I woke up this morning, unable to sleep in which was the plan (we have yet another late start this morning -- this time a scheduled one and not weather related). When I found the comment that Travis had made on the blog, I was very frustrated that I hadn't responded to him earlier and that he had interpreted what I wrote to conclude that they shouldn't adopt. Sometimes just a blog isn't enough and I hope that he will email me privately so that I can answer his questions.
But his post got me thinking about something. I wonder if maybe the long drawn-out, often difficult process of getting matched with the right child and getting the child home doesn't serve a purpose. It requires tenacity, it requires research, advocacy, engaging in tough things, struggling with "the system" and navigating through some not so fun things. But hey? What does that sound like? Does that sound like life once the kids are home?
There is a very fine line between preparing people well and scaring them away. But maybe the process is there to toughen us up so that when we finally have a child in our home, we are prepared for what we will face. Or at least better prepared than if we just walked into Walmart and picked up a sibling group with a voucher we had earned from taking the classes and having a completed homestudy.
This life isn't an easy one, but it is so worth it. Sometimes when I am caught up in the drama of it all I forget how glad I am that we have adopted our kids. The process wasn't easy and, honestly, raising them isn't a piece of cake, but there is a definite sense of fulfillment in what we do.
A couple of post that I have written explain this in further detail. Hopefully they will help Travis to reconsider -- or at least give him a more balanced view, or maybe they will help someone else. The first is about why I never talk anyone out of adopting,
This post explains why each day I get up again the next. It's something I wrote to conclude a conference called "Tomorrow" And the last is why I'd do it again if I had the choice.
Yeah, the process can be a nightmare. And sometimes there are nightmares involved in parenting tough kids. But the truth is, there are kids out there that need parents. One or two or a few of them might need YOU. And so we trudge through it all because it is worth it.
17 comments:
This is actually Travis' wife posting on our shared account. I did reply to your post via email, but would like to say that it's not that we are horrible people for rethinking... we were just fooled into thinking that this was about taking in a child and making them part of your family and loving them and them wanting that too. After reading your other blog, especially the comments left there, and listening to the SW at our meeting tonight it just seems more like something that is basically hopeless not just difficult. If we managed to get a child, we would have to either take one that was 16+, had severe physical problems or severe mental dysfunction. They told us that only 4% of adoptions are made by non-foster families and that as an adoptive family you are really only ever going to get the kids that even the foster families can't deal with. We are so easy going and have such a calm homelife, I don't think that I could handle someone who will chop my dog into little pieces or smear poop on the walls. (which are examples that were discussed)
When I was married to my first husband we had custody of his two sons and the oldest would vomit any time any where if he didn't get his way. It ruined all of our friendships, several family relationships, our relationship, my mental well being and the life of his younger brother. it was an all day every day thing, he'd wait till everyone had their plates at holiday dinners and let it spew if he couldn't just eat pie. I lived a nightmare for close to 7 years. I am really confused as to how giving a child a new home and people to terrorize is considered helping them out. We would LOVE to help a child who needs a home, but I can't do that, especially when my husband DOES deploy now and then and would leave me home alone for months with what will most likely be a violent child.
I was under the impression that you were taking in children who wanted to be loved, wanted to belong to a family and wanted a somewhat normal life. From what we've been told and what I've read it's the opposite, they just need someone to provide material support for their mayhem. I'm not meaning to make this sound insulting in any way, but this is how it really appears. I know they have reasons for acting the ways they do so I'm not saying they are to blame but that is what it is. I could jump through hoops for a disapproving SW who will scrutinize my every word to Maybe take in a child who will hate me for trying to love them and treat me like dirt while destroying my home and relationships. I guess I'm just not seeing where there can possibly be an "it was worth it" moment in there. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't understand how years of hell were made worth it because you handed an adult monitary support.
