Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, a signature program of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, began in April 2004 with 7 pilot sites and has grown to 120 grantees, operating in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. The Foundation awards grants to local adoption agencies to hire recruiters and execute aggressive child-focused recruitment programs targeted exclusively on placed foster care children in loving, permanent adoptive families.

“We work very hard to raise funds in partnership with Wendy’s restaurants, distribute them effectively and hold our grantees accountable to achieve our mission of a family for every child,” said the Foundation’s executive director, Rita Soronen. “The investment in our Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program has resulted in the creation of an effective, replicable model to find families for the victims of child abuse and neglect who have been waiting the longest in U.S. foster care. To date, more than 1,000 children have been adopted as a result of the program.”

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a nonprofit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more than 150,000 children waiting in North America’s foster care systems. Created in 1992 by Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas, who was adopted as a child, the Foundation works to fulfill its mission by implementing result-driven national signature programs, awareness initiatives and advocacy efforts. The Foundation is driven by the vision that every child needs a permanent home and a loving family. To learn more, call 1-800-ASK-DTFA or visit www.DaveThomasFoundationforAdoption.org.

The Reluctant Spouse:
Don’t be surprised if your mate resists adoption even as you’re embracing it.
By Jill Smolowe

It had been a long haul to convince my husband to start a family. When biology failed us, he felt the subject of children was closed. By then past 50, Joe was not interested in raising a child whom he inelegantly described as someone else’s kid. That was before we went to China in January 1995 and held an adorable, alert seven-month-old girl, who cast her spell over Joe in about five minutes flat. By the time we got home two weeks later, Joe was undeniably, smittenly, inalterably Beckys father.

Now that theres a happy ending, Joe and I can laugh about some of our more heated debates, and share our experiences with other couples who are thinking about or pursuing adoption. But when we were in the midst of the decision-making process, I thought Joe and I were a seriously defective marital unit.

At the time, nobody I knew had a spouse so reluctant about children in general, and adoption in particular. Why couldn’t we get it together? It should not be this hard, I told myself, even as I persevered. What is wrong with us? Everybody else manages to have kids without all this sturm and drang.

Or so I thought, until I published an account that spoke candidly of the stresses that the long journey to parenthood had put on our marriage. Suddenly, total strangers opened up to us. And, lo! I discovered that Joe and I were not unique. Perhaps not even unusual. Many, many couples, we learned, had been or currently are deeply divided over the issue of adoption.

By that, I don’t mean the sort of frustrations that draw appreciative laughs from an adoption audience. (Say, shes got her birth certificate in hand for the home study, while he hasn’t sent away for his yet.) Rather, I mean bone marrow deep differences that, as happened in my case, can put a marriage on the line. I mean differences so fundamental that some marriages bust up as a result.

Sadly, such couples often struggle in isolation, when some empathy and support, particularly from other adoptive couples who have worked through their differences, might ease the strain. Often, fear of the unknown stands in the way, says Jan Garten, a Manhattan marriage therapist who counsels many couples divided about adoption. Its good to talk to people who have gone through the process.

The toughest decision, of course, is the first: Will we adopt, or wont we? Marriage counselors, adoption specialists, and social workers agree that when a couple is not in lockstep, its usually the wife who wants to proceed, and the husband who doesn’t. (Anecdotal evidence suggests that reluctant men are often ambivalent about adoption, but resistant women tend to be inflexible.)

Some adoption experts maintain that its wrong to press ahead with an adoption before a reluctant spouse is fully on board. They argue that before launching a search, a couple needs not only to confront, but sort out and resolve all uncertainties, ambivalences, and concerns about adoption.

For many couples, though, you might as well ask them to foresee and figure out the rest of their lives. Why? Consider the range of concerns that fuel reluctance:
Age. (Am I too old to be a parent? Will I have enough energy? Enough patience? Enough love?)
Money. (How can I save for a college education when I need to save for retirement? Will an adoption eat up all my savings? Will we ever get to take a vacation again?)
Time. (Will a child be too disruptive? Will I have to curb my work hours? Do I want to?)
Family. (Will my parents reject an adopted child? Will my children from a prior marriage resent me for starting a new family? Will I make the same parenting mistakes again?)
The unknown. (Who will the child be? What genetic surprises might be in store? Will I be able to love an adopted child as much as a biological one?)

Such questions are important, legitimate and often unanswerable until a couple is actually living the changes a child brings. They reflect the reluctant spouses focus on what may be lost: financial security, spousal attention, uninterrupted work time, a biological connection. Until the spouse experiences the benefits that come with parenting, there is essentially nothing to mitigate those fears.

