Brenda McCreight PH.D.

Transitioning our children into adulthood has to be the toughest part of the job, at least that’s my opinion. I can deal with the ups and downs of raising them because that’s my life - I can manage things, I can discipline, I can scold, I can cuddle and love, I can provide opportunities and encouragement, I can provide meaningful consequences. I live with locking up all the knives and keeping the money in a small bedroom safe. But, once they hit an age where most youth would be moving onto independence, then it’s a whole new game.

What brought this all on? Surely you can guess…it’s good old #6. To refresh your memory, he’s 18, adopted at age 10, usual lousy childhood, bad foster home, fasd, high IQ, good looking, smooth talker, no conscience. So, he didn’t quite graduate from high school but he got into college in a Culinary Arts program (one of the best in Canada) but only lasted from September to March, when he was kicked out for chronic lateness and absences. Throughout his teens he was fired from his part time jobs for the same reasons. Last month, he got a really good job as a prep cook at a super restaurant. He was very excited as this was his route to the chef’s career he wants.

I was also thrilled because it meant he had a good full time income and I could give him his exit papers from home. Well, I bet you can guess what happened. He “missed” a shift, and then never went back because he assumed he was fired. So, once again, he is unemployed, no lessons learned (as is the way with FASD), and sleeping on the couch in the teen tv area (I gave away his bedroom to #5 when I thought he was leaving in early March- in our large family, once you are supposed to be gone, the bedrooms are up for grabs). He’s also still a major party boy and still rude and argumentative with me. But, what do you do when they’re 18? I can’t ground an 18 year old for getting fired, I can’t withhold any allowance since I don’t give him one (I have some unpleasant guesses about where he gets his money for drugs and alcohol), I can’t withhold driving priveleges because he never learned to drive, and I don’t want to kick out an unemployed youth - at least not yet. He’s off again for another fun weekend with friends, so I won’t see him until sometime next week. He won’t show up for my birthday on Saturday or for Mother’s Day on Sunday- which is fine with me.

 As mad as this guy makes me, I love him very much. I want him to succeed, but I don’t see success coming his way any time soon. I know he’s young and many changes are ahead of him, but the basic challenges have never changed with him, he still steals something almost every time he goes into a store, and time is catching up with him. He doesn’t see himself as an adult, but the world does. If he’s caught stealing again, or on a drug charge it will be in adult court. And, I will offer him every support to get another job but I won’t  let him stay at home past the end of the month. I’ll buy him dishes and sheets and all that he needs when he moves out, but he has to move out. I don’t think he will begin to grow up any other way. So, sideways and backwards we go.

 For those of you who are new to older child adoption - I want to assure you that it isn’t the same for every youth. #5, age 19, stopped her wild ways a year ago, returned to school and graduated, and is now in a great trades training program. We are happy to have her living at home with us because she is doing something positive with her life, she helps out, she’s kind and funny to our little ones, she lives an all around healthy lifestyle, and she’s simply good company to live with. So, some are easier than others - yours might be an easier one too!

Just as I didn’t always expect what I got with my children, I know that not all of my children expected what they got from being adopted by us. I wonder how many older child adoptees go into absolute shock when they realize what type of family is adopting them. The new adopting parents may be of a different race, they may be older, they may have a huge family, they may be rural or urban - but different than what the child is used to. They may also be of a different faith - or no faith - and you can bet their expectations, rewards, and discipline methods will be very, very different than anything the child or youth has ever experienced or expected.

When I reflect back on my children’s early days in our home, I can’t help but question how much of their inititial mis -behaviours were a result of  what I call “adoption shock”. In my professional practice now, I always spend time with the parents and the children checking out the pre-adoption expectations of everyone involved. I see it as part of helping them get to know each other better. I wish I had done that with my own children when they entered the family. I was pretty arrogant to just assume they would/should like our way of life and learn to accept it. I wish I had helped them to say what they didn’t like (in a healthy way) as I do with my clients. It wouldn’t have meant I would have changed anything (I might have, but it’s not likely - I’d still be Anglican, I’d still insist on table manners, there would still be lots of other kids, there would still be no tv in bedrooms, etc) but at least my older children would have felt heard and respected at that point and I think that not doing it was disrepectful of me.

