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"Nancy Hanson of Shelbyville, Tennessee, adopted Artyom Savelyev, seven, from Russia. When he drew a picture of her home set on fire and told people he would &amp;quot;burn it down with [the family] in it,&amp;quot; Hanson sent him back to his native country on a plane by himself, with a note saying she didn&amp;#39;t want him anymore.\nOf course this has sparked international outrage. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov called the actions by Hanson &amp;quot;the last straw&amp;quot; in a string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong. Now Russia is threatening to halt all pending and future adoptions by American families. Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the U.S., and more than 60,000 Russian orphans have been successfully adopted there, according to the National Council for Adoption, a nonprofit adoption advocacy group.\nThis got me thinking about the blog I wrote in 2008 on safe havens and how parents weren&amp;#39;t dropping off just infants, no questions asked, as the program was designed, but their unruly older children too. Parenthood in my opinion is one of the most wonderful and, well, hardest jobs on the planet. I can certainly understand how a mom or dad could lose their cool, but it&amp;#39;s hard for me to go to the place where it&amp;#39;s OK to just throw in the towel and call it quits. I&amp;#39;m sure it was scary for the family to have to see a drawing of their home on fire and hear of such violence, but I think there was a more appropriate way to deal with the CHILD than dumping him on a plane. Who knows why this woman adopted the boy, but she had to know what she was signing up for--and that is parenthood. Sometimes it&amp;#39;s not always about jungle gyms and ice cream. It&amp;#39;s work. It&amp;#39;s unforgiving. It&amp;#39;s hard. I tend to agree with Chuck Johnson, acting CEO of the National Council for Adoption. He says, &amp;quot;Child abandonment of any kind is reprehensible. The actions of this mother are especially troubling because an already vulnerable, innocent child has been further victimized.&amp;quot;\nLet&amp;#39;s discuss: Are you outraged by this story? Do you think Hanson should have acted in a more appropriate manner, perhaps enrolling the child in a program or therapy? Do you agree with the Russian government&amp;#39;s plans to freeze adoptions in the United States? Have you adopted a child? Would you?\nMore on glamour.com:\nThe Playground Diaries: Installment 10\nThe Playground Diaries: Installment 12\nEr, some people are getting busy in the playground! \n\nMore Ways to Get Glamour\nVisit Shopglamour.com for cute stuff starting at just $10!\nEnter the latest Glamour sweepstakes!\nFollow us on Twitter.\nAdd us to your iGoogle homepage."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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