|
I have three Latin American children, all adopted as infants. I'm infertile, always wanted children, and for me adoption was a no-brainer. But--two of my children have either severe ADHD or FASD (not sure which) that has been heartbreaking for me to deal with. It's no different for me than if I had given birth to them, but when your child is constantly getting in trouble, making stupid choices, and you see them going downhill it is extremely painful to deal with, and you have to learn to separate your own self-esteem and value system as a parent from the reality--ie "my child has a brain injury and can't help cursing at her teachers" and "it's not my fault that my kid is constantly getting in trouble".
The problem is no different if you had given birth to children with these problems, but the probability of a child having problems is higher in an adoption, foreign or not, simply because you are not in control of their pre-natal environment. In a foreign adoption, you rarely know the family's medical history or whether the birth mom used alcohol or drugs during pregnancy. Probably adopting a baby gives you the best chance of minimizing problems, but sometimes, as in my case, no matter how hard you try, how well-educated you are in parenting skills, and no matter what you do nothing works.
There was a show on 20/20 last week about some of the difficulties adoptive parents have, primarily with RAD children but not all of the children had RAD. I don't think any of mine do, and there is no reason for them to.
We all go into adoption bright-eyed, thinking "of course my child will be fine, I'll give them a good home and lots of love, proper medical care and a good education, and I'll deal with whatever comes along". Sometimes none of this is enough...but again, the same thing can happen with your bio children. For example, my adopted daughter and my stepson (husband's bio son) are both 18, and both known for stupid decisions. When I was learning about FASD I read the symptoms and behaviors off to my husband and he commented that they describe his son 100% yet he knows beyond any doubt that there was no pre-natal drug or alcohol exposure for this kid.
I know this is rambling but I'm sitting here very depressed in the midst of an anxiety attack about whether my 18 yr old is going to cut school tomorrow so she can sneak her new boyfriend into the house while I'm at work, or whether she'll make the right choice. I'll probably have to leave work at 11:30 and jeopardize my job to drive the 45 mins home to make sure no one is pulling anything.
If you are considering adoption, or having bio kids (if that's an option, for most of us it isn't) please take seriously the fact that you could end up in the same situation I'm in, no matter what you do. I don't mean this to discourage anyone, and God knows I had worked with difficult children before adopting (we did foster care for problem teens) but somehow you don't expect YOUR children to end up this way because you just know you won't make the same mistakes that everyone else made that caused their kids to be messed up. WRONG!
If someone had read me this post in the years I was trying to adopt I would have blown it off, figuring she MUST have done something wrong and I knew better. At this point in my life I'll say something I never thought I would say--I almost wish I hadn't had children. And I waited 13 years from when I first got married until we adopted our first child, and I wanted children more than anything in the entire world.
|