National Adoption Month - November 2010

("Dad, There comes a time in every teen's life when he must insist on being dropped off a block away." You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. Ad Council print advertisement for National Adoption Month 2010.)

Happy November first!  

This morning I replaced the Van Morrison albums in the kitchen cupboard above my CD player with a new set of music. October, for me, is Van Morrison month – all Van, almost all the time. What better way to say hello (or goodbye) to autumn than “Into the Mystic”?

Now it’s November. 

In two weeks, my book is due. (Yes, some quiet panic underlies that informative little sentence, even though I'm on track to meet my deadline.) Before I sequester myself for the day, and rake over chapters I’ve written (Is that really what I meant to say?) or fill in the ones with holes (Wait – I skipped the whole issue of the…), I need to embrace November.

November holds a visit from a family I love. An outing, with them, to see one of their dear friends play Timon in The Lion King.  It’s been years since I saw that show and my husband and I were in tears before the first few measures of the opening song had ended. The beauty of the costumes, the immediacy of the drums, and the spectacle of it all overwhelmed us. 

The month holds visits with family and friends from the East coast. It’s time to take the family Christmas picture, think about holiday shopping, and excavate the Christmas movies and CDs from their place in the back of a cabinet in the family room.

The one I most look forward to dusting off every year is “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  The 1946 film – in case somehow there are one or two people reading this who haven’t seen it – tells the story of good-hearted George Bailey who has decided, in great despair, to commit suicide.  We see snippets of his life in flashback and witness the countless times he has chosen to serve others instead of pursuing his own desires. 

An angel is sent to save George and does so by showing him what his community would be like had he never existed.  In this alternate world, his idyllic hometown itself has a different name and is rife with crime and with brittle, lonely people. “Strange, isn't it?” The angel Clarence says to George.  “Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?”

Do you know any George Baileys?  They may not live in Bedford Falls or claim to be able to lasso the moon and they very likely don’t look anything like Jimmy Stewart.  But the moniker fits all the same:  without them, the world would be depleted light and goodness it so badly needs. 

November is "National Adoption Month," an annual campaign to raise awareness about children and youth in the U.S. foster care system. When you learn about foster care, you are suddenly introduced to all kinds of George Baileys. They are the foster parents who welcome children into their families for a day, a month, or permanently and lovingly become their parents. They are mentors who befriend children in foster care.  They are grant administrators who support college students who grew up in foster care.  They are social workers and teachers and nurses who extend themselves to children who may have little or no support elsewhere. 

According to the government child welfare website, this year’s “National Adoption Month initiative targets adoption professionals by focusing on ways to recruit and retain parents for the 115,000 children and youth in foster care waiting for adoptive families.”

I remember seeing an advertisement on adoptUSkids.org a few years ago, showing a middle-aged man slumped on a couch in front of the television, snoozing, while a boy sits beside him wearing a happy, bemused expression.  The ad reads:  “When you adopt from foster care, just being there makes all the difference.” I love that ad – that it features a non-traditional family (a single father and son), that it celebrates the bond between an adopted child and his parent, and that the father in the picture isn’t stressing out over parenthood – holding up flashcards or feeding his son celery sticks – but is just being present and himself.  (Who knows? Maybe he they worked on math facts over dinner.) Adopting or fostering a child is not, of course, the only way to be help the many American children in need. See this site and others about ways to help.

Foster parents who care for children whose early life has left their spirits bruised or crushed face sometimes formidable challenges. Fortunately, there are George Baileys in this world – people who lovingly create chosen families, who do their best to address their children’s challenges,  and who put the needs of others before their own. In doing so, they make the world a much better place -- not just for one child, but for all of us.

I don’t know about you, but I think foster parents truly do lasso the moon.