2009 - A Year in Review

By Carrie Craft, About.com Guide

• Michael Jackson's memorial service brought tears to my eyes, but what his daughter, Paris, had to say really choked me up.

• A report came out in July that stated that mothers who abuse drugs have a higher risk of committing child abuse. It also found that their children have a higher risk of being placed in foster care. While much of the study seemed to be common sense, there were many other interesting tidbits to learn.

• A woman in the United Kingdom found weight loss motivation in child adoption after she was told she was too fat to adopt. She lost 8 stone, which is about 112 pounds in order to make her adoption dream come true. Wow.

• Other weight related issues came about in the summer of 2009, parents were charged with child abuse and neglect if their children were obese! South Carolina mom, Jerri Gray, was arrested and charged with criminal neglect. Her 14-year-old son, Alexander, weighed 555 pounds and was placed in foster care. According to Ms. Gray she followed nutritional guidelines set for her son, but couldn't watch him while he was in school.

• Dr. Drew hosted MTV's 16 and Pregnant Life after Labor Finale Special. It seemed to break a lot of stereotypes about teen pregnancy in my opinion. Dr. Drew shared that there are 730,000 teen pregnancies each year in the U.S. (that statistic alone makes me sad.) Half of these end with a live birth, and only 1% of them are placed for adoption. I was shocked that the number was so low.

• Twitter was all a-buzz or a-twitter with a lot of coverage on the movie, Orphan when it finally opened. Most people seemed to have found it to be an extremely scary flick and worth the admission price. I noticed that very few movie goers made comments on never wanting to adopt a child based on the movie.