Well I thought, maybe this is okay. Families that adopt hard to place children need all the help they can get. But then I saw this: Jockey offers best-in-class adoption benefits to employees. The adoption process can be costly and time-intensive. At Jockey, we're proud to provide an extensive adoption benefits package to our employees including a $10,000 stipend per child each year and resource and referral services."(Emphasis added.)
Jockey, headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is a family-owned business. CEO Debra S. Waller succeeded her mother as CEO. Her ties to adoption go deep. She was adopted as an infant, is a 2014 Angel in Adoption honoree by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, and serves on the Board of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
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| Jockey CEO |
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| Jane |
Back to my purchase --I didn't really need more bras but they were on sale and I had a $10 off coupon. I cancelled the order and tossed the coupon. No way will I support the break up of families and the Tea Party--Jane.
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SOURCES
Jockey Being Family
Family History motivates Jockey CEO to encourage adoption
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute
Is Your Underwear Undermining Your Values? What is Jockey's CEO doing at a Tea Partiers' Convention and with David Koch?
FROM FMF Forum:
Abuses in International Adoption: The Lie We Love
Refusing to help kids here while trolling for kids abroad
Take that offensive Kay Jewelers ad off the air
Cheerios Commercial: Gay dads adopt and sell cereal
To READ
Actually to blow your mind: The stories by different Korean adoptees in this book are essential to understanding the culture shock of being transported to a new, strange culture for the purpose of adoption.
The "Unknown" Culture Club: Korean Adoptees, Then and Now
"A fantastic collection of stories that are both fascinating and helpful for those who wonder what it's like to be adopted and are interested in truly inspiring (and some tragic) stories....The question I have is, if these children are truly not orphans in the first place...well, is anyone suspicious of child trafficking for adoption purposes?"--at Amazon
Good for you, Jane! And thanks for bringing this to our attention. I don't buy Jockey but my husband DID but won't anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis is the sort of thing that makes me absolutely crazy. Think what $10,000 would do for a Honduran mother, or an American one!
ReplyDeleteBoycott Jockey.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all of this information.
Unfortunately, I just bought my husband a pack of Jockey underwear--because that is all they had at TJ Maxx a few weeks ago. First time for Jockey. Also last!
ReplyDeleteThank you for exposing them. No more Jockey bought from this house!
ReplyDeleteOh No! I like their underwear but do not want in any way to support the Tea Party or its beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI thought the gay dads cheerios add was fine though, just showing the diversity of families like the other cheerios ad that took flack for showing an interracial family. This is a whole other level of political involvement, though. Hey who else makes good cotton undies?
Bali and Hanes. I buy Bali, have for years. The company has a good website.
ReplyDeleteA corporation, trying to tell people how to live - and pretending that they care about children. Very bad. I notice that the last "blog" entry on their site is from May 2013 (more than 2 years old). I wonder what happens to the $10,000 stipend per child "each year", if their employee is fired or laid off from Jockey? I think we all know the answer to that.
ReplyDeleteNope! I can't support child abandonment and destruction of natural families for generations. nothankyouverymuch.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the heads-up on this company Jane. Gonna have to go through my clothes and check the labels. I don't want to even be wearing something that would even hint of such support. Let alone buy any more of it.
Could you see it if they did give those type of funds to natural parents. How many couples would make it WITH their child. One whole intact family with child and siblings all in tow, without lifetime wondering / suffering for any or each of them. Wow. Oh, what a beautiful thought.
Oh no I always buy jockey French cut & just bought new ones !!!!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if I could send them back to Ms. Weller personally with a nice note telling her exactly how I feel about her adoption plan bonus!
The underwear were to small anyway :))
Many companies offer adoption fee reimbursement or adoption "incentives": Google, JP Morgan, Apple, Wendy's, Hanes Corp...just to name a few. You can do an Internet search for most of the higher-profile companies...the Dave Thomas Foundation compiles it, I think. My husband's employer offers $7500 in adoption reimbursement and extra (paid) time off for "bonding". It's a pretty standard corporate incentive these days. In fact, I can't think of one job he or I have had in the last 10 years that didn't offer it.
