The response to Forever Family–Forever Dead has been overwhelming. All of it has been positive. Well, almost.
You might ask who would complain about a blog dedicated to the memory of Russian children murdered by their adoptive parents? Right? Well, I’ll tell you who. adoption.com, that’s who.
Deemed “anti-adoption,” Bastardette has been booted off adoption.com forums, her account cancelled, and at least one of her essays housed in its Internet library removed.
And for what?
For writing The Daily Bastardette!
Specifically: Publishing Forever Family–Forever Dead.
Yes, you read that correctly! Those oh-so adoption friendly and supportive folks at adoption.com have declared Bastardette “disrespectful” of adoptive parents and adoptees. (No mention of birth parents, but do they really count over there anyway?)
The “official” reason, if you believe the mod’s zany lecture, is that the use of the term “adopter”–in Bastardette’s own blog not on the forums–is “anti-adoption.” (We’ll be discussing the term “adopter,” and why it’s a “threat” in a future blog.) But “adopter” isn’t used at all in Forever Family–Forever Dead. In fact, it appears sparsely on these pages–April 3, May 6, May 8, and May 25. Of course, it wouldn’t look good to beat up on small children thoughtless enough to be murdered by their Forever Families, thus, hindering the trade and commerce of adoption.com advertisers, so let’s bitch slap “incorrect” language.
The forum moderator–or rather the “Super Moderator”–who cutely calls herself “Jensboys” and includes an avatar of her “boys” in her sig, seems to have gone out of her way to rationalize kicking me off–strange in itself. After all, the adoption.com police , always intent on controlling the discourse and keeping the cocoon comfy, are notorious for giving the boot, without notice or explanation, to anybody who breaks their rule de jour. Perhaps the forum rules were lifted from the PATRIOT Act. Carrying their nannyism to the extreme, adoption.com even has an automated censor that blanks out inappropriate words with **** only they don’t furnish you with a list of Forbidden Words or explain why they are forbidden. Why any self-respecting adopted adult, birth parent, or adopter would stay around that joint, with its adoption piety and praise is beyond B*****d***e, but then she’s not a former Mormon missionary making a truckload of $$$ off the misery, disempowerment, and insecurity of the adoption “triad” with her hands in the adoption industry’s pocket and her head up NCFA’s ass.
So what happened?
Bastardette has had an adoption.com account for a couple years, but has never posted. I mean, what can you say to Do-Beevilleers whose lives revolve around primal wounds, fear, and gratefulness, and would sooner eat a jar of carmelized chicken feet as demand their identities? But then again who knows? There might be a whole band of untapped bastards out there ready to march on NCFA , (hope there are) if only they weren’t left cowering from the dom’s….er, I mean mod’s…flick of the whip at the slightest spark of politically incorrect bastard awareness,
Some brave soul, calling herself Hard Rock Girl, however, posted the link to Forever Family–Forever Dead to several adoption.com forums and other forums including Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA), and Holt and Bethany boards under the title “A Very Sad Adoption Web Site. Within about 24 hours adoption.com and FRUA removed all Forever Family–Forever Dead threads after the easily offended and overly entitled complained about the memorial. It was just too upsetting for their delicate psychological conditions. Mysteriously, though, one adoption.com thread survived on the “International Adoption–General” forum. As of this writing, it is still up–and locked–so you can read the whole thing, including the scolding, but just can’t reply. (Warning: this page seems to bo up and down.)
Unfortunately, because Bastardette is a dense and dumb adoptee, it never occurred to her to print out the bizarre statements about her and her blog that were posted on the forums. Even dumber and denser, she never imagined that the discussions would be taken down by hissy-fitting moderators who refuse to permit a dose of reality to be injected into their adoption dreamscape. You’d have thought Bastardette had let loose a skunk at a wedding.
Since the posts are now resting eternally in the ether, I’m going by memory, but here is the gist of the comments from both forums:
*Hard Rock Girl must be Bastardette spamming adoption groups to stir up
trouble and get publicity.*Don’t read Forever Family–Forever Dead. Bastardette, with that horrible name, sounds like the kind of person who’d send you a virus.
*Why was this posted? It does nothing to further the (my?) adoption process.
