My Son is Home for the Weekend

My youngest son is home for the weekend (4 day pass from the Army). You wouldn't guess that he left under such rough terms. Still, we keep the expectations low and things generally work out.

His mouth is not what I would pick, but is not as bad as it could be. He has clearly strayed at least some from our guidance, but I will bet more of it is there than we expected.

Time will ultimately tell how much really sank in and how much he reverted to the habits of the birth family. They are not all bad, but a few are, in my opinion, so it is a bit of an emotional hit to realize.

Of course I shouldn't worry, but what true father doesn't have some concern?

Brad

Attachment Trauma Network

One group that we received a lot of help from in the later parts of our journey with our children was the Attachment Trauma Network. This is one group that real does get it in the whole area of adoption and attachment troubles.

They have a lot of free resources to help out and the annual membership is very affordable and worthwhile. I highly recommend anyone dealing with the issues I cover in this blog to check them out.

You really aren't alone!

Brad

Keeping in Love

I have been listening to a tape series by Andrew Wommack titled God's Kind Of Love Through You.

His main point is to not let others control you and to always walk in love. That is incredibly hard when you go through the rapids as I have noted here (including ongoing rejection), but I have to agree that it is vitally necessary. This is a good point, whatever your general view on the rest of his teaching or even Christianity in general.

Keeping that love focus is the only way to be open for your children. While it can be hard to believe, they really do need you, even while they are rejecting you. You need to stay in love so that you can be their (in love) when (or if) they decide to return.

This doesn't mean this is easy. It is harder to let things slide when the slide tends to go into a wall!

Nevertheless, you need that love to continue to guide you for your own sake, even it not for them. Holding the hurt and bitterness is not helpful, though it can be incredibly hard to figure out how to not let it rise up with each and every offense, many of which remain intentional.

This is not the road I would have picked, but since I am on it I will keep following it the best I can!

Brad

Staying Strong without Good Support

I have written a lot here about my struggles with keeping a positive attitude without firm external support. That has been the hardest part of my journey down the adoption path. This direction didn't bother me when I started, I wasn't all that concerned how children came into my life. Being rejected by all 4 of them was the hardest pill to swallow though. While it is not surprising, it has really shaken me to my core.

While I maintain many of my core beliefs, doing so alone has been a tremendous challenge.

I would say that everyone just starting down this path should find some solid support first, but I am not sure that is easy to find. I may work on some solutions to this in the future, at least for those in my area, but finding support that isn't talked out of it can be incredibly difficult.

Even my own wife got swayed at times by our children because of my firm stance against many bad things. It sometimes seemed like I was just being hard, but in reality, I was seeing what was coming and desperately trying to stop it. Being someone who sees things that are coming is good and bad.

Knowing they are coming leads me to prepare for them, but it also causes me to face them before others are willing to deal with the issues being raised. Many times it seems easier for others to pretend things really aren't going the way I see. While I am not always exactly right, I believe I have been right enough to have validated that I did indeed identify the exact right issue.

Some of that has been validated after the fact, but that still makes for a bumpy ride emotionally.

I will be working through some thoughts on how to do this successfully. I am not sure I did everything exactly right (though I did correctly identify most things ahead of time), but thinking through it here may help someone else work through their own struggle, so it is worth doing.

These children really do need a family, but many will reject it (at least for a while). You are not a saint for doing things (nor was I), but you do need a lot more coming in than you may realize when you are going through the rapids.

Brad

Flitting in and Out

My daughter (the one who decided the rules at home were too much, the few that existed) flitted into church today, said hello to everyone and then flitted away after the service was over. She was chipper as ever, though I think she is, unfortunately, very fake right now.

Dealing with reality may be tough, but it is ultimately the only way to go. It is really annoying to be rejected once again, but I can't do much about it so I have to continue on.

I sure hope this gets easier, at least on an emotional level, but only time will tell that.

Brad

Fighting Off Depression

Getting to the "end of the road" and having all 4 children leave at 17 is a pretty lousy outcome of our journey. My youngest decided a week or so ago that she couldn't live with the very limited rules we had when she was home, so she is gone now as well. She had been working in a nearby city at a specialized trade and coming home for a day or so most weekends, but she came home with an attitude, especially against me, more and more frequently.