ReplyDeleteThat's sad to read. I knew corporations subsidized adoptions before Roe v. Wade when there were more babies than takers. Today, there's a shortage of healthy infants put up for adoption. Children in foster care who need homes don't cost anything to adopt. In fact, the state pays people to take them.
DeleteI'm wondering if corporations subsidize adoptions as a way of keeping women on the job past their fertile years. Kind of like paying women the cost of having their eggs frozen. Men can receive the adoption subsidy as well but many of these men have encouraged their wives to continue working past their best years for child-bearing in order to boost the family income..
Subsidizing adoption is a feel good thing to do. The federal governments gives people a $13,400 adoption tax credit, originally to encourage foster care adoption. However the industry got laws passed apply the credit to all adoptions. The credit of course boosts the industry'sbottom line.
Jane, please don't be offended, but I would really like it if you stopped using the "unwanted foster kids" as an alternative. We are people and our babies are just as vulnerable, even more vulnerable than those of other women. I was one of those "unwanted foster kids" and frankly, I didn't want to be adopted even if someone had actually wanted me - and the woman that adopted my daughter was a licensed foster home... who only got licensed so she could adopt because she was too old to do it the other way.
DeleteThat's it, no more Jockey in this house ever! Fruit of the Loom and Hanes will be our all-cotton go-to underwear. Thanks for uncovering this!
DeleteSo This morning watching the morning show on comes an ad that's all fuzzy and warm and about taking care of our children and it has a series of quick flashes of parents and kids ... and of course a picture of two white guys holding a white infant. They all flash by quickly so I backed up and looked again. Yep. So the ad is either promoting infant adoption or surrogacy. Those two dudes were not uncles. What I hate about images like that is that they implant the idea of adoption as this wonderful way to have a family, ignoring that to do that...someone out there is missing a child. The company is CS Johnson, they make: Pledge, Glade, Raid, Saran, Windex, Shout and Ziploc and more. Who doesn't have at least one of their products in their home?
ReplyDeleteYes, and these ads also promote the idea that children are fungible, blood ties don't matter, adoption is just another way to form family. Social workers in the past bought this "love makes a family" but soon learned hat keeping children with kin if possible is better than placing them with strangers, facts the adoption industry tries to ignore.
DeleteAd men have been quick to pick up on the fact that those who adopt--particularly male couples--are often affluent. Marketing to adopters makes business sense.
Yes, Jane, the ad is one of those nice and fuzzy friendly ads just promoting the whole company--and the products are just shown quickly at the bottom of the last frame. This kind of stuff normalizes taking children from their mothers and giving them to others.
DeleteSo would banning gay families or adoptive families from advertising solve anything? If the very few advertisements showing non-traditional families are "promoting" adoption, surely the rest of ads "promote" the typical biological nuclear family when selling something parents might purchase.
DeleteActually, anything and anyone that promotes adoption promotes the break up of mother and child. It just happens that in the current era, companies find it's cool to show their support of gay marriage by showing guys who adopt. I'm only singling them out here because they are what we see. They promote separating mothers from their children rather than finding ways to keep them together. Same goes for all those celebrity adoptions (did Jennifer Aniston adopt or not?) that are splashed on the covers of People, In Touch, etc.
DeleteFound out about Jockey's adoption ties at the checkout stand a couple of years ago in one of their outlet stores and did not go ahead with the purchase. I told the clerk I would spend my moneu to support the unnecessary breakup of natural families. Glad to see Jockey outed by FMF, Jane.
ReplyDeleteWow....what a cynical world we live in. All children deserve loving safe care...hopefully ( most importantly) with their families of origin or kin... What do you suggest if that is not possible. I have personal experience with this company ( and no, I am not an employee) and they DO care for children, youth and the families who love them. They do not condone " taking" children from their mothers. Good grief everyone, look at the other side of the equation...would you rather kids linger in limbo and " age out" with no sense of connection to anyone????
ReplyDeleteHow many times do we have to say this. When people pay $$$ for a baby, they're not paying for a child in foster care who needs home. Foster kids are fee. In fact states pays people to take them and provides follow-up services.
