Let me ’splain …..

It hasn’t been the best week. Monday was court and a sideways day for the kids at home. Tuesday the full weight of my youngest son’s emotional problems as well as his legal problems hit me square on. Yesterday I was hit full on with whatever virus is currently circulating and I found out that youngest has managed to get himself on lock-down, and my other thirteen year old was still sideways. Today I am feeling functionally better and was told that a close family member once again asked why we can’t just undo the adoption of youngest.
This isn’t the first time someone has suggested we just give our son back as if he were a defective piece of merchandise. I am a bit more forgiving when it is those who are acquainted with us superficially. It hurts deeply when it is family. It hurts very deeply. It also makes me angry.
I understand there are times when dissolving/disrupting an adoption is the only way to get a deeply disturbed child the help they need,or is the only way to keep other family member safe. It is a heart wrenching decision that has a multitude of ramifications and is rarely done lightly. I am not in any way,shape or form judging those who have had to make such a difficult decision.
To “give my son back” would mean abandoning him to the state with all of the legal ramification of abandoning a birth child.
My son is a child. He is not a puppy or a microwave oven. He is a human child who has been horribly abused and neglected. The fact that he is more disturbed than we were led to believe is moot at this point.
His father and I stood before the judge and swore to care for him just as if I had given birth to him. More to the point, we are responsible before God to this child. You don’t give a child born to you back because he is not what you intended when he was conceived.
God called us to love this son. God placed him in our home,under our care just as he did each of our other children. God is not a respecter of persons. He does not value our son’s soul less because he isn’t Caucasian. He does not judge our son because his birth parents did not care for him as the blessing he was meant to be.
God loves him no less than he loves the person who respects my son (and us) so little.
All of us who claim Christ as savior have been adopted. None of us (unless we have been born Jews) are God’s chosen people. It is through the miracle of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection that we have the honor (not based on works which we have done,our works are as nothing) to be called Sons and Daughters of God.
If we “give back” our youngest son,what are we teaching our children and grandchildren about love, family and commitment? How are we showing Christ to our children and grandchildren-especially youngest son? Is not his soul less precious to God because he is a product of adult’s abuse?
If we grieve because our son cannot acknowledge our love, freely given,how much more does his Father in Heaven grieve?
Each of us who truely follow Christ Jesus have been given a calling-a job if you will. Some are called to the deep,dark places of the world. Some teach. Some lead.
Some of us are called to love children. Some of us are called to simply give a child a home and do our best to help them heal from the evil inflicted upon them. Ours is a fallen,evil world. Not all of the children we love and sacrifice for will become instantly whole. My son may never be able to love. He may, in fact, continue the cycle of abuse he was born into. That doesn’t make us love him less. It doesn’t make him less worthy of our love. God did not call us to heal our children. He did not call us to make our children Christians. He called us to love them and to teach them about Him. He calls us to be obedient to Him. He does not say we will see success.
My youngest son is a child of God. He is loved by God. God has not rejected him. My son may reject God. He may also turn to Him tomorrow,or in twenty years or on his death bed.
Our son may continue to reject us. Of course that hurts. Our son’s rejection of our love,or his acceptance of
our love, isn’t the point. Whether or not he is a “financial liability” (and what child isn’t) is not the point.
Whether or not he is in our home is not the point.
The point is he is our responsibility.
The point is he is our son.
The point is we love him.

God has asked us to love this child. God has given us the ability to love this child. He did not tell us it would be easy. In fact,he told us the opposite.
Now do you understand?

