Reprehensible
By now, I'm sure many of you have heard about the Tennessee woman who sent her adopted son, Artyem, alone on a plane back to Russia. As a parent of two children adopted from Russia, I feel compelled to comment on the situation. From the title of this post, you can probably tell how I feel about this woman's actions. For those of you who have not adopted children from traumatic backgrounds, there are some important things, which I believe the media is missing, that you need to understand.
First of all, many (if not all) of the children living in orphanages in Russia have experienced abandonment from the people on whom they most depended. In my kids' case, it was their Russian Mama. Some, like Eamon, were only abandoned once and at a very young age. Others, like Vika, were taken back and abandoned by their parent multiple times before finally being placed for adoption (for clarification purposes, Vika and Eamon have the same Russian Mama, but their experiences with her were very different). When a child loses the care of a parent at a very young age, it can cause them to become distrustful of adults and learn that there is nobody on whom they can depend except themselves. This lesson serves them well in an orphanage setting; however, it doesn't work so well when they join a family. If you add neglect and abuse by caregivers into the mix, you wind up with a very confused child who is distrustful of any adult who tries to take care of him or her.
In Russia, there are many, many orphanages, and they are very crowded. The last estimate I read was that there are over 700,000 children living in Russian orphanages today. These kids are regarded as second-class citizens and many Russians believe there is something wrong with them (either something that made their birth-parents not want them or "bad blood" passed on from irresponsible parents). There are not a lot of Russian families vying to adopt these children. In fact, once they leave the Baby Home and move into a Child's Home (around the age of 3 or 4), their chances of being placed in a loving family drop dramatically. In an orphanage, the children live with multiple caregivers who are inconsistent, both in their presence and they way they relate to the children. My kids have told me stories of being hit with shoes and being locked in dark closets as punishment. And I believe they were at one of the better orphanages in Russia.
Kids who are adopted often have a hard time adjusting, especially if they are adopted by a family from another country. When we brought our kids home, they had to leave everything they knew behind. They flew for hours in a plane to a far away place with strangers who spoke a language they did not understand (we were only allowed to visit them 4 times before the adoption was finalized). Things sounded and smelled different, the food was different, and they no longer had a bunch of children around them all the time (I've heard the experience described as "being abducted by aliens"). They had to adjust to all these changes, in addition to learning how to be part of a family.
I'm sure it was the same for Artyem. He was even older when he was adopted, and we don't know what kind of situation he lived in with his birth family or how he was treated at the orphanage. What is clear is that he had difficulty attaching to his new mom. He'd only been home for 6 months, and attachment can take a year or longer to occur. Plus, it seems that his adoptive mother did not ask for help from either her agency or social worker. She had not taken him in for counseling, and as of January, she reported that everything was fine. I find myself confused at how all this could happen. Did the boy say he was going to kill her? Maybe. Heck, Eamon has said that to me when he's angry! Did he play with matches and threaten to burn down the house? Maybe. My kids have done and said some pretty scary things too. Was this mother educated about the many ways attachment disorder can manifest itself, and was she prepared to deal with those issues? Certainly not.
There are support groups out there for people who have adopted older children who come from traumatic backgrounds. There are groups specifically designed for people who adopt from Russia and Eastern Europe. There are plenty of places to seek advice and counseling. It seems to me that this "mother" gave up on her son too quickly. I'm not sure what her expectations were, but I've heard many pre-adoptive parents talk about how they just know they will instantly connect with their child and that there will be love between them from the first meeting. They have this fairy tale idea of what it will be like to bring this child into their new home, and many even think the child will be grateful to be adopted by them. I always cringe when I hear such statements because I know that the prospective parent is most likely in for a huge disappointment. They are not thinking about this adoption from their future child's perspective and are not considering how what was done to the child in the past will affect how he/she views their future.
Torry Hansen clearly did not have reasonable expectations for her child, or for herself as a mother. Would she have treated a biological child so callously? The fact that she would send a 7 year old child alone on a plane, with him most likely not knowing what would happen when he arrived back in Russia is horrendous. I can't imagine how scared he must have been or what was going through his head. I can't understand why she didn't seek to disrupt the adoption in America and try to have him placed in a family better prepared to deal with his needs. It's almost as if she viewed him as damaged goods and wanted to return him to the store! Her actions only added to the abuse, neglect and abandonment that Artyem has already suffered in his short life. And she made his attachment to a future family even more difficult. I hope Torry Hansen is prosecuted to the full extent of the law and that her planned adoption from the Republic of Georgia (yes, she was planning to adopt another child!) is dropped as quickly as she dropped her responsibilities towards her son.
First of all, many (if not all) of the children living in orphanages in Russia have experienced abandonment from the people on whom they most depended. In my kids' case, it was their Russian Mama. Some, like Eamon, were only abandoned once and at a very young age. Others, like Vika, were taken back and abandoned by their parent multiple times before finally being placed for adoption (for clarification purposes, Vika and Eamon have the same Russian Mama, but their experiences with her were very different). When a child loses the care of a parent at a very young age, it can cause them to become distrustful of adults and learn that there is nobody on whom they can depend except themselves. This lesson serves them well in an orphanage setting; however, it doesn't work so well when they join a family. If you add neglect and abuse by caregivers into the mix, you wind up with a very confused child who is distrustful of any adult who tries to take care of him or her.
