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I can almost hear the gnashing of teeth coming from the part of the adoption community that hates everything about National Adoption Month as MSN carries four pages of “This is What Adoption Feels Like” on their huge site.
Here’s how five families found their way along that unforgettable journey, and how one woman made the wrenching decision to give up her child — plus, everything you’ll need to know if you decide to make adoption a part of your family story.
Yeah … that’s the way to raise some hackles and get bloggers chucking rocks and wanting to punch faces. Put out a positive outlook on adoption in general, some hints on what it’s about, a few tips on how to get started aimed at the masses through media not limited to adoption and … WHAMMY! … stand back and duck the vitriol.
Anyway, I rather liked the article … And, yes, I can hear the “Of course, YOU like it. You’re an adoptive parent. Grrrrrr.” that dismisses the take of those on my side of the triad who aren’t beating themselves to a bloody pulp on a regular basis for parenting our children, happy adoptees and birth parents at peace with their choices … and found quotes from Brenda Romanchik added an extra dimension.
The fact that the article does not include bits from “angry adoptees” or “angst-ridden birth mothers” will disappoint some and anger many. If you’d like to read the piece before the fallout, the link is in the first paragraph.
NPR has a story and option to listen on “Redefining What It Means to Be Black in America” that many will find interesting.
Discussing a poll released by the Pew Research Center being touted as a “uniquely reliable measure of black opinion”, some aspects are considered ‘revelatory’.
37 percent of African Americans now agree that it is no longer appropriate to think of black people as a single race. A little more than half of the black people polled — 53 percent — agreed that it is right to view blacks as a single race. And the people most likely to say blacks are no longer a single race are young black people, ages 18-29.
Values appear to be the dividing issue when it comes to the debate over black as one race with 61% of black Americans saying that the values of middle-class black and poor black have become ‘more different’ in recent years, rather than ‘more the same’, while 72% of whites, 54% of blacks and 60% of Hispanics say that over the last 10 years, ” “values held by black people and the values held by white people (have) become more similar.”
53% of black Americans now say that “blacks who can’t get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition.”
White America (71 percent) and Hispanic America (59 percent) agree that racism, while still a factor in American life, is not the principal force keeping poor black people in poverty. The more oppressive force, they seem to be saying, is a lack of strong families and the prevalence of values that do not emphasize education, hard work and perseverance.
It is important to note that this is not some Pollyannaish view that ignores the reality of racism. Sixty-eight percent of blacks say they deal with racial discrimination today in at least two of the categories of experience cited in the poll: such as applying for jobs, buying a house, renting an apartment, applying for college, shopping or dining out.
But even with that hard-edged view of how often they have to deal with discrimination, a majority of black people say that regardless of the race of an individual, a black person can make it in America.
From Britain, this report on the fate of white males there that’s far from a pretty picture.
They are usually from broken homes, unlikely to work, will descend into crime or drugs and pass on that fate to their children. Three-quarters of low achievers in Britain’s deprived areas are working class, white and male.
As always, it’s a story of social breakdown and children taking the brunt of it. It gets worse every year and looks to continue in that direction for a very long time.
They have some points, but what I’m frustrated about is how simple folks seem to make everything seem.
Such as blaming single moms, or focusing too much on race, really there’s the larger picture to consider and several factors.
It’s difficult for single mothers who have had husbands or boyfriends leave them with the responsibility of several kids to take care of. They end up having to use two or more jobs to suppor themselves, and what happens to the kids as a result? The single mothers practically get stones casted at them, the conservative types don’t seem to put responsibility on these men leaving, that’s one small aspect.
Another is education. School, at least here has been made more boring if that’s possible with dull tests and the good things about school have been drained away such as music, art and sports. They also do not take into account different children’s learning styles and never had.
Then there is peer pressure, an individual child’s choice to grow up and take the wrong path.
Sometimes I think race should be taken out of the equation altogether because it doesn’t focus on the whole picture enough. Things are never very simple.I wish the larger world would get this, maybe some progress would be made. Folks just can’t get away with simple stereotypes anymore. People are complicated individuals…
I am in a state of perpectual frustration.