I don’t live my life on regrets but I do think it’s important to look back and see what I could have done better with my children so that I can at least talk to them about it now. I really do believe in “better late than never” and it’s never too late to show them some respect. So, next time I have a reasonable conversation with #6 (those do happen on occasion) I’m going to ask him about that. I know there were some things he really liked (big house, nice area of town, lots of nice new clothes, joining soccer) but I also know there had to have been some shocks and I need to address those with him and let him know that whether or not I would have changed them, they would have mattered.

There’s a funny middle aged woman comedian named Mrs. Hughes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW9TaAOMc) who has a set about fighting with her teen age son. During the set, she relates how he asks “Why did you have me?” and she replies to him “Well, I didn’t expect you!” She’s very funny and she has the parent/teen stuff down pat.

I was quite envious that she was able to tell that joke because if an adoptive parent ever said anything like that in public, even jokingly,  he or she would be savaged for rejecting the teen or being cruel or what have you. People expect different things from us than they expect from ‘civilians’. But, since anyone reading this is likely an adoptive parent - I’m going to be honest and say that there have been times when, if asked by one of my teens “Why did you adopt me?” I would give the same answer as Mrs. Hughes.

There’s a mythology that we should expect what we get from our kids in terms of bad behaviour, rudeness, rejection, thefts, lies etc. But, I don’t buy into that. I never, ever, adopted one of my twelve with the hope or expectation that they would make my life a pure misery, or that they would exhaust me, or that they would take so much from me that there were times I was unsure if I could recover. And, in truth, none of them did that for long, but some have done it for periods of time and I really, truly didn’t expect it. I did expect FASD related behaviours such as lying and stealing and learning challenges. I did expect rejection and hurt feelings.  But, I didn’t expect how I would feel about it. I didn’t expect that I couldn’t always protect myself from the pain of raising someone who hated me on principle, not because I had done anything particularly wrong. Nor did I expect that I wouldn’t always be able to bounce right back and move on. I guess I expected the behaviours, but even experience didn’t teach me to expect that at times, it would really hurt and at times, I wouldn’t have the necessary resilience.

I don’t have any answers for this, but I do believe strongly that as adoptive parents we have to be able to say, at least to each other, that there are times with some of our kids that we really didn’t expect what we got. We should be able to be honest with each other and say “I expected to be loved eventually” and “I expected to be able to leave a knife on the table without being afraid of being stabbed”. Those strike me as really basic expectations. It has to be okay to admit, publicly,  that with some of our kids-  we simply didn’t expect it.

The 18th birthday of #6 came and went without him. He decided he’d rather party it up with his friends. This is pretty atypical behaviour in our family - birthdays are a big deal, and this was a bit of a bench mark party so it would have been a lot of fun. Even when our other teens were in the height of their acting out, they still liked a good birthday bash at home. But, this is how #6 lives and thinks. He did say we could take him out for lunch on Saturday because he had free time then. My, how generous! And then, to add insult to injury, he called yesterday while we were at church and asked us to drive into town and pick up his bike because he wanted to go mountain climbing and he didn’t want to leave his bike where he’s been staying. Urrggg.

I really want him to move out, but he hasn’t been home in almost 10 days so I can’t “evict” him. It’s very frustrating when you want to tell someone to leave but they won’t show up to let you do it. Quite honestly, I think he’s doing this on purpose (no, I’m not being paranoid), I believe he’s staying away so he won’t be asked to leave because he’s really not ready. But, as I’ve told you before, you can’t be 18 and finished school and still treating me rudely and expect to live here. Not going to happen. So, he needs to go, ready or not.

