I received my June issue of Reader’s Digest about a week ago. I love Reader’s Digest... I can read in snippets and small bites, which fits my time frame these days. One particularly interesting story was entitled The Accidental Family: How seven boys became brothers.


This story is about a Caucasian family in Manhattan—mom, dad and two boys (who happened to be adopted as infants.) It begins when the boys were ages 5 and 7. The family lived in a spacious, renovated penthouse in the middle of an ethnic neighborhood. Dad was a Wall Street CEO and mom was a physician.


The older boy joined a street game of baseball one day, and ended up inviting his “teammates” home to play video games. A dozen of them complied, and descended upon the penthouse. Across the board, the visiting boys were blown away by the spaciousness of the home, the endless supply of food, the (very white) mom offering cookies, and the many other aspects of this family’s life that had eluded the lives of these young boys.


Several of the boys became regular visitors. Eventually, five boys were “incorporated” into this family. One had lost his mom to AIDS. One had watched his father murdered in front of him. Most were being raised by single moms, exposed to drugs, poverty and prison.


They had sleepovers (with the parents closely monitoring the group) and reading and educational sessions. They bought the boys clothes and monitored their schoolwork. The boys spent their time after school at the penthouse, as well as most weekend nights and summers. They were assigned chores and began to take part in religious celebrations.


The boys’ biological parents were confused about the “adoptive” family’s motives but began to see changes in their children.


The “adoptive” parents separated for two years but eventually reunited. They stated their marital difficulties were not related to the additional boys.


As the boys became older, the possibility of college loomed… and, according to the article, “it turns out some of the boys had misrepresented their academic performance” to the “adoptive” parents. Imagine that… they hadn’t been completely honest. The “adoptive” family insisted that the boys acquire GED’s or complete high school, and eventually all five boys entered community colleges. The kids refer to their “adoptive parents” as “dad” or “my white pops” or variations of that. They are all grateful for these folks’ influence on their lives and they have made something of themselves.


So where am I going with this? I read these kinds of stories all the time. I wonder, what is different about those five boys and the kids I parented? Or are the differences about me? How is it that these five boys became successful even while they were exposed to all the nasty influences in their lives, when so many other kids don’t get there? Is it simply a roll of the dice?


I’m going to look more deeply at that in the next installment…


Here's a link to the article and there are some other great stories about adoption and related issues to check out...


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