I love current events. I inherited that love from my parents. I am very pleased to announce that Buddy officially loves current events as well. He got an inkling he would love news magazines when he was a baby. He crawled for the first time toward a New.sweek magazine. (He *might* have been crawling toward it because he loved crinkling paper at that age but whatever. It was still a news magazine.)
Well, in the last week or so I've started to think Buddy sneaks out of bed and watches the 11:00 news with us from our bedroom doorway. I've never seen him do it, but after reading this blog let me know what you think.
So a few days ago Buddy started asking my mom and me if sea lions live in rivers. We told him repeatedly that they don't. I mean, we've seen them often at the coast, plus I know from reading Buddy's animal books that they live in polar areas too. I've never seen one in a river, especially around here. But then I remembered that the night before I watched a story on the news about pesky sea lions in the Columbia River who are eating protected salmon near the Bonneville Dam. There was a plan to kill the sea lions to preserve the endangered salmon. So after I stopped to think about it, I guess he was right. Sea lions DO live in rivers. At least for now they do, thanks to pressure from the Hu.mane Soci.ety.
So then a few days later Buddy started asking the Lord to help him "get salmon out of the ocean" every night in his prayers. G and I scratched our heads for a new nights wondering if anyone in the history of the world -- especially a 4-year old -- has ever prayed for that. But then we remembered that we had seen a story on news that the Chinook salmon fishing season had closed on the Oregon coast and that it would certainly hurt the Oregon economy, not to mention the individual livelihoods of many fisherman. So after I stopped to think about, Buddy probably wasn't the only person praying to catch salmon in the ocean.
In other news...
I am extremely distressed by the news that another Oregon foster child *may* be sent to live with "relatives" in Mexico. It's a very confusing story, but as an adoptive parent, I'm sick about it. In a nutshell: the child's parents are both in jail. The little girl is in foster care living with her father's parents. They love her and are working toward adopting her. Her mother has two other children with another man and that man's parents live in Mexico. Those two children may be sent to live with them and since the government agency* in Oregon believes siblings should stick together, they are considering sending this little girl along with those children to Mexico.
I can express how upsetting this is to me. First of all, she lives in a stable and happy home with two potential adoptive parents. Secondly, the siblings are only half siblings. They share the same mother, but not the same father. So the people she'd be sent to live with would not be blood relatives. (I have less of an issue with that, since in my opinion, blood doesn't mean a darn thing). But it's Mexico! Why would they uproot a two-year old to send her to a third-world country JUST so she can stick with her "siblings" who she hasn't ever lived with? Plus, this is the second foster child this year in Oregon who has been threatened to be sent to Mexico.
Since my son has a half "sibling" that lives not too far from us -- whom he has obviously never lived with -- I have a real issue with this. It disturbs me that the government agency considers blood siblings more important than stable and loving parents. I recognize that biological parents have rights -- as frustrating as that is for me (as an insider that knows WAY too much about abuse of those rights). But since when does the bond of a blood sibling trump all good sense? And my gosh... why don't children have rights?
*I've said this before on my blog, but if you have never had to deal with the extreme stress of adoption, please consider yourself lucky. My head is about to explode at times (read: today) with the frustrations of adoption -- both mine and some of my friends'. Thank goodness that with all that stress comes a great deal of joy. And if the stars align, our adoption will be final this week. And then I can feel a little safer venting about that government agency. And idiots involved with adoption/who say stupid things about adoption.
4 comments:
I fully agree with your distress re: blood relative vs. what makes good sense. This has happened time and time again in my practice despite my whole-hearted ardent advocating to keep a child where they are loved and stable versus being sent elsewhere in the name of blood (in UT they call it "kinship"). There is no way to summarize/describe my shock and dismay the many times the courts have gone against my recommendations in these cases...I am tearful now just thinking about it. There is so much therapy, usually quite ineffective, to deal with the child's emotional fall-out after they are moved.
There's always something to read, listen to and then talk about with current events. It's just too bad so many in our society, the best informed society in the world, are functionally illiterate, not able to think for themselves or form an intelligent (not pure, selfish opinion) discussion. Poll after poll shows how uninformed and ignorant our populace is. As the old ad said, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." Keep Buddy learning. We know he is inquisitive enough.
Finally, I found your website again! and I finally linked it to mine, it took long enough to do that, eh?
I miss you, let's hang out!
have you heard about the Samoan adoption agency debacle here in Utah. It at the end of last year - I guess some real winners here in Utah were taking kids from families in Samoa and 'adopting' them to families here in America. Only the families in Samoa thought the kids were going as a sort of 'school exchange' where their kids were going to get american education and a chance for work as they got older but didn't know it was going to be a legal separation. Sad sad - (hum, sorry I am sure that you love to hear hear horror stories about the system). Better keep and eye out for those late night spyings though - don't want him catching more then the news if you know what I mean ;-)
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