*How do we know these stories are true?
*This is old news. Why is it being dredged up now?
*12 out of over 5,000 kids adopted from Russia. That’s not so bad.
*12 isn’t such a high number. Look at all the parents who abuse and kill their bio-children in the US.
*12 isn’t such a high number. Look at all the parents who abuse and kill their bio-children in Russia
*Look at all the kids we’ve saved in Russia; we’ve given them better lives.
*These murders might ruin my Russian adoption plan. I’ve already been waiting a year to pick up my child.
*This page/blog is anti-adoption. Don’t pay any attention to it. Please remove this thread.
*Bastardette must have mental problems. She must have self-esteem problems. She must have been an abused child. She’s unbalanced. She’s an angry adoptee with issues. She hates adoption. Why else would she put up this page/blog. Ignore her. She’s a sick crank
Well what’s a girl to do? Bastardette, like her birth parents who couldn’t keep their pants on, suffers from an impulse disorder. She could hardly sit still and read the amazingly bizarre comments about the Russian children, her blog, and herself. At 12:51 PM on August 7 she outted herself and posted to the the International Adoption-General forum. It was a nice post. A polite post as you will see if you go over and read it, even though Bastardette got a little egotistical and showed some of her “adoption credentials.” There wasn’t a ***** in sight. She closed her post explaining that she wasn’t anti-adoption:
We are pro-ethical, transparent, and accountable adoption. We are pro-adoptee. In fact, the real anti-adoption people consider us and
me victims of Stockholm Syndrome.At 3:07 PM, Super Dom Mom kicked Bastardette off of adoption.com and shut down the thread:
The use of certain terms designates a site as anti-adoption (and as such
adoptive parent and adoptee). For example, “adopter” is a derogatory term. The use of blog entries to mock parents of international adoptees, usng phrases the [sic] decry an aparents [sic] or adoptees [sic] ability to love each other as “real family” etc, etc etc.
It is absolutely imperative that adoption,
as it is practiced today, does seek reform. However, that will never occur until
each side can be respectful of the otherLet’s get this staight now. Super Mod is more concerned about the use of “derogatory” terms such as “adopter” (which, btw, is the standard accepted term by adoption professionals–are they banned from adoption.com too?) than the murders of adopted children?
Is adoption so sacred to adoption.com that we must “respect” the adopter status of those killers of adopted children too small and too young to defend themselves?
Is adoption so fragile to adoption.com that we must “respect” the adopter status of those killers who were entrusted with the care of children by the governments of Russia and the US and then proceeded to beat, smack, kick, punch, slap, throttle, choke, scald, burn, smother, shake, starve and kill them?
Is adoption so brittle that adoption.com can’t let its subscribers discuss news stories about unpleasant (or worse) adoption events for fear that the murderous actions of a few adopters will destroy adoption in this country?
If so, let’s by all means honor these killers who, according to adoption.com must deserve our respect. Le’t s open the jailhouse doors and praise these women and men for saving these poor Russian orphans and their gift of the Forever Grave. After all, who knows what horrible lives they’d be having today if it weren’t for the international adoption industry, it’s trolls, and the Simon Pures at adoption.com.
And remember, language trumps morals.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT?
The urge to protect their readers from the horrific experience of reading The Daily Bastardette and Forever family–Forever Dead hasn’t paid off too well for adoption.com and FRUA. Before the link was shut down on those sites, The Daily Bastardette got the following hits directly from the sites:
221 – FRUA
111 – adoption.com
Holt and Bethany links have not been removed and a steady flow of hits comes in from those boards along from numerous other sources–nearly 900 hits at this point. This afternoon The Daily Kos picked up the link. On the adoptee-friendly about.adoption.com, a civil, discussion is taking place about Forever Family–Forever Dead and problems with Russian adoption, without a hint of rancor, fear, shock, accusation or moderator control. In fact the moderator is a very active participant in the discussion. No one is horrified and demands the discussion stop less their sensibilities burst. That’s what happens when you let adults be adults., not infants who need to be watched over and controlled by cutely named baby sitters.
