That Russian Orphan

Have you been listening to the news these days, following the story about that Russian boy who was adopted by an American woman and then returned to Russia? The media slant - and the media always takes a slant - is portraying her as some cruel, irrational person. Who would send a child back, unaccompanied, on a plane to Russia?

The Russian foreign minister is outraged by this incident, saying, in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, that the actions of the American parent were "monstrous, immoral and against the law." I watched the Today Show interview this morning as Matt Lauer asked the American author, who wrote a book about the adoption process in Russia, if there were any unique issues about that process. Here is her answer:

I got my child from Baby House #6. There were 106 children there where they were lined up in pack-n-play cribs. The children were cared for and loved.

He then asked if there was a higher incidence of emotional issues in Russian orphans. Here was her chance to shed light on the truth of how Russia treats their orphans. She came close, but I doubt anyone will pick up on her last sentence before the interview ended. Here is what she said:

Well, to some degree there is. There are attachment issues and sensory issues. It's very difficult for these children who spend almost 20 hours a day in their cribs.

I'll repeat that, in case you missed it: these children spend 20 hours a day in their cribs.

If you want to read further about the real abuse these children go through at the hands of the Russian orphanage system, I urge you to go to your local library and look for the book: The Boy From Baby House 10. From The Nightmare Of A Russian Orphanage To A New Life In America, by Alan Philips and John Lahutsky

This book is so disturbing to read; I often get a queasy stomach and have to put it down for a day or two. The conditions described in Russian orphanages is so horrific that they would be illegal in America. In fact, they would be illegal by ASPCA standards.

The book follows the life of a young Russian boy born prematurely with some disabilities, and, as a result, is diagnosed as retarded. He is bounced back and forth between the orphanage, an insane asylum and a hospital. Each place is worse than the one before it, and you start to pray that this child will simply die, just to escape the inhumane vile treatment he receives.

He is confined to one room for his entire first seven years and told to keep silent whenever he tries to speak on his own. He spends most of the day in a high-sided iron crib, lying in his own excrement, screaming himself to sleep. He never learned to walk because his muscles were unable to develop from lying in a crib all day. Instead, he would slither on the floor like a snake when no one was watching, because if he got caught out of his seat at mealtimes, he would be punished. I wouldn't give my pet dog the slop he was fed at mealtime. If the caregivers cited in this book ran a facility like that in America, they would have gone to jail for the cruel treatment they bestowed on these helpless children.

That's why I'm appalled by the sanctimonious reaction of the Russian foreign minister and others in the Russian orphanage system who are now threatening to withdraw any further applications for American adoptions. They are citing incidents of death among Russian children who were adopted by American parents. They do not cite the condition that these children are in when they arrive in this country, a result of the atrocious unhealthy upbringing during the most formative early childhood years in their Russian orphanages - conditions that could possibly contribute to their deaths after they arrive here.

Putting this boy on a plane back to Russia is not the outrage we should be focusing on. The real outrage is the immoral and inhumane conditions these helpless children are forced to endure in Russian orphanages. The Russian foreign minister should be outraged at his own country and their lack of adequate care for innocent helpless children in orphanages and their erroneous medical diagnoses that doom some children to a lifetime of hell when they land in an insane asylum.

I urge you to find a copy of this book. If you don't have time to read the entire book, open the middle of the book at page 112 and look at the horrific pictures. I guarantee you won't be able to put the book down. And, if nothing else, you will see the other side of this story, the side the Russians don't want the world to know about.