Category Archives: child advocacy

Adoption Accounting

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I recently watched the movie Philomena.

There is a harrowing scene of loss in the movie. A scene I once had to endure myself.

I was a foster mother–a mere placeholder without any legal recourse, but Philomena and thousands like her were the true and legal biological parents of children who were stolen through the misuse of power and secrecy of adoption law.

We need transparency in adoption. No government entity or adoption agency or even adopting couple should be able to hide behind confidentiality to steal children.

And we need to be clear about this:

All children of adoption should have the right to know their true story, their real names, all their family. They may also need to know that this truth of who they were and where they came from…yes, and even who they “belong to” now, may have been obscured in the documentation of the adoption process itself.

For years it never occurred to me that social workers and adoption agents would lie to take a child from a parent.

And for years after I knew they could and did, I felt the subtle pressure to keep quiet about it.

We would rather some things remain opaque, because if they were transparent we would have to acknowledge all our broken stories.

And complicity in such unspeakable sorrow.

Dearest Triplet B

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When I lost you
I knew you were never really mine

You have your mother’s face
Your father’s hair
Eyes all your own

For years I marked the days
Knew when your birthday came and went
Saw your face in every crowd

Missed you and wished you well
Because that is what love does

It never stops beating
Down every door for you

I saw every fairy tale through a different lens
Knowing how easy it could be
Excuse me, was…
For Rumpelstiltskin to steal a child
And teach her a world of untrue stories

But in real life
Truth
The Truth
Always sets us free

Do something (brave)

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My blog is littered with drafts. I haven’t published anything for awhile because I struggle with–why bother?

In the aftermath of what happened to my family, a lot of people let us down.

It could have been because I was too vocal. It could have been because we were too risky. It could have been a lot of things.

It took a toll on my evaluation of humans. How could so many “nice people” run like rabbits? Or worse. There was always worse.

I battled insomnia. If a person you have fed peanut butter sandwiches can hurt children, the world feels permanently unsafe.

I wrote. I wrote and then wondered why?

Then I began wakeboarding.

I like wakeboarding because no one tells me I can’t do the things that terrify me. In fact, they show me how.

I like it because the people there are brave.

Not just spin-in-the-air brave, but also push-yourself brave.

Many of these brave people restore my faith in our broken world.

Which leads me to “ordinary brave”–

Men who are faithful to their wives are brave.

Judges who prosecute pedophiles are brave.

Health officials who fly into an Ebola epidemic are brave.

Paying your bills and your taxes on time

Holding a lackluster job to provide for your family

Befriending the powerless–

All brave.

When I see brave, I want to be brave.

The no-bark collar

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For years I labored under the illusion that child sexual abuse was rare and that the victims could find help, even if their parents were indifferent or the abusers.

Wrong and wrong.

More than half of all children are victims of sexual assault before they reach the age of 18.

Most if not all of us have known and/or been groomed by a sexual predator.

And yet…

The pressure to not talk about the known sexual predators among us is so strong that I frequently write posts and then refrain from publishing them.

I am an old woman and a mouthy one at that, but I have been told explicitly to shut up and shunned implicitly for speaking out against child sexual abuse.

The pressuring is convincing and effacing.

Imagine what it would do to a child.

The Central American Crisis

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For nearly 20 years young people, mostly women, have been the victims of rape and murder in Juarez, a city neatly adjacent to El Paso, Texas.

They even have a name for it–feminicidio, the murder of women.

Not once have I ever heard anyone in our government say we need to provide asylum to the women and children of Juarez.

Perhaps we should.

But as a one-time resident of Central America and a long-time advocate for children, especially those who have refugee issues, the sudden trucking out of an “emerging Central American crisis” feels deeply political and not very honest.

When in our lifetime has Central America been stable? The eighties?!?

Not a chance.

This particular iteration of the absolute disaster that is American foreign policy ignores completely the fact that…

These countries have been de facto war zones for decades.

The children have not just started coming, some of them came years ago. Many came to the US and joined gangs affiliated with the conflicts in their home countries.

And many also have the usual spectrum of emotional and mental problems that go with trauma, upheaval, social disintegration, and loss of caregiver relationships.

We cannot afford to anonymize these minors. Where they go, who they go with, and how they cope all matter so much.

What do you know about the gang affiliations of refugee and immigrant teens in your area? What do you know about attachment disorder?

You cannot haphazardly throw money or executive orders at children.

You gotta have an actual plan.

Yep. And I still think we owe the children of Mexico an apology.

Isn’t their failed state as disastrous as all the others?

The Symbols of a Broken Mind

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He used structures, barriers, doorways, linens, athletic equipment to hide his aggressions.

And lies. So many lies.

