A Second Generation of Homeschooling

Jul. 6, 2009

Stand up for Orphans! Sign the Petition! Protest the movie Orphan!!!!

As a mom to 4 precious children by way of adoption (and 5 others who came to me through birth), I feel compelled to ask those I know to sign this petition on behalf of the world's MANY orphans.....

Many of you have probably heard the buzz about a new movie that is to come out later this month call "Orphan". The movie depicts a very negative side of adoption. This movie depicts a couple that adopts an "older" child and has their life terrorized by her. It is an R rated film. Warner Bros. is the producer.

There is a grass roots organization that has launched a campaign to counter the negative effects of this film. They have a petition asking Warner Bros. to give a portion of the proceeds from the film to help orphans. To sign the petition to urge Warner Bros. to give some of the proceeds of the movie to help orphans, share positive adoption stories and more go here (http://www.orphansdeservebetter.com/)!

This is just one way we can speak up for those who can't speak for themselves and defend the fatherless. Be sure to watch the short video on the site, as it explains why we should be outraged about this movie AND take a stand for orphans around the world!

Lisa Metzger

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Comments

Jul. 7, 2009 - One-Liners Vs. Adoptee Civil Rights?

Posted by Anonymous

A lot of adoptive parents are angry about one line in this film: It must be hard to love an adopted child like your own.

They are angry about this movie line but are perfectly content that their adopted child has a birth certificate that was permanently sealed from him/her and a falsified "amended" one issued.

Adoptees have to live their lives carrying around amended birth certificates and are NEVER allowed to see their original birth certificates containing their true names and the names of his/her true biological parents. Adopting parents get to have their names placed on the amended certificates as the birth parents! What lies!!!! These violations of a childs rights does not concern the protestors because it works for them! It is not their ethnicities, their heritages that are sealed. No, their newly purchased child will be forced to accept these lies are his/her truth. These self-righteous people own the copyrights to their adopted child's identity and could care less that it's FICTION that is on their child's birth certificate.

It is downright disgraceful and pathetic what people choose to protest.

I will be wearing an Orphan movie t-shirt http://www.cafepress.com/orphanesther to the movie on opening day because getting angry over one-liners and not giving a hoot about our (adoptees) civil rights is laughable.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/orphan-movie-t-shirts-for-open-records

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Jul. 7, 2009 - It’s not the adoption that caused the pain you feel/felt, but the family who didn’t give you what every child needs….LOVE.

Posted by carolinametzgers

You obviously had a painful adoption yourself, given the t-shirt link. With my husband and I, we have found that it is not any more difficult to love an adopted child than it is to love one that came from us. If you have been the recipient of a lack of love from your own adoption, I am genuinely sorry. However, you are wrong to make generalizations based upon your own negative experiences and lack of information.

I do not understand in the least what you mean when saying that their birth certificates are "sealed". This is just not true in our adoptions. All of our adopted children's birth certificates are in our fire safety box, readily available for viewing. All our adopted children have seen and are blatantly aware of where they came from and why. Their adoption stories are not hidden from them in any way, shape or form. We are completely transparent about the situations that they came from. We welcome open adoptions, if it is at all possible. We have no intentions of hiding things from them or treating them any differently than how we treat our biological children. If you would take some time to look through my blog, you would clearly see how much we love and treat our adopted children the SAME as we love and treat our biological children. Do not let ignorance and negative personal experiences dictate your thoughts and feelings about other people’s successful and happy experiences in their own lives.

My husband, Mark, was adopted because his mother ended up being in a mental institution. His father was a farmer who couldn't take time out from his farm (for obvious financial reasons to raise a baby. Mark grew up knowing his birth family – father, sisters and brother - very well (same with our sons). In fact, my husband's bio family was here for the 4th of July! We are also hosting our boys' bio family at the end of the month. Both my husband and our boys know their birth families extremely well and have a very open and honest relationship with them.