The other day, a big black bear wondered through our back yard. He didn’t seem to be looking for anything, or anyone, in particular. I think he was just passing through the forest and came out on our land and thank heavens, no one was out playing so he just kept on going till he was gone, and no one was eaten alive. Since moving to this property I’ve developed all kinds of different thoughts about animals. I no longer find deer and bunnies charming and sweet - they eat my gardens and that makes me mad.  I now see them as the biggest enemy to my sanity because like some other adoptive parents I know of, gardening is what keeps me sane and happy. I love my garden and I love my flowers and vegetables - so when something destroys those, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the animals plight or its need to eat. I know that Bambi’s and Bunnies need a place to live and food to eat, but I’m surrounded by West Coast rain forests - there’s lots of good Bambi and Bunny food out there. That bear though, might just come in handy. I don’t want him to harm #6, but if it would just scare him off, that would make the bear my ally and best friend. But, you can’t really count on bears so when #6 eventually shows up, I’ll have to scare him off myself.

I wrote a long blog yesterday about some really wonderful things in my day and somehow it didn’t get posted. So, to recap - I have two offices. One in town where I see clients, and one in my home on the third floor of my house. My home office is a circular room that juts out from my house and has large, double windows on three of the walls. From this perch I can look out over the back area of my house - a couple of acres of cleared lawns that I hope to turn into gardens, swings and slides and a trampoline, and forest beyond that. While I was looking out the window yesterday, I saw my little #14 (almost 6 years old) riding her bike up the dirt road as fast as her little legs could peddle. Running beside and behind her were our two small dogs (terrier/chihuahua mixes) and our new puppy who still hasn’t quite got her legs figured out. They were all grinning and looking carefree and joy filled - full of life and confidence and fun. It was such a magnificent sight - it created for me the kind of memory I need to keep me going in the harder times. My little #14 is a truly wonderful child - she’s smart, willfull (spoiled), loving, kind, and powerful. It’s truly a privelege to be her parent and it is often the joy of being her mom that gives me the strength to deal with the challenges that are brought by the ones that don’t, at the moment at least, create that same sense of joy in parenting. This wasn’t an earth shaking moment in the greater scheme of things, but I wanted to share that kind of quiet happiness with you since I seem very willing at other times to share my rants.

Yesterday’s unpublished blog then went on to some of my problems with #6, but I think I’ll not repeat that. You know the situation with him and it continues. Instead, I want to share some thoughts about older parenting. Someone made  the remark the other day about having a lot of problems at least they weren’t the parent of a five year old at age 55 (that would be me). I guess I was supposed to laugh, but actually, I felt like telling her how sad I was for her. When we made the decision to adopt the youngest five, we were aware of our ages (some people seem to think we didn’t know how old we were). We knew it would mean that I could never retire, and that we would never pay off the mortgage, and that we would be parenting till the time many people enter rest homes. But, there were some reasons that related solely to the children that we felt we should accept the placement, and there were reasons for us as well. The positives that we saw, and still see, are many. For one, I don’t know what else I was going to do with my time anyway. I don’t have a lot of interests. I like to garden, which I still do, I like to see friends and family, which I stil do, I like to travel, which I still do. I like to sleep in on Saturdays, which is the one thing I had to give up.

What I get from being an older parent is a life that still has surprises. I get new interests (our 9 year old is our first boy to play hockey and our 10 year old is our first to go into Irish dance). I get to keep going to Disneyland.  I get a million hugs a day. I get to continue evolving as a parent which to me, means continuing to evolve spiritually and emotionally. I think I would just let those aspects of myself slide if I wasn’t challenged daily by younger children. And since energy creates energy - I have more energy than many women my age.

We certainly considered what it would be like for the children to have parents the same age as their grandparents. And, yes, there are and will be drawbacks for them. But, the positives are that we aren’t afraid of FASD, or adhd, or bi-polar or much else. We’ve been there, done that many a time, and we have the resources and confidence to help them with those challenges. We know, too, how priceless the good times are so we endeavour to create good times and good memories and to create a childhood for each of them that they will remember with joy and love. We have seen our older children survive and surpass anyone’s expectations, so we relax about the futures of these five younger children and we worry less about whether homework gets done than we do about whether it’s a good day to skip school altogether and go to Victoria and check out the museum then go to a movie.