I don't want her to be gone and it is not right, but it is what it is. Hopefully she will find her way before she does something that permanently impacts her life for the worse.

This stirred up more feelings for me to process. Blech.

My oldest son, his wife and my granddaughter are living with us for a while now. My son goes into boot camp this summer and they will all move together for his advanced training.

Lots still needs to be fixed, but I should focus on what progress he has made. I will write more later, but I think I have withdrawn almost too much, making it harder to connect. I will have to just keep working through things.

Brad

Watch Your Marriage!

While I knew my children were really good at triangulating and splitting people against each other, including my wife and I, I hadn't realized how deep this ability could interrupt my wife and I. Looking back, it almost killed our marriage, literally. I am not sure exactly what I would have done differently, but I would definitely have worked to prevent this had I realized the serious danger.

I thought my wife and I were fairly solid, but it turns out she had been turned very much against me. This is not a general marriage blog, so I won't go into the full details, but she had almost been swayed and I believe ended up blaming me for many things that really weren't my fault.

Our society really needs to figure out how to deal with this. Many children are stuck in the system, but adopting them without firm support for the many troubles that are almost guaranteed is quite dangerous.

Brad

Wealthy Donors Needed!

I have seen many fund raising efforts to help various aspects of adoption. Perhaps not to the level of other causes, but some key people do have significant efforts underway.

I have seen very little fund raising and funding for those who are working with the results of adoption, most likely several years down the line. This whole area is filled with a lot more mines than most people realize. Many adoptive parents come out of the process with the scars and possibly missing limbs from having had to navigate that minefield on their own.

I do not plan on doing much fundraising for wherever my efforts on this blog and this material take me, but I did think it was worth a single post noting the great financial need in this area.

At the first level, significant support is needed for parents with uncontrollable children, most often teens. Though CPS and other adults may paint the adoptive parents as the villains, they are often just doing whatever they can to make it through. The child is often the problem, but no one wants to admit that, so they suffer alone.

Money could help many of these parents cover the great costs involved with controlling such children. Long term care that can handle such teens is very expensive, if it is available at all. CPS may be glad to come after the adoptive parents for the costs, but they are not truly the guilty party. They were just caught trying to help a child work though issues that may take a lifetime to sort out. If you have lots of money and want to make a real difference, consider some work in this area. You certainly would not have a lot of competition.

I wonder if I would do this full time if I ever had such a patron? I suspect I would not, since I am interested in far too many other things, but feel free to talk to me if you really wanted to explore that. At the least, I have some ideas of places you could put some money, along with at least one solid organization that actively seeks to help parents in these situations.

Brad

Why I Write This Blog

I generally love to write, so starting this blog seemed like a very logical thing to do. Why not express my own thoughts and feelings on the subject of adoption, especially since I have gone through it and am still surviving!

It seemed quite obvious that I would be able to fill up many posts with useful information and thoughts that would help make this well worth the time I spent on it. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way.

Though time is always a challenge, I think the ups and downs of the whole process was much harder to handle than I realized. It takes more mental and emotional effort to work through these posts, so I didn't get here as often as I planned, as an early comment noted.

I have mostly used this so far to vent some of the painful feelings I have been dealing with. While I am obviously going to watch what I say to protect both the privacy of my own children and that of myself, I still see this as a place where my struggle to understand and make sense of the whole process can hopefully also help others gain a deeper understanding into the area.

I wish I had known some of the things I know now going into the process. While a great deal of it is still raw, I am starting to get to the point where I believe I have processed at least some of it and could provide useful information to others. I am not sure how that will proceed, especially since I am putting a lot of effort into building other areas of my life and career, but I have learned that my life has a way of taking unexpected jumps at regular intervals.

I am going to start putting down some comments about needed skills, how to prepare yourself mentally and other things over the coming days. I may have spots where I do not post, but I will work to make this a fairly regular forum. I need it to continue my pondering and I think someone may need to read these things to help understand the trials and struggles the find themselves in the middle of.

Brad

Adoption Takes Some Stamina

I recently heard a radio clip where the speaker was advocating the adoption as a cure to the abortion issue. While I completely agree that Christians need to really show themselves as more loving and being willing to help out those caught in a hard place, I think the reasoning was very simplistic.

