Oops my disgust of shoe grime limits my ability to read sometimes apparently.

Meh. In the city in question it was likely a foam mattress that wear out after a few years. Therefore not old enough that anything seriously nasty likely occurred. Just felt ancient due to cheap. Or it was an ancient spring mattress and in that case, whatever, prob had a plastic cover, as they tend to do. Also with…

Wait you're worried about stuff from feet not in shoes more than feet in shoes? Soles of shoes are disgusting tracking god knows what around...

Barriers are high to adopting healthy newborn infants. Because there is no surplus of unwanted infants. There is a surplus of couples willing to pay high prices to acquire premium babies.

Are you seriously telling an adoptee how they should feel about adoption?

Don’t really have an opinion one way or another. Once a child is acquired the adoptive parents should probably get equal benefits to natural parents as there are many circumstances where adoption is necessary and it would be impossible to make a fair policy that distinguished between different forms of adoption. I am…

The point is that adoption in any form is not a solution to infertility. Therefore it should not be covered by an employer as though it were a solution to a medical issue. If a couple isn’t primarily motivated by the desire to give a child a good, stable environment as avenues for reunification are investigated then…

Adopt through foster care is virtually free. You even get paid/a tax credit sometimes.

It’s great your friend has people like you around ready to listen and learn before encouraging. World needs more people who do their research with an open mind.( And fewer people who think they are the exception to the rule or that their case is “different” than all the other stories of corruption and awfulness.)

Tl;dr on my last comment: fastest way to create orphans is to build an orphanage. Orphans are manufactured to meet demand for healthy female infants.

It’s hard to be nuanced without too long of a comment on such a weighty subject. My perspective is that from a child welfare perspective international adoption should always be the last resort after every other in country option has been exhausted. In accordance with the UN CRC/declaration on human rights (can’t…

Because her past behavior of working (in any capacity) for a kleptocratic dictator showed such good judgment and long-term thinking? No one is entitled to adopt. It’s not a shame her shady baby broker agency decided not to work with her again. Why is she a more suitable mother with her past mistakes and poor judgment…

Some countries are better than others as far as adoption goes. It’s important to consider governance, corruption, and country’s capacity to facilitate adoptions. Adopting from countries that have recently seen a huge surge in adoption like Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC (good lord WHY do people attempt to adopt from drc?!?),…

“ the enormous bravery and sacrifice it takes to make an adoption plan for a child you’re unable to care for, for whatever reason.”

Sorry should have clarified. I agree rural vs urban. My point was that when kids walking through an intersection with lots of traffic (where 80% of child begging occurs in my city) there are thousands of eyes on the street observing interactions. When the kid gets to trusting random strangers to the point where the go…

Begging from strangers is usually done in densely populated urban areas generally the same area every day. Usually the same group of kids with an adult or older child near enough by to be supervising/forcing/coercing. Giving gifts builds a trust up that encourages children to leave those areas and follow…

Because giving random children food is not a good thing to do. It's not ok to teach children to trust seemingly benevolent strangers especially as a tourist. Teaches children that tourists = money and kindness, which leads to trusting other tourists that may not have good intentions. Makes recruiting children into…

Or they just sell the crayons or whatever.

This is a far better way to go about supporting local causes than handing out random stuff.

Please don’t do this. It is not healthy to teach random children it's ok to trust strangers and take gifts from people they don't know. Even tooth brushes.