Recently I blogged about the Dutch diplomat and how he and his wife are placing their adopted daughter back into the care of social services. A reader commented about “parenting in a fishbowl” and how difficult it was to raise these children in relative anonymity, much less with the whole world watching. I remember a family that contacted me years ago—a pastor of a small town church, his wife and their three sons. The oldest was a “healthy white infant placement” and was at that time about 8 years old … and a very, very disturbed little boy. This family was, with the exception of this little boy, the quintessential Midwestern Christian family, and they were really, really struggling to live with this child. He was dangerous. I have tried to track them down, but to no avail. I often think about them. They, too, lived in a fishbowl … amidst a whole congregation of folks who struggled to understand their peculiar family dynamics.

Most of us become somewhat immune to “what others think” as we plod along this journey with our troubled children. But do we ever completely put that question out of our minds? How many of you with adult children wonder what story your child feeds their rescuers about why that young person is homeless, hungry, unemployed or not spending the holiday with their family? Do you wonder what that good, charitable Christian family who is now supporting your child and “helping” him get “back on his feet” thinks about why you have “abandoned” them? Would you like to know what conversations occurred around the holiday dinner table about why that child is estranged from their family? I would … Somehow I doubt our kids detail the years of therapy, the years of effort, the bucket loads of tears, the lost hopes and dreams, and the countless non-reciprocal holidays of the past. Even if the poor child doesn’t directly state their opinion that they are in dire straits because of parental abandonment, I have seen body language that speaks volumes. Sometimes what they don’t say says more than what they do say.

As good boundary-setting adults, we do what we have to do. However, just setting that boundary puts us, once again, in the firing line, as we are “reminded” often about how unjust, unfair, unloving, and cruel we are. The world owes our kids, and we are the obstacle to them getting what they deserve. Of course, the primary target of this resentment is Mom. The one person who put out the most effort, cried the most tears, tried harder than anyone else on the planet, and most grieves the loss of what could have been … and gets triple the grief for her efforts. Thinking of all you moms …

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