I know you say it doesn't matter how it ruins the adoptive parents life or whatever and it makes me wonder how can you be an effective parent if you are always in tears and on the verge of a nervous breakdown or worse a divorce? It might be about the kids exclusively, but how is that better for the kids than where they are at? A psychotic child will be miserable anywhere and it's come to the point where I'm unsure. I'm unsure that taking in one of these children would in any way be us doing something in their best interest. Does that make any sense? What is the difference between a foster home where they hate everything and are indifferent to everyone, and an adoptive home where they hate everythig and are indifferent to everyone?
Hey Travis wife....
I guess to answer your last question: What is the difference between a foster home where they hate everything and are indifferent to everyone, and an adoptive home where they hate everythig and are indifferent to everyone?
The difference is what happens after adulthood for a child. The kids need parents as an adult.
And I don't think that this part is accurate -- a least for me.
"I know you say it doesn't matter how it ruins the adoptive parents life or whatever and it makes me wonder how can you be an effective parent if you are always in tears and on the verge of a nervous breakdown or worse a divorce?"
I feel that my life has been enhanced, not ruined, I'm not often in tears, and our marriage is stronger than ever.
But I certainly agree that if this is how you view the experience it probably isn't for you.
Anyone else have comments to share?
It's not for everyone. I think some people have the personality for it and some don't. Just like some people are good at math, or music, or painting...some people are good at dealing with kids with traumatic backgrounds. I think it causes so much pain to give damaged kids to people who aren't willing or able to go to hell and back.
This is something that was (and is) helpful to me as an adoptive parent. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-306211141837494846#
Adoption is trauma, whether adopted at birth or later as an older child. Fact of the matter - they wouldn't need a loving family if their original family was stable. We adopted our girls at 7 years old, it is different than having a bio child of your own - of course it is! My biggest fear and frustration with some preadoptive families is the notion that they will find the perfect child to complete their family. If we had been able to have bio children, there would have been no guarantees that life would have been simple and easy and perfect. Come on folks, we all know bio families that are dealing with similar issues if not worse issues than our adopted children, with no excuses as to the why's. My girls are my girls, I don't introduce them as my adopted daughters, they are my daughters - period, the good the bad the wonderful the scary all wrapped in one. If you are comtemplating adoption to create a family - you owe these children at least that much. Yes adoptive children come with trauma and often with other mental and physical disorders - if your heart is in the right place, these too can be overcome, there is no quick fix so make the committment to stay for the long haul before you start. There is support for adoptive families, other families that can lessen the frustration as you travel roads unknown. If your not committed to make it work - why should the child commit themselves to yet another person who will fail them?
my 10 cents
God will not give you more than you can handle. Not everyone is called to adopt. If you are not willing to be uncomfortable - then you shouldn't adopt - please don't even consider it. If you aren't willing to be uncomfortable - there are a lot of things you shouldn't do in life.
My husband and I went through the exact same process as Travis and his wife. We were scared out of our mind and almost gave up on at least 2 separate occasions. We literally feel like God brought our boys right to us. The visitation and transition were taxing - it was during that time where we reconsidered what we were doing and whether or not we would be able to parent these kids. Trauma sucks - loss sucks - kids going through all of that sucks even more.
We are finalizing the adoption this month. I can't imagine my life without my boys. I can't imagine my marriage without my boys. Was it and is it tough? FOR SURE. Will it continue to be tough? FOR SURE. Is it worth it? FOR SURE. We will adopt from the foster care system again.
It's worth it every time I see one of them learning to cope in a new, more healthy way. It's worth it every time I see them learn something new at school because before adoption, their minds were too focused on SURVIVING and learning took a back seat. It's worth it every time I see that GENUINE smile on their faces - because I know they are feeling loved which, in turn, makes me feel loved. It's worth it every time we have to deal with a tantrum and watch our son be able to calm himself down in the middle of it (something he was incapable of doing before). It's worth getting woken up 6-8 times during the night (every night) by a child who just wants to make sure that we are still there for him - making sure we didn't leave him in the middle of the night. It's worth ALL the pain, anguish, love, hope and loss. CHILDREN are worth it!
