America's Shame: Adopted Kid Returned

[NM Weatherman]

Yes, there are thousands and thousands of childless Americans who are hoping to adopt from South America, China...and Russia.

A woman in Tennessee took her 7-year-old Russian boy, put him on a plane alone with a note pinned to him, saying (in English) "she didn't want him anymore."

Russia is pissed and is now thinking about halting all adoptings to the USA. Who can blame them?

Is this about some stupid, heartless woman in Tennessee? Or is this about Americans treating their kids as objects, possessions? "Oh, I want to adopt a kid so people will look up to me, but he/she must be picture-perfect?" Is this the Madonna mentality...adopting her black kids as tokens to her glitzy world? Is this rush it back to Wal-Mart after you've tried it and used it and don't understand it and want your money back?

Shame on America. Yet more shame on America. Shame on Tennessee.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Yes, there are thousands and thousands of childless Americans who are hoping to adopt from South America, China...and Russia.

A woman in Tennessee took her 7-year-old Russian boy, put him on a plane alone with a note pinned to him, saying (in English) "she didn't want him anymore."

Russia is pissed and is now thinking about halting all adoptings to the USA. Who can blame them?

Is this about some stupid, heartless woman in Tennessee? Or is this about Americans treating their kids as objects, possessions? "Oh, I want to adopt a kid so people will look up to me, but he/she must be picture-perfect?" Is this the Madonna mentality...adopting her black kids as tokens to her glitzy world? Is this rush it back to Wal-Mart after you've tried it and used it and don't understand it and want your money back?

Shame on America. Yet more shame on America. Shame on Tennessee.

screw that shit....blame it on those who sent him back and anyone who was a part of that....its got nothing to do with America as a whole.....so fuck you and your shame bullshit....

 

[Dr Gregg]

Yes, there are thousands and thousands of childless Americans who are hoping to adopt from South America, China...and Russia.

A woman in Tennessee took her 7-year-old Russian boy, put him on a plane alone with a note pinned to him, saying (in English) "she didn't want him anymore."

Russia is pissed and is now thinking about halting all adoptings to the USA. Who can blame them?

Is this about some stupid, heartless woman in Tennessee? Or is this about Americans treating their kids as objects, possessions? "Oh, I want to adopt a kid so people will look up to me, but he/she must be picture-perfect?" Is this the Madonna mentality...adopting her black kids as tokens to her glitzy world? Is this rush it back to Wal-Mart after you've tried it and used it and don't understand it and want your money back?

Shame on America. Yet more shame on America. Shame on Tennessee.

WTF does this have to do with America where you need to shame america for one stupid woman? Probably why the US has very strict adoption rules, to prevent stuff like this. but as a drawback many people can't stand the process which is very hard and takes a long time, hence why they go to foreign countries, its easier.

Who the hell knows what was going through this woman's head. Does no good to attempt to make up reasons why she did what she did.

And it certainly shouldn't represent the entire country

 

[NM Weatherman]

There is a mindset in this country, where couples picture the perfect cookie-cutter children, then go ape-feces when the kids turn out to be human beings and real kids. Kids have real problems. This woman in Tennessee has shamed America. She didn't try to work with it...she didn't try treatment...she didn't try counselling...my God, isn't America supposed to be THE country for sources to help kids? Nope. She did squat and now we have an international incident whether you like it or not. Thousands waiting to adopt, most of them probably decent prospective parents, are now going to suffer the ire of Russian officials.

If you had adopted a foreign kid, would you throw up your hands and shove him onto a plane...7 years old...ALONE...with a freaking note pinned to him in English and ship him to Russia unannounced? Is that what you are advocating?

Yes, it is now an international incident and another very black mark on Americans in general. Get over it. That's what the rest of the world is going to see!

 

[Terry]

Ok without having the link to the article or knowing anything else I'll opine.

While her judgment on this is horrible we do not know what was going on with her to have such a lack of judgment. We can speculate all day, money, divorce, mental illness, health issues, the list could go on.

One bad apple shouldn't spoil the entire bushel.

 

[NM Weatherman]

Ok without having the link to the article or knowing anything else I'll opine.

Here you go. I'm personally offended and ashamed.

