This is Justin, or as he was named in his native Russia, Artyom. He’s seven years old. Yesterday, Justin was shipped out like a piece of luggage to his country of origin because he was no longer wanted. He was sent alone. Justin was adopted from a Russian orphanage last year. I have no idea what the circumstances of his past are. I’m sure it wasn’t good. I’m sure he’s been seriously affected by trauma, both from his birth parents, or lack there of, and by his time in an orphanage. He’s seven. He will remember a lot of what has happened to him. I’m sure he has behavior issues. Likely he has problems remembering things, has difficulty in school, and might have some social issues. Not pretty. In fact, let’s look at what his adoptive mother had to say about him:

“This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues….I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues…”

And according to his grandmother,

the child had a "hit list" of people he was targeting, including her daughter, who he said he "wanted to kill for the house." He threatened to kill her grandson for a videogame, she said.

And apparently,

the final incident that convinced Hansen she should send the boy back to Russia was when she caught him starting a fire with papers in his bedroom last Monday, she said. She feared the child might burn down the house and kill her family, she said.

The Russian orphanage even called the boy “stubborn”. For the sake of argument, let’s even say he has oppositional defiance disorder. That’s stubborn times ten. I’ll take all of this as truth. Let’s just assume for one moment that there’s no way the mother or grandmother are stretching the truth or even lying. What I see here is a seven year old boy that has been taken from or abandoned by his birth parents and dumped into an orphanage (and I’m sure there was mistreatment in one case or the other). After that, he was ripped from all that he knew, including his own mother tongue, and placed in a strange land where he doesn’t speak the language with a woman that he knew for all of four days. This child needs help. Possibly a lot of help. He’s acting out. He’s screaming for attention. He has likely been severely neglected and needs a lot of empathy, compassion, and understanding. He needs a decent play therapist that can help him cope. All of this takes a lot of effort, patience, and work. A lot. Let me repeat that. A LOT. The issues that this child has will require years of work. But let me reiterate: this child, like all children, want what we all want. Happiness. Love. Laughter. It’s very simple. Children are not inherently bad. Sometimes they make poor choices. Their behaviors develop due to the circumstances around them and it’s our job as parents to guide and teach them. It takes work. A lot of it. It takes patience. Even more. But these are children. And when it comes to adopting older children, there is a lot of work to undo what has happened to them. But let me tell you, OMG is it worth it! I should know. We adopted three boys (brothers) between the ages of 6 and 9. Justin is the same age as our middle son when we adopted him. In this particular case, and what really upsets me, is that this mother obviously had no clue what she was in for. Again, let’s assume all of the worst possible things here simply because we don’t know the actual facts. I’m not going to run under the assumption that this child was perfect with no behaviour issues. But I think this woman was so blinded by her desire to have a child that she foolishly overlooked the risks. I don’t know what her credentials are, but here is some information that is troubling and makes me question her ability to parent.

Nancy Hansen outlined for CNN the process she followed after she decided Justin must go back to Russia. When the lawyer she found online advised her the adoption could be reversed, Hansen booked the flight and paid the fee for a steward to escort Justin through the airport, she said. She hired a driver in Moscow she found online to pick the child up from the Moscow airport, she said. She found "safe references" for the driver online, she said. She then prepared a letter for Justin to present to Russian officials, which included a photo of the driver, whom she identified as "Arthur," she said.

She followed the advice of an online lawyer on how to handle this situation and found references for a driver over the internet. If this is what she does with a seven year old child in trying to return him like a pair of shoes, I can just imagine what her parenting skills must have been like. And this makes me question the credibility of any of her statements. As far as I’m concerned, this should be investigated as child abandonment. No biological parent is allowed to abandon their children in this manner. It is just as unacceptable if the child is adopted. There are resources and services out there to help parents who need it. And what’s also a shame is that the private adoption agency should have ensured that this woman had all of the resources and support in place to handle an older child as part of the screening process. If she couldn’t handle the potential issues that could arise, she should never have been approved in the first place. The focus on ALL adoption should be what is best for the children. At the end of the day, this is about finding the right home for a child, not fulfilling a parental need. Just because you have the money to pay for the adoption process/fees, it doesn’t make you a fit parent. What concerns me the most in all of this, though, is what will become of seven-year old Justin. This is more trauma that this child has suffered now with a failed adoption. And it will take even more work from, hopefully, a more competent parent to undo. I wish him nothing but the very best because goodness knows he deserves it.