Even after a spouse agrees reluctantly to move forward, there may be backsliding. This is understandable when you contrast a pregnancy with the adoption process. Typically, a pregnancy is a fait accompli that gives a reluctant spouse nine months to ease into the idea of parenthood. Greeted with joy and excitement by friends and relatives, a pregnancy tends to inspire questions like: Do you know if its a boy or girl? Have you picked a name? How much time do you plan to take off from work?

Now, consider the kinds of issues that couples are forced to confront during the adoption process. What age child do you want? What sex? What health condition? What ethnicity? What race? How much contact do you want with birthparents? How do you plan to raise this child? How will you speak of adoption to him? What role will the childs ethnic heritage play in her life? How will you cope with an emotional or physical disability? What will you do if your relatives don’t embrace this child? And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the procedural aspects. Lawyer or agency? Public or private? Open or closed? Domestic or overseas?

Such questions not only thrust the issue of baby at a reluctant spouse over and over, but demand repeatedly that he opt in or out. In essence, the process requires that he try to envision the child’s entire upbringing at a time when he might prefer not to think about children at all.

The upside is that this insistent probing gives adoptive couples a rigorous preparation for parenting that the biological route rarely affords. The downside is that every new question and issue risks reigniting or ratcheting up a reluctant spouses resistance. My own husband signed on and off to adoption so often that by the time we boarded the plane for China, neither one of us could have said for certain whether he would stick around after we returned home.

He did.

In fact, the man who for years had insisted that he was too old, too busy, too uninterested in kids, is a wonderful, involved father who resents even the occasional business trip that keeps him from tucking Becky in at night. These days when a call comes in from a distressed couple, Joe gets on the phone with the reluctant spouse sometimes, literally, for hours. He listens. He empathizes and commiserates. He reassures them that their fears and concerns are legitimate. Then, ever so subtly, he encourages them to take the plunge.

Jill Smolowe, an adoptive parent, is a journalist and the author of An Empty Lap (Pocket Books). She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Joe Treen, and with their daughter, Becky.

During Father’s Day Weekend, Wendy’s will donate 50¢ from every Frosty product sold to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA), a national, non-profit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of foster children in North America. Also customers can stop by Wendy’s and donate to the cause by purchasing a Frosty pin-up for $1 each.

“The Wendy’s system is very proud to be involved with this special event that supports the cause that our founder, Dave Thomas, was most passionate about – finding a permanent and loving home for every child in the foster care system,” said Wendy’s President David Karam, who serves on the board of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

“This is our third year for Father’s Day Frosty Weekend and we’ve set our fundraising goal at $1.7 million! We hope families will find this an enjoyable way to celebrate Father’s Day while making a difference in the lives of foster children.”

After raising more than $1 million in 2007 and over $1.5 million in 2008 during Father’s Day Frosty Weekend, Wendy’s remains committed to supporting the cause of foster care adoption in the U.S.

The money raised during the weekend will support the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and its signature program: Wendy’s Wonderful Kids (WWK). This program is filling a critical need by funding full-time adoption professionals at local agencies in all 50 states to match parents with waiting foster care children.

The success of WWK is due to the ongoing partnership between the DTFA, the Wendy’s system of 6,600 company and franchise operated restaurants and local adoption partners. The Foundation grants funds to qualified adoption organizations, and holds the agencies accountable for achieving agreed-upon results. The Wendy’s system raises more than $7 million annually to fund the local WWK programs.

“We’re very proud of how far the program has come in such a short time. But even with all that’s been achieved, there are still thousands of children in foster care still waiting to be adopted.” said Rita Soronen, executive director of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

“We believe Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is the solution, and that the program will become even stronger with the support of Wendy’s customers during Father’s Day Weekend.”

Join Wendy’s in supporting foster care adoption – stop by Wendy’s during Father’s Day Frosty Weekend, June 20-21, for a special treat

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a non-profit 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more than 150,000 children in North America’s foster care systems ready to be adopted. Created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas who was adopted as a child, the Foundation leads programs such as Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, which puts adoption recruiters in all 50 states and Canada to find permanent, loving families for children in the foster care system, and Adoption-Friendly Workplace, which encourages employers to offer adoption benefits to their employees. The Foundation also works with adoption advocates and officials to streamline the adoption process and make adoption more affordable for families. As the only Foundation dedicated exclusively to foster care adoption, it is driven by its founder’s simple value: Do what’s best for the child. To learn more about the Foundation’s work, please visit www.DaveThomasFoundationforAdoption.org.

Thank you to the many folks across the nation for buying a frosty and helping children who wait for adoption. Last year’s efforts raised more than $1.5 million!

Create and send a free fathers days e-card, or choose a celebrity created one through their site Frosty Card and Wendy’s will donate 25 cents to
The Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption.

Father’s day is this Sunday so stop by their site and send a card today!