Russia furious over adopted boy sent back from US - Yahoo! News

 

[JenyEliza]

I heard about this on the news tonight.

The so called "mother" and the "grandmother" ought to be arrested for child abuse, tried, convicted and put away for a good long while.

What they did was cruel in the worst kind of way.

You don't give up on children. You don't throw them away. And you sure the fuck DON'T put them on a plane all alone at the age of 7 and fly them back to Russia--where there is NO ONE even waiting for their arrival.

What horrific pieces of shit these two women are. They are the epitome of the "Arrogant American".

*****Shooting them big birdy fingers*****

 

[Yurt]

america's shame?

bullshit

 

[JenyEliza]

For those who want more info....

MOSCOW – Russia threatened to suspend all child adoptions by U.S. families Friday after a 7-year-old boy adopted by a woman from Tennessee was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.

The boy, Artyom Savelyev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.

"He drew a picture of our house burning down and he'll tell anybody that he's going to burn our house down with us in it," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the actions by the grandmother "the last straw" in a string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong, including three in which Russian children had died in the U.S.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Dmitry Medvedev said the boy "fell into a very bad family."

 

[JenyEliza]

......more

"It is a monstrous deed on the part of his adoptive parents, to take the kid and virtually throw him out with the airplane in the opposite direction and to say, 'I'm sorry I could not cope with it, take everything back' is not only immoral but also against the law," Medvedev said.

The cases have prompted outrage in Russia, where foreign adoption failures are reported prominently. Russian main TV networks ran extensive reports on the latest incident in their main evening news shows.

The Russian education ministry immediately suspended the license of the group involved in the adoption — the World Association for Children and Parents, a Renton, Washington-based agency — for the duration of an investigation. In Tennessee, authorities were investigating the adoptive mother, Torry Hansen, 33.

Any possible freeze could affect hundreds of American families. Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the United States, and more than 60,000 Russian orphans have been successfully adopted there, according to the National Council For Adoption, a U.S. adoption advocacy nonprofit group.

"We're obviously very troubled by it," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington when asked about the boy's case. He told reporters the U.S. and Russia share a responsibility for the child's safety and Washington will work closely with Moscow to make sure adoptions are legal and appropriately monitored.

Asked if he thought a suspension by Russia was warranted, Crowley said, "If Russia does suspend cooperation on the adoption, that is its right. These are Russian citizens."

"Child abandonment of any kind is reprehensible," said Chuck Johnson, acting CEO of the National Council For Adoption. "The actions of this mother are especially troubling because an already vulnerable, innocent child has been further victimized."

The boy arrived unaccompanied in Moscow on a United Airlines flight on Thursday from Washington. Social workers sent him to a Moscow hospital for a health checkup and criticized his adoptive mother for abandoning him.

The Kremlin children's rights office said the boy was carrying a letter from his adoptive mother saying she was returning him due to severe psychological problems.

"This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues," the letter said. "I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues. ...

"After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child."

The boy was adopted in September from the town of Partizansk in Russia's Far East.

Nancy Hansen, the grandmother, told The Associated Press that she and the boy flew to Washington and she put the child on the plane with the note from her daughter. She vehemently rejected assertions of child abandonment by Russian authorities, saying he was watched over by a United Airlines stewardess and the family paid a man $200 to pick the boy up at the Moscow airport and take him to the Russian Education and Science Ministry.

Nancy Hansen said a social worker checked on the boy in January and reported to Russian authorities that there were no problems. But after that, the grandmother said incidents of hitting, kicking, spitting began to escalate, along with threats.

She said she and her daughter went to Russia together to adopt the boy, and she believes information about his behavioral problems was withheld from her daughter.

"The Russian orphanage officials completely lied to her because they wanted to get rid of him," Nancy Hansen said.

She said the boy was very skinny when they picked him up, and he told them he had been beaten with a broom handle at the orphanage.

Joseph LaBarbera, a clinical psychologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said adoptive parents are many times not aware of the psychological state of children put up for adoption.

"Parents enter into it (foreign adoption) with positive motivations but, in a sense, they are a little bit blindsided by their desire to adopt," said LaBarbera, who specializes in the psychological evaluation of children and has worked with a number of children adopted from Russia and other foreign countries. "They're not prepared to appreciate, psychologically, the kinds of conditions these kids have been exposed to and the effect it has had on them."

