Tragedy
Several months ago we had a 16 year old join our family. Five days ago he left and we decided that it was best that he not return to live with us. We don’t want him out of our life. In fact, we very much want him in our life. We simply needed to redefine our boundaries with him – he can no longer live in our home. This last move was his 28th move since he was placed with CPS in the past 11 years. There have been 9 other foster/adoptive families and 7 other group homes. The real tragedy is that none of the other families are still in his life. Throughout all his moves in and out of peoples lives, he is still alone. We have four other kids in our home, 3 are “ours”, 1 is another foster care placement. We set ground rules early in the process so that he knew what he was getting into and he would know what success needed to look like. We are not built for teenagers, all of our kids are young and high-need/high-energy kids.
Failure
I am coming to grips with the feeling of immense failure. I know there are some close friends thinking that they knew this would happen. We all had lingering doubts. His track record gave us plenty to worry about. (I need to clarify that we were never worried about the safety of us or our kids nor was that the reason that he is not returning to our home.) There was so much I wanted to see from him, so much growth he had to accomplish, so much promise for a brighter future. But it ended so suddenly when he left and when it happened my wife and I both knew it had to stay like this. But the impression he made on our lives and our family was so great that his absence has created such a large void. Leaving was his choice, although he thought it would be for only 24 hours. We were all surprised that it ended up as a permanent move. He actions were caused by legitimate needs brought on by other people – he did nothing to deserve his lot in life. But he used illegitimate methods to scratch those legitimate needs. I pleaded with him to make different choices, cautioning him that he was emptying out my wife – she was a shell of herself after a few months with him. Those pleadings were ignored. He made wrong choices. And experts will tell you that he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t stop himself. Perhaps. But it shouldn’t matter and it didn’t matter. I firmly believe we made the right choice and that true failure would have been to ignore him and suppress the desire to act on helping him. Failure would have been to not give him another chance at having a family. Failure would have been to assume that someone else will take care of him because there was no one else. We knew about him and his situation needed to change. We had to do something. We didn’t play 5 holes of golf on an 18 hole course, there were only 5 holes to play and we played them well. He also deserves another chance – I hope there is another family out there for him. But what happened with us is not failure, not at all. We didn’t fail, he didn’t fail.
Promises
I have been working with kids who have been abused, abandoned, and neglected for over 20 years. We have 20 kids come in and out of our home over the past 6 years. I’ve spent countless summers working with hundreds of kids simply for the purpose of giving them positive childhood memories. The urge to give these kids promises of a better life is strong. Reading his file I saw that he’s had a lifetime of being over-promised and under-delivered. I thankfully realized that early, as my first inclination was to give him verbal security that his future was secure. At the camps, kids sheepishly walk off the bus, almost hiding within themselves from the immediate attention they receive from our welcoming party. Our camp photographer summarized their experience the best: he noticed that on that first day kids shy away from the camera, on the morning of day 2 they tolerate getting their picture taken, by the afternoon of day 2 they are jumping in front of the camera. But then suddenly, more quickly than their transformation from shyness to boldness, on the eve of their departure they shut down again. The realization that “real life” is a bus trip away forces their self-protective inhibitions to resurface. So I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was to promise him anything. Instead, I gave him all the power. I told him that his future – with us, without us, for adoption, his education – was up to him. It hinged on the decisions he would make for himself. We can’t force him to do anything. We can only celebrate and encourage the great decisions made and enforce the consequences for the bad ones. I let him know that he can’t allow the past 16 years of his life to affect the next 16 years of his life. I read a quote the other day, it went something like this: Don’t look behind you unless you intend to go back. So while his current situation is caused by other people that let him down, the choices he makes today are the only way for him to change his circumstance.
Chime in, please!!
This blog is too long and I didn’t chop it into paragraphs. Forgive me. I want to be encouraged – I want you to be encouraged. We didn’t do this alone and we wouldn’t have made it this far without the support and love from our family and friends. Deep love. God has smiled on us. I would like to hear about your stories and experiences, your thoughts and insights. Please share.
