Paradise Preoccupied

Okay. Before I go any farther, I will freely admit that I am in a foul mood. I could very happily rip someone’s head off about now, stick it on a pike, then beat the crap out of it with a hair brush … almost anyone would do … so perhaps, just perhaps, I am not reacting quite the way I should to today’s news.

Whatevahhhhhh …

It’s this story that has me spitting spikes for this post.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the move would allow children eligible for adoption in the US “to receive the care they need”.

Other nations said they were speeding up the process to allow Haitian children to join adoptive families.

Fuckin’ ‘ell …

First bit of vitriol that rises is directly attached to this, from Sacramento, my old town … a story about family waiting to bring their child home from Haiti closing in on the end run of what had to have been a very long process.

The current time frame is 6 to 12 months for a referral, once your dossier arrives in Haiti. Two trips are required for families adopting from Haiti. The first trip occurs shortly after referral, and travel to pick up your child typically occurs between 12 and 18 months after you receive a referral (for childless couples) or 18-24 months (for families with other children).

Yep … kids and parents waiting from one and a half to three years.

Was Haiti a garden spot before the quake? A safe haven for small children? Uh … nope.

It was a dirt poor, drastic place where bad things routinely happened to innocent people, where starvation and disease took thousands of lives and children were victims of horrible events on a daily basis.

Now that rotting dead are piled like cord wood, someone gets the bright idea that maybe kids should get the hell outta Port-a-Dodge. Great. This is what it takes to make international adoption look like a good idea?

Which brings me to the next thing pissing me off … those who will line up to spout off on just what a bad idea rushing kids away from hell is.

There is no shortage of arrogant pinheads ready to scream “cultural genocide” and insist that any kid removed from Haitian hellfire is being robbed of his birth right, will suffer lifelong from the loss of said culture, and just may have some blood relatives still alive somewhere who are not too busy bleeding and killing and looting to take in an extra child or ten. In other words, demanding a hands-off-Haitian-children and leave-them-to-rot policy to rule.

It is almost impossible now to adopt a baby. Caving into hype has created an environment in which children are forced into institutions for a year, two years, three years … more … while hopeful adoptive parents face hoop after hoop and wait after wait. It’s hard on the parents, sure, but devastating for the children.

So, it takes the end of the world to get things moving, does it? What a fucking shame.