DeleteWhen people pay big bucks for an infant, they're paying for an adoption practitioner to use its wiles to lure some hapless mother to giving up her baby or paying a corrupt official to take a child from a poor mother abroad..
I am not referring to private adoption here. That is a whole other conversation. I am referring to the over 150,000 children and youth in the U.S. and 30,000 in Canada who languish in government care without knowing who they can rely on, after they " age out". Companies like Wendys ( Dave Thomas Foundation) and Jockey( Jockey Being Family) focus on kids in government care, and those that ultimately join families who want to genuinely help kids...Here in Canada...Jane...there is no " luring" going on. There are still unplanned pregnancies happening that have no regard or plan for how that baby will be cared for longterm.In a perfect world, every child born into this world would be loved nurtured and raised by there mother/father/ family of origin. But sadly that is not reality.
DeleteOkay, as a foster child who was not and did not want to be adopted, I can say this - stop using us as an alternative! My daughter was an "alternative" because the state knew I was too young and stupid to know my rights and protect myself. They took my daughter without cause, forced me with threats of violence on my child to sign the papers and then lied to a judge to take her - so NO WE ARE NOT FREE AND WE ARE NOT ALL WANTING FOREVER HOMES WITH STRANGERS. And frankly, the only kids that get adopted from foster care are little ones - the ones that really need help, the older kids and teens NEVER get it. Check on the Illinois wire for an article about how Illinois started adopting out their teens for the stipend and how many of those kids got dumped in the streets on or before they ever turned 18! They had a huge amount of bad press over the same crap! And frankly, 8 out of 10 foster girls will lose their babies to adoption before they even have a chance to try to mother!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Lori. Many children are in foster care who could be in their own homes if their parents had a little help. Child welfare workers manipulate the system to make the more desirable of these children "available for adoption." See the website of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, NCCPR.org.
DeleteMy point, though, is that adoption advocates like Anonymous above love to create the straw child -- languishing in a foster home--to defend all adoption. Yes, there are some children in foster care who need homes but they are not the ones those paying big bucks want.
If Jockey and Debra Waller really wanted to help kids (rather than getting PR points from America's love affair with adoption), they would support programs to keep kids with their own families.
Jane, I am not an adoption advocate. I am an advocate for children...all children..I am an advocate for every child who deserves to be cared for by their families of origin. I have seen in case after case, where kids stay in limbo while those families are supported to reach the point where they CAN take care of their children...and as you well know...that can take years. I also believe in all adoptions, that adoptees have the absolute right to know who created them, the right to a relationship with their families of origin. Adoption to me does not mean losing ones identity or the people who created that human being. To be clear.
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DeleteAnon, as I said in my post, I think it's fine for Jockey to help people who adopt hard to place children. My objection to Jockey is that it gives employees $10,000 per child to offset adoption expenses. Hard to place children do not cost $10,000. This is money going into the pockets of the adoption industry which it uses to, among other things, entice mothers to give up their children. The website features an employee who used the $10,000 to adopt an infant.
DeleteThe US has an infant adoption rate 25 times that of the UK because adoption is a money-making business in the US.
I also note that Debra Weller supports extreme conservative organization which advocate for cutting budgets through cutting services to vulnerable families.
Jockeys primary support helps families POST ADOPTION, and for older children placements, for families who need special medical,educational supports for their children, who may have needs that they cannot afford. Hard to place children DO require those supports. Again, not talking about newborn adoption...talking about adoption from foster care...It is Dave Thomas Foundation that works to encourage older child adoption from foster care.
DeleteKaisa...If you read my previous posts...ideally, every child should be cared for by their families of origin. In a perfect world adoption WOULD NOT EXIST. Children in foster care ( I have the privilege of working with youth and teens currently in the system and some who have aged out) overwhelmingly want some kind of " permanency" whether it is adoption, kinship care, customary care, guardianship etc. just want someone to count on, to turn to...forever. I don't believe foster care does that for them.