Reposted at the Forever Parents Adoption Forums.

Madonna’s initial bid for adoption was rejected after a judge ruled prospective parents must live in the country 18 to 24 months.  During Fridays’ hearing, Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo called the so-called residency requirement an “old law.”

Madonna released the following statement to US Magazine through her publicist Liz Rosenberg.

“I am extremely grateful for the Supreme Court’s ruling on my application to adopt Mercy James. I am ecstatic. My family and I look forward to sharing our lives with her.”

This will be Madonna’s second child that she adopted from Malawi, the first was David, 3 in 2006.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Let me explain….

When we adopted her, she was eight years old (We also adopted her two siblings at the same time). For the first couple of years, the week leading up to her birthday was always a time of turmoil for us. Moodiness, nastiness and sadness would fill her up and hurt anyone in her path, usually us, her family. Some years it was all I could go to even talk to her during that week….one year I threw her cake into the garbage out of total frustration and another year I cancelled her party a few days before.

Two years ago, a few weeks before her 12th birthday, I was going through some of the adoption paperwork, looking for something unrelated to her birthday, and I came across the court papers from when they were originally removed from their biological home. The date jumped out at me; June 3rd.

They were removed two days before her 4th birthday. As a matter of fact, her first full day in foster care, was on her 4th birthday.

It made sense now.

I shared my findings with my daughter and we had a long discussion about it. Although she doesn’t remember that week, we talked about how she must have felt….being almost 4 years old and excited about her birthday, only to be removed from her home, separated from her siblings (they were separated for their first year in foster care) and living with strangers. We gave a voice to the little four year old inside her and talked about powerless and angry she must have felt.

We also talked about how to proceed from there. Finding out “why” is one thing, but we had to find a way to stop the cycle.

I came up with an idea of celebrating her birthday on a different day. My thoughts were that even if she was moody the week of her birthday, it wouldn’t interfere with any plans that we had. She liked that idea and we started thinking about dates. She said she wanted to share the day with someone that she loved (yes, she’s a sweetheart) and she chose me. I was honored, but my birthday was in January and had passed five months before. Then she chose my husband, but his birthday had just passed two weeks earlier.

Then she lit up and said “How about Mom Mom?!”. She excitedly ran next door to ask my mother if she would mind sharing her birthday, which is eleven days after hers. Of course, my mother loved the idea and we set about our plans for a double birthday.

On June 16th, we had a cake that said “Happy Birthday To The Two Geminis” and both of our birthday girls opened their gifts. They talked about how they would celebrate “their birthday” next year.

Here’s a picture from that day.

My mother gave my daughter the greatest gift one could give.

A new start. A new day, full of love and happiness…not bad memories and sadness.

The following year was bittersweet for us. We celebrated my daughters birthday on her new day but we were also were aware that my mother was not here with us (although my husband told me she was here – we just couldn’t see her)

Now it’s time for another birthday.

As time goes on, the sad memories are subsiding and happy memories are taking their place. The week leading up to her birthday this year wasn’t that bad because the pressure has been taken off of her. So tomorrow, I will give her a kiss and say happy birthday to my beautiful 14 year old daughter, but that’s where it will end. There will not be a cake, or gifts or decorations. Those things will wait until the 16th….a day that is full of love and special memories. We’ll also remember my mom, who passed on her own birthday to her granddaughter and gave her the best birthday gift ever.

Update #2: A list of email addresses has been added at the bottom of this post.

One of our adoption forum members brought this to our attention (thanks Debbie!) and I am passing it along to anyone who may be interested. I’m also adding my personal thoughts, which I shared on our adoption forum, at the end of this post.

There is a horror slasher film being released July 24 (Orphan) about a family who adopts an older girl who “is not what she appears to be. Warnings about her go unheeded until it is too late…for everyone”. The film is being promoted now (http://orphan-movie.warnerbros.com) and the adoption message being sent is extremely negative. There is actually a line in the trailer that says “it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own”.
Without having seen the movie or read the script, it is hard to know if the entire movie is sending a ghastly adoption message, but the trailer certainly leads us to believe it is. This feeds the notion that older adoptees are very troubled and you should beware…. that’s not an image any of us want the general public to have of our kids. It plays into people’s deepest fears.

There is a growing group pursuing a boycott of the film, sending out emails and posting on online bulletin boards. I urge you to forward this email to others personally involved in adoption, help disseminate the boycott message and write to the producers and distributors expressing your displeasure with the message being sent.
The backers of this movie have deep pockets. It is being released by Dark Castle Entertainment with Warner Bros. set to distribute. Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, which developed the material, is also producing.

Here are my personal thoughts;

I just watched the trailer. Looks like the type of movie I would love…..dark and creepy. That line about it being hard to love an adopted child as much as your own is actually said by the adopted girl herself, who is obviously psychotic.

