the requirement for the parent to live in Malawi for an extended period of time makes great sense because it reduces the risk of child trafficking for nefarious purposes

what bothers me though is this: why is Madonna so badly castigated for wanting to adopt a baby from this country after investing millions in charity there while Brangelina happily adopt the most attractive child they can find from each orphanage for their golden rainbow

Madonna has offered a much more stable home environment for her kids than Brangelina who drag them around the world like luggage

@american dreamer: @american dreamer: I had not really thought of it that way but I definitely agree. Not that I'm criticizing Brad and Angelina however nomadic their lifestyle they do give their children a much better life than they would have in an orphanage.

@getreal:

The judge in Malawi pretty much said that if they permitted Madonna to adopt the girl and take her from the country without living there for 18 months it would set a "precedent" that other judges would be required to follow permitting other foreigners to take children from the country on short notice which would lead inevitably to child trafficking like in Eastern Europe.

I guess his point was even though it was clear in this particular instance little Mercy would be far better off with Madonna it might create a "slippery slope" where other children end up in the wrong hands especially in a country with so few resources to monitor these things.

What bothers me about Brangelina, is that their kids clearly don't have friends outside their immediate family, so they don't have any peers to help develop their character and build them into mature adults. They must all be little monsters without any control. When they enrolled Maddox for a few months in a French school in NYC apparently he was a little monster incapable of even communicating with the other kids.

Madonna by contrast clearly doesn't spoil her children and while they travel to and fro she's pretty good at protecting them from the media. I dont even know what Rocco looks like.

I'm so over these celebrities and there paternalistic attitude over children from countries they deem to be "in need". With the money Madonna has she could use her money to do good for the families in these countries. I call it baby hoarding.

They get that first high from taking kids home and introducing them into their multi cultural homes to prove they are apart of the solution and not the problem. "you see, we're saving one child at a time." It's well meaning and comes from a caring place, but their perceived positions of power brings out aggression and fails to get the point.

There something rather demeaning about the display- these aren't even cultures they are interested in immersing themselves into. And yet they can pick one child out of millions, and feel quite humbled in leaving the others behind.