I guess in the long run it will be up to the children to decide, as adults, if our age was a pro or a con. My guess it will be a mix - but isn’t that way of all parents at any age? By then, we’ll be so old, or so dead, that we won’t be able to do anything about it anyway. But, I know I’m thankful for every day I have with these five, and for the fun, the energy, and the joy they bring to so many moments in my life. And, I strive to repay them with equal fun, energy, joy and love. I think that will be enough.

You go through all the years of raising the children, and then comes the scary part - you have to let them (or make them) go out into the world on their own. As you know, I’m in the process of making #6 become independent. He’s finished school, working full time in his chosen trade, and he’s still rude and uncooperative at home, as well as still stealing everything he can sell or use for himself. I’ve told him and told him to be gone by May 1st, but I think he doesn’t believe me so it’s going to take some re-inforcement. I know this likely sounds harsh to many of you but I just simply won’t have a self supporting young adult live at home who is still acting out toward me and doing things I can’t possibly approve of outside of the home.

 The weird thing is, I wouldn’t even know about most of what he does outside our home (although I would guess) except that he posts his actions on the internet. We get to see pictures of him doing things that are very dangerous, very illegal, very immoral, and very stupid. We’ve certainly talked to him about his need to show the world his activities and how this will back fire on him. His view is that any future employer who sees these will only think it was a teen who was doing teen behaviours and that if we don’t like seeing the pictures, we shouldn’t look (actually, other people see them and forward them to us out of concern, we don’t look for them). These are not typical teen behaviours, but #6 has always been hampered by an inability to see any other perspective. I know it’s a combination of his having FASD and pre-adoption neglect and abuse - that’s why I managed it and put up with it for so many years -but he’s a grown up now, and we’ve seen to it that he was as well educated as he could be, and as well prepared for life as possible. But, I repeat, I’ll put up with a lot when their 15, but not when their 18.

I know that #6 thinks I favour #5 because she lives at home at the age of 19 and we support her financially and have no limits on when she has to leave. But, she helps out in the house, she’s going to trade training, she’s a joy to be around, she has a healthy and positive lifestyle, she treats us with respect and kindness, and her internet pictures are normal and uneventful!  That’s what it takes to live in our home after school is over.

After all of that ranting - how do I really feel? I really feel worried and scared for #6. I truly can’t let him stay in the home. I don’t need the younger children to see someone they consider an adult treating me badly, nor do I need them to think I condone the things they see him do on the ‘net. But, I am so afraid for where his life will go once he doesn’t have us to “nag” him and confront him on a daily (or weekly) basis. He has all the things that go with some people who have FASD such as no understanding of boundaries, no conscience, etc. And, so far he has never succeeded in holding a job or school or anything that interferes in his “fun”. I love him, I’m scared for him, but I can’t protect him at this age and I won’t enable him. So, there is a difficult week ahead of me, but, that’s the way this life goes, isn’t it.

Recently we were asked to consider adopting a 13 year old girl. Since our last 5 arrived five years ago, we have been adament that due to our age, our finances, and our parenting capacity, we could not adopt any more children. If we had any sense, we would have said that many years and many children ago, because age, finances and capacity had been against us for a decade.

We had continued adopting despite all common sense to stop because I always had a sense of not been “full” emotionally, and I felt like some of my children were “missing”. I had a real yearning to continue expanding our family that was almost painful and certainly could not be denied. When little #14 arrived, age 1 year, I breathed a sigh of relief because it felt like everybody was finally home, the yearning was over,  and we could tell our adoption worker to close our file. But time marches on, and several of our more challenging children have smoothed out or left, and so when asked to adopt this youth, we did give it careful consideration. But, when I looked at our lives, I knew we would never pass a home study. The person who asked us to adopt her thought it would be a rubber stamp process because I am well known. However, in BC, the home study process is never rubber stamped and is very thorough. And I knew that we would not be approved. The negative factors are the incredible amount of time it takes each day to get things organized to have my mom moved to an assisted living facility near my home and to deal with her needs while she waits to move. This process is taking whatever time and energy I have left after children, work, grandchildren, a garden, and oh yes, a spouse. And I know that #6 who, if interviewed at this stage, would have some very strong negatives to say about us (that is, if he could be found, he’s in another one of his absent phases right now and we haven’t seen him in days - not knowing where one of your acting out teens is can also look rather bad in a home study). And, there is the sad fact that #4 has decided he and his pregnant girlfriend no longer need us and so he doesn’t want to have anything to do with anyone in the family. It doesn’t look good on a home study when one of the adult children totally rejects the entire family. Oh, and there might be some problems arisng with Jason and his little family so he may need a lot of time and support from us in the near future.