DeleteAnon, You state " Adoption to me does not mean losing ones identity or the people who created that human being". In what word do you live? This is exactly what happens to most adoptee's. Is there a open adoption Eutopia that I don't know about?
DeleteANONYMOUS ABOVE, HOW IS Kiasa supposed to know which anonymous you are? IF YOU READ OUR INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE POSTING, WE STRONGLY DISCOURAGE ANONYMOUS AND MAY STOP POSTING THEM ALTOGETHER.
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DeleteI'm no longer anonymous Lorraine.
DeleteMeryl..what I meant by that is...I believe everyone has the right to know who their parents are...has the right to KNOW them...I believe in open adoption..And as I said earlier...in a perfect world, adoption would not exist.
DeleteKaisa...every situation and kid is unique..sometimes adoption is not the best solution, and sometimes it is...that is why it is important that we try not to generalize. The bottom line for me is that the focus and priority must always be the child that is brought into the world without a choice in terms of who will care for them..and that their voices must be heard and acknowledged.
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DeleteI agree , not every child/youth wants to be adopted...what exactly do you want me to answer? And sorry to be new...what is an SJW? We all come to these discussions with our own stories/experiences that influence our perspectives. If you knew my whole story, and I knew yours, then we'd have a better understanding of the beliefs we each have.
Deletewell, Deborah, thanks for that concession.
DeleteJust a heads up -as an adult I thought that maybe I could help the foster children now in the system - so I got my foster care license (I am one of those rare birds with no criminal history, one traffic ticket, and a stable home - and coming from foster care that is saying a whole lot!). In my training, out of the 14 couples and one other single parent training - only I was not in it to adopt. EVERY COUPLE was there to adopt and the single parent was there because she was the guardian of two girls whose mother was in a nursing home for chronic illness. ONE couple already had the baby in there home - a newborn that they removed from a foster child, but no one really knew why the mother wasn't being allowed to keep it, since she was fine and wanted to keep the child. SO, I repeat, we are not FREE and we are not OPEN for adoption - most of the children in care don't even belong there. I know, I have seen the real numbers! They aren't that hard to find and are public records -
ReplyDeleteThe United States has 400,000 children in foster care at any given time. The number of foster children adopted from care is approximately 25,000 annually. Of those 25,000 only 2% are over the age of 8 years. So you tell me .... at what point do you think that this is about kids? It is about money.
Oh, and of the 40,000 referrals to CPS in one year only approximately 25% of them are deemed justified and investigated. And of the 25% - only 12% of the kids end up in care. over 90% of those kids never go home.
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DeleteFor those of you who want to boycott Jockey...fine, but really look into all the companies which offer adoption subsidies (Hanes does as well, FYI). Are you really going to not buy Apple products or use Google or change your bank? Are you going to shop at a different grocery store just because of adoption subsidies the company offers? How many of you are really willing to make these huge lifestyle changes to reflect your beliefs about adoption?
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DeleteI'll post a link to the 2015 "Best Adoption-Friendly" workplaces....Hanes is 4th, by the way... I don't think it's possible to live in the modern world and boycott all of these companies...
ReplyDeletehttps://dciw4f53l7k9i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/DTFA_Top100_Final.pdf
Yes, it's a popular fad among companies today to offer an adoption benefit. Intel just announced a huge adoption benefit as well as fertility treatment benefits in order to attrack more women employees according to Intel.
DeleteThere's a mega irony here --Intel female employees are infertile because they put aside child-bearing to further their careers. Many of the babies available for adoption come from mothers in their 20s who are afraid that keeping their babies would jeopardize their education and careers.
What is really needed are family friendly benefits. Intel to its credit has these, paid time off for new parents, rooms to express breast milk to freeze for the baby, etc.
I hope women figure this out. You can have a career and children (I did it, by the way, and my daughters are doing it). Giving away your baby and then taking another woman's child when "you're ready for motherhood" is detrimental to you, the children, the adoptive parents, and the natural mothers.