Russian state television showed the child in a yellow jacket holding the hands of two chaperones as he left a police precinct and entered a van bound for a Moscow medical clinic.

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, said he was "deeply shocked by the news" and "very angry that any family would act so callously toward a child that they had legally adopted."

Anna Orlova, a spokeswoman for Kremlin's Children Rights Commissioner, told The Associated Press that she visited the boy and he told her that his mother was "bad," "did not love him," and used to pull his hair.

Russian officials said he turned up at the door of the Russian Education and Science Ministry on Thursday afternoon accompanied by a Russian man who handed over the boy and his documents, then left, officials said. The child holds a Russian passport.

Rob Johnson, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, said the agency is looking into Friday's allegations, although it does not handle international adoptions.

Bedford County Sheriff Randall Boyce also said Torry Hansen was under investigation, but he hasn't interviewed the Hansens because their lawyer has advised them not to talk.

Lavrov said his ministry would recommend that the U.S. and Russia hammer out an agreement before any new adoptions are allowed.

"We have taken the decision ... to suggest a freeze on any adoptions to American families until Russia and the U.S.A. sign an international agreement" on the conditions for adoptions, Lavrov said.

He said the U.S. had refused to negotiate such an accord in the past but "the recent event was the last straw."

Pavel Astakhov, the children rights commissioner, said in a televised interview that a treaty is vital to protect Russian citizens in other countries.

"How can we prosecute a person who abused the rights of a Russian child abroad? If there was an adoption treaty in place, we would have legal means to protect Russian children abroad," he said.

Stephen Flanagan, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the strong Russian reaction should not be a surprise.

"It's another sign of their incapacities at home, so when they see a former Russian citizen overseas mistreated or perceived to be mistreated it's something they try to use politically, but I can't see it leading to a rupture in U.S.-Russian relations," Flanagan said. "It's an unfortunate thing but it's in a different category."

Despite the uproar over adoptions, placing children inside Russia remains difficult. There are more than 740,000 children without parental custody in Russia, according to UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund.

Previous adoption failures have increased Russian officials' wariness of adoptions to the U.S.

In 2006, Peggy Sue Hilt of Manassas, Virginia, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of fatally beating a 2-year-old girl adopted from Siberia months earlier.

In 2008, Kimberly Emelyantsev of Tooele, Utah, was sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to killing a Russian infant in her care.

And in March of this year, prosecutors in Pennsylvania met with a Russian diplomats to discuss how to handle the case of a couple accused of killing their 7-year-old adopted Russian son at their home near the town of Dillsburg.

 

[Terry]

Well there is an investigation going on.

 

[NM Weatherman]

There is NO WAY I could treat a child like that. I don't care who he belongs to, his race, his mental state, I believe the Russians are now disgusted and rightfully so.

"Here's the kid, take him back."

"Um...you have the receipt?"

THAT'S the American mentality. GRRRRRRRRRR....

 

[jillian]

Yes, there are thousands and thousands of childless Americans who are hoping to adopt from South America, China...and Russia.

A woman in Tennessee took her 7-year-old Russian boy, put him on a plane alone with a note pinned to him, saying (in English) "she didn't want him anymore."

Russia is pissed and is now thinking about halting all adoptings to the USA. Who can blame them?

Is this about some stupid, heartless woman in Tennessee? Or is this about Americans treating their kids as objects, possessions? "Oh, I want to adopt a kid so people will look up to me, but he/she must be picture-perfect?" Is this the Madonna mentality...adopting her black kids as tokens to her glitzy world? Is this rush it back to Wal-Mart after you've tried it and used it and don't understand it and want your money back?

Shame on America. Yet more shame on America. Shame on Tennessee.

if one person is a moron, why do you feel the need to extrapolate that out to the entire population of the U.S.?

is returning of children an endemic problem?
was this child a particular problem?
was this woman a piece of garbage?

if someone commits murder, do you feel their guilt should be shared by everyone?

 

[NM Weatherman]

if one person is a moron, why do you feel the need to extrapolate that out to the entire population of the U.S.?

This is now an international incident. This is what the world is going to see and focus on: one sick woman in Tennessee.

is returning of children an endemic problem?