First, the children of such situations are often the most sought after in the adoption area. Many potential adoptive parents are lined up for an infant, making such a child relatively easy to place. In fact, many of these couples are almost begging for a child. The message of this may need to get out, but that isn't the sole problem.

If the child has known special needs, perhaps due to poor behavior (such as drinking or drugs during pregnancy) by the mother, the parents may be in for quite a ride as the attempt to raise a child with serious issues.

Finally, adopting older children, including any that are no longer infants, carries its own serious risks. I am probably very jaded by my own experience, but the myth of "happily ever after" if we just love enough is just that, a myth. Older children carry their own load of problems and taking on such a child (or sibling group as we did) can make for a much more challenging road than most adoptive parents are really ready for.

We went through many "parenting classes" prior to adopting, yet none of them prepared us for the serious challenges we faced. I now vaguely recall being told many "horror stories," but we were too young and naive to believe them. After all, we would be different! We would work through anything and stay committed no matter what! Right?

While the zeal is necessary, some healthy reality is as well, along with a really strong support group, including government and social authorities that believe parents, not trouble teens that are willing to say anything to be free from these interlopers who are attempting to parent them.

Providing such strong support networks is much more important than any massive attempt to place all the waiting children. Not providing that will ultimately harm children more, and the families that try to adopt them. Leaving a child in the foster care system has serious issues, but throwing them into a family that is not prepared is also foolhardy.

Make sure you have some serious stamina if you are going to start down this road. And if you are advocating adoption as a solution, make sure advocate support for parents taking this step to an equal or greater degree. Otherwise, you are setting everyone up for a mighty crash.

Brad

Taking the Long Term View

I wanted to post a quick note to say that the process is not all depressing. The problem is that I didn't know how depressing it was until far into the process, so it becomes a little heavy at times. Even though I see serious issues remaining for all my children, I definitely believe we were brought together for a reason.

While it doesn't eliminate the pain from the current struggles and disappointments, knowing that they did make it much farther than they would have made it if they remained in the system is definitely an active encouragement. They all were at least 18 before they had children, for example! While not a normal thing to celebrate, I think it is a major achievement.

BTW, our first grandchild is due in a little over a month, I think. That is going to be another new experience!

Brad

Tough to Stay Positive

I went into the whole adoption experience with a lot of positive energy and excitement about the whole thing. While I definitely didn't work through everything, I was sure this was a good way to go and would really work out well.

On the one hand, it has worked out better for my children than it would have, especially if they had stayed in the system for their growing up years, something an older sibling got stuck with. They also almost certainly have been split up.

Yet for all this, they fall so short of achievement in their lives that it is discouraging. I am not referring to the aspect of meeting some parent's goals of living vicariously through them (though the often accuse me of that), I am referring to the desire to really accomplish any major goal in their lives. Somethings they do talk about a goal, but they rarely pursue something with their whole heart.

I should note an exception to that is my youngest son, but his pursuit is in to some weird stuff that is not ultimately likely to really help him much in his career or even in a solid hobby and personal relationships. Ah well.

I have no trouble with failure along the way. I have certainly failed enough myself, but you have to be trying to get somewhere to fail successfully.

I wonder if this is a general "adopted child" issue or if it is special to my children. Probably a mix of both. My wife is not overly motivated, so they can latch onto that to reject anything that looks like motivation in their lives, claiming it is just me wanting them to be "just like me". No, I want them to be the best "them" they can be, but that is an uphill push.

Bummer.

Brad

All the Rules Change

When my son and daughter-in-law moved in early last summer we made a few "rules" they were to abide by (help out significantly around the house, regular weekly "family" meetings, regular church attendance somewhere, no dog). Well, my wife (the cat lady) rapidly caved on the last one and they have a small dog as does my teen daughter (who is only home a couple of days a week now, but that is another story). The meetings and church went out the window quickly. The help around the house is debatable. My wife and I think it is not enough, though they tend to think they are almost doing too much.

We are due to be grandparents in a little over a month, but I am not sure if we are helping or hindering them, in the long run, at this point. My son can't take any questioning of his effort, or lack thereof. My daughter-in-law has challenges of her own. A year ago I would have said I would never get in this situation, yet here I am. Too much of this reminds me of his early teen years where he always claimed he was doing plenty, yet did little. He swears it is different now, but I don't completely see it.