Huh. You claim you are not anti adoption and yet your site contains a lot of mockery towards adoption. Your usage of “real families” in quotes…that’s not anti adoption? If you don’t believe families through adoption are REAL families,but yet you aren’t anti adoption, what would you call it?
You mock the moderator for seeing through the disguise of your site. That’s fine, you are entitled to your opinion. But then you take a step further and put in quotes “her boys”. So what, now they aren’t her boys? Is that it? You couldn’t make your comments without throwing in a snide remark regarding innocent children. So tell me, does it make you feel ever so good to make points in your little tantrum by mocking little children and their mother?
The very children you chose to mock are the ones you are fighting for their rights as adoptees. That not only makes you dumb and dense, but cruel too.
I suspect if your site link only described the horrors of innocent children dying at the hands of their parents, it would have stayed up. That’s not how it is though, is it? No, it’s disguised in a bunch of mockery towards adoption in general with your cutesy little “quotes”, and snide remarks everywhere. If that’s not anti adoption, I don’t know what is.
I think Bastard Nation in general is a necessary group. Adoptees ABSOLUTELY should have access to their own identities, background history, medical info, and their origins. That part of your site and the uphill battle you are fighting is to be commended. But that’s not all you are about now, is it? You mock the whole industry and yet…you aren’t anti adoption? And can’t figure out why anyone wouldn’t want to listen to you? To join you in the fight for what’s right? Perhaps you need to actually read the drivel you spew out.
I too have been an adoptee lurker-member at the forums for a long time as I search. What I have seen is that the mod you mention is one of the “good guys”. You should maybe read some of her posts. I have read ALOT of her posts and she has advocated tirelessly for adoptee rights (including those of her own kids). She is constantly challenging aparents to consider expanding their points of view to consider the adoptee and natural parent perspective. Really, the comments I have heard there about her is that she is TOO pro-birthparent and adoptee rights and doesnt understand aparents because she has never dealt with infertility.
There are literally thousands of posts over there every day – I have seen some of the really bad crap people try to post. I think the mods do a reasonable job at TRYING to keep things balanced. And they dont allow links to ANY site that has profanity. A friend of mine just had her blog link banned because she swore on it – and she is a PAP. So its not about adoptee rights — its about what they do and dont allow.
What’s wrong with letting people say what they want? Why do they have to be moderated and controlled like they were in kindergarten? Why does adoption.com try to speak for others? Why the need to protect people who don’t need protection? It’s paternalistic and patriarchial–just like adoption. But I guess we only have to look at the agenda of the owner to figure it out. Adoption is a rough business. If you can’t take the heat on an internet forum, then you’ll never take the heat in the legislature or the streets.
Gosh Marley, maybe you were banned because you spoke the truth and some people don’t like the truth. The truth can be frightening when you buy into the myth that adoption is a happy ever after story. You were banned because you don’t wear rose colored glasses.
My own belief is that we adoptive parents are called to a higher standard than bio families. Adoptive children should not end up abused or murdered at the hands of their adopters.
I noticed in your report on Russian children murdered by their adoptive parents that many of them are much older than the average first time parent, be it by birth or adoption. I wonder if it’s wise to let older people adopt, especially children from Russia and the Ukraine. Many of these children have fetal alcohol effects, most have been institutionalized. They have trouble attaching to new parents or caregivers. It takes younger people who are well educated in attachment theory and parenting to have the energy to deal day to day with such children. There also needs to be a lot of support in place. I blame the facilitators and agencies as much as the adopters. Adoption is a big dollar business and too often children are products to be bought and sold rather than children in need of loving, stable adoptive parents.
BTW, to other readers, all 3 of my now adult children are adopted.I am not antiadoption, Marley isn’t either. As it says in the Bible, seek ye the truth and the truth shall set you free. They are afraid of the truth Marley, simple as that.
Nurse Nell
I’m an adopter/adoptive parent/whatever. I’m also a bio-mother/birth-mother/ natural parent/whatever.
The only one of these terms that makes me even begin to squirm is “birth mother, but hey, I cope with that fine. Why can’t other people deal with being called stuff they don’t exactly care for?
