By Conor Sweeney Conor Sweeney - Fri Apr 16, 10:19 am ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top Russian official said on Friday he hoped to quickly place an adopted boy into foster care one week after he was sent home alone from the United States, sparking a halt to all U.S. adoptions by Russia.
Artyom Savelyev, who celebrated his eighth birthday on Friday in a Moscow hospital where he is under observation, arrived by airplane with a letter from his U.S. mother asking for his adoption to be annulled on the grounds he was mentally unstable, triggering a furious reaction in Russia.
"Next week Artyom will be discharged from hospital and will go to a foster family in Moscow," said the Russian President's Ombudsman for Children's Rights, Pavel Astakhov, after visiting him in hospital with birthday presents.
While children left without parental care usually face an uncertain future whose fate is not quickly solved, Astakhov said a decision was taken on Friday so everything possible would be done in Savelyev's case, he said on his website rfdeti.ru.
Savelyev was adopted from an orphanage in Russia's Far East in 2009. After six months, his adoptive mother, a single nurse from Tennessee, bought him a one-way ticket to Moscow. In an attached, typed note she described him as mentally unstable and violent.
Within around three weeks Astahkov said he hoped the "most suitable family" would be found for the boy, who has been in hospital since his return from the United States.
Astakhov said Savelyev was in a good mood and smiling on Friday.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev described the affair as a "monstrous deed" and Russian media has followed the case closely, expressing outrage at the boy's experience.
Lawmakers drafted a bill on Friday that would formally suspend adoptions to the United States in line with an earlier Foreign Ministry announcement, Interfax reported.
Russia is the third largest source of foreign adoptions to the United States, with 1,586 children adopted last year, according to the U.S. State Department.
The U.S. embassy in Moscow said on Friday the child was "in good spirits" when a consular officer visited to give him a present. It added that Savelyev holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenship.
(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
This woman makes nurses, adoptive parents and Americans look bad...There are many adoptive families who have invested themselves emotionally and financially to adopt Russian children that cant do it now..
From what I understand, it was the grandmother who put the boty on the plane at the request of the mother, theres one family member there that could have helped her, did she?
This woman makes nurses, adoptive parents and Americans look bad...There are many adoptive families who have invested themselves emotionally and financially to adopt Russian children that cant do it now..
From what I understand, it was the grandmother who put the boty on the plane at the request of the mother, theres one family member there that could have helped her, did she?
If she were a janitor or a pharmacist, would that make all janitors or pharmacists look bad?
OK, sorry I went off on this little rant, but this is something near and dear to my heart.....
Bless you for your dedication to your beloved babies and you most certainly have the right to weigh in on this topic.
For anyone that has not cared for drug addicted, fetal alcohol or severly abused and neglected children really should consider working with this population before passing judgement on this woman. I agree 100% that she shouldn't have put him on a plane back to Russia but I would also bet many of the infuriated public would feel the same way if she institutionalized him which is very possibly what he needed. Of course I have no clue the issues this child might or might not have had but I'd challenge anyone to try living with a child that has tortured and killed family pets, sexually abused younger siblings and threatened to kill you in your sleep before passing harsh judgement because there are many children that fit this description.
OK strap on your seatbelts it is time for a reality check.
1. IN the USA, everyday, children are abused and even killed. Most of the time the parents are the perps. Where are all the posts expressing the outrage over the death of a 7 day old infant in Florida that was basically eaten by a pitbull while he laid next to his sleeping mother?
2. As a few previous posters have said.....that this was a nurse is strictly coincidental and has no bearing on the situation.
3. This woman did not take this acton on her own. if you read the original news articles they stated that she was operating under the advice of legal counsel. perhaps she sensed herself becoming so enraged she was afraid that she would snap and hurt the child. Is it better if she sent him home, or if she doused him with gasoline and set him ablaze as another US parent did to his two children not so long ago.
Anyway, lets try and look at this from a bigger picture. I am certain that this woman did what she thought was best and I am sure she did it with a heavy heart.
4. A single woman has no business adopting a child. Sorry, thats the truth of it. Why do you think she had to adopt a Russian? Because no US based adoption agency would give her the time of day.
Anyway, lets try to cast fewer stones and think more deeply about the situation.
4. A single woman has no business adopting a child. Sorry, thats the truth of it. Why do you think she had to adopt a Russian? Because no US based adoption agency would give her the time of day.
Anyway, lets try to cast fewer stones and think more deeply about the situation.
ok strap on your seatbelts it is time for a reality check.
1. in the usa, everyday, children are abused and even killed. most of the time the parents are the perps. where are all the posts expressing the outrage over the death of a 7 day old infant in florida that was basically eaten by a pitbull while he laid next to his sleeping mother?
please tell me where this story is located, as i am interested...