Do you just cast off your children when they anger or annoy you? Do you have any idea how callous you sound?

was this child a particular problem?

All children from anywhere can be a "particular problem"! Obviously you are not a parent!

was this woman a piece of garbage?

After what she and her mother did I would have to say a resounding YES. The word I wouldn't use is "garbage." I would use a word that means excrement.

if someone commits murder, do you feel their guilt should be shared by everyone?

You mean the guilt of the murderer, or of those relatives of the murdered? Are you by any chance drinking tonight? Just curious.

 

[NM Weatherman]

This is from Pravda.ru (English):

US Mother Returns Adopted Russian Boy like Pair of Shoes
A seven-year-old boy arrived at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on April 8 in the morning. The skinny boy had no luggage with him – he was only holding a letter in his hands.
“I am Artyom,” he only said.
He did not have any adults with him. He was wandering over the airport alone until customs officers paid attention to the exhausted child. The boy could not explain anything properly. He only handed them a letter. Employees of the airport were shocked when the letter was translated from English into Russian. Torry Hansen, a US citizen, wrote in the letter that she adopted the child on September 29, 2009. The woman wrote that she did not like the boy, he did not fit her, and she decided to return him like a pair of shoes. The woman sent the child back to Russia.
Custody officers picked the boy from the airport and took him to a police station in the Moscow center.

“The boy had a Russian passport with the US visa and a birth certificate. He also had a boarding ticket. He arrived on board a plane of United Airlines. The boarding ticket said that the child was not accompanied by adults,” Pavel Astakhov, the Kremlin’s commissioner for children’s rights said.
One may only guess how the boy managed to pass through customs in the USA and board the plane without adults. However, as soon as the boy found himself at the police station, officials of the US embassy showed up very quickly.
“They wanted to take the child away, and we had to take quite an effort to leave him here. US officials were trying to assure us that he was a US citizen, but the boy had the Russian passport with a visa. They said that it would be much better for the boy to go to the US embassy,” Astakhov said.
The boy was later hospitalized with exhaustion. Afterwards, he will be accommodated in a Moscow orphanage.
The saddest thing in this story is the fact that the adoption agency, which was in charge of the questions of Artyom’s living in the US foster family, said two weeks before that the boy was doing just fine. Photographs of the happy family and the happy boy were attached to the report, officials of the Russian ministry for education and science said.
The boy could hardly speak after he arrived in Moscow. The people who worked with him in Moscow said that he had so much sorrow and sadness in his eyes. Artyom said that he had not been eating anything for several days. He only had several sweets.

US Mother Returns Adopted Russian Boy like Pair of Shoes - Pravda.Ru

 

[Dr Gregg]

Well weahterman, we can't help that there are close minded idiots in the world that think one or a few people represent an entire country

 

[jillian]

This is from Pravda.ru (English):

US Mother Returns Adopted Russian Boy like Pair of Shoes
A seven-year-old boy arrived at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on April 8 in the morning. The skinny boy had no luggage with him – he was only holding a letter in his hands.
“I am Artyom,” he only said.

ummmm... we're talking about Pravda. Seriously.

 

[froggy]

There's alot of american orphans here in America needing parents, why go to another country. Americans selling out their country in all things.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Yes, there are thousands and thousands of childless Americans who are hoping to adopt from South America, China...and Russia.

A woman in Tennessee took her 7-year-old Russian boy, put him on a plane alone with a note pinned to him, saying (in English) "she didn't want him anymore."

Russia is pissed and is now thinking about halting all adoptings to the USA. Who can blame them?

Is this about some stupid, heartless woman in Tennessee? Or is this about Americans treating their kids as objects, possessions? "Oh, I want to adopt a kid so people will look up to me, but he/she must be picture-perfect?" Is this the Madonna mentality...adopting her black kids as tokens to her glitzy world? Is this rush it back to Wal-Mart after you've tried it and used it and don't understand it and want your money back?

Shame on America. Yet more shame on America. Shame on Tennessee.

How many kids have you adopted?

 

[jillian]

There's alot of american orphans here in America needing parents, why go to another country. Americans selling out their country in all things.

because if you adopt a child in this country, the birth mother can change her mind after giving you the child.

that's why.