“if you want to adopt kids at an older age, that’s just lazy and you’ll miss the important developmental years. you won’t be able to connect.” okay but consider this:
1. I will not be able to handle a baby, but I will definitely be able to manage and guide an older child
2. no diapers. hallelujah
3. As a foster child gets older, their chance of adoption plummets. Adopting an older child gives a late break to someone who would have otherwise had to age out of the system
4. my plans for adoption are none of your concern
Holy shit people actually say that? Inviting a kid in need to be part of your family is ‘lazy’?
Being there for the ‘developmental years’ is so important not having it is a dealbreaker?
‘You won’t be able to connect’ with another human being unless you’re there for their formative years, imprinting on them?
…people who make that argument should probably do a LOT of soulsearching before they consider getting a toy baby adopting a younger child.
I had a sociology professor once and both he and his wife were registered social workers (in addition to him teaching), and after a couple of years married, they started talking about adopting a child. They’d seen the system up close, they knew how hard it was for some kids to get adopted. So when they sat down to start the fostering process, they told the agency to give them their toughest, most difficult case. If anyone could handle a kid who’d been labeled a “problem child”, it was these two people.
The agency paired them up with a 12 year old girl – the oldest they had, far, far too old to be considered for adoption typically. This girl’s birth parents had had drug problems, she’d been in and out of a couple dozen foster homes, no one able to handle her, she ran away frequently and had diagnosed behavioral problems, she was surly and defiant. When she first met them, she was clammed up tight, snarky, unwilling to trust them or anyone – and really, who could blame her?
But these two adults poured every bit of their compassion and training into this one child, into getting to know her, earning her trust by listening to her and treating her like a person who mattered. And slowly, slowly, she came around. Slowly, they built a relationship with her, and she came out of her shell. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but having these two adults who were utterly unwilling to give up on her, or see her as the problem, let them work through each issue as it arose, and slowly they started to see this other side of her personality emerge. She joked around, she grinned often, she got excited about sports games and yelled at the tv with her foster father, she was making friends at her new school and doing better in her studies.
One day they sat her down and told her they loved her and they wanted her to legally, officially be part of their family. But they thought she deserved a say, too. If she just wanted to be fostered for the next five, six years, they could do that too. But they wanted to adopt her, they wanted to keep her for always. Did she want them? Yes, she said. Yes, I want to keep you, too.
My professor came into class one day with a grin that just would not go away, bouncing on his toes. We all wanted to know what was up. The adoption was finalized today, he told us. Today I have a daughter! And he showed us pictures of his brand new 12 year old daughter hugged between he and his wife, the three of them grinning at the camera. I’ve been her dad for awhile, he told us, but today it’s official, today we’re finally really a family.
I heard that story in the spring of 2001, when I was 20. This girl just 8 years younger than me, the age of my younger siblings, this girl who everyone had given up on. But these two people, they knew they had enough love and training to handle whatever was thrown their way, these people stayed true to the commitment of being parents, didn’t give up when the going got tough, proved slowly and methodically that they loved her, that she could trust them.
That girl must be in her late 20s now. She’s had parents for more than a decade and a half. She hasn’t had to face this scary century alone. She has parents who went with her to her freshman orientation for college, I’m certain of it. If she’s gotten married, I know her father walked her down the aisle, that same grin splitting his face, the same grin as when he announced that he had a daughter, the same grin he wore every time he talked about her. If she’s had kids, her kids have the best grandparents.
They are a family of choice built on commitment and trust and love. You can’t tell me that isn’t bonding, you cannot tell me that it’s lazy, that that was somehow easier or less worthwhile than diapers.
