IN - Couple charged with abandonment of adopted child after legally changing her age, Sept 2019

[gitana1]

Right? When I read “she would be chained” I debated on whether it was meant literally or figuratively.

How could anyone be expected to be well adjusted and sane after enduring chaos and cruelty in their formative years?

Ukraine’s disabled children in dire straits, group says - The Boston Globe

“KIEV —Growing numbers of disabled children in Ukraine are being condemned to life in orphanages and institutions blighted by neglect and abuse, an international rights group reported Thursday.

Disability Rights International...

Children in institutions in Ukraine are exposed to physical and sexual violence and live in danger of being trafficked for sex, labor, and *advertiser censored*, the report said.”

I can believe the child acted out. I believe the photographic images clearly show developmental changes from pre-pubescent to older teen. And I believe dad was being honest when he told LE “they KNEW she was a child” when they moved to Canada.

They're clear to me. Face shape and chest of a prepubescent child in 2010-2012. Face shape and chest of a teen in 2018 or so. It all lines up.

 

[gitana1]

This is a common story of children with disabling conditions. There is not infrastructure of social supports for many children who have needs. Parents are often counseled to abandon them. Where my oldest was in an orphanage there were many children who were "warehoused" with conditions like cerebral palsy (fairly minor from what it looked like) and those children languished when in the US they would be given OT, PT, Speech and Language services, as well as an education --giving many the opportunity to have a more vibrant, purposeful life. It is (was) heartbreaking. For children with more serious conditions, the orphanage tried to take care of them the best they could but there was no money, no professional services readily available.

It's true but I think culture plays a part. Because there are many people in africa and Latin America who are super poor and lovingly care for their children with disabilities and never abandon them. Some in India as well although there are many who also sell or abandon their kids there.

 

[gitana1]

In the cases of many I know who have adopted from the Ukraine the answer to literal or figurative chaining of children is literally they are chained or strapped to a bed or caged so they do not escape their bed while laying in filth and not having any significant human contact. Many die of starvation or lack of medical care for the complications of their handicapping conditions.

It's horrible. It's inhumane. They must believe these kids don't have thoughts or feelings. But looking at them you know they do. So how is this possible? And why do they even bother keeping them alive? I'm surprised They don't just euthanize them

 

[kaen]

It's true but I think culture plays a part. Because there are many people in africa and Latin America who are super poor and lovingly care for their children with disabilities and never abandon them. Some in India as well although there are many who also sell or abandon their kids there.

Totally agree with you. I just know that in that country and in Russia the children with disabilities are treated horribly. In my case we were in an Asian country, we saw loving care but no resources to help alleviate the suffering or provide a better outcome for the children in their care. When children with disabilities go into institutional care, the outcomes can easily be disastrous.

Even in the US, we have had a history of horrendous treatment of the mentally ill and mentally challenged. It has taken a lot of work and care to get the system to begin to be different. Same as with the elderly.

 

[gitana1]

Totally agree with you. I just know that in that country and in Russia the children with disabilities are treated horribly. In my case we were in an Asian country, we saw loving care but no resources to help alleviate the suffering or provide a better outcome for the children in their care. When children with disabilities go into institutional care, the outcomes can easily be disastrous.

Even in the US, we have had a history of horrendous treatment of the mentally ill and mentally challenged. It has taken a lot of work and care to get the system to begin to be different. Same as with the elderly.

100% right. I'm so glad we've evolved.

It makes me think of the story of the Armenian woman who told her Kiwi husband that she would divorce him if he kept their son with DS. They were living in Armenia at the time which has a similar philosophy as the Ukraine when it comes to kids with disabilities.

He took the kid and went back to New Zealand.

A month later she changed her mind and now says she could not imagine life without the baby.

Of course resources are excellent for kids with disabilities in NZ. But she was already a woman of means when her son was born.

Yet she changed her mindset. So it's possible. I wish that could happen with more people in those nations so that we have fewer tragic cases like Natalia's. God knows what she endured in the Ukraine.

 

[Linda7NJ]

Well her appearance shows she was a child when they got her. That chin shape is not present in teenagers. Anyone with kids knows it. Her form of dwarfism doesn't prevent aging. It's the same as the LittleCouple have and they've aged normally.

Regardless, first of all, we don't really know how long she lived alone. Some articles claim three years. Others claim one year. Earlier ones said a few months. But the actual words of the friend who hung out with her after she was abandoned at the apartment are that Natalia disappeared from those apartments in 2013. Which was the same year the parents left her there. I don't think she was there alone for long.

Second, she would've been about 12 when abandoned. Not 6. Not really tender years. I was babysitting and caring for my house at that age.