Seems to me that the denizens of adoption.com don’t understand satire (they certainly can’t take it), which has become almost a lost art in these days of exquisite sensibilities. Happily, it’s an art that Bastardette is evidently intent on reviving.
I most sincerely hope it achieves the high purpose of satire, which is to expose falsehood and reveal truth.
I just wish that people would take a deep breath, sit back and actually THINK about the content of what she’s saying.
Lisa
I confess that I am not a member of adoption.com and it’s most likely a very good thing. I have yet to hear anyone even mention the horror of those children’s deaths. How can you all be so outraged over vocabulary but not once express outrage over the loss of those children? What is it that you discuss over there? Are you so busy watching for “swear” words and anti-adoption language, that you can’t express some sympathy for the horridly short lives these children lived? I thank Bastardette for encompassing the whole adoption situation (some good & some bad) and I thank her for her courage in bringing these real stories to the forefront. I do not for one moment believe that Bastardette or BN is anti-adoption.
Adoption.com should try to get a grip. If only you could see the forest for the trees, maybe you’d see how ridiculous and heartless you sound.
I find it interesting that Marley has been banned, and her blog condemned as “anti-adoption”, by Adoption.com when countless websites linked to Adoption.com use the term “adopter”. Is the Save the Children website “anti-adoption”? Is nearly every UK adoption advocacy website “anti-adoption”?
If people don’t like Marley’s at times snarky tone, that’s understandable. But if critiqueing the adoption industry is enough to get one defined (smeared?) as anti-adoption, we all may as well join the NCFA and get it over with.
Adoptees are adoption. Adoptive parents, adopters are adoption. Natural parents, first parents, birth parents are adoption. The industry is nothing without the humans who embody adoptions through their relationships to each other. Let’s get our priorities straight, shall we?
And let’s face it, sometimes this relationship between different parents and adoptees is contentious, and the discourse used to describe this relationship becomes the site of this contention. Sometimes the contention is reflected in relation to society at large; hence the desire of adoptive families for the authenticity bestowed by a term like “forever family”.
Personally, as an adult adoptee, I find many of the terms used to describe adoption overly cloying and overly sentimentalized. In my opinion this over sentimentalization works as a covering myth rather than an accurate decription of the power dynamics of adoption.
Because at the end of the day, whether we’re describing the plight of parents in crisis relinquishing their children, or the quest of adoptive families to create a family, or the struggle of adoptees for dignity and civil rights, the adoption entity that holds the power, that reserves the right to define terms and to define adopion itself, is the adoption industry.
Ron
I’m with marley and Nell and a few of the anonymous posters who seek the truth.
1.) 12 out of 5000 dead Russian adoptees is 12 too many.
2.) If everyone is so pro-adoptee then why not let the adoptees speak, un edited and UN-BANNED?! The adoptee has never had a choice and you who say you are pro-adoptee should know that. I, for one am extremely interested in what Marley has to say (in whatever words she chooses to use) because she is on the side of truth, not propaganda and censorship.
3.) I can’t believe that adoptee.com is not interested in these murders because the issue is weeding out potential unfit adoptive parents/families who seem to be getting babies when so many FIT potential adoptive families are unable to adopt!
4.) I am not an adoptee but a birthmother / natural mother. I am happily reunited with my son although the two of us were both betrayed by adoption counselors, attachment disorder “specialists,” and in general, people who just wanted to sweep the unpleasantness under the rug when the two of us were obviously in need of a reunion. Luckily, the common sense genes must have passed on to my son, and he was raised by very intelligent people, because he finaly saw through all the BS he was told and contacted me several years ago. We are al the better for it. He is, his adoptive family is and so is my family.
Keep going Bastardette! We love you!
Yours,
Beki
http://www.bekibrindle.com
Wherefore art thou, Apple Newton?
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-Josh the Cat Furniture Guy
Basterdette’s Memory Page dedicated to the memory of Russian adoptees who were murdered by their adoptive parents was a lovely tribute to these mostly forgotten children. Bastardette remembers them in her blog and she has helps us to pause for a moment and remember them too, perhaps in our prayers.