Our daughter (adopted from Kazakhstan at 10) knows all about her heritage and we'd LOVE for her to reconnect with her bio family, but it isn't possible due to poor record keeping in Kazakhstan. She has SEEN her own birth mother's letter when she gave up her rights (her birth mother was abusive to our daughter and possibly headed to jail for killing our daughter's father at the time she gave her up). Our daughter knows all about her family history, birth certificate, and has seen the original certificate and paperwork. She hopes to someday go back to her country as a missionary/orphanage worker or care giver. She loves where she lives now and loves her family (read her posts on our family blog). She sees her previous negative situations (prior to her adoption) and her adoption as an opportunity to minister to others who are in orphanages like the one she lived in.

How can you say that all adoptive parents hide their child's heritage/birth certificates from them? Also, how can you say that we have "purchased" these children!? I will be the first to agree that adoption is expensive, but I see few ways around paying people to assist with legal issues/homestudies/translation/travel. If there was a way around it financially, I’m afraid that more people would emerge out of the woodwork and take advantage of adoptees in ways maybe similar to your own family life. I think that the cost and homestudies MIGHT be more of a deterrent for some people who should not be adopting.

Ask our daughter where she'd rather be...in an orphanage with no indoor plumbing, poor insulation in the frigid Kazakh winters, with insufficient food, and other children beating her up on a daily basis OR in a loving home with parents and siblings who love her! Ask someone who has been taken in and treated as a LOVED family member! If you didn't experience this for yourself, I am very sorry for you, but it does not give you the right to make uninformed, completely ignorant statements about people and situations you know NOTHING about. Tour some foreign countries, looking in the eyes of these orphans who are underfed and without proper love and attention. Tell them they'd be no better off with a forever family! Tell them you care more about their "civil rights" (still unsure as to what you're referring to with that terminology) than you do about the CHILD!

I'm sorry you are an adoptee who harbors hatred and resentment from a bad family life, but there are biological children who come from the same type of family situations, as well. Do you hear them saying that no one should have a family because of what they went through with their own family? Like some of them who have overcome their past hurts, you too don’t have to hold onto that anger and hatred you have. It’s not the adoption that caused the pain you feel/felt, but the family who didn’t give you what every child needs….LOVE. Sincere love that is free of pity, personal gain and deceit! Remember, too, there is FREEDOM in JESUS! He can heal your soul from what you’ve been through!

I am truly in pain for you and your situation. I wish that you had felt more love from your parents. BUT past experiences cannot excuse a blanketed opinion of all adoptees and adoptive families. To push your feelings on other adoptees is simply ignorance and selfishness on your part for assuming things to be as they are not.

Praying for you to overcome your grief and pain,

Lisa Metzger

Edited by carolinametzgers on Jul. 7, 2009 at 10:07 AM

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Jul. 7, 2009 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Tracy G

I signed the petition. Thanks for the post...otherwise I would not have known about it.

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Jul. 9, 2009 - Lisa -For You and Many Other AP's-Ignorance Is Bliss

Posted by Anonymous

An angry adoptee? LMAO. You obviously have no idea about the adoptee rights movement and the second-class treatment of adoptees in this country.

It's hilarious how you AP's always tell us that "you must have had a bad adoption experience". It's nauseating how you people live in your la-la land, oblivious to the 44 states in this country where birth records are SEALED.

Angry? Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry that I cannot possess the one true document that recorded my birth. That's immoral, unethical, illegal and downright disgusting. But sealing birth records works in the AP camp's favor. So, stay on your comfy chair preaching how others must be "damaged and angry from a bad adoption", you're just being a typical self-centered adoptive parent. Just complain about stupid movies and keep farting rainbows.

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Jul. 9, 2009 - Your beliefs do not give you the right to live out an erroneous belief, supposing that all others feel the same as you

Posted by carolinametzgers

Did you not read that part about my husband being adopted himself and his POSITIVE experience? Would you like to ask my husband or my oldest daughter (17) about THEIR feelings regarding their own adoptions? At the very least, refrain from the insinuated negative connotations when referring to us as “AP’s” when, in our family, there are ALSO adult or near-adult adoptees that do not share your opinions or feel slighted in any way through their own adoptions. Name-calling with negative connotations doesn’t advance your cause, but only hinders it.

Frankly, I believe that misery loves company and that you would love for other adoptees to grovel in the same forlorn life that you have experienced. How selfish, narrow-minded and just plain heartbreaking! Why not take other adoptees’ words as truth in their lives, just as much as they would accept your story as being truth in your life?