Kids are resilient - you wouldn't believe how far stability and love will go. But all the stability and love in the world will not cure some of the things these kids have been through - both my boys have FAS - that is brain damage that could have been prevented - and brain damage that will NEVER be cured. That means we have to deal with behaviors that our boys just cannot control - it's a whole new way of thinking - it's a whole new way of living.
To think that we had second thoughts about adopting our sons because of what they have been through - and what those experiences did to them (none of it their fault at all) - makes me ill - physically sick.
Adoption is not hopeless - it is FULL of hope. CHILDREN ARE WORTH IT.
MY life has more meaning now that we have adopted. MY life has been made better by 2 children full of "issues." MY life is now fuller, richer, happier, harder, crazier, and more full of joy than I ever thought possible.
The difference between the foster home and an adoptive home is FOREVER - it's STABILITY - it's the realization that they have a FAMILY that will NEVER leave them in an adoptive home. Foster care by definition is TEMPORARY CARE.
Children are worth it.
I'm a mother of 18 children 6 birth children and 12 adopted children from foster care. My husband and I adopted sibling groups and when we brought home our first group of 5 children ages 4 through 9 we had our hands full. We delt with things that we never expected but after a few months of thinking what did we do we found life taking a turn for the better. We have had these 5 children for about 4 years now and I have seen such wonderful things come out of these kids. I have teachers say that these children are the best success story that they have ever seen. They have watched them grow, learn and see them succeed and many ways. I can't say that we don't run into problems along the way but I run into problems just as much as I do with my birth children but the rewards that these kids have given me AWAYS makes me forget the bad times. My 13 year old son has to work hard to make it in school but with our encouragement and the teachers looking out for him he has something to work for. He has a major future in sports and I believe if he didn't have all of us to encourage him to work hard in school and mentor him in his everyday living he would never have that chance to make it in his gifts because he would be in the gangs and giving up his dreams because no one every believed in him. I think giving him a family that loves him is doing this for him. He makes all the hard times worth it.
We went on to adopt more children after seeing that we can really make a difference for these kids. I won't lie I do have days that I wonder why but man I don't even remember those days after several days go by when the days are so good. I have another boy that is 14 and has many many emotional problems and autistic. I wanted to stop adopting after we adopted him and his siblings because his behaviors were so hard on us. Now I look at him and watch him smile and having a good time and watch him succeed in his sports. I went to a wrestling meet he had this week and I watched him win all three of his matches and after everyone he looked up in the stands at me looking for me to give him the thumbs up. He loves that we are watching him doing good or just being there for him. He wouldn't get that sitting in foster care. When he came home to us he had never had a chance to do any sports and now he is the star in all that he does.
I could go on with all the success stories and write a book but that would take to long.
The point is that if you can get through the hard times most of the time the good times will always be more than the hard times.
I adopted children out of my state and I wasn't a foster parent at the time. I have done foster care but when I decided to adopt I dropped my licence.
Depending on the agency you work with you can get children that are under 16 but I will say the older children can be better than the younger children at times. The oldest child that we adopted was 13 and the youngest was 3.
If you really think you could give someone a loving home then don't give up on it. I never thought I could love a non birth child. I was just sick of watching all my foster children going home to families that haden't changed and felt like we didn't make a difference. So we decided why not look for children that we knew never would go home and make a differnce in their lives.
I don't claim to be perfect as a parent and I don't even know myself how we do it but it works and I am so humbled that these children have allowed us to parent them and love us.
HI Travis's wife!
I don't think that you are a horrible person for rethinking, I think you are wise. You have some experience living with a traumatized child who traumatized you and everyone around him, that is a big deal.
There are kids who want homes and work hard at having them but that doesn't mean that they are bringing trauma of some kind with them. They usually will.
I have four kids, two oldest here from birth and the two youngest here from ages 7 and 10 (now almost 12 and 15).
Where we live in Canada we had to be very clear about what behaviours we felt we could handle from the outset - I knew it would break us to have kids that hurt animals, set fires or ran away a lot. So automatically we weren't even shown kids or groups who had those predominate issues.