Third, a child that age certainly could live on their own like this. There are street children around the world who survive for years without adults. Again, Natalia came here from a Ukrainian orphanage. Kids in those places have to learn to fend for themselves.

To compare her to an average suburban American kid makes no sense. This is a child with past experiences few could fathom.

She doesn’t remember a thing about being in the Ukraine - not the language - nothing ...or so she claims.

 

[Laughing]

She doesn’t remember a thing about being in the Ukraine - not the language - nothing ...or so she claims.

Not unusual, without cues.

I taught pre-K for a long time & routinely recognize former students in public. Generally, they don't know who I am -- maybe " a teacher" but that's as far as most of them get.

Until I ask a specific question about something they liked to do, or mention a song they liked to sing. Then they remember!

Do you know any Ukrainian songs? I don't, I wouldn't know what might cue this young lady. I do believe memories are there.

We'll see!

JMHO YMMV

 

[Linda7NJ]

Did anyone watch Dr. Oz?

I am still firmly in the she is an adult camp.

I learned she was hospitalized for 9 weeks, consensus there- she was an adult.

At the time they adopted her, she was in the country for only 18 months allegedly.

She spoke perfect advanced adult English with zero hint of an accent & can NOT understand or speak a lick of Ukrainian.

Judge, after 4 hour hearing in which doctor, therapist testified, notes & documentation determined she was an adult and judge told her she needed to start living like one.

She lived a year alone in that apartment and she documented she wanted no further contact with them.

 

[squareandrabbet]

I am local to this case- and trust me NO ONE believes that this physician had anything to do with any of this nonsense.

I'm going to assume that means locals know whom is being talked about? You don't have to say, but assuming that whomever the doctor being discussed is, has got a good reputation otherwise?

Birth mother of Ukrainian 'dwarf' denies she is an adult 'sociopath' | Daily Mail Online
“This girl is my daughter who was born 16 years ago.

'Doctors told me to leave the baby: "Leave her, don’t ruin your life", they said. Both them and my mom told me to leave her.

'They said the baby would never be good, that she would never be able to move, that she would be chained to a chair or to a bed.'

Anna continued: 'She now lives in America with adoptive parents who want to ditch her. I thought everything was okay with her and it turned out that it's not all okay.'”

So birth mother claims that the girl is only 16 years old.

I think bio mom is very clear, though I question whether it is a perfect translation or one that translator "spiffed up" grammatically. I hope she has got some recorded proof that she can contribute to the cause.

 

[gitana1]

She doesn’t remember a thing about being in the Ukraine - not the language - nothing ...or so she claims.

I can imagine trauma may do that. But how does that relate to the issue of how long she was living on her own and whether at age 12 she could survive, based on her background? Survival skills are mostly mental. It's not dependent on memory.

 

[kaen]

Let me just say that I have children who are adopted from abroad. One of my children had Central Precocious Puberty-- it is what it sounds like and the onset can be as early as 6 but is usually seen starting at 8 in girls. We were lucky to have caught it early and were able to stop it before my child went into full on puberty which would have affected their growth dramatically. Is it possible that this is something that was going on with this child? Absolutely, in fact, it is not an uncommon --it occurs in 1 in every 5,000-10,000 children. I don't know if she had been looked at for this or any other disorder that can cause early maturation.

On language development and retention, depending on the intellect of the child, it is possible that a child loses native language quickly, especially if they are desperate to fit in with the family. We know when she arrived here. Yes, it might be that she was smart enough to pick up English. I doubt that she was in school in the Ukraine learning English, especially if she was in an orphanage. Also, you can't forget the trauma of leaving a home country and wanting to assimilate.

I have no idea the medical records that have been produced but a judge (who unless they are a medical doctor who understands international adoption, her specific dwarfism dx, and has access to her full medical history which I doubt this judge had) is not necessarily capable of understanding the medical complexities of this case. 4 hours of testimony is not enough unless there were advocates who also had access to medical professionals unaligned with the family's narrative.

Do I believe this may have been a terribly difficult child? Yes. Do I believe that this family thought that the miracle they worked with their son with disabilities would happen with work and time? Yes. I also believe this girl was a disappointment to the mother. You can't take on a child who has been through 2 failed adoptions and think that the transition and life in your family is going to be sunshine and roses. It won't be. This family should have known this ----just based on the fact that two families gave up on her, she was probably very, very, very, very difficult. But I don't believe the answer is to jettison her into adulthood (through legal decree) and leave her to her own devices.