Please don't revel in your ignorance, failing to acknowledge the feelings and viewpoints of others in order to justify wallowing in your own grief. Don't place other adoptive parents and adoptees in a false stereotypical mold, assuming that you know how "AP's" and OTHER ADOPTEES feel about their own adoption experiences. To do that is to live in denial about how other adoptive parents/families feel while arrogantly assuming that all adoptees feel the same as you.

The definition of ignorance is: the lack of knowledge or education. You need to take time to listen and be "educated" in the feelings of other adoptees and loving adoptive parents. Other adoptees do not all flounder, as you do, in their thoughts of “what could/should have been”. Instead they reciprocate the sincere love that their adoptive families have for them…the same families who DO accept them as their own children. Unlike you, MANY adoptees appreciate being taken in from the abusive homes and lifestyles that they came from….unless you have empathy for or have experienced a change from a negative lifestyle to a positive one, you cannot speak truthfully on their behalf.

I'm sorry that you had a negative adoption experience, but it doesn't give you the right to live out an erroneous belief, supposing that all others feel the same as you.

Lisa Metzger

Edited by carolinametzgers on Jul. 9, 2009 at 9:52 AM

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*Metzger Family 2009 Christmas Newsletter*

Mark and Lisa (with Ellie yet to be born)

I Contribute to:

Our Homeschool Tools

Bible & Missions

• The Picture Bible - A Family Classic! (Bible)
• Christian Heroes: Then & Now (Missions)
• Trailblazer Books (Missions)
• God's Little Princess Devotional Bible (Young Girls' Quiet Time)
• God's Mighty Warrior Devotional Bible (Young Boys' Quiet Time)
• Secret Keeper Devos (Annalise's Devotional)
• Family Worship - Devotions Led by Mark at Night
The Three R's

• ABeka math (K5-5th)
• ABeka English (K5-5th)
• ABeka phonics & reading (K5-6th)
• Systematic Mathematics DVD's (grades 6-12)
• Writing Strands (5th-12th)
• FREE Phonics Worksheets
• FREE Spelling (1st-7th)! BigIQBee
Science

**
Our family loves "Living Science", where science is experienced or read about in "living books". I find that the children retain so much more from this course of study. Visuals through experiments are important, too!

**
• YouTube Unit Studies (all ages)
• Steve Spangler FREE Science Videos! (all ages)
• Magic School Bus Books (all ages)
• Let's Read and Find Out Books (all ages)
• God's Design Science (Elementary)
• Real Science 4 Kids (middle/high school)
**Combining the teaching of science and history saves time in large families, is easier for teacher prep and the kids still learn a LOT!**
Social Studies

• Beautiful Feet Early American History (all ages)
• The Mystery of History I (all ages)
• ABeka My America (K5)
• Top Secret Adventures (Geography)
• Map Skills Grade 3
• Painless American Government (middle/high school)
**Combining the teaching of science and history saves time in large families, is easier for teacher prep and the kids still learn a LOT!**
Foreign Language

• Latin's Not So Tough (Ages 8 & up)
• The Homeschool Hut, Mint Hill, NC
Computer Science

• Free Typing Program (Age 6 - once all keys learned, on to Mavis Beacon)
• Mavis Beacon (After keys are learned on free typing program)
• Computer Activities Throughout the Year (9th grade)
**Children 6 and older should be able to do this COMPLETELY on their own with no help from you, aside from showing them proper hand positioning. Try covering their hands with a towel if they look at their keyboard too often.**
Electives

• Family & Consumer Sciences (high school, but start training in elementary)
• Logic - The Critical Thinking Company (all ages)
• DVD Homeschooling (for use with ALL our schooling)
• All-In-One Curriculum for The Pilgrim's Progress
• Vocabulary from Classical Roots
Preschool

• Everything for Early Learning
• Rod & Staff Preschool
• Leap Frog
• Games, Games, Games!!
**All of our children 7 & older learn to teach by teaching the little ones preschool. See my post HERE for more info.**
Manipulatives

• Geometry in a Box
• Base 10 Blocks
• Linking Cubes
• Geo Boards
• Pattern Blocks
• Geo Mags - THE BEST!
• Games, Games, Games!!
Games