Michael Savage has a national radio show. During a July 16, 2008 show (you can listen to above) he called Autism a "fraud" and "racket". He called children with autism "moron", "brat", and "idiots". He claimed that fathers just weren't doing their job. He said:

Has the severity of foster child behaviors been increasing over the years? Some people, including teachers, foster parents, and workers believe that it has. There are those who attribute the increased violence to television and video games.

You know the old saying “Birds of a feather flock together,” and so foster child seem instinctively to find each other. Over the years, teenager girls have come and gone. They usually made friends, some more than others did of course. I have always made a point of meeting friends and asking questions. Inevitably, the friends are somehow affected by foster care or adoption. Some are adopted through foster care, part of a foster family, foster child, or they should be. My children always seem surprised when they discover that their new friend is somehow associated with foster care. Over the years, I have realized the truth of the phrase, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Foster children are able to find each other almost intuitively.

Every year I try to take the boys on a road trip without their dad. It’s not that my wonderful husband is no fun to travel with, it is just that I enjoy getting to sneak away with them for a few days and get in some mommy and sons bonding time. There are so many special things that fathers and sons can do together, all that manly stuff that simply leaves me scratching my womanly head, so this is our special thing.

This year I am taking them up to the beach that I used to go to when I was my oldest son’s age. Neither of them have been to a beach with a boardwalk before, so I am quite excited to take them to one that is known for it’s boardwalk, as well as one that I have so many fond memories of as a young girl.

So it is pretty much a given that if you have children, you have a stash somewhere in your home, but usually the refrigerator, that is packed full of artwork that your child has created. We all love them, but there comes a time when there simply is no longer enough space for everything that your child has made, yet tossing it into the trash just isn’t an option. So what is a parent to do when faced with such a dire situation? Recycle!

Children’s art works great as wrapping paper!

Dear Adoption Maharishi,

 

During the last visit with our daughter’s bmom we (I and her alone while dh and daughter were in the car) told her that we had decided to name my brother and his wife as our daughter’s guardians if something ever were to happen to dh and I. I thought she'd be happy, but she got really mad, totally flipped out and said that if something were to happen to us that SHE would get our daughter back, and have the power to decide who would raise her! This can't really be true, can it? We want her to still be able to get letters, pictures and visits just like she does now, which my brother and sister-in-law have already agreed to do (they are like us and believe that it is in the best interest of our daughter to know where she came from), but she and her family have on and off again trouble with the law and substance abuse issues and we are not comfortable with any of them having custody, that is why we all agreed to this adoption in the first place!

--Uneasy Mommy

I recently talked with an adult adoptee about adoption. I asked this young woman if she had any advice for me as an adoptive mother. She said that her most important advice is to keep the lines of communication open so that my adopted child feels free to talk with me about his adoption. Adopted children need to feel free to ask questions about their adoption as they have them.

Her second most important piece of advice was to give your adopted child plenty of love. She said that as long as you have communication and love in your relationship with your adopted child, then you provide the foundation for the other pieces to fall into place.

Number three on her list was honesty.

The recent give and take on the various blogs about gay adoption... Jesus Said, “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin.” and Discrimination is not Just a Word reminded me of a fairly recent Brad Pitt interview from 2007.

In Julie’s recent blog, the issue of Adoption Media LLC not allowing singles and gay couples to advertise on their website was brought to light. It is not only on that website that you will find this type of discrimination; there are adoption agencies, states in the U.S. and countries that will not allow singles and gay couples to adopt.

My issue with this discrimination is that it has absolutely nothing to do with a person’s ability to be a good parent. A person’s sexual persuasion does not dictate their parenting skills. Heterosexual couples certainly don’t have a monopoly on good parenting.

When I was waiting to adopt a child, I read a ton of parenting books. I did not know a thing about parenting a child, so I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on so I would have some inkling of what I was doing.

Because I was in the process of adopting an infant, I mostly read books about taking care of a baby during the first year of life. I also read magazines geared toward new mothers. Whenever I read these resources, I was bombarded by messages about breastfeeding my baby.

Most parenting resources that I found pushed breastfeeding in multiple places. These articles would tell me that breastfeeding would result in a healthier baby with a stronger immune system who was smarter. “Breast is best” messages were woven into just about everything I read. There was only one little problem – As an adoptive mother-to-be, I was not lactating and probably never would.