Madonna has published a letter claiming that she started the adoption process “months” before she traveled to Malawi and picked her non-orphan son-to-be out of a baby lineup:
Nevertheless, we have gone about the adoption procedure according to the law like anyone else who adopts a child. Reports to the contrary are totally inaccurate. The procedure includes an 18 month evaluation period after which time we hope to make this adoption permanent. This was not a decision or commitment that my family or I take lightly.
I am overwhelmed and inspired by my trip to Malawi and hope that it helps bring attention to how much more the world needs to do to help the children of Africa.
My heartfelt thanks for all the good wishes I have received and I hope the press will allow my family some room for us to experience the joy we feel to have David home.
If this is true, why did the orphanage representative say that Madonna selected David Banda out of 12 children that were hand picked for her? When you want to adopt a baby, don’t you have to have a specific one in mind first before you file the paperwork? It could be partially true that Madonna started the process way ahead of her trip, in that she asked for pictures and baby profiles to be e-mailed to her. I don’t believe her for a second and think that the only process she started was one that would help her select a child, not adopt a specific one.
Madonna is full of shit as usual. She’s getting an “18 month evaluation period,” but she doesn’t have to stay in Malawi like every other prospective parent. She also didn’t decide she wanted to adopt little David until she saw him and selected him.
Every year at Christmas my mom donates money to Heifer International, through which you can give a cow, goats, or chickens to a needy family in the third world. Donations go beyond mere charity to help people become self-sufficient. I saw a special on Oprah a while ago featuring Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn in which a young African woman and her mother came on to tell everyone how much their lives had changed after they were given some livestock through Heifer.
All Madonna had to do to “help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and in many cases death” as she put it, was to give Yohane Banda some goats or a cow. Instead that evil bitch snatched his only child, and is trying to justify it by saying that the family is too poor to keep him. She’s too immoral to set aside her desire for a specific baby for the good of the child and his long-suffering family.
Help one man you help all humanity…hurt one man and you hurt all humanity ~ Qura’an
I am not against it, simply because if it were true, the man would be fighting alot harder, I am not against giving a child a better life. He has a future now, put it that way.
Sorry, but giving dad a cow is not going to save this kid’s life. Better off with Madonna even if she is a bitch.
Yes, a life of luxury is what the kid needs! No matter if Madonna is a consumist, trend-follower (do-gooers are the new punk!), scandal seller… because that´s what you all are and need.
This is beyond David, Africa is the backyard where you put all your trash.. David was born into a poor family because of consumism and imperialism, because you think you know what´s best for humanity this is happening… What a future! Living in a world where living next to a woman who has adopted you just to save her marriage is a good thing. This is beyond Madonna and David…
Hey is this kid going to get an education? Is he going to get hot water for showers and clean cloths and 3 meals a day or more, and a roof over his head? I dont care why he was adopted, he is in a better situation than he was before, think out of teh box if he had stayed in that orphanage he’d either end up riding a bike 25 miles like his father, contracting aids, or living out on the streets picking up garbage for a living or diying from malaria or a gun shot wound.
The point is he IS better off, dont forget he is a human being, and he has a mind of hisown, when he is is an adult he has the option of actually becoming sucessful, becoming more than just another casualty to poverty.
Marines All The Way – I totally agree. At least someone has some sense to see the situation for the reality rather than romanticise the child being ‘better off’ with its father. I feel a bit sorry for Madonna getting so much flack for this. Didnt Angelina have a similar issue when she adopted Zahara and yet she ended up with a halo over her head (and all because she’s beautiful!!!!!!!!!).
Yes, I know it sound like a good idea. There’s lots of African kids who don’t have the basic necessities like running water, basic shots and sufficient food. So seing one escaping this abject misery should be a good thing, right?
No, I don’t think so. Unlike Angelian Jolie, I find the attitude of Madona clearly abusive. First thing: the kid still got a father. Why pick-up an non-orphan? Now the kid will live far away for his only remaning biological parent. Knowing the mental impact it will have on him for the future, I am worried for his mental well-being.
Then, there’s the legality of it. By the law, Madonna need to stay in the country for 18 months before adopting the kid. If she loves him so much, why she dint do it? If I remember clearly, Celine Dion took a 2 year break out of her carrer to get close of her family, why not Madonna? This makes me feel like she’s seeing the kid just like another consumer product and this is scary. If she’s really caring about the child, she would stay in the country for the 18 months probation.