This comes back to haunt me. I try to keep it in a mental suitcase because my grief over his aggression is still so intense.

Last night I had a dream that I saw a giant tire being pulled on a barge in front of me. I knew exactly what it meant.

I used to take children to play tennis. Right next to the tennis courts the football team had giant tires they used for strength training.

Charles used the tires to hide his broken actions, distorting play schema with devastating effect.

The elliptical nature of my description is for you, not me. I know too well what he did to hurt people with ordinary things.

I wish there was closure. I don’t really believe in it. Instead I think my unconscious mind will continue to bring to the fore these devastating symbols of lost innocence.

Barriers–he uses them to deceive and harm children, yet has no legal obstacle, tag or minder alerting others to his past.

It is one thing to not know how a predator isolates and subdues his prey. It is another entirely to know, and simply look away.

The Children’s Crusade

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Are they insane?!

That was my first and unwavering reaction to the very quiet news that tens of thousands of minors are being transported and dumped illegally on our southern border.

And the administration’s response is simply to let them stay?

There are several profound issues here–

Parental consent and supervision

Apparent lack of any interest in arresting the criminals capitalizing on and exploiting these minors

The disturbing implications of labeling a potentially felonious 16 or 17 year old “a child” and giving him a free pass to stay or…

The open and volatile question–are young children being trafficked across our borders with the tacit endorsement of the current?

Each of these minors are at risk for exploitation by their coyotes.

Good people do not smuggle children for profit.

And last of all–this is a huge issue. Why would it ever be less newsworthy than bad movies and celebrity rumors?

What is wrong with us that this does not matter?

Koystya Thyssen

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This news story has an eery quality to it.

Because for several years now I have asked myself, what happens to children with attachment disorder when they grow up?

Nope. Kidnapping is not the answer. But the articles about the Thyssen family raise questions about what was not done.

If Koystya was known to sexual assault children or anyone, then by 22 he should have faced legal charges.

Did the family report him?

I cannot tell whether they did. But I know I did report my adopted RAD children when they committed felony crimes and was astonished to find the system did not want to prosecute and when pressed, took great pains to clear their records.

Did Koystya have a record? Had he been prosecuted in any way?

The crime here may be bigger than theft, bigger even than illegal captivity.

Koystya is a young man. What can be done for him? And what will happen if we do nothing at all?

Up Late

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There is a great TED Talk about the “museum of 4 a.m.”

Apparently 4 a.m. is the nadir of time–so late no one would chose to stay up. Too early for decent waffles.

I am up at 4 a.m because of…

Two dogs
A nocturnal animal prowling the yard
A list of unbearable memories.

Dog A barked
Dog B followed suit ad infinitum
And mom C remembered.

In the days and weeks and months after M and C were placed with us, C had night terrors.

He also had fits of unbearable rage.

His sister was no picnic either.

But the seconds, minutes, hours of darkness in which he kicked, screamed, pounded his fists against objects, slammed doors, wailed….

In the utter darkness.

They stay with me.

Day or night, a thousand times a month I longed for monkey tranquilizers to calm those kids down.

Since it was not an option, we hiked, walked, ran, and frequented parks.

It was my daily task to:

1. Stay sane
2. Wear those two out.

Now that I am older, now that I have lived through every part of the growing up story of those two precious, deeply wound people, I would say this–

I know enough of the neglect and the violence that led to their howling childhood. I know enough of the condition of their brains, concussed from the absence of love, to know that for every minute of solitary wakefulness that I endured with them–for them, every moment of public humiliation in a grocery store or restaurant, every crazy scene, all those years of lost peace.

Worth it. Worth the risk, the agony, the relentless void.

But why did no one else come to our assistance?

Why such violent, unending loneliness? No cure. No concern for the survivors.

Nothing.

Nothing at all
Alone each 4 a.m.

An old story for a new friend

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I sat on the beat up couch and told my mil the story that had just unfolded with heartbreaking force–years of sexual abuse perpetrated by our adopted son Charles. Stopped as soon as it was uncovered but not soon enough to obviate years of damage and pain.

She looked stunned (of course) and managed something about God blessing our family.

At the time I thought, does she see what I cannot?

God has blessed me. God has blessed my family. But she did not know what she was talking about. She was a woman on the mainland of “normal” and I was drifting in the dinghy of “messed up life.”

Attachment disorder will do that to ya. It will put you out to sea with issues so devastating that Richard Parker starts to look like a tabby cat.

Love, if you hear adults, professionals, “experts,” tell you things that do not make sense, learn from my lonely voice.

Your children all have an equal right to live in peace, safety, and love. If one of those children threatens the safety of the others…

Yell loud at anyone who will listen. And don’t stop until you get the help you need.

You have a right to live free from the constant threat of harm.

And so do your wee ones.