At least he is working full time (mostly) and she is working part time. I guess I have to live with what I do have, at least for now. Having a baby (crying? screaming?) will be good in a sense, but a possible point of manipulation and likely a lot of loss sleep for all of us. I wonder if it will be worth it.

Brad

Life Throws Lots of Curveballs

I had cut off all my contact with the birthfather (after being very open with him) when I found out he deceived me to take my daughter to my youngest son's graduation from boot camp. (And she went along with that!) She was supposed to be going with him to a friend's wedding. Stupid me....

She will be going up there this week because of the death of her oldest birth-brother however. I am not going. If she gets sucked into staying I will live with that. I wouldn't put it past the birthfather to pull at her, but the largest pull will likely be from her older sister who had been planning on getting her to move up there when she turned 17 (the legal age to leave home in our state) a short while ago.

I don't know if the emotional roller coaster will ever be done, but I will be so glad if it ever is.

Brad

Clear Sailing to Pain....

Things seemed to be going well. My son and his wife are getting settled in. They both have transferred their jobs down here. He did have to take a pay cut because the local store works differently, but it seems like he may be able to advance quicker into management since this store seems to have openings there, partially because it is a just opened store. His wife also should be starting some part time work, which will give them some extra income. She is getting hit with some serious morning sickness, so it is not certain whether she will be able to continue to work, but she is certainly going to try.

She also got into a local program that will allow her to earn the few last credits she needs to get her high school diploma. She dropped out of high school in January to move up with my son and completing this will be a good step for her personally and in business.

All seemed well, until I found out tonight that my youngest son, who is currently finishing his specialty training in the Army, has been contacting his birth father enough that they know all of what is going on in his life. I am only 1 state away and I have not heard from him at all, past a letter to all of us here that I am fairly sure they told him to write to his family. I did call the S1 a week or so ago and my son called my wife and daughter, so he did talk to them at that time, but I have heard nothing since.

It also seems he will be doing a short stint at the local recruiting office in the other state before shipping somewhere overseas. It is very possible I will not see him at all, even though I would gladly drive up to see him if I could.

I don't so much mind that his recruiting stint is where he ran from to "escape" our house, but the fact that I have no contact hurts greatly. I had also not heard from my oldest daughter until I called her last week, but even then I barely spoke to her. She said she was going to call me back that night, but didn't until the following day. Then, she spoke briefly and had to run, spending most of the time griping about her brother, not talking with me about herself.

She said she would call back, but has not for several days. I called her today and left a message, but I suspect I am wasting my time since she probably doesn't consider me a "real father" anymore.

I don't know that I could have prepared for this, but it is really lousy. This is definitely not the picture given by those cheery adoption shows and promo spots. Why won't anyone deal with the reality here?

I know I will ultimately make it, but the journey is more painful than most people realize. A father's heart is true, whether you give birth or not....

Birth Family Relations

I am sure many of you know this, but birth families have their own agendas.

I got my children's original birth certificates before we finalized the adoption. (Though I would have gotten more than 1 copy if I had thought more about it.) I figured they would like to have them in the long run, so I did so. This meant I knew the original birth family information. (It also leaked through a few documents from CPS.)

When my oldest was 18 and starting to search, I decided to open up the birth last name to everyone. This ended up with contact rather quickly and we ultimately even went up to their city for a long weekend so the children could meet some of their extended birth relatives.

You might expect that this would mean the birth family would respect us and work with us with integrity, right? No way. In this case, the birth father is the only one that had ongoing contact, but he gave enough incentives that both my boys (in the middle according to age) moved up there at 17. This is legal in our state, but not in the birth family's state. We lived with it, but weren't overjoyed. This was especially bad since we thought we were working with them to accomplish the best for our children.

We now find out that we are regularly disparaged there and discounted as having any lasting claim to be a "family" for our children. This is coming from my oldest son, who has been known to "say what we want to hear" in the past, but it rings true with everything else we have picked up on.