2. as a few previous posters have said.....that this was a nurse is strictly coincidental and has no bearing on the situation.
this is untrue.....when someone of a particular industry does something heinous, their industry becomes just a little more tainted in the public's eye...
3. this woman did not take this acton on her own. if you read the original news articles they stated that she was operating under the advice of legal counsel. perhaps she sensed herself becoming so enraged she was afraid that she would snap and hurt the child. is it better if she sent him home, or if she doused him with gasoline and set him ablaze as another us parent did to his two children not so long ago.
please provide the original article, as some of us were discussing the desire to know more of the woman's motivations and why/how she did it....
anyway, lets try and look at this from a bigger picture. i am certain that this woman did what she thought was best and i am sure she did it with a heavy heart. in order to be approved for adoption, one must have a homestudy done. in every homestudy, they require at least 10 weeks of parenting classes. in those parenting classes, the subject of emotional/psychological and sometimes physical healing must take place, is addressed. they will inform the prospective parents, that for every year of abuse, abandonment, or emotional upheaval, it will require at least one year of consistent, predictable, emotionally healthy living within a home for them to recover.....this woman would have been, at the very least, educated in this subject as it is required in parent training.....
4. a single woman has no business adopting a child. sorry, thats the truth of it. why do you think she had to adopt a russian? because no us based adoption agency would give her the time of day.
again, you are incorrect in this matter. single women and men regularly adopt. adoption agencies regularly approve single family homes and even (gasp) gay and lesbian married and single homes. yes, in the past it was much more difficult to be approved as a single parent, or a gay/lesbian parent--not any longer.
anyway, lets try to cast fewer stones and think more deeply about the situation.
the woman had many support systems she could have used. in the end, the reality is that she took in a child and then after realizing he was too much to handle returned him like he was a pair of shoes she no longer thought would go with her outfit (or lifestyle).finally, if you are concerned with not casting any stones, please do not decide that all of america should adhere to your principals, mores, opinions, etc in regards to whether or not a single parent should, or could, adopt.
Bless you for your dedication to your beloved babies and you most certainly have the right to weigh in on this topic.
For anyone that has not cared for drug addicted, fetal alcohol or severely abused and neglected children really should consider working with this population before passing judgment on this woman. I agree 100% that she shouldn't have put him on a plane back to Russia but I would also bet many of the infuriated public would feel the same way if she institutionalized him which is very possibly what he needed. Of course I have no clue the issues this child might or might not have had but I'd challenge anyone to try living with a child that has tortured and killed family pets, sexually abused younger siblings and threatened to kill you in your sleep before passing harsh judgment because there are many children that fit this description.
Thanks, Jules. I agree that I do indeed have the right to weigh in. Your comments to readers about the fact that they should not pass judgment, because they have not had the the opportunity to work with special or high needs kids...I do not agree with that, completely. I believe that even though they may not have personal experience, it is still possible for them to make sound judgments.
However, I have worked with this population--quite a lot, as a matter of fact.
This woman had many avenues of choices she could have taken and I know for a fact that there were many possibilities of support. She could have taken them.
I think what I'm most disgusted about, is the fact that America seems to have this "I deserve what I want" mentality---an instant gratification mentality. The woman had to go through several more steps of education, parenting classes, homestudy, etc. than the parent that births their children.
She was told what it would be like. She was warned about adoption and all its' possible trials and tribulations. I think that not only was she incredibly wrong for doing what she did, I also firmly believe she should have taken this whole adoption endeavor with more seriousness and a sense of "this is going to be my child no matter what."
As you stated earlier, it is incredibly difficult to deal with the high needs child that wants love so badly and has been so emotionally damaged that they must punish the one person that wants to give them love, in order to test whether or not that person REALLY loves them enough to see it through....
I think it's really sad, because if this woman had taken her commitment seriously and rode it out a while longer, she would have seen a much better result and most likely had a wonderful relationship with her son. I mean honestly...How can you take a child in and promise them you're going to be family forever and in as little 6 months, send them on their way as if they are just disposable?
It depends upon what we don't know...Did she clear it with any child, or law enforcement agencies? She could possibly be charged with child abandonment, endangerment, failure to protect, etc.....
I'd like to hear what comes of this, as well...It seems so non-sensical to me, that she would do that...Wouldn't this also put her license at risk, if charged with abuse in any way?? It kind of makes me wonder if she did this on the advice of someone else......Or maybe someone in Russia told her to go ahead and send him over and she followed it?
Don't kn ow how Russian law works...my feeling is that if she had landed in Russia, and left him at say, the orphanage, she would have been arrested...food luck in a foreign country.
mickey_RN
36 Posts
This woman makes nurses, adoptive parents and Americans look bad...There are many adoptive families who have invested themselves emotionally and financially to adopt Russian children that cant do it now..
From what I understand, it was the grandmother who put the boty on the plane at the request of the mother, theres one family member there that could have helped her, did she?