There was also the consideration that almost all of our children at home are doing well right now. In previous adoptions, when new children arrived, we were in some kind of turmoil with #4 and #5, and #6, and #7 so the boat was already rocking in heavy waves. But this time, she would have arrived when it’s mostly calm (albeint busy) seas and I wasn’t sure about disrupting the lives of so many who are doing so well. I couldn’t quite convince myself that it would be fair to them to bring in another angry, frightened, unattached teen, so I’m not sure I could have convinced a social worker.

So we said we would not be able to adopt this youth. It’s easy to stop seeking children, but I had never thought of what it might be like to say no to a specific, identified child. I’m so sad about that decision because six months from now our lives will be different and maybe we could have looked acceptable in a home study. And, maybe the kids who are doing well could have adusted to her rages and accepted her. But she will be long gone to another geographic location by then so I’ll never know . I’ll think of her forever though, and wonder what happened to her. I pray she finds a safe and accepting family who can raise her to adulthood and I pray that at some point in my life, I will be able to forgive myself for saying no.

As you know, we lost our good dog to a tragic accident a couple of weeks ago. I really didn’t want another dog, we still have our two little ones and I wasn’t ready to “replace” our beloved Jake so quickly, plus I felt we could do with less activity and less action in the house. But, for the children and teens, it was as if they were experiencing an almost frantic compulsion to fill the void that Jake’s death had created. I know my children are full of internal voids created by their early abandonment, and so yesterday three of us went to the animal control shelter and got a new puppy. She is a shepherd mix, only 8 weeks old, and she was rejected by her doggie mom and then placed with a family who returned her the next day because they had landlord issues. So, in her short 8 weeks she has experienced some of the same rejection and abandonment as my children. I guess we will be a good fit for each other. She has a very sweet nature and all the children and teens are charmed by her. I have been totally impressed with how they are sharing her with each other and also respecting her right to not be mauled or mishandled. She hasn’t replaced Jake, we are all still talking about him, but she has filled the void - we can all feel it in the house.

I wish it was always that easy. I wish I could fill the abandonment void in my children’s hearts. In some of them we have been able to do that, but not in all. Some of them will fill that void with other people - spouses and their own children -as they get older. But others will never be able to fill it. It isn’t the extent of the pre-adoption harm, it’s more a personality thing. Some are born more fragile than others, some are more adaptable, some are born with more anger. I would give anything if I could find the right thing for each of them and make it better. Instead, one continues to blame us for his void and his pain, not remembering that he was wounded long before he came to our family. Another appears to be filling his void with drugs and alcohol while denying that it even exists. But, happily, others have managed to find a way to either let us fill the void, or to learn to live with it by accepting it and joyfully receiving all that is good.

But, at least at this point, in this house right now, our little puppy named Emma is filling some of the voids for all of us. So, I am thankful for her.

About Brenda - I am the married mom of 14 (12 by adoption)- 4 have grown up and have families of their own, and 10 still live at home. I am a therapist specializing in behaviour disorders, an author, and a trainer. I also write fiction and I garden, trying to figure out how to make our acreage a monetary venture. My younger children are not old enough to give informed consent about identifying them so I present them here by number and birth order. They are #5 an 18 year old daughter, #6 a 17 year old son, #7 another 17 year old son,  #8 a 15 year old son, #9 a 14 year old daughter, #10 a 10 year old daughter, #11 an 9 year old son, #12 a 7 year old daughter, #13 a 6 year old daughter, and # 14 a 5 year old daughter.