That helped us, a lot.
So did having good therapy from the get go. It was easy to find a therapist for my youngest daughter, not so easy for my son but we made a good connection for him in the last little while and that is a wonderful thing during these tough teenage years.
Where I live, at least at the time we adopted, my province was very dedicated to ensuring that adoptions lasted and didn't disrupt - so the training available was very honest and clear and there are relatively good services, called supports for permanency that really help.
Going in with your eyes open is a very good thing and harder to have fear about things.
Taking your time when and if you are actually matched with kid(s) and doing the extra homework - we talked to their foster parents, their teachers, their family doctor etc. and had them evaluated as much as possible to see what they would need and if we could provide it - that helped too.
All my kids are a lot of work at different times and teenage hood has been the hardest time for me with three of them so far -
I wouldn't go back though. All my kids are my kids.
It isn't an easy road but as you already know from your ex-husband's kids there are no guarantees about that no matter where a child comes from.
That doesn't mean it is the right choice for you, just that if you end up taking it, you are allowed to take it slow and you are allowed to learn as much as you can about the child(ren) that you are potentially matched too.
BTW we didn't have more kids for any other reason than that we wanted to have more kids and adoption was to us, as valid a way to do it as any other.
So - no religious reason, no charitable reason, no taking in a child because we are good people.
Nope, I am a flawed human, I did it for the selfish reason that I wanted more kids and I wanted them to be mine. Thank goodness I never expected any of the 4 of them to be grateful to me for that kind of thing :). I'd be waiting a long time!
I don't have time and haven't given enough thought to answer fully, but perhaps these two links will help. They're our story.
http://www.attachmentandintegrationmethods.com/about/historypart1/
http://www.attachmentandintegrationmethods.com/about/historypart2/
We have two bio & four adopted. Honestly, life was hell for quite a while - but we lacked the tools and support we needed. If we'd known then what we know now... things would've been a lot different. Even so, things are mostly good now. This year I will write the most positive Christmas letter to family and friends that I've written in close to a decade. :-)
We HAVE made a difference in our children's lives. They ARE our family, and we ARE their family. And we're all still kickin'. (BTW, we got lots of problems, but ~no~ feces smearing, ~no~ violence against pets, and actually, only one occasionally violent child out of four, with no major injuries to anyone to show for it.
No condemnation from me if you decide against. :-)
Something you might think about, if you're uncertain, is to get as much training and exposure as you can write now, and maybe find a church with an "orphan ministry" or an adoption support group and make yourselves available as respite parents. What a godsend that would be for parents who have adopted! And, good experience to help you make a decision.
You might also consider looking at children with medical special needs but fewer emotional special needs - we weren't interested in that, but looking back, I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier!
Kathleen
Hey Travis' wife,
Every child adopted is different. I have been an adoptive mother for almost 30 years. There are a lot of kids under 16 waiting for a home. There are moments of tears and times of thinking you can't possibly handle anymore. You go through them and they pass. There are also moments of pure joy. You savor them and save the feeling.
Some adoptions don't work out because the children were put in a home that is not able to meet their needs. Most adoptions succeed, because it IS about the kids.
If you are having doubts about adopting, this is the time to look at the doubts and the information they can give you.
Adoption inevitably WILL change you. And if you are afraid of change or are not certain who you are now, then adoption probably isn't for you, at least right now.
Incidentally, psychotic children are NOT miserable where ever they are. My 7 year old daughter has psychotic breaks, secondary to Bipolar Disorder. She is also on the Fetal Alcohol Disorder Spectrum and the Autistic Disorder Spectrum. Even so, she is a delight to be with 90% of the time. The other 10%, she can be kept safe by us, after lots and lots of education and finding the right supports.
If you want a calm home life, you should rethink having children... although it sounds awful boring to me.