 

[janewall]

.... On language development and retention, depending on the intellect of the child, it is possible that a child loses native language quickly, especially if they are desperate to fit in with the family. We know when she arrived here. Yes, it might be that she was smart enough to pick up English. I doubt that she was in school in the Ukraine learning English, especially if she was in an orphanage....

RSBM

As Natalia spent her early years in a Ukrainian orphanage, presumably in a ward for children with disabilities, it is quite possible she had very little exposure even to her native language before leaving the orphanage, as the children are paid so little attention by staff and are left on their own in their cribs without stimulation or human contact much of the time. If that is the case, English may for all intents and purposes be her "first language" – at least, the first she was exposed to regularly enough to absorb the basics of verbal communication, in the time she spent in her first two adoptive homes and wherever she was in between those two adoptions. (Foster care? A US orphanage? Do we have any idea?) Therefore her pace of learning English may have been closer to that of a baby/toddler's rapid acquisition of language in the first two years (roughly; as parents know it varies child to child) than that of an older preschooler or elementary-age child beginning to learn a second language after developing his/her early communication skills in another. If Natalia is not cognitively impaired, but simply delayed due to an early childhood of profound neglect and inattention, this could be an explanation for her fluent, unaccented English by the time the Barnetts encountered her – after she left Ukraine she was exposed to a variety of people trying to communicate with her in English for many months, after years of isolation from meaningful language. She was a tabula rasa, and she sucked it up like a sponge, just like babies do.

MOO, IMO, etc. I am not a language development expert!

 

[gitana1]

Did anyone watch Dr. Oz?

I am still firmly in the she is an adult camp.

I learned she was hospitalized for 9 weeks, consensus there- she was an adult.

At the time they adopted her, she was in the country for only 18 months allegedly.

She spoke perfect advanced adult English with zero hint of an accent & can NOT understand or speak a lick of Ukrainian.

Judge, after 4 hour hearing in which doctor, therapist testified, notes & documentation determined she was an adult and judge told her she needed to start living like one.

She lived a year alone in that apartment and she documented she wanted no further contact with them.

How do you explain be sudden development of breasts, however, that didn't exist when she was around 20 per the parents statements, but that exist now?

And how about her face shape? You can clearly see a child's face versus an adults.

And why would the state prosecute this family after five years of investigation?

I mean I liked the movie too but the facts of this case really don't suggest IMO that she could be almost 30 as they're saying.

 

[gitana1]

RSBM

As Natalia spent her early years in a Ukrainian orphanage, presumably in a ward for children with disabilities, it is quite possible she had very little exposure even to her native language before leaving the orphanage, as the children are paid so little attention by staff and are left on their own in their cribs without stimulation or human contact much of the time. If that is the case, English may for all intents and purposes be her "first language" – at least, the first she was exposed to regularly enough to absorb the basics of verbal communication, in the time she spent in her first two adoptive homes and wherever she was in between those two adoptions. (Foster care? A US orphanage? Do we have any idea?) Therefore her pace of learning English may have been closer to that of a baby/toddler's rapid acquisition of language in the first two years (roughly; as parents know it varies child to child) than that of an older preschooler or elementary-age child beginning to learn a second language after developing his/her early communication skills in another. If Natalia is not cognitively impaired, but simply delayed due to an early childhood of profound neglect and inattention, this could be an explanation for her fluent, unaccented English by the time the Barnetts encountered her – after she left Ukraine she was exposed to a variety of people trying to communicate with her in English for many months, after years of isolation from meaningful language. She was a tabula rasa, and she sucked it up like a sponge, just like babies do.

MOO, IMO, etc. I am not a language development expert!

She apparently came here in 2008 and was placed directly into her first adoptive family. If her supposed bio-mom is telling the truth she was around five then.

Two years later she was adopted by the Barrett's. Their doctor witness letter claims she was in two foster homes before that. I don't know. That letter is biased and unprofessional. I've never seen anything like it in the course of my legal work.

But by the time they got her she would be about 7-8 per the supposed bio-mom and per a bone scan done in 2010.

A child coming here at age five would learn English and easily lose any accent within months. Watching various gotcha videos shows me that. Experience with kids who immigrated here also shows that, unless they remain immersed in a culture that maintains their language of origin.

Apparently on average, mos people can remember back to about age 3.5. However, people usually don't remember much prior to the acquisition of native fluency in their language.

Add trauma and neglect and it could be later. She also could be pretending not to remember because she doesn't want to talk about her past life.

But five is super young. I'm surprised her English fluency and lack of accent after being here for two years and coming at around age 5, seems unusual to anyone.