Unlike Intel, Jockey appears not to have any family-friendly policies. It seems unlikely that Weller would support any. Her goal is cheap labor as to that end she has moved much production to foreign countries. Far cheaper to brag about adoption benefits (and get positive PR) while employing the cheapest labor you can get.
Dear Anonymous....above (a name would be better, so would identifying your self as a company spokesperson or whatever but when you googled:
ReplyDeleteFamily history motivates Jockey CEO to encourage adoption
The story yieled this:
...To date, the company has donated $1 million to adoption causes, Waller said.
Jockey also has established adoption benefits for its U.S. employees who adopt a child.
Kevin Edmonston, an information technologies administrator for Jockey, and his wife, Terri, who works for the Racine Water Utility, were able to take advantage of the $10,000 stipend that Jockey offers to its employees who adopt children. The couple adopted their daughter Hailey, who is 20 months old, just five weeks after her birth, in a local closed domestic adoption process.
The Edmonstons decided to go the route of a traditional adoption after they were unable to conceive a child themselves. They started the process in December 2002, before Jockey set up its Jockey Being Family program.
....that isn't quite the picture you paint, Anonymous....
I guess Jockey does not discriminate when it comes to their employees. I encourage all of you to look at the Jockey Being Family website to familiarize yourselves with what they actually do to help kids and families. And..I am Chair of the Adoption Council of Canada. We support birthfamilies, adoptees and adoptive families. These are my personal views. www.adoption.ca
ReplyDeleteIt's questionable whether the Adoption Being Family program is actually doing anything. The most recent blog post is from November 1, 2013, almost two years old. The "Adoption Stories" section has a note "Adoption Stories Coming Soon!." Jockey has just started asking online customers for donations. The program may have gone defunct and now Jockey is trying to revive it.
DeleteMaybe Canadians are doing things right but in the US far too many children are placed in foster care who could be cared by their natural parents with a little help. Go to the website of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, www.nccpr.org. Jockey could help these families keep their children but there's no glamor in that.
Jane...they ARE doing lots of great things,,,so much so that they don't have the time or spend a lot of money updating their website. Please look at the organizations they support. We recently met with Ms. Waller and a few of her staff to see first hand what they do. They are not experts in the field of child welfare and rightly so leave that up to the " experts" who are apparently not doing as good a job as they should be in North America. There's no glamor in millions of dollars spent on rehab, the justice system, spent on trying to help families keep their kids, who go in and out of care for years...I can't believe that anyone would think that is in the best interest of the kids...they are the priority, I think you'd agree.
ReplyDeleteHere in Canada, EVERY effort is made to keep children with their families of origin, and even if that cannot be, then every effort is taken to keep those ties alive.
Jockeys program is not defunct, they are going to increase their support in Canada and across the U.S. and they are helping families who adopt from foster care enormously. I know where you are coming from, but your criticism is misdirected. Before we are quick to judge, we must make sure we have the facts. With regards to any other criticisms of Ms. Waller , political or otherwise, it does not resonate. I only know what she is doing to help families.
Canadians are trying to do better, but it is a challenge, just as it is in the U.S. We work with several U.S. organizations on many fronts. I invite you to come and speak with us anytime to understand better the positive progress being made.
Come off it. A company like Jockey can surely afford to have someone keep its website current. Ms. Weller's politics define her. She cannot claim to be a humanitarian and support the Tea Party and be in bed with the Koch brothers. It's that simple. She's using unfortunate kids to puff up her image and that of her company.
DeleteSome wealthy people love to throw around a few bucks--and in Waller's case it's not even her bucks but donations from purchasers of her company's products--and get accolades even though they endorse policies that do the opposite of what they claim to support. Next time you see Waller, ask her if she'd be willing to pay higher taxes to help these families. A small increase in the marginal tax rate for multi-millionaires would raise far more than the few million that Jockey's customers have donated.
Your arguments are typical of those in the foster care/adoption business. Every time someone criticizes the way foster care and adoption work in the US, you conjure up the poor kids in foster care and accuse your critics of wanting to prevent them from having "forever" families.
Before you write again, read the article on Waller I cited in the post as well as the articles on the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform's studies.