GB's Mom
Our adoption process from foster care was not easy and many times, we were ready to give up. We could not figure out who to request that they needed a new marketing plan and to stop pitching the sob story that there are all these children in foster care that need to be adopted! On many occasions, we were made to feel as though the agency was doing us a favor by letting us adopt from the foster care system! It took over a year for our home-study to be completed (our social worker’s apathy did nothing to help speed things up a little)!. The day we signed up for international adoption with a different agency was the day we got the referral for our then 11 month old twins! I am not sure which State you are in, but in my State, once the home-study was completed, suddenly we were getting all these referrals. The twins are such a joy and I know that the difficulty of the waiting period prepared me to fight to get them services (both have developmental delays). I am their greatest advocate and though they are still pretty young, I do not expect any gratitude from them later in life (any more than I expect my bio child to be grateful to us for making all the sacrifices required of us as parents). We did learn about the worst case scenarios – I think the benefit of that is to ask yourself if you would still be willing to commit to a child with these challenges (though you do have some say in the home-study process and the referral process about the challenges you are willing to accept). I think it is an unfair burden for a child to be expected to feel gratitude because someone chose to parent them, yet that choice arose out of unimaginable loss for the child. Empathizing with the child’s sense of loss may help remove the need to have the child be grateful for the sacrifices you make. And if it does not, then it is better to get a pet! It is good to educate oneself on challenges parents face with adoption issues, but sometimes if you are there too long, you may get a lopsided view of adoption. My children are as well adjusted as they can be, and don’t have any of the challenges you mentioned (not to say these are not real, but that is not always the reality for every adopted child). Of course as they get older and understand more of what they have lost, we will have more challenges. But for today, I take joy in where we are and do not allow myself to get paralyzed by potential problems we may experience down the line.
Blessings
Honestly, I think people should be talked out of adoption.
I think that it's absolutely wrong for anyone to lead an adoptive family down the rosy path, claiming that everything is going to be great in the end. Yes, it is about the kids, but I think people deserve to know what they might be taking on.
If people know about feces smearing, temper tantrums, FASD, and the possibility that their new son might kill the dog or set fire to the house, and they still want to adopt, then they are honestly prepared and willing to take on the burden.
I think that the idea that G-d won't give a family a burden too heavy to bear is silly. I think adoptive parents need to come into the process completely forewarned so that they can make an informed and wise decision. We should pray as if everything depends on G-d, but act as if everything depends on us.
Not everyone is cut out for the role of adoptive parent. Even though the need is great, I think it's better for a kid not to get a home than to be placed somewhere unprepared and unable to be successful.
I won't get too deep into this discussion at this point, but I do want to clarify that while I would never talk someone out of adopting, I am ALWAYS honest about how hard it is. I don't think that my blog paints a rosy picture -- it paints a realistic one -- and when I train families I tell them that it will be awfully, awfully hard.
Maybe some of my readers disagree.... but I don't think I have ever sugar coated anything. I just try to maintain a balance.
I completely agree that not everyone is cut out for this life. There are many people who probably can't adopt.
And I also agree that the system does not do a very good job of supporting families once they do.
But I still try to think about the kids and I still believe that kids grow up better in permanent families.
I sent a message on yahoo to Travis/his wife. I sincerely hope to hear from you. It's not time to give in yet! There is so much more, so much! Please send me a message so we can talk! lyttlethingsmttr on yahoo messenger or @gmail.com
The Process May be a Testing Ground
I have often thought & said this. As tough as it is to adopt from foster care, I think it does prepare us for what comes after the adoption has occurred.
Angela :-)
We are in a hard place right now with our 15 year old adopted son. He is FAS and has an IQ under 50 which qualifies him for Moderately Mentally Handicapped status. He is also schizophrenic. It is hard. Life is not what I envisioned.
But his life is better. And that's all that counts for me. I believe all the things I have sacrificed is for a reason and even though it is supremely hard it is worth it. I am a better person for having him in my life and so are my bio kids.
Life in an institution or in a group home would be a death sentence for him and there is not much else for him, so we trudge on.
Even after all we have seen, I would not make a different choice.
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