper response when it's only one of them who is subject to such? I don't know.)

Ick.

Photo by walknboston.

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Morning News: Gunman Kills 10, Including a Child, Then Self

Madeline Holler — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Late yesterday afternoon, a gunman in Alabama went on a shooting rampage, killing his mother, a child, seven others and then himself. He also burned down his mother's home and seriously injured several others. Authorities hadn't released his name or motive for the shootings late yesterday evening, but many of those shot were related to the gunman and included his grandparents an aunt and uncle.

He then started shooting at people while driving down the street and around the county. This is the second tragic shooting in as many days. People in Maryville, Ill, are still trying to understand why a man entered a church Sunday morning and shot the preacher in the heart.

Barack Obama, sounding like an education president for real, did more than just say kids should learn to read. He gave a solid solution for how the U.S. could begin to improve education. He said students need to go to school more hours in the day and for more days in the year, pointing out that American schoolchildren spend an entire month less in school than Korean children of the same age. Obama also proposed bonus pay for good teachers but managed to step around merit pay in general (keeping him in the good graces of unions ... sort of).

Still, let's say your kid gets educated enough anyway to go to college. And you've already put money into those prepaid tuition plans (look at you, so hopeful!). Bad news: those funds are running dry. You might have to pay the 2018 prices after all.

Nonetheless, there's hope for getting you kid out of the house. Just become a compulsive hoarder. Turns out, children of hoarders, while confused and embarrassed, tend to leave home -- either to get away from the clutter or because there's just no more room for them.

This will make closing Gitmo difficult: the new chief of the Taliban was once detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The u.S. released him to Afghan officials, who in turn just let him go back in 2007. He's apparently not the only former prisoner from the controversial prison to rejoin the militant terrorist group.

YouTube is now the latest and most promising way for parents who wish to adopt to get the word out and to appeal to bio-parents. Prospective parents are also using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to get into and through the whole process.

California's Orange County board voted yesterday to suspend a $300,000 grant for health education that would have gone to Planned Parenthood. Why? Oh, you know why. Even though the money had nothing to do with abortions and much to do about preventing them.

Finally: nerd fun! Look at what musuem curators found inside Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch. A war message engraved behind the watch's face. It says: "Jonathan Dillon April 13 - 1861," part of the inscription reads, "Fort Sumpter (sic) was attacked by the rebels on the above date." Another part reads, "Thank God we have a government." Huh. It's no four score and seven years ago ...

Photo: MSNBC.com

Why Babies Are Cute: The Long Version

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Last weekend's New York Times offered an interesting overview of a new book to be released next month by primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, "Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding." Hrdy explains that human babies are appealing to adults besides their parents in a way that other primates' young are not. Other ape mothers take nearly sole responsibility for their own offspring, rarely putting them down for several months after birth, because other adults in their group are not either not very interested or potentially hostile towards them.

Human mothers, on the other hand--including those in cultures that have changed little for thousands of years--though also keeping their babies close for several months (and even years) in slings and such, hand off those babies to other caregivers in their communities for extended periods of time. Groups of sisters and mothers and daughters take mutual responsibility for each other's infants and children, allowing human reproduction to happen at slimmer intervals than other apes (2-3 years for humans versus 6 years for gorillas, for example), and allowing much longer periods of childhood for our offspring.

Hrdy's ideas are somewhat unusual for their focus on cooperative breeding and mutual caregiving in our earliest ancestors. A focus on competition and warfare has often been the focus of her colleagues in the field. But warfare doesn't make sense to Hrdy, given the small, struggling nature of early human populations on the Earth. There would have been plenty of resources to go around, Hrdy argues, and people would have needed each other to help each other survive. There just wouldn't be much incentive for a lot of fighting.

As an adoptive mom, I find these ideas to be especially fascinating. An OB/Gyn friend once told me that humans were a naturally adopting species. We anthropomorphize our cats, cars and computers. Of course we find non-related babies charming too. The reason? So that when a mother dies in childbirth another adult will pick her baby up and give it the care it needs to survive. It just makes evolutionary sense.

I'm definitely putting this book on my list.

image: current.com

Angelina Jolie Could Always Use an Extra Baby

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:30:00 GMT

If the rumors about the Octo Mom's obsession with Angelina Jolie are true, Nadya Suleman must have been thrilled to see this SNL clip of Jolie taking a very unhealthy interest in Suleman's octuplets.

Sadly, with the way things are going in the Suleman household, perhaps the octuplets would be better off with Brangelina....

Photo: Deceiver.com

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