Wow...I've read the articles Jane....I am not in the adoption business. And her name is Waller, not Weller. I can see how angry you and many of your subscribers are here. Why don't you confront Ms. Waller and ask those questions of her yourself?
ReplyDeleteI welcome you to also contact me directly to talk if you wish. It is clear that you are convinced that Jockey and other companies like it that offer adoption related benefits or supports , are evil.
I was kidding when I mentioned the website comment. I know they are revamping their website now. I'm guessing you won't be first in line to check it out. As mentioned, I take all politics with a grain of salt...American or Canadian. I respond to the amount of time , energy and resources that people devote to kids and families that care for them, and nothing you or anyone else can say, will convince me that Waller is motivated by anything else here. Like Dave Thomas, she is an adoptee herself, and she is using some her wealth in an area that is personal for her. It s regrettable that you are unable to consider even the possibility of that.
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ReplyDeleteNot sure where you get your information on Honduras adoptions. They are pretty rare and all done through social services or the Honduras equivalent of foster care. Private adoption or relinquishing a child to specific paps isn't allowed. And paps don't pay social services to adopt. If the "sleazy adoption officials" were making money off adoption I'm sure you would see a lot more of them. I would think since you say you advocate for foster children it would actually be the type of program your would support.
ReplyDeleteRead the FMF posts I referenced at the bottom of the post: "Abuses in International Adoption: The Lie We Love" and "Refusing to Help Kids Here While Trolling for Kids Abroad." Adoption in Honduras was curtailed government because of corruption. I don't know what you consider being done by social servics or foster care. Gladney and other adoption agencies handle adoption from Honduras. I'm sure they charge PAPS a pretty penny.
DeleteWe support adoption of American kids who cannot return to their own homes. We support helping mothers in foreign countries keep their kids or, if they cannot, place them with family members in their own country.
Honduras adoptions did have corruption years ago and the system was revamped into the very different program it was today. Unless I misread your post you were criticizing current adoption officials not ones from the 80's. What I mean by being handled by foster care is that the only way to adopt in Honduras is you apply with DINFA (formally INFA) which is Honduras social services. DINFA doesn't charge any money to adopt. Much like US foster care when a child has gone through the proper procedures (investigation into alternate family members......) then a committee selects a family from the wait-list. There are thousands of children in DINFA's care and only a handful are ever cleared due for adoption due to lack of funds to conduct investigations. So I would be shocked to see a mother or father place a child in DINFA's care in hopes they are adopted because the reality is that the odds of that are low. And you cannot just request to adopt a specific child (you met in an orphanage, you met the mother.....) The one person who is paid in Honduras is a lawyer and that fee is regulated, to I believe $7,000 which is not that unreasonable for the amount of work and 5-6 years of process. So I'm not sure where "sleazy adoption officials" come into the picture and make tons of money. Personally I steer people away from Gladney to what I consider more ethical agencies.
DeleteAnd I also support adoption of American kids who cannot return home and I support helping mothers in Honduras (or other family members) keep their kids. But the difference is that I know there are still kids who can't return home and don't have any family members to take them in. And I support adoption for those children too.
Honduras didn't crack down on the corruption until about 2011, certainly later than the 1980's. Honduras has not signed onto the Hague Treaty designed to assure proper oversight intercountry adoptions.
ReplyDeleteThousands of children are in DINFA's care because the families are poor, not because they want their children to be adopted.
The way intercountry adoption works is that children end up in care because of poverty or illness of their parents. When the substitute care system becomes overloaded, officials begin offering children for adoption. Americans, Canadians, Australians, and Europeans who want young children offer big bucks for these kids. As they see the money to be made, officials become corrupt, paying agents to recruit infants and young children or even kidnap them, Then there is a scandal, adoptions are shut down or curtailed and the industry moves to another country. I encourage you to read Kathryn Joyce's "The Child Catchers" to see how this plays out.
Maybe Jockey's money is not going to sleazy Honduran officials but sleazy officials in Ethiopia. The point is Jockey would do far more if it used its funds to help families stay together. But that wouldn't have the pizzazz of adoption, now would it?