Raising God's Children
A Story of Adoption

“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”—Mk. 9:37

Though this adventure can hardly be concealed from those who know the author personally, he and his wife think it best for the children involved to adjust a few names, partly to protect the innocent and partly to let others feel free to put their own names in the places theirs occupy.

My wife and I were married middle age, not expecting any offspring. She had been widowed after having five children of her own; I had abandoned what would have been life-long bachelorhood. Her two youngest still lived at home, but the question was inevitable: What was to happen when they left the nest? It was unlikely that she could have more, and I certainly couldn’t produce offspring on my own.

When my wife asked if we might adopt children, my question in turn was what would be required. After some research, we learned that a pre-adoption parenting class was required that would take about 10 weeks.

About that time, a telephone call came from a long-lost niece who wanted to know if we could care for her five children. As more of the story unfolded, we learned that she was losing her parental rights owing to a chronic drug problem, that her five children were in three different foster homes, and that things were rapidly falling apart.

The parenting classes began.

Awaiting Their Coming

There were complicating factors from the start. The children were from out of state, and my wife and I were middle-aged and therefore not prime candidates to adopt very young children. The birth mother wanted to keep in contact with her children, and neither of us had any objections in principle to her doing so.

The child welfare services called from out of state to ask if we would be willing to take all five children as a package deal. After mulling over the proposition that marriage involves openness to life, I said yes.

My wife and I went to meet the children, who lived over a thousand miles away. We also met some of the foster parents—one pair had heroically fostered well over 200 children during their fostering career. Then we returned home and waited.

Our home was inspected, and our backgrounds checked. We added an extension to our house. We made calls to child welfare services to coordinate our home state officials with their out-of-state counterparts, both sets of whom agreed that interstate compacts were difficult to execute.

We waited some more. Eventually, my wife called the governor’s office in her home state. Suddenly, there was action. The children were flown out. Masses of documentation on their case histories were deposited attesting to various instances of positive drug testing at birth, of police and welfare interventions, and so on.

More than We Bargained For?

The children could not legally be baptized until the adoption was completed, but they did go with us to Sunday Mass. This proved to be quite an adventure. For now there were five: Daniel, Zachary, Lynn, Allen, and little Marie. Marie was born failure to thrive and had suffered from thrush. On recovery, she could barely articulate any sounds except for screaming, which she did loudly and persistently for hours on end. It soon became clear that little Marie would go in the cry room with me, while my wife and the rest of our new tribe would sit in the last pew at the other end of the church, where Marie’s screams were still audible.

Happily, my workplace was less than two miles from home, so emergency phone calls from my wife could be attended to sometimes. Happily, too, our home was also less than two miles from the emergency room, where Marie had to be life-flighted to the big city when her breathing went awry.

All five children were classed as severely emotionally disturbed. The children have been in psychological counseling continuously each week since their arrival, with four out of the five visiting a psychiatrist for obsessive-compulsive behavior, attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder and some also for oppositional-defiant disorder. Zachary, for example, affectionate and sweet as he is, could not resist stabbing the newels of the banister, using a pin to excavate the plaster off a wall in the hallway, and kicking down the bathroom door.

The initial hope of an adoption open to continued interchange between adoptive and birth parents crumbled under the weight of reality. Every time their birth mother had contact with the children by telephone, the children would regress to chaos and violence lasting sometimes for weeks. Under the advice of the children’s counselors, we had to cut off contact with the birth parents. Even letters from their mother mediated through us still trigger behavioral regression.

A Slow Journey

Two years after their arrival, the children’s adoption was made official in December of 2001. We tried to take the advice of the parenting classes to take nothing away from the children, but it was clear that something was not working.

The five children were baptized on the vigil of Pentecost 2002. The eldest, Daniel, started at the Catholic elementary school with fear, hiding under his desk; after his first Holy Communion and Confirmation in 2005, he is attending Catholic high school, running cross-country, helping out at home, and solidifying his work habits enough to start giving a solid academic performance.