My youngest daughter turns 17 this summer and we expect him to do all he can to get her to run up there as well. She has noted that she has no intention to do so (and she has some things that are likely to keep her in our area for a while), but I don't think that will stop him from trying. I also think she is likely to face more of a mental battle here than she realizes, but she continually stresses her commitment to me. I wish I was less hurt by all this seeming betrayal, but I will ultimately get over it.

I suspect I will personally have lots of mental tension this summer, but having my oldest son back in town is likely to play an interesting role. It is definitely stirring up relations in their birth family, but hopefully that can all settle down.

Ultimately, I don't care where everyone lives, once they are adults. I do hope to have a long-term relationship (as a father) with all of them. I don't expect to replace the birth family and I never have (though they do seek to replace me completely).

This is a disappointing part of adoption that many young adopters should prepare themselves for. The pain can be worse than anything you can imagine. Thinking the entire effort to "build a family" was a waste is really discouraging.

Fortunately, some things appear to be turning around, so the end may ultimately be good. We are not through the woods by any means yet.

Keeping Up is Hard to Do!

Things are really changing around here. My oldest son, the one who went through such a rough teenage time, is now back living at home for a while with his new wife. They got married in the spring and moved down here a couple of weeks ago. They didn't have a place to stay (that they could currently afford), so my wife and I did the surprising thing and opened up our house to them. We want to work with them to get established jobs here, pay off all bills and plan for moving into something of their own. I have a feeling this will take a few months, maybe longer. While the relationship is different since they are adults, they both seem to really be trying to lay a good foundation.

They are hoping to be able to transfer their jobs with a large national chain down here this week, so hopefully he will get into the work groove again soon. He has helped with a few things around the house already, so it hasn't been a huge vacation. The three of us went to our church today (my wife had to work) and they seemed to enjoy it, though I am not sure if they will be staying there.

A very interesting turn of events. This would have seemed impossible when I was writing some of these early posts.

More discussion to come....

A Quick Update

I keep plodding along. I have got to get a longer term perspective, since the short term looks so bumpy. I did here from my youngest son at Christmas, though not since. My oldest son has called when we were out for 2 days, but he probably wants something. I learned a few weeks ago he moved his girlfriend from when he was here up there (in the middle of her senior year in high school) which is sad, but quite legal since they are both 18 now. I haven't talked with my oldest daughter since last fall, which I posted about here. I should probably call her, but it feels like she doesn't want to talk to me....

Avoiding Depression

I thought things would be better when the two oldest were finally out of the house and later I thought letting the third oldest would help. It did in the day-to-day stress level, but I seem to be battling with depression a lot more these days. Having 3 children abandon you for someone else, blood tie or not, is a tougher thing to handle than many may realize. I plan on commenting on this more later, but I think it is vitally important for men facing this to have some really solid supports around. Unfortunately, I have none. I am effectively "on my own" it seems.

We are in a great new church, but it is a struggle to find my place and see how much I can fit in there. I don't think my wife really gets the depth of things either, at least for me, since she seems to just discount it saying (in essence) that I should just "get over it."

I don't know how it is for other adoptive fathers out there, but I was quite willing to build a family however it came. I didn't expect to have nothing after 13 or so years of investment. :(

It may ultimately turn out better, but it is still pretty bleak now.

I Am Talking with My Oldest Daughter Again

I decided to stop waiting for my oldest daughter to call me and I have talked to here several times in the last few months. She seems open to talking and I try to stay focused on hearing what she is doing and the challenges she is facing. I am not happy that she is living with her boyfriend, but I try to find out about him as well.

I called her on the way home last night as well, with no particular idea in mind and we had a reasonable talk. Hopefully this will help us relate in the long run. I feel I am still not all that important in her life, but the only way I can talk to her seems to be for me to call, so I will do so as I feel I should.

She did claim to have called me a few times in the past, but I can't recall any of these. Letting the past go, including some serious harm she personally caused me, appears to be a vital part if I want to have a chance of developing any long term relationship.

On the other hand, I have talked with my oldest son a few times. Though in his case he is always full of stories and grandiose ideas, so it is not as interesting. I don't really care what he talks about, I just want it to be true. Unfortunately, he seems to need to mature quite a bit before he will hit truth.

I wrestle with how much I should talk with him while he is not telling the truth. I want to build /continue a relationship, but I get tired of all the stories and lies. I could live with just about anything if it was true....

Brad