Forever Families – Forever Dead is the kind of writing that has been around for a long long time. It’s called investigative reporting and this is an example of the best. It is undeniable FACTS which are presented in such a way as to call attention to some serious problems with some adoption agencies/and or individuals who are only in the shady business of “take the money and run.”
Prospective adoptive parents who plan to adopt a child from Russia or any other country for that matter need to be aware of the dreadful consequences that can occur when adoptions aren’t handled properly. Adopt through these money-hungry individuals and prospective adoptive parents will not be investigated thoroughly. There will be no honest medical records coming with the children and there will be no post adoption assistance and support for those adoptive parents.
It’s sad that some people today cannot look at the facts. Do they turn off their TVs when the casualty reports from Iraq are shown? Do they cut out articles from the front pages of their newspapers because there are pictures of dead and wounded Americans?
You can turn off, you can cut out, and you can refuse to report that which you don’t like. But it won’t make any difference. Facts are facts are facts. Bad things happen and they will be reported.
I suspect that the people who have pulled this blog and who have removed the author from their lists are people to whom the phrase “forever families” is rather sacred. Using it as the Bastadette did is almost heretical to them and so they were whipped into a frenzy of name calling “Bastardette is anti-adoption – we must shut her up immediately.”
“Forever families” is a fuzzy-wuzzy catchall phrase coined by someone over at NCFA. It’s meant to push the hot buttons of adoptive families and it sure does the job. Read between the lines: Forever families means all adoptions are wonderful – “They lived happy ever after.” Forever families can not be touched or tainted by any group who may want to change the status quo in any way. Forever families means – “My adoptive children are MINE and no one can ever step in and say otherwise.” Forever families have conveniently forgotten that adopted children have another set of parents to whom they were born. Facts again – pure hard facts that you can’t get away from. So put on blinders and think good thoughts about your forever families. Try to stifle free speech whenever someone has the courage to challenge your beliefs. But you won’t succeed.
This is America where we still have free speech.
I think its fine to attack the company and their policies, but to personally attack someone who has actually done alot of good for adoptees over there and a TON of educating of PAPs … I think thats low and it distorts your message!
I did a search at the forums today, there were 4 recent threads with multiple posts on the Russian deaths. I dont think they are hiding the message … they dont allow the medium of vulgarity to be used. So what? As a private company thats their right.
Build a memorial page to the children savagely murdered that isnt linked to sites with profanity and I bet they will let it stand. They let links to articles on the deaths up all the time … and I have seen many comment on them.
You have an important message … civility will allow it to be heard by a wider audience! Isnt that the point? A wider audience???
Searching adoptee 11/5/68
I think it’s pathetic that adoption.com finds nothing wrong with “Gotcha Day” but gets its knickers in a twist over an innocuous term like “adopter”– which, as someone’s already pointed out, is standard usage in the U.K.
What’s wrong with “adopter” anyway?
It’s neutral, non gender specific and a lot less cumbersome than “adoptive parents”.
Bastardette’s page was a dignified and compassionate memorial to children who didn’t get much of either dignity or compassion in their short lives. She should be commended for coming up with the idea, and not lambasted for it.
Lest we forget.
Lisa
Adopter, derogatory? Give me a break! Donor, donee… employer, employee… adopter, adoptee. Big deal. Should I be offended at being called an adoptee? Perhaps I should be referred to as the adopted child of an adoptive parent.
The fact of the matter is… one who adopts is an adopter and using this term hardly makes one anti-adoption. Why don’t these people sit up and take note of the real problem that was the subject of the blog, i.e., the large number of Russian children who, for some reason, are suffering such abuse.
If one American child is abducted, alerts are issued and massive amounts of manpower and money are spent in the effort to have that child returned. If that child is murdered, there is a lessons-learned. New laws are passed. Policies are changed. That child’s death does not go unmarked and unexamined. Hard questions are asked.
If 12 out of 5000 American kids died of a vaccine or defective carseat, we’d see products yanked, lawsuits filed, television programs aired, companies investigated and forced to change their practices and policies…
and those in the adoption “community” (for lack of a better term) sit around and discuss 12 murdered children and argue about WHICH WORDS TO USE and say things like, “That’s not so many..”
If your child was (God forbid) one of those 12, I suppose you might think that “not so many” ended at 11! SHAME!
