
I'm sure glad Mom didn't send me back with I was bad.
I have a number of questions: How bad could this kid have been? How unprepared was this mother? Who is to blame? Oh, and how did this kid get on an airplane by himself with no one to pick him up at the other end?
Not that I have ever flown solo or in coach, so I can't even imagine the fear that boy had. When I was younger I flew without my parents sometimes, but there were always other adults there that I knew and trusted. Artyom was just handed a note and sent to Russia alone. Yet, this is one case of an adoption gone terribly wrong.
In the last 10 years, over 60,000 Russian children have been adopted into families in America. And Russia is mad at the United States about this? I've been to orphanages all over the world with my mom, remember how she took me to Iraq for my eighth birthday? So, I know about orphans. There are a ton in Russia and they do not have the means to care for all of them or enough parents willing to adopt. Therefore they look to the USA. We have many people looking to adopt and hundreds of them are not qualified.
While Russia has reason to be upset with the US for this incident, well more with the airlines, they have no one to blame but themselves. The US has been pushing for Russia to overhaul its adoption laws to get in line with the Hague Convention's outlines for international adoptions. The changes would include stricter standards for qualifications of adoptive parents - something obviously lacking in this situation.
A mother who sends her child, especially one that was planned for and sought out, back to where they came from is not of sound mind. I don't care how many pictures he drew of a house burning down - you don't do that. Mom always let us play violent video games and have weapons throughout our childhood. She thought that it gave us a good view on violence and I'd have to say that I am a little TOO good at weapons now, but I have never had violent urges.
So this begs another question: What qualifies a person to be an ideal adoptive parent?