When we adopted Beth after having had so much difficulty with our first two adopted kids, many folks wondered why on earth we had ventured forth yet again. We did try and adopt Beth through the domestic foster care system, even though she was a disrupting international placement, because we were hoping to secure some kind of subsidy to hedge our bet against hemorrhaging money on yet another deeply wounded child. My husband figured we had spent over $40,000 on our first two troubled kids by the time we added Beth. That is a lot of money … and that is just what the insurance DIDN’T pay. We were not successful, though, in running Beth through the system, so we took a leap of faith and added her on our nickel. If you have been reading this blog for any time at all, you know it was one very well spent nickel.


I speak to parents across the country all the time. I have recently been talking to a foster mom whose first placement was a severely RAD boy. (I blogged about them before.) In fact, he’s due to blow out of that home any time. The social worker who came to their home last time asked if it was their first placement, and then apologized for what “the system” had done to her and her family. This mom has articulated that they are done. They are afraid to try again, and who wouldn’t be? Clearly the system does not have their best interests at heart, and how many people would willingly choose to live with a child who disrupts the entire family dynamics as badly as some of these kids manage to do? (Except Cindy Bodie …) If this family had been dealt with properly up front, and supported appropriately along the way, they could have and would have been a wonderful resource and placement for some child who was appropriate for their family, and it would have been a win/win deal. Now it is lose/lose.


So how many of you have been so negatively impacted by kids already in your home that the mere thought of taking on any more is an anathema? How many of you thought you would adopt THIS many but ended up with much fewer because you got one or two that counted for twenty?


How many just want to cut their losses and run? That is what Deb Hannah said to me today … she wrote her book as a means of letting go of that chapter in her life, and she was thinking about how I still deal with this day in and day out, even though my severely attachment-challenged kids are not in my home any longer. I don't know why I am compelled to wallow in it every day. I do know I wouldn't have Beth if I hadn't started ATN, and wouldn't that be an incredible loss of a different kind?


It is because of most folks’ propensity to put ugly things behind them that ATN has difficulty in building a donor base from folks we have assisted in the past. If their kid heals, they want to forget there were issues initially. If the child disrupts, the family can’t wait to put that chapter behind them. And if the child is a long-term therapeutic parenting sinkhole, the family has no money or resources left to give anyone, even an organization that is helping keep them afloat.


Would you adopt again after having dealt with really severe kids?


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