so much for being strong

I handle the big things OK. I have listened to some pretty horrible things from small children’s lips and kept it together. I did fine in court yesterday. I did well during my visit with youngest yesterday. I didn’t leave when he cussed,or yelled at me. I did raise my voice when he justified stabbing the boy with the pencil by telling me the boy was “messed up and annoying” I did ask him if I should stab him whenever I felt he was annoying.He didn’t see the connection. I told him again that we wanted him to come home. He was loved. etc.etc. I rubbed his back. I did my best. The poor kid is so messed up. He was surprised he would be on a locked unit at residential. He was surprised he would be shadowed 24-7 for the first month there. He was surprised he would sill have to go to school. He was surprised he would be expected to follow the rules. I reminded him all this was explained to him. I reminded him I explained it all to him.
“I don’t listen to you” he told me. “I listen to people who don’t have to look things up on the computer”
He was under the impression all he was going to have was therapy a few times a week and the rest of his time was going to be free.
He was also upset to know he will have to go back in front of the judge to have his record expunged when he is 18. He told me that was “messed up” and ” I’m not wasting my money on no lawyer just for that.” The fact he will not be able to get a job,rent an apartment,join the military or get financial aid for college with the felony on his record is not sinking in.
It was,all in all not a very good visit.
My son cannot be admitted into residential until he has his dental exam. His last one is over a year old. He should have had one last spring,but he was too unstable and was then incarcerated. I had planned on getting it done when he came home. But he isn’t coming home.
To get his teeth checked he will be in leg irons and have a armed guard. I asked they take him to Castle and not our dentist. Our dentist office is not used to kids in leg irons with armed escorts. My other kids would be embarrassed forever.
That is what put me over the edge.
My son, my thirteen year old son (who looks ten on a good day) is going to be taken to the dentist in leg irons. I think about it and it is all I can do not to weep. I take that back. I am crying. The reality of where my son is and is going has hit me full force. Every bit of grief is back. All the feelings of failing this child,all the feelings of not being who he needed are bubbling up. My head may know this isn’t my failure. My heart says differently.
My son is going to be going to the dentist in leg irons and an armed guard.
And there is nothing I can do to make it better.
In fact, I seem to be the one who makes things worse. Just by being a mom. Just by being his mom

I want my son to be well.

He’s going to residential in the morning

Court for youngest was this morning. He is being sent to the only residential treatment center in our very large state that would take him. I have heard very very bad things and very good things about this facility.I am praying it is the good things that are true. It isn’t as if we have the slightest bit of control over any of this.
My son almost had new charges pressed on him last night. He stabbed another boy in the leg with his pencil over a board game. I was told they knew he was about to be moved and didn’t want to jeopardize that by pressing new charges. I don’t know if that is true or not. I do know stabbing someone with whatever is nearby is not a good thing. What if he would have had a fork,or a knife-or a gun? I do not pretend to understand the reasoning of my youngest son.
He had attitude in front of the judge. The judge interpreted his mumbling as being nervous and ignored his steely eyes. He was told point blank if he appeared before the judge again he was going to the correctional facility. My son smiled as he left court. He smiled. He should have been crying.
My thirteen year old here at the house is back to playing games with his school. He just pretends he has completed something and then cries when I ask to see it. When you have the beginnings of a mustache, the tears just don’t have the same effect they did when you were six. My seventeen year old son is still on his first subject-and it is after noon. We start school between eight and eight-thirty.
This is going to be a very long day.

hitting the reset button,court and costumed cousins

I think we have finally found the kid’s reset button. On Friday we went hiking and the kids finally relaxed. My thirteen year old was glued to his dad. There is just something about being outdoors that helps reorganize them-and us. It was a beautiful day. I forgot my camera; which really doesn’t matter as I still haven’t found my camera cord. We went to Walmart afterwards so the older teens could purchase shirts for work. Walmart undid the hike. I haven’t seen them that stressed out by a public place in a few years. It was way too much stimulation for them to handle. To undo Walmart, we went to a new (very small) organic food store in town which for some reason they really like. We then browsed Half Price which they also enjoy quite a bit.
When we returned to the house we grilled beef fajitas.
It was the food that finally motivated the boys to finish their school work (the work they have been refusing to do for weeks now). When my thirteen year old was young,he would lie quite often. If you asked him if he was lying,he would tell you, yes. He was a very honest,dishonest child. One of the carrots we used to encourage him to tell the truth was our family favorite-peanut butter sandwich for dinner AKA The Choker.My son would check with me about an hour before supper to see what I was fixing. If it was something he really liked,he would come clean. I would say things like;”Well,those who don’t lie to their mother are having fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Those who lie to their mother are having a choker and a glass of water. Do you have anything to tell me?” He would always tell me “No” and then come back to me about ten minutes later after thinking about fried chicken vs. peanut butter and come clean.
It was the same response this weekend. That boy cracks me up. Talk about being ruled by your stomach…
Because they were finally working, I allowed them to finish and then eat the good food. Normally they would have had until supper and then had yet another yummy peanut butter sandwich and an early bedtime.
To prove what a sap I am, I also allowed the boys to go to their party and give me the labor they earned this afternoon. To their credit,they did not ask to go. They were willing to take their earned consequences without complaint. I think it was that, added to the fact both boys need to be with kids their own age, that made me decide to let them go. The party was well chaperoned, so I could drop them off without worry.
All I know is the kids are much lighter in spirit now.
For that I am grateful.
Tomorrow is court for youngest. His court appointed lawyer has never returned phone calls or e-mail. I am beyond irritated. My son’s councilor did get back to me and told me it looks like the facility that has accepted my son is clean and there are no major complaints or violations at this time. Our county toured it and they were “impressed”. I am somewhat comforted. I have been around the block enough to know that there can still be problems. At least the county is taking my concerns seriousely and checked more thorough than they normally would have. I am very impressed by our county for the most part. Many have gone above and beyond to try and find help for my son. It is beyond ironic that it is the judicial system that is turning cartwheels to get him help. It is not mental health. It is not out states post-adopt services. It is the judicial system. Because the lawyer hasn’t returned any calls, I am not sure if he will be moved or not tomorrow. I hate,hate,hate flying blind like this.

