Thursday I drove 100 miles round trip to pick up two girls ages 12 and 14, to stay for the summer. Sounds like a fun visit, and it will be to some extent, but there are also some more complicated layers to this story that has been going back and forth for far to many years.

These are the youngest two girls of former high school friend. A mother of four, haphazardly parented children. In my opinion she might qualify as one of the many mothers who probably should have placed these children for adoption years ago. Instead she followed “her right” to parent down to the very last straw, leaving her children with a mix of issues, suffering, and an uncertain future. She had been hot lined tons of times before, and moved between several states over the years to avoid detection. After the last abusive boyfriend molested one of the children, they finally were removed. The two girls are now living with the biological father of one of them, and the current situation still leaves much to be desired. After a few weeks here in relative calm and care they go back into that great unknown to finish out their formative years. A grim prospect, but the only one that has been afforded them.

When the girls were small my husband and I took them home on every occasion we were asked, which was quite a bit. In fact the oldest girl we practically raised for the first three years of her life. Every time the girls came to us they needed clothing, shoes, were dirty, hungry, coved in head lice and scabies, and anything else you could imagine. The mother had a never ending parade of abusive men, some of whom we will never know the full extent of what they did to the children, others, well unfortunately we do know and it wasn’t good. We offered countless times to take the children in permanently, be it fostering, guardianship, or adoption, and were always met with anger and righteous indignation from this mother. Other people around her were telling her how awful we were to even suggest it, and how she should not ever consider such a move. It was her “choice” to bounce them around in a state of abuse and neglect for most of their young lives. She is their mother so it was her right. Still to this day though, I feel the full force of my anger about that, because never were the rights of these children put first.

Through it all my husband and I were there when needed to offer a safe place for the kids. We apparently still are. Currently the girls live with the biological father of one of them. While at first I was glad that he has stepped forward to accept the girls when their mother lost custody, he has a ton to learn about caring for them and addressing the negative things they have already experienced. Unfortunately he is not really doing the best of jobs, as he is away from home for weeks on end with his work, leaving them in the care of the girlfriend dejour (there have already been a few). Somehow the situation seems not so different from the one they were already removed from in some ways. And so in 4- 6 years these girls will be set out into the world on their own, raised, adults, with only the benefit (if you could call it that) of the chaotic, abusive upbringing they had. This all in the sacred name of protecting biological parental rights.

When I think of how very different the lives of these girls might have been if their mother might have at least considered our offer (in any form, and always with her complete involvement), the difference is dramatic. These children who moved from many states, often never even having a bed to sleep in, being abused by many, often lacking in care and basic needs, would have instead had one home, one set of guardians, the same school, proper consistent care, attention and stability. As this is just putting things in the most basic definition.

So I suppose when some would gush on and on about remaining with biological parents always being the best situation for every child, I have some harsh experience that has shown me otherwise. I have come to understand, through the frustration of this situation, that all too often many would discount the long term needs of the child in order to preserve the rights of a biological parent to possess that child. And some would say that adoption should never be offered as an option to any expectant mother, ever? To me these are people who have never experienced the heartbreakingly ruined young lives that can result, when a mother who can’t or won’t parent is never even encouraged to consider the concept of choosing something different .

Sadness and Joy, Loss and Gain


The Responsibility Of Choices