When we lived in Kansas in the mid-to late 90’s and then moved to Illinois, I think Kansas social services did the happy dance when I left … I had been a serious thorn in their side when I expected them to provide services for families after adoption. The same fight is occurring now in Florida. Nancy Bostock is fielding phone calls, reporters, and interview requests like crazy. The reporter who interviewed me yesterday called me again today, looking for names of other Florida families who had experienced a similar situation. It wasn’t hard to find those families and have them call the reporter. Sadly, there is an unending supply of families like ours, who find themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place. Only in our case, it is more like being between hell and purgatory. We can keep dangerous kids at home, risking our lives and the lives of other family members, or we can throw ourselves at the mercy of social services, which in many cases means allowing ourselves to be charged with abandonment. If we choose the latter, we must deal with the emotional, financial and physical fallout, all the while deflecting the wrath of the community who accuses us of bailing because we weren’t committed to our adopted child. Yeh, right, that’s why we had climbed every mountain and forged every stream before we ever got to the point of crying uncle.


This is a national crisis. The system is broken in so many ways, but this is one of the most serious and most dangerous faults. I have spoken to families who have had their healthy kids removed while the dangerous kid has stayed in the home. Can you imagine that? Social services wanted to make sure those at-risk kids were no longer at risk! Reminds me of my friend who was told by one of her son’s many “mental health professionals” … “He’s not trying to kill people, he’s just trying to kill YOU!”


I don’t understand how foster and adoptive parents can be deemed suitable for placement of these kids, only to lose every ounce of credibility the moment the child is actually living in their home. Overnight, we become ignorant, abusive, and uncommitted. I know there are some foster and adoptive parents who are not as emotionally healthy as they should be, and somehow they slip through the cracks and have children placed with them. But the vast, vast majority of families that have crossed my path have been really terrific people who have attempted to move heaven and earth to heal their kids … only to be beaten down at nearly every turn by the very system that was supposed to help. Watch out, we Nancys are on a roll!


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