Here is a picture of my grand-babies last night before they went trick-or-treating. (My son said that people were very stingy with their candy this year. He felt so bad at the kids lack of candy,he stopped at the store and bought them some chocolate. He’s a bigger sap than I am.)
You can tell they’re cousins.

three for three… or is it four for four?

This morning I went to iron my only pair of khaki’s. The first thing I see is that the iron was plugged in and on. (I am very grateful for automatic shut-off). I start to iron my pants and notice something brown and sticky being left on my pants. I turn the iron over and it is -brown and sticky. Thinking to flush out what ever the kids had gotten on the iron I took the glass of water we use to fill the iron and filled the iron. It wasn’t water. It was oily. It was vegetable oil and water mixed together. Vegetable oil and water will make your iron turn brown and sticky and will not be kind to your clothing. My pants are now ruined and I am not sure I can save the iron.
The question “Why?” comes to mind. The response from my teen aged children when asked was to glare and stop speaking to me. Sigh

I don’t know if it is the change in the weather,or the phase of the moon,or hormones. I do know that all three kids at home are full of attitude. They are not being the most pleasant of companions today. The boys still have not finished their work that should have been done almost two weeks ago now. At least their sister is doing her school work. She is also working out of her mad faster than her brothers. The seventeen year old is wanting from time to time to work out of his mad,but catches himself. My thirteen year old does what his brother does. No independent thoughts there. My boys are throwing a very long,drawn out,silent hissy fit over their school. Their refusal to speak to me is getting kind of old. We have been playing this game since last Thursday. I may resort to moving rocks and other meaningless physical work soon. After all, if you don’t graduate high school you are pretty limited as to job opportunities. Manual labor might be you best shot at paying the bills. I have no problem giving them practice so they can be the best meaningless manual laborers they can be.
I partially think my problem is how slack I’ve been with instant consequences. I have been wanting them to self regulate. I also have a fair amount of guilt over the chaos of the last year and am overcompensating somewhat in the grace department. They are showing me I need to parent them much,much younger than I have been. It is hard to parent a seventeen year old like he is ten. I feel like a smother mother. Any other teen age boy would be rebelling like crazy with the reigns that tight. This son is rebelling because I have loosened his too much. Some times you can’t win.

Youngest son has been pleasant to us and racking up the incidents over stupid things for the folks in detention. I suppose he has to be ugly somewhere. When he was ugly to us, he was an angel for the staff. If he is nice to us, he is ugly for the staff. It makes no sense to most folks to refuse to fasten the Velcro on your tennis shoes. Somehow it makes sense to him. The hardest part when he is pleasant,you can see the person he could be. He is a joy to be around then. All the hope comes back. Hope he can come home. Hope he will settle in. Hope he will heal. I understand why those who only know his casually are smitten with him. I understand why they don’t believe in his dark side. I have trouble remembering just how ugly he can get. I want to forget,to tell the truth. Who wants their son to be so messed up killing people is justified in his mind?
If he were ugly all the time I wouldn’t be as afraid for his future. His ability to charm and then turn on those who care for him is much more frightening that simply indiscriminate rage. I have no answers.