Finaly, I would like to answer to Marines and Caz; Do he will be better off of Africa at all costs? If I understand the logic of your post, An African Child is better everywhere else except Africa. This also means that an African child is better in the hands of abusive foster parents instead of their biological ones. In this idea, I felt that international adoption in Africa will start to look like a “Mail-Order Child”, quite close to slavery. Let’s think about this.
Oh please, you are blowing this up way out of purportion, look at the baby, I know he melted my heart like butter when I saw that pic.
Let me tell you something else, no one would be giving a damn if it was Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, it’s only because it’s Madoona that everyone is bursting out in rage. where was the anger when the mother of Zahara came forward?
Marines All The Way, as far as Wikipedia tells, Zaraha is a boda-fide orphan. Unlike Madonna, An Ethiopian Judge confirmed the validity of the adoption. Right now, Madonna’s adoption is legaly contested in Africa as well as in U.K..
Another point; at her arrival to the states, Zahara went to an hospital for dehydration and malnutrition. Her living conditions at the orphan was horrible. David din’t seems to suffer any aliment of any sort. There’s was a kid who received fresh food for his father and had a loving grand-mother, he was at the orphanage due to a local law, not because he was an orphan! If Madonna had an gram of decency in her (witch I doubt), she would had picked a trully orphaned kid.
My real fear is this: turning African adoption of kids into a fashion for the rich. It would sound like “look I adopted an African girl, she match my living room set!”.
In law enforcment, they have a saying: “If it smells like $hit, looks like $hit and taste like $hit, maybe it’s because this is $hit”. For me, that story dosen’t smell good. Can’t you smell the drift?
Marines all the way, Davids father did state that he wants his son to have a better life, and because he loves him, he is not fighting this (not that he could since his parental rights were given up when he placed David in the orpahanage and I don’t think he could afford legal council) As a parent, you want your children to have the best possible life, and he knows David will get that.
The thing most people are angry about is that Madonna didnt choose a child with no parents, she chose one who does still have a father. As rich as she is, she could have adopted any number of children who had lost all family and helped David’s father to be able to raise him.
She could have given MORE than a cow and adopted a kid with no parents at all… itw oudl have been positive all around. I doubt the father is going to fight though because he know he can’t provide right not but that doesn’t mean its not still tragic!
Can we all agree that David has a future?
First, to Toubrouk: do you intend to imply that Madonna is an “abusive foster parent” or just that someone could adopt a child from Africa and then abuse the child? Because I don’t think it’s fair to assume that Madonna abuses her own children, or that she would abuse an adopted child. She might be strict, but last I heard, not allowing your children to watch television doesn’t count as abuse!
And, yeah, unfortuantely kids get abused, by foster parents, by biological parents, by neighbors, grandparents, etc. Do you think this means people should be forbidden from adopting, fostering, or giving birth to children altogether? This is unrealistic.
Finally, Yes I do agree with Marines, David DOES have a future now, thanks to Madonna, and I certainly would prefer to grow up in Madonna’s household rather than in an orphanage in an impoverished country. Why assume David wouldn’t feel the same way?
And finally — the kid was not living with his father, he was living in an ORPHANAGE. As far as I’m concerned that makes him totally fair game for adoption, by Madonna or by anyone else. If you give your dog to the pound, someone else has the right to adopt it. If you turn your kid over to an orphanage, it’s the same thing! Maybe the kid’s mental health would suffer growing up in an orphanage, knowing his dad gave him away, more than it will suffer growing up in a family that will love and care for him and provide him with opportunities that even most of us will never have.
Yes, this kid has a future now! If you want to worry about kids, worry about the other millions of African children who don’t stand a chance because of oppressive poverty and AIDS. Let Madonna adopt a dozen of them! And if I recall correctly, this kid was already at the orphanage because dad couldn’t take care of him, makes him fare game for adoption!
Keri – well said! 🙂
Finally we all agree, the kids has a future.
Hmm.. a word from the baby’s father.. I’m not sure if this is legit (comes via Perez) but here is what he allegedly said about the adoption:
“The birth dad of Madonna’s beautiful new baby boy is speaking out against efforts by third parties trying to perevent the Material Mom from adopting his son.
He says, “Where were these people when David was struggling in the orphanage? These so-called human rights groups should leave my baby alone. As father I have okayed this, I have no problem; the village has no problem, who are they to cause trouble? Please let them stop. Orphanage life is no good. We leave kids there because we can’t look after them properly ourselves. Now my son has been taken by a kindhearted woman, these people want to bring him back to the orphanage.”