I have two thoughts about this movie……

If people take this movie as a serious portrayal of what older child adoption could be, it might actually be a good thing. There are seriously damaged older kids being adopted into families that have no idea what their in for and once the papers are signed, these families are on their own. I adopted three older kids and luckily, my two younger ones are fine, but my son is one fucked up kid. I hide my butcher knives and scissors in my bedroom because I don’t trust him. I am seeing a lot of sociopathic behaviors in him as he gets older. Maybe after this movie comes out, the concerns of those of us who have adopted troubled kids will be taken more seriously. I actually had a counselor at the facility my son is at, tell me to examine my parenting as a cause of my son’s behavior. After all this time of going through the system’s red tape trying to get help for him and telling anyone who will listen that something is wrong with him (much like the line from the movie; ‘There’s something wrong with Ester’), this man who never met me wants me to carry some of the blame. Needless to say, I hung up on him, (which I’m sure they’ll write up as me being a ‘hostile parent who has anger issues’) but there’s many more who think like him. If there’s one thing that comes out of this movie, I hope it’s that we (those of us who adopt older troubled kids) adopt these kids with all good intentions and then we get very little support and back up from teachers/therapists/cops/judges, etc.

That girl reminded me a lot of my son Very charming and polite in the beginning, able to keep that facade up when needed. Then something happens that she doesn’t like and rage kicks in. That rage in the toilet stall scene is what we live with when he doesn’t get his way.

Is all older child adoption like this?…of course not. I have two kids that prove it doesn’t. My daughters were adopted at the ages of 5 and 8 and are nothing like this movie.

My other thought is….it’s a horror movie made for entertainment and should be treated as such. If I got all bent out of shape every time someone portrayed “me” in a movie, I would be boycotting Goodfellas and The Soprano’s for how they show Italian-Americans.

I want to also add that the people boycotting have every right to do that and I back them 100%. I’m all for people speaking out when there is something they don’t agree with. Unlike channels like CNN and MSNBC who belittled people like myself who attended the recent tax day tea parties, I believe in the right to protest….even if I do not agree with their message.

My last thought is that this movie is nothing compared to the type of movie I would make about older child adoption. I plan on writing a book about my experience and if this movie is causing controversy and it’s not even real, they can’t handle my truth.

Update: Here is a sample letter to send to Warner Bros.

May {XX}, 2009

Barry M. Meyer
Warner Bros. Movies
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91522

Dear Mr. Meyer and Producers of the movie Orphan:

“It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own.”

Writing as a parent of an adopted child, I strongly urge you to remove this line from your film, “Orphan” and, especially, from all of your trailers. This line implies that an adopted child is not the parents’ child and, for anyone in an adoptive family, is very hurtful. Additionally, anyone seeing the film- or the trailer containing this line of dialogue- could promulgate such a hurtful expression and spread it like a virus, creating emotional distress for adoptive families everywhere.

In this day and age, when movie trailers are “sanitized” so that they can be shown before any movie, regardless of the MPAA rating, your trailer is likely to be seen and heard by young children and their families. For adoptive families, and especially for young children who joined their families through adoption, this line has the potential to cause serious trauma.

So, I will also ask you to look inside your heart and then look, again, at your film and see if there are other scenes that can create a negative stigma for adoptive families and please make changes to eliminate or, at the very least, reduce the damage. If you have any question about what might be considered hurtful, please contact Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute as I know they would be happy to help you.

I understand your film has already been completed and asking you to make wholesale changes at this point, just a couple of months before it is released, is probably unrealistic. That is why I am pleading with you to simply show some sensitivity and limit the damage your film will do to anyone who has an adopted child in their family and at least make these changes to the trailer.

I believe you would prefer not having adoptive families around the world virally warning each other of the damaging depictions contained in your movie and encouraging all their friends and family members not to patronize “Orphan.” No filmmaker would like the headline “Movie Called Harmful to Adoptive Families” associated with their film- least of all Mr. DiCaprio who, until now, has maintained a very positive public image.

Please reply and let me know what you have decided to do with your “Orphan.”

Along with adoptive families around the world, I look forward to hearing of your decision. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
{Name}

email addresses:
Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer
alan.horn@warnerbros.com
Barry Meyer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
barry.meyer@warnerbros.com
Susan Fleishman, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Communications and Public Affairs
susan.fleishman@warnerbros.com
Jeff Robonov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group
jeff.robonov@warnerbros.com
Dan Fellman, President, Domestic Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures
dan.fellman@warnerbros.com

This course will be free until May 31, 2009. Beginning June 1, however, there will be a $30 fee. So there’s extra motivation to get started now! Use the link below to register.

Adoption Learning Partners