Of the four kids attitudes and behaviors, I will take the older three’s scowling and stubborn refusal to do their school work over charm vacillating with violence. Eventually they will work themselves out of it. When they do, they will do their consequences and move on. They may have trouble with cause and effect, but they do get it in time (kind-of,sort-of). At least they try.

why having an advanced degree doesn’t prevent you from being an idiot

If you are a professional in the mental health field and want me to trust you, I will give you a little hint.
Tell me you are in over your head. I understand that. Tell me you have never dealt with a child who has been as damaged as my child, but you are researching like crazy to find things that might help. You can even ask me what has worked-or not worked-in the past. I will respect you for your honesty. I will feel as if we are a team in the attempt to help my child. I will feel I can speak freely to you. I will trust you.
I will tell you what not to do as well.
Do not tell me my child would be well if only we (the ones who adopted him,not the ones who abused him) would parent him the way you tell us to. Do not tell me there is nothing wrong with my son having a first degree felonious assault charge.Do not say my son would not have really hurt me.The police over reacted. We over reacted. We can ignore all the little attempts to hurt me since then. Do not tell me his revenge list isn’t actually a list of people he wants to kill-even though my son freely admits that is what it is. Do not tell me that my fear of increasing institutionalizing of my son with RAD is not important. Do not tell me that facilities that have serious abuse charges against them are safe because someone in CPS said they are.
Do not talk to me in a condescending manner and tell me outright lies. If they are not lies, and you believe these to be facts, then you are even more incompetent than I was led to believe.
Do not,I repeat,do not tell my son that the juvenile correction facility in our state is a good place to go and some children even prefer it to their own family. Have you no sense whatsoever??????
I have this fantasy where I find a professional not only cares about my child, but is experienced as well.
In my fantasy this professional type person will have successfully helped hundreds,or even dozens or even one kid like mine. I will not have to watch them reinvent the wheel. I will not be more experienced than they. They will respect our entire family unit. They will understand that while we are upset over the behaviors of our child,we do in fact love him fiercely. They will understand that we are not the ones who hurt him;we are the ones trying to pick up the pieces of his life.They will see themselves in partnership with us; not in competition with us. They will want my child to succeed so he can have a productive life,not so they can write a best seller.
It is a nice fantasy.

rain and another day schooling the fas brain

Yesterday the weather was sunny and almost hot (80 or so for you Yankees-you know who you are dad).
Today it is in the low fifties (feels like forties according to Weather.com) and raining. I am freezing. (quit laughing at me dad!) The kids are not having an academically on day.All three are varying degrees of sideways. My thirteen year old is confusing his mathematical operations. He is setting up an addition problem and then multiplying it. He is trying to find out how much time has past from 9AM to 11AM and is coming up with 2AM. The other two aren’t doing much better. At least my daughter doesn’t have attitude to go along with a hard-to-think day. Her brothers however, are blaming me for kicking back their work and trying to explain the correct way to do it. Of course,they are both still mad they are not going to the Halloween party next Saturday. Neither of them finished their work from last week-even though they had three days to do it. My youngest refused to break his work down into manageable bites. Instead he insisted on spending most of his time running in circles. His brother handed me a paper he,himself admitted he would kick back if he were I.
Sigh.
We have days, weeks, occasionally months where they seem to tool along without problems.Sometimes we have days,weeks,months where their brains freeze up, but they push through allowing me to help them. They allow me to be their external brain so to speak. Then there are days like today. Not only are their brains shorting out, but their attitudes are in the toilet. It isn’t they who have the problem. I am the problem for pointing out they have a problem. It isn’t that the math answer makes no sense whatsoever. It is me for pointing out they have a wrong answer that gets their knickers in a twist. Please don’t think they are embarrassed. I don’t do anything that would bring shame. They are simply stuck. Reality doesn’t play into it.
My prayer for this group of teens is they will one day have their own system for external accountability. I want them to recognize they are having a “hard to think” day and have a contingency plan is place-like not being afraid to say “I don’t understand” or simply looking up how to do something they knew how to do the day before. I think my daughter is about seventy-five percent there. She is no longer arrogant in her ignorance. My sons,however, are about fifty percent there. I know it must be frustrating to them to lose stuff in their own brains. Their dad and I have been working for years to help them find face saving ways to compensate.
We cannot undo the damage to their brains. We can help them learn to navigate around the damage to minimize it’s effect on their lives.
I think it is because they have come so far,that days like these are harder for me to see. I want the damage to be gone. Erased. Never to have existed to begin with. Off days,FAS days, sideways days like today remind me the damage remains.
I prefer denial.