In Russia, there are many, many orphanages, and they are very crowded. The last estimate I read was that there are over 700,000 children living in Russian orphanages today. These kids are regarded as second-class citizens and many Russians believe there is something wrong with them (either something that made their birth-parents not want them or "bad blood" passed on from irresponsible parents). There are not a lot of Russian families vying to adopt these children. In fact, once they leave the Baby Home and move into a Child's Home (around the age of 3 or 4), their chances of being placed in a loving family drop dramatically. In an orphanage, the children live with multiple caregivers who are inconsistent, both in their presence and they way they relate to the children. My kids have told me stories of being hit with shoes and being locked in dark closets as punishment. And I believe they were at one of the better orphanages in Russia.
Kids who are adopted often have a hard time adjusting, especially if they are adopted by a family from another country. When we brought our kids home, they had to leave everything they knew behind. They flew for hours in a plane to a far away place with strangers who spoke a language they did not understand (we were only allowed to visit them 4 times before the adoption was finalized). Things sounded and smelled different, the food was different, and they no longer had a bunch of children around them all the time (I've heard the experience described as "being abducted by aliens"). They had to adjust to all these changes, in addition to learning how to be part of a family.
I'm sure it was the same for Artyem. He was even older when he was adopted, and we don't know what kind of situation he lived in with his birth family or how he was treated at the orphanage. What is clear is that he had difficulty attaching to his new mom. He'd only been home for 6 months, and attachment can take a year or longer to occur. Plus, it seems that his adoptive mother did not ask for help from either her agency or social worker. She had not taken him in for counseling, and as of January, she reported that everything was fine. I find myself confused at how all this could happen. Did the boy say he was going to kill her? Maybe. Heck, Eamon has said that to me when he's angry! Did he play with matches and threaten to burn down the house? Maybe. My kids have done and said some pretty scary things too. Was this mother educated about the many ways attachment disorder can manifest itself, and was she prepared to deal with those issues? Certainly not.
There are support groups out there for people who have adopted older children who come from traumatic backgrounds. There are groups specifically designed for people who adopt from Russia and Eastern Europe. There are plenty of places to seek advice and counseling. It seems to me that this "mother" gave up on her son too quickly. I'm not sure what her expectations were, but I've heard many pre-adoptive parents talk about how they just know they will instantly connect with their child and that there will be love between them from the first meeting. They have this fairy tale idea of what it will be like to bring this child into their new home, and many even think the child will be grateful to be adopted by them. I always cringe when I hear such statements because I know that the prospective parent is most likely in for a huge disappointment. They are not thinking about this adoption from their future child's perspective and are not considering how what was done to the child in the past will affect how he/she views their future.
Torry Hansen clearly did not have reasonable expectations for her child, or for herself as a mother. Would she have treated a biological child so callously? The fact that she would send a 7 year old child alone on a plane, with him most likely not knowing what would happen when he arrived back in Russia is horrendous. I can't imagine how scared he must have been or what was going through his head. I can't understand why she didn't seek to disrupt the adoption in America and try to have him placed in a family better prepared to deal with his needs. It's almost as if she viewed him as damaged goods and wanted to return him to the store! Her actions only added to the abuse, neglect and abandonment that Artyem has already suffered in his short life. And she made his attachment to a future family even more difficult. I hope Torry Hansen is prosecuted to the full extent of the law and that her planned adoption from the Republic of Georgia (yes, she was planning to adopt another child!) is dropped as quickly as she dropped her responsibilities towards her son.
Well said, Jenni. I get pretty damn tired of people saying they were "misled" or "lied to" about their child. Paperwork is often inaccurate -- plain and simple. Facts can be blown into bigger proportion in order to orphanages to secure greater funds. Other facts can be completely shuffled under the rug because they're worried that nobody will take a child with severe needs. And yet other things, like Reactive Attachment Disorder, may not be a big issue in an orphanage or group setting but become HUGE issues in a family setting where there is more pressure for the child to attach and trust.
Pre-adoptive parents cannot enter into adoptions uneducated and/or with the impression that with some good food and few hugs all issues are going to melt away. It's craziness.
What's more, adoptive families have to let go of the need to appear perfect in front of social workers and instead be honest about how things are going and GET HELP early on... before things get out of control.
Reprehensible doesnt even begin to cover it. And it really pisses me off that as a result of that idiot, people talk about "those kids over there" as if they are damaged goods that dont deserve to be adopted. PISSES ME OFF.
Wow - she was planning to adopt AGAIN?! That's the first I heard of that. Crazy.
I feel so badly for those parents who are left in the lurch and for all of the children in Russia who will not find families as a result of this one person.
Did you see this in the Post:
But the government's ombudsman for children, Pavel Astakhov, has acknowledged that conditions for children in Russia -- especially orphans -- are no better than in the United States, and can be worse. "If we compare the statistics for dead children in Russia with America, it is not in our favor," he told reporters this week.
Urging reforms in Russia's own adoption regulations, Astakhov said as many as 15 children adopted by Russian parents die every year. His office also released data showing that about 1,220 children adopted by Russian parents died between 1993 and 2008.
Russian authorities say more than a dozen Russian children have been killed by their American adoptive parents since the mid-1990s. More than 60,000 Russian children were adopted by U.S. families during the same period.