Saturday was the day of the 60th birthday (the one with no champagne) and I had a house full of company. And then the unexpected happened. We all woke up to snow - never, ever happens on the west coast but it had to happen that day. It was a freak storm, worse than we get in winter and nothing we ever expect this time of year when the flowers are in blossom and all the winter garments and equipment are put away. For us, out in the boonies, the storm knocked out our power - which for us means no electricity and no water. So, with our own 11 family members in the house plus 5 guests we were in dire straits. After much discussion, everyone else headed off to a restaurant and then to the local swimming pool while my cousin and #5 and I went shopping for the party. Fortunately, the power was back by noon and the 6 inches of snow had already half melted so we went ahead with the celebration plans. A great bonus was my cousin who took over all the cooking and organizing of food so I was able to simply chat and entertain our guests while he did all the work. I’m not sure why he did that, but I’m not one to complain about so much help. He’s leaving today to go back to Nelson where he lives, and I’ll miss him dreadfully, not just because he cooks and cleans, but because he was such a big part of my childhood and now that I am getting older, I miss my family in so many ways. One of my other cousins has bought a house here and will be moving into it in a couple of months. I feel like in some ways my life is circling as the significant people who populated my childhood seem to be populating my older years. I am so grateful for this.

Another thing to be grateful for is that #5 is 19 years old today. A couple of years ago I wasn’t certain she would live to this age, and I sure never thought she would be the happy, charming, radiant, young woman she is today.  I feel like I’m floating on air as we prepare for her party. My adult daughters are taking her out to a couple of bars afterwards for her first legal drinks. She could have done this silly ritual with friends, but she asked her sisters to go out with her and they were thrilled. Like me, they are so happy she is alive and wants to be with family.

In an adoptive family everything is so big - the heart aches are huge and the good times are even bigger. It’s the biggest roller coaster in the universe and this weekend and today I’m riding at the top of it. I’m not going to look down, I’ll get there soon enough. Today, I’m just waving my arms and yelling from joy.

About Brenda - I am the married mom of 14 (12 by adoption)- 4 have grown up and have families of their own, and 10 still live at home. I am a therapist specializing in behaviour disorders, an author, and a trainer. I also write fiction and I garden, trying to figure out how to make our acreage a monetary venture. My younger children are not old enough to give informed consent about identifying them so I present them here by number and birth order. They are #5 an 18 year old daughter, #6 a 17 year old son, #7 another 17 year old son,  #8 a 15 year old son, #9 a 14 year old daughter, #10 a 10 year old daughter, #11 an 9 year old son, #12 a 7 year old daughter, #13 a 6 year old daughter, and # 14 a 5 year old daughter.

I don’t know why yesterday’s blog entry was cut off mid sentence - I guess a higher power had heard enough from me about wet laundry and messy rooms. I’m sure you readers were about done with that topic as well. It’s funny how I can go on and on and on….. about trivial things like that. I can get my blood pressure boiling over something that really has no impact on the world and yet, if one of my kids has a truly awful experience, or is dangerous to the rest of us, or has a big issue with drugs etc, whatever, I just handle it and move on. No venting, no pages of “poor me”, I just parent up and do what needs to be done. So, why, oh why, can’t I do the same with messy bedrooms and wet laundry? I guess that is something more to add to the list of things I need to change about myself. As much as I believe we all need to be self accepting, I also know there are some things in my personality that really could use an over haul. And for me, it’s learning to calm down about the small things. After all, what did I expect when I adopted a dozen kids with fasd etc, did I really think that they would tidy their rooms and organize their living spaces? So, when they don’t, why am I so mad? Time for a change, I think.

We are having the expected repercussions from our dog’s death. #9 is having tempers several times a day and she has suddenly decided I am  the most hateful person alive, and she is fighting with everyone. She is a challenge at the best of times, and this is certainly not one of the best. She has early abandonment issues like all of the children. Her infant sister died while they were in foster care many years ago, and she was basically dumped by the foster parents who raised her for six years (the foster father drove the kids to our house, dropped them and their belongings in the driveway, and hugged them both, and drove off to a golf game - after which they basically disappeared from our lives). So she has plenty of reason to spin out following the death. Again, a reminder for me that I need to drop the bedroom and laundry issue and get on with being something that resembles a supportive mom. She needs me and I’d better get on with it.