what were we thinking revisited

My husband read my blog the other day.
“You know what we were thinking,” he told me. “We wanted to help. We saw a child who needed us. We thought we could help.”
Maybe we still can. I don’t know. We are looking at this from the middle. It is hard to have perspective on the size of the forest when you can’t see through the trees. Only God know the ending from the beginning.
Years ago my oldest son was giving us fits. He was angry,oppositional and not always rational. At the time I was despairing over his future. It seemed he was going to succumb to his demons and let his anger rule him. There was a year when all his decisions were one hundred and eighty degrees from the way he had been raised.
Today his son and daughter ran to me to give me hugs and kisses. Now in his mid twenties,he is the man he was raised to be. His demons are silenced. He has goals. He loves his wife and children. Not that he won’t still wind me up, just to see what I will say. He will. He still teases his sisters;occasionally to the point of distraction. His anger is mostly gone. His abuse no longer dictates his life.
I hang on to that when I struggle with youngest. I am a realist. Youngest cannot love at this point. The ability to love was never removed from my oldest son. My oldest knew Christ from an early age. Youngest still hates Christ. But still……
As to future adoptions…
Kids are kind of what we do.
We are not a fifties TV family. We certainly are not the Duggers. We just do the best we can and love our kids. When asked why we would add older traumatized children-especially after dealing with youngest-our answer is the same as it has always been. Someone needs to love these kids,to give them a stable base from which to heal. It is kind of what we do. Besides,we like kids. Most of the time. Do you know how bored we would be,my husband and I,if our nest was empty?
On Monday I will see what we need to reactivate our license. We will do what we need to do and then take it from there. One step at a time. If we still have children waiting, we pray God make that very evident. If we are through,we pray God make that evident as well.

gotta love fas-or perhaps not

Do you remember those good kids I have been writing about? The three I could parent another half dozen just like them?
Well the little angels have been scamming on their school work. My nearly eighteen year old daughter had enough sense to kick herself in high gear and complete her writing assignments. (one of which was quite good-not her normal) Both boys however decided it was in their best interest to not only not do their work ,but to blame me for calling them on it. I have now served peanut butter three times in the last twenty-four hours. My thirteen year old is finally over his mad and talking to me. He is also doing the work he was supposed to have finished a week ago. my seventeen year old son is refusing to do anything. Both boys missed karate last night. If their work isn’t caught up by Sunday at bedtime they will be missing their Halloween party.Not only will they miss the party (neither boy cares enough for this to be a big carrot) they will be doing manual labor the entire time they would have been having fun. (cleaning baseboards and mucking out the fridge does happen to be a big stick).
All of the kids have work I check daily. The teens have assignments that are do weekly as well. At the beginning of the week I sit down with them and make sure they understand what they are to be doing. I help them break down the tasks into daily increments and check back when the week is up. This is the first year my thirteen year old has had any independent work. He has a syllabus that breaks his assignments down daily. All he has to do is follow it. I also check with him weekly. unfortunately I forgot to check the kids’ work
This Monday. Something about being in court with youngest distracted me.
It isn’t their inability to work independently that concerns me;although that is a concern with the older two. It is the lack of remorse and misplaced anger that is the concern. I am used to grudge holding for imajined slights. It has been a couple of years since my seventeen year old has flat out refused to do his school. His brother is simply copying him. In years past all three would still be staring blankly at me. This year my daughter took responsibility for her lack of action and did her work.
It is after eight at night and my seventeen year old son has yet to give me two paragraphs. He just stares at me. He talks to me only when forced to. He has spent the entire day staring at a piece of paper. This is of course my fault.
In case you think I am hard on my kids,they have always been allowed to tell me they are having a brain glitch day. They can ask for help. They are encouraged to say “I don’t understand”. They can ask for a break,or to come back to something later. They are not allowed to lie to me and say they have done their work. They are not allowed to just stare at me when I ask them a question. I am thankful they no longer silently cry and let the snot run into their mouths. It took me years to break that one.
In case you think this is normal teen behavior,it isn’t. This is getting stuck and having a difficult time moving forward. If they are to be independent they have to learn how to recognize when they have stuborned onto something and let it go. You can’t give your boss the blank stare or glare at him if he has corrected you. You cannot refuse to correct your mistakes of follow directions at work. Employers don’t like that for some reason.
When they were younger, this was the norm. Up until last year,I would see this a few times a year. This is the first time in a year’s time they have pulled this.
They are checking to see if I am paying attention to them. They are wondering, do I care enough to help them through. Am I going to be consistent? Do I really care? Do I really believe they are capable of doing their school work;or do I think they are too “dumb”.
In truth,I have not been giving them firm enough boundaries. I am going to go back to checking daily on their “independent ” work. I will not leave them alone in the house if I can at all help it. I will parent them a few years younger than they are.
This has been our problem since day one. The kids thrive under firm boundaries and close supervision. If that is eased up at all,they start to flounder. Each year I try and give them a bit more freedom. Sometimes they can handle a bit more. Sometimes they regress. It is a dance.
I think the hardest thing is to see who they could have been if birth mom had stayed sober. On their “on” days they are so sharp. On their “FAS” days,they are not.
It is difficult some days to know where they are. Some days they are age appropriate. some days they are several years younger. Some days they are back and forth between the two.
I could still parent another half dozen just like them though. They are in their hearts,good kids.
If they would just do their blasted school work……

what were we thinking? ……… what are we thinking?

