Adoption: The Dream and the Reality

Someone sent me an email with this picture in it today, it was sent as a commentary in life in general. But it started me thinking about adoption. I think for many adoptive parents, we start out on this journey expecting to find a pot of gold. We often end up, though, as a porta-john, a disposable dumping ground for all the pain and anger in our children's lives. We are told that with love and stability, our children will heal and become productive members of society. We dream of the day when we will visit them in their homes, and take pride in their careers and our grandchildren.

Too often the damage is too great, and our children will never live up to our dreams for them. We downsize our dreams. Instead of dreaming of a lawyer, we dream of someone who is able to stay out of jail. Instead of dreaming of a teacher, we hope for someone who will finish high school. Instead of dreaming of marriages and children, we pray they stay out of abusive relationships and worry about the safety of our grandchildren. It's not just the big dreams that are compromised.

I knew Daughter was having a rough day, so I fixed a salad she loves for supper. I was planning to go for a walk while she was gone, but I remember she's always saying we should walk together when she gets home from the workshop, so I held off until we could go together.

She got home and I told her to check out the bowl in the refrigerator. She did, but with no enthusiasm. She began her sighing and moaning that indicates she's in great physical pain (since she won't talk about her emotional pain, it comes out in vague physical symptoms). I told her we were going for a walk. She told me she wasn't. I insisted, so she ran 2 houses ahead of me and then turned around and headed back for the house, telling me she was done. I stopped her, and explained that we were always talking about walking together, and I had thought this would be a good day to begin. She reluctantly turned around, but then started in with her verbal abuse.

I told her to forget it and turned around and headed back to the house. She was shocked. I told her I had tried to do some nice things to make up for her bad day, but she'd been verbally abusive since she got home, and I wasn't going to listen to it anymore. She then informed me I had never cared for her and that was her whole problem, the fact that I didn't give a damn about her. Yes, the preacher's kid in Tiny Village went storming up the street swearing and telling the world about how terrible I am. I said, "Stop it!" She informed me that was it, she was packing her stuff and leaving. I told her that wasn't the point. She stormed to her room, and after several door slams, began throwing things at her door. There is now silence, so I suspect she has gone to sleep.

We have good days, and I am grateful she is in my life. But too often I am her dumping ground. I have watched my dreams for her vanish as she becomes more dependent and requires more one on one supervision with each passing month. For me, the end of the adoption rainbow didn't hold a pot of gold. Love and structure were not enough. Yes, she has healed. Yes, she has made progress. When she came to me she had shut off her hearing and was nonverbal. She was shutting out the world to protect herself from the horrors of an abusive family. Even with all the healing, her adult life is not about discovering her independence, but about proving to me that she can't live without me, and then punishing me because she can't.

I do not regret adopting her, but I have not become an advocate for adoption, either. How could I wish this life on anyone? How could I let anyone set off thinking they would find a pot of gold and discover a porta-john instead? Yes, I know there are adoption success stories, and I am happy for those families. But there is also a great deal of pain in adoption, and that pot of gold is too often elusive.