 

[lalalemon]

How do you explain be sudden development of breasts, however, that didn't exist when she was around 20 per the parents statements, but that exist now?

And how about her face shape? You can clearly see a child's face versus an adults.

And why would the state prosecute this family after five years of investigation?

I mean I liked the movie too but the facts of this case really don't suggest IMO that she could be almost 30 as they're saying.

She's clearly put on weight, that makes your face change and your *advertiser censored* grow....
I know that for a fact!

 

[Tugela]

Would she have know HOW to do this? Being treated the way she likely was - maybe quite resilient and just determined to get on with life. MOO

She was living alone for over a year when she was supposedly 12 with disabilities. That seems pretty unlikely, how would she be able to do that if that were so? So maybe the adoptive parents have a point.

 

[Tugela]

Yeah. So here she supposedly is at 19. Huge chest, right?

View attachment 206880

And now.
View attachment 206881

I've never known that a 19 year old could develop at that age without help.

ETA: Here's another photo supplied by Kristine Barrett of the child while in the Barrett's custody that shows a clear shot of her from the front:

View attachment 206882

No difference?

They look the same to me.

 

[Tugela]

Interesting posts.
I had watched a YT doc. about children in orphanages in Russia who were disabled and that was difficult to get through.
If this young woman has emotional issues it wouldn't be surprising ; but we only have the adoptive parent's word for this.
Sounds like she's thriving in her new home.

Eta : There's also Reactive Attachment Disorder ; where she may have issues trusting anyone.

One orphanage. There is no reason to believe that all the rest are like that as well.

 

[Tugela]

I'm sorry and respectfully, these two photos don't represent someone "holding themselves differently." They show a normal child's face shape and an older teen's. And she didn't have a chest in the earlier photo. That's not from how she's standing.

View attachment 207250

View attachment 207251

But it is from how she is dressed and the angles of the photos. You see what you want to see. Other people do not.

 

[Tugela]

Well her appearance shows she was a child when they got her. That chin shape is not present in teenagers. Anyone with kids knows it. Her form of dwarfism doesn't prevent aging. It's the same as the LittleCouple have and they've aged normally.

Regardless, first of all, we don't really know how long she lived alone. Some articles claim three years. Others claim one year. Earlier ones said a few months. But the actual words of the friend who hung out with her after she was abandoned at the apartment are that Natalia disappeared from those apartments in 2013. Which was the same year the parents left her there. I don't think she was there alone for long.

Second, she would've been about 12 when abandoned. Not 6. Not really tender years. I was babysitting and caring for my house at that age.

Third, a child that age certainly could live on their own like this. There are street children around the world who survive for years without adults. Again, Natalia came here from a Ukrainian orphanage. Kids in those places have to learn to fend for themselves.

To compare her to an average suburban American kid makes no sense. This is a child with past experiences few could fathom.

No, the person who knew her said she disappeared from the area in Sept 2013, the reason turned out that she was evicted. Since the original parents had left her with a years rental, it meant they left her around Sept 2012. The Mans family tried to get her birth date changed back 2003, meaning the original parents left her when she was around "9", not 12. During that year she was alone she enrolled in adult education programs and took care of herself. As a disabled "nine year old" with serious issues. Ya, sure. It is worth noting that the woman who knew her thought she was at least 18 based on the conversations they had, and the adult education center where she attended classes has requirements for who is allowed to attend. You have to have a junior high level of knowledge, they evaluate your math, science and English skills in a placement test before admitting you. So they thought she was an adult as well. These are people who actually knew her, not someone who looked at a few photos on the internet. I would say their opinion carries considerably more weight than yours in that regard.

Saying that kids in Ukrainian orphanages have to look after themselves might mean there is not a lot of supervision, but they are still in a prison like facility and would have absolutely no idea how to support themselves in the outside world. So, how does that translate into how she was behaving here in the US? Where did she learn these skills? Keeping in mind that she supposedly has learning/psychological disabilities as well. It does not add up. She is not a street child, she has been in institutions and adoptive homes all her life if the account is to be believed. Street kids can be young in third world countries, but those are environments where you are expected to grow up quickly, in a lot of those places a 13 year old is considered to be essentially adult by the community anyway, which is why you have young teenagers looking after themselves in those places. That is not the case with this girl, those conditions do not exist in Ukraine or America. So how did she acquire these skills?

A large part of why all of this is happening now is because the new family wants to adopt her, and in order for them to do that she has to be recognized as a child again otherwise they can't do it. And if she is recognized as a child again, then the old family has to be charged since it would imply that they abandoned a child. For one to happen the other has to as well, and since the old family is out of the picture they are expendable.