Two years ago,about this time of year (actually November,but close enough) my husband and I were debating whether or not to pursue another adoption. We had just painfully disrupted a pre-adoptive placement. The boy in question was the most sexually reactive person I have ever seen. I have yet to come across a child that reactive in all my reading and research. He was also MR. He was also RAD. He was also hearing voices that told him to hurt people. He could move completely silently. He was eleven. The ironic thing is, he really only raged twice.
As our grief lessoned somewhat, we decided to cautiously move forward towards adoption. It was in that first month of getting children’s profiles (and never hearing again about our inquiries) that we were told about youngest. After N ,we had told ourselves no children older than ten. Eight would be preferable. We didn’t want to have to race the clock with puberty. We wanted time. Well, youngest was eleven. He was a sweet boy in my daughter’s music class. His foster mom worked in the school office. His foster mom was afraid he was going to age out. He was on the photo listing so we saw a picture of a sad smiled,curly headed boy. He looked closer to seven or eight-not a boy entering puberty.He was adorable. The next six months were fighting CPS to bring him home. Our homestudy was rejected-the previous foster-adopt family wanted him back (They had disrupted,we were told,because of the boy’s propensity to pee on things). That was February. In March we were told we were in fact selected. We then started the battle to read his paperwork. It was a battle. All of a sudden his file had to be de-identified prior to us reading it. (policy is de-identification prior to us receiving it. Reading the file in the office of CPS with a worker present has never been an issue) It might be September before the file is ready we were told. To speed the proccess up we rushed our foster licenses. We have always been adopt only. In June we licensed to foster. Now we would be allowed to read the identified file. It was during these months youngest fell apart. He attacked a teacher at school,had a psych hospitalization, and changed foster homes. It was intimated the school had overreacted. In July we had an appointment to read our son’s file. The day before we were told he was looking forward to meeting us. They told him about us before we had agreed to proceed. He was waiting to meet us on the day we drove two hours to read a very incomplete file.This was wrong on may levels. The only behavior we were told about truthfully was his peeing. His rages were downplayed. We were never told the full extent of what CPS knew was his abuse. The rest of the story is here within this blog.
So,why didn’t we disrupt this placement? We could have after the cleaver. Having a child try and hack you is grounds to disrupt. This child raged to the point of restraints many,many times those first few months. Why did we stick by him and not the other boy?
We didn’t disrupt. We doubled and then tripled our efforts to help him settle in. Perhaps it was because we didn’t want to fail another child. We did honestly think we had turned a corner after Thanksgiving. We believed our son had decided to begin to trust us. We consummated the adoption in February. All Hell broke lose four days later.
And here we are.
Like all parents with troubled children,we have dissected nearly every parenting decision we have made. We didn’t enter this last adoption starry-eyed new parents. We have successfully parented eight other children with some pretty hefty issues. We used to be pretty confident in our abilities. It is little comfort that neither the boy we disrupted on (who managed to perp on a five year old while hospitalized),or youngest continue to act out wherever they are. It isn’t any comfort to find out that youngest has been acting this way since he was eight;death threats and all. There just isn’t any comfort.
With this pain and upheaval-for all of us.with the uncertainty of youngest’s future ,why do we wonder if we are done having children? Our family has had two experiences where we were directly and indirectly lied to by CPS. Files were missing on both boys. We have no confidence in our own ability to read between the lines. We do not trust the state to tell us the truth. We have three teens at home with their own adoption and cognitive issues. Is it some pathology in us? Some deep seated guilt? Some twisted need within us?
Or is God still calling us to parent hurt kids?
I look at the three sitting at my dinning room table doing their schoolwork and I think: I could parent six more kids like them. I look at the grown children who were challenges growing up and I think: It was worth all the effort. They have grown up well in-spite of their trauma. I look at youngest and I think: I cannot handle a child this damaged again. I do not have the abilities to parent a child with a bent towards homicide. I simply cannot do it.
Why can I not get excited over being “done”?
Why do I still feel there are a couple more kids out their who are ours?
What on earth are we thinking?