And shame on this rank transactional system of supply and demand, of the haves taking the very flesh and blood from the have-nots and then saying that the murder of that very offspring isn’t worth rocking the boat over.
http://forums.adoption.com/showthread.php?t=179018&page=753&pp=15
page 753 of the thread. Ooooh…she no likeah you.
Unfortunately, yours truly isn’t even “allowed” to access the adoption.com forums, which to the best of my knowledge are open for public reading. Even Osama could read them if he was desperate for entertainment. It’s sorta like not being “allowed” to access your own birth records. What are they so afraid of?
you must be on the “top ten people who don’t exist!!!” list.
They need to keep the peace and have “pro-adoption posts” all the way otherwise people start thinking for themselves.
I am also banned from adoption.com because I spoke up about the high costs of IA. It’s a sin on adoptionforums.com to criticize the $30,000.00 or higher fees paid by Guatemalan and Russian adopters. It’s not a sin to say you are OK with paying the high fees. adoption.com proves that money and adoption go hand in hand. adoption.com is the whore of the adoption community. The agencies, facilitators and lawyers are pimps.
Bastdardette said:
The use of certain terms designates a site as anti-adoption (and as such
adoptive parent and adoptee).
This is very funny, since adoptionforums.com allows such unnatural adoption terms as RE-HOMING. Yes, folks, RE-HOMING is now the in phrase for adoption disruption. Call it what it is, throwing your forever child away because he or she is less than perfect. If you ask me, the term RE-HOMING is RE-TARDED but that’s the politically correct term and don’t you adopters forget that.
Even when confronted with the deaths of these children, we still have to sit through perhaps inadvertant oh so sensitive blame the victim industry crap in lines such as those used by Nell McBride. I quote-
“Many of these children have fetal alcohol effects, most have been institutionalized. They have trouble attaching to new parents or caregivers. It takes younger people who are well educated in attachment theory and parenting to have the energy to deal day to day with such children.”
The entire psuedo-disease labeled “attachment disorder” is nothing other than Bastard blaming industry swill. It’s quack therapy. It is to Bastards what ‘repairative therapy’ is to Queers.
(Sarcasm on)’Aw, the kid didn’t attach. Aw, the adopters didn’t have a firm grounding in our pet milk-you-of-cash quack therapy. So yeah the kid got beaten to death, but IF ONLY he had just attatched, or they knew how to make him attach none of this had to happen, such a shame, tsk tsk. Well, next time, when you go to replace little dead disattached disaster, buy the attachment disorder books first or go to the workshops.’ (Sarcasm off)
Pluh-lease!
These kids are not dead because they didn’t ‘bond’ properly. These kids are dead because grown adults tortured and killed them.
Place the blame where it belongs- on the adopters, not the kids. (And don’t fill the cash registers of the lastest adopt-o-fad while you’re at it.)
Bastardette created a memorial to those forgotten and murdered, don’t besmirch their memories with ‘this didn’t have to happen- buy the books’ crap. A memorial is not anyplace for an advertisement.
Oh, and lest Bastardetter feel alone in her choice of words- these kids are dead because their adopters killed them- period.
The same APS and PAPS who find it taboo to discuss the ongoing controversial adoptees killed/abused issues, think nothing of circumcising their newly IA older kid. I think they have their priorities wrong. Just read this and squirm. This “Mom” took all 4 of her older adopted sons at once and explained why they had to have this done. The oldest is 7. At least her sons penises are now politically correct to US standards. OUCH, this makes me hurt…
Message: 1 Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:35:20 EDT
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: circumcision?
Ellie You will laugh at this but..We had all four of our boys done at once..They were 3,4,5,7..It was easy,very easy.as far as surgery.They were in
and out in 15-20 min.Our Texas Childrens Hospital did it.No problems..We explained why they needed it done,and what would happen.We bought each a toy.It
took one or two days to feel better.Hard first night,not sure I’d do that many at once again.We had Mom and Dad and Grandma to help..They loved the popsicles and treats..Yes anethesia is always a little hard on them,but it is mild.Being
done at the right place,where they deal only with children.is
best….. Hope
it helps Deb