Girls adopted by Edelwina and Steven Leschinsky

The following statement, about adopted children from Russia, reads like a very telling reflection, perhaps from one who may not know all that much about the history of international adoption, in the first-place: "They come with partial stories, half truths, and a whole lot of baggage. Why invite trouble?"

Of course these children have problems and troubles! I can't imagine any owner/director of an adoption agency who doesn't know the children "touched by adoption" - from any country or region - come with partial stories, half-truths, and a whole lot of baggage. The troubles affecting adopted children are wide-known in many circles, and it's the very stuff that makes many of us "orphaned adoptees" so angry, confused, upset, and in-need of services that may be required for decades, not just weeks or months.

Those who decide to adopt must not rely only on the words from their adoption agencies/lawyers, and so-called adoption "educators" supported and endorsed by the industry that supports them. Before adopting , each and every PAP needs to do a lot of self-education which includes very deep, thoughtful consideration to the many factors that affect and have an effect on each child "touched" by "orphan-care" and adoption.

Adoption is much more than an invitation to broaden one's family circle. The decision to care for another person's child is very complicated and complex, and should never be based on a photo, or stories that sugar-coat the very real issues and truths that follow that adoptee, for many many years after the formal adoption. The work of a good loving adoptive parent is heavy and constant; it's expensive, too. (For instance, let's consider the cost of therapy: how does one dare to "undo" the damage caused by sexual abuse? Is the adopted child, often with a long list of troubles and traumas, "something" that can be "fixed"?)

Sadly, I believe far too many adoption advocates advertise the job and duty of an adoptive parent as being a job that requires only love and an open-heart to poverty. Over and over, I hear how people are called and invited to adopted -- and over again, I see just how few of those accepting these invitations are receiving the education they need to go with each and every adopted child they receive.

Accepting responsibility for a child with a lot of horrific baggage is indeed a tremendous task. I wholly believe, for many unprepared, overly idealistic PAPs, taking care of the many (countless, un-ending) needs of an adopted child IS too much work and IS much more trouble and tribulation than party and happy invitations.

So rather than dwell on one specific case, out of many, within PPL's archives, I urge those who are looking into adoption to look deeply into the dark-side of adoption, and recognize what happens to a child during the "orphan-making"/adoption process each adoptee must take to become part of a foreigner's family. I urge each excited and desperate PAP to ask, "Do I have what it takes to help a child who has been through soooooo much trouble, already?". (I urge the extended family members and closest of friends, of these PAPs, to do and ask the same.)

(After doing such difficult adoption-related homework, for my own self, I asked, "What child "invites" such strife and social barriers into his or her young life?" My answer to that was simple: not a single one.)

I believe we still live in an age where too many unfit people are allowed to adopt. I believe in spite of the horror stories we read, adoption agencies are still not doing enough to weed-out and prepare those people most willing and able to do the job of adoptive parenting.

It is the exceptionally patient, daring, accepting, loving individual who says "yes" to the child from ruin, and it's the hero who accepts, with sadness, the damage done to some children, and still decides not to run, and shirk adoptive parenting responsibility, like so many dis-satisfied customers often do, when the damaged baggage, (the unwanted troubled orphaned adoptee), gets shipped through a chosen, inviting adoption agency.