Love your children well

My feed has been flooded lately with stories on the tragedy of the Hart family car crash.  Or maybe I should say the Hart family murder/suicides? I can't wrap my head around any  of it.  Adoptees and former foster youth are rightly outraged.  6 beautiful children dead.  People try to explain it.  People I know and respect in the adoption community are highly polarized about this. So let me just say for the record that in my opinion there is no way that what happened can be logically explained.  It was cruel.  It was horrible.  Six innocent lives were lost. Adoptive parents should be outraged and angry. They should not be trying to justify what happened by the real or imagined challenges of parenting the children.

It does not matter to me if the kids had "issues."  They were still children these two women chose to adopt.  How twisted people like that were allowed to adopt baffles me.  I guess I ironically always thought that becoming an adoptive parent gave me a leg up on some parenting issues.  Not all of them obviously.

I didn't know nearly enough about the mental health issues that challenge my eldest.daughter.  I didn't know anything about aspergers and autism and how they would shape my Chet's views of the world and his interactions.  I didn't know nearly enough about institutional racism until I became a parent of black and asian indian children.

But that didn't mean I was unprepared for everything.  I remember all those homestudy meetings.  They were filled with hard questions that I really took time to wrestle with.  No one comes from a perfect background.  I spent a lot of time thinking about my childhood and what I would want to bring to my kids experiences and why I felt some things should not be replicated.  We talked about how Kirsty and I felt about key parenting issues--schooling, consequences for actions, and so much more. We talked about racism, parenting a child of trauma, disabilities.

Did I still have a lot more to learn?  Abso-freaking-lutely!  But I felt like I had spent so much time working on the basics that when the less usual stuff came up--mental health issues, behavioral challenges, I could focus on needs and solutions to those problems.  I wasn't juggling say autistic perserverations and whether or not I believed in swatting my kid on the tush. (for the record, I don't)
I kept reading, I kept reaching out, I kept connected with people who would understand what my kids need.  Note that I didn't say what I need.  Because taking care of my needs?  That should not be my big focus as a parent.  I see it as a continuim.  When my wife and I first got together we had lots of time to focus just on us. From 18 to 27 or so we were all about us. We deepened our bonds to each other. We had spontaneous weekend getaways, we made couples memories.

Then we adopted Chet and our lives changed.  Everyones lives change when they bring a child home.  Yes, ours changed more intensely given his diagnosis.   When he became a teen and his needs were less intense and we knew we had love and energies to offer other children we adopted again, several more times.  In each case, we gave each child who entered our family time to settle in.  We reflected and had lots of conversation before each adoption. We made sure we were still both on the same page. (for the record, I personally wanted to adopt once more when my wife said no. I respected her wish.  Knowing your own limits, what works for you as a parent, that is needed for everyone bio or adoptive.) It was never about having the most kids on the block (though we probably do) It was about how deeply we love children and parenting and kids that needed both of those things.

There have been wonderful times and hard times.  I wouldn't trade any of them.  And I am grateful every single day for the gift of family and my children.  As the years race by--KC will be 14 in mere days, Lissa is 11, I know that in not that many years it will likely be just me and my wife and Chet. The wheel will have turned again.

Hold your children close.  Remember the gift that they are, always.