A bit too violent yet for Catholic school, lithe and lively Zachary is good at sports, climbing trees, and jumping off tall buildings at a single bound; he is also spending extra time after regular hours at school to build his study habits.

Self-assertive Lynn is quite bright, very good at reading, and very much craves attention, but she is still unwilling to learn her multiplication tables and very willing to have her way in all things.

Though rather bright, Allen needs more one-on-one attention than can be provided in Catholic schools; his increasingly frequent and violent outbursts of rage even with psychiatric medication are a matter of serious concern to us, and, we fear, may require police intervention or hospitalization.

Little Marie, after a few years of speech therapy, can make herself understood, but still tends to get frustrated easily and to fly off into a crying jag rather than to say what bothers her. She can still provoke a fight with Lynn by saying the Glory Be, since Lynn claims that as her prayer. Zach and Allen will duke it out over the Angel of God.

Getting everyone simultaneously around the supper table is something like riding herd on wildcats. It is sometimes possible to interrupt a fight by appealing to Lynn’s pride—asking her to read something from the Book of Proverbs, for example.

One might wonder why the children’s First Holy Communion was delayed so long. Since the Sacrament of Penance is prerequisite to Holy Communion, and since the Sacrament of Penance requires an examination of conscience . . . well, let’s just say it took a good bit of work to find a conscience to work with.

Wrestling with the Spirit

It is one thing to say, “Jesus adopted us, and so we are adopting you; you are keepers,” and quite another to prove it not in words but in deeds. Seven years of the children’s lying and stealing—even from their parents—and seven years of poor behavior have my wife and I pretty frazzled. Having been through the foster care system, the children are well aware that little can be done for punishment. Positive reward has had little effect except to make them demand more rewards, deserved or not.

Years of counseling with at least a dozen different methods of handling problem children have been tried, but little has been accomplished, at least from my wife’s and my perspective. Allen still threatens to murder if his will is crossed. Lynn threatens to call children’s services and report us as abusive if she cannot have her way. Zachary has made himself unwelcome in most of the neighborhood for name-calling and abusive behavior. On some particularly stressful days, my wife has doubted the justice and even the existence of God. I am tempted to pray for justice for others and mercy for myself. On occasion the beatitude “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” tastes a bit like ashes in the mouth.

Why do we keep them? My wife’s elder children, some of whom don’t even want the kids around, think they should be sent to boot camp. They worry about their mother’s health and everyone’s sanity. But we feel that the call to adopt these children came not from another state, but from the Holy Spirit, who was asking for some help. Could anyone turn down that request?

Professionals have advised us that with one child strong structuring is called for, while two emotionally disturbed children tend to feed off of each other and spin off into chaos. With five, it is very easy for at least one child to detect a moment of weakness or inattention on the part of the parents. Once a little parental blood is in the water, there is a feeding frenzy of disorderly emotions.

I have called the police when things got dangerous. My wife and I have just had an intervention and psychiatric screening for Allen, who, as I write this, is in hospital until the behavioral experts there offer advice on how to regain control and once again try to develop order in the family. Daniel is now also helping with restraining the recalcitrant, so that, when they balk at taking their time out, they can be safely held in isolation until they are ready to take their period of reflection.

Love Opens the Heart

All this having been said, the Spirit has presented another child for my wife and I to take. Abused and neglected until the age of 4, Lily has been in 20 foster homes. She wants a “forever home” and a “real mom.” Like all of them, she has a hard time behaving, but when she says “I love you” and eagerly awaits her birthday party, like the others she is precious. We find it hard to turn her down.

On the other hand, charity calls for every sort of love, tough as well as gentle. There are no excuses for bad behavior. Sometimes Jesus shines through six pairs of eyes as the children eagerly anticipate the next adventure in life. Serious reflection and discernment of spirits is called for, however. My wife and I have been asked to help guide these children on their way. We, as well as the children, need your prayers.

If you were offered such children, could you turn them down?

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