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.  

Not a Saint, but a Mother: Pam Blackburn’s Story

Pam with daughters Hannah (left) and Melissa (right),
and husband Ron.

"Ordinary things caught my attention and I realized how lucky most of us are to be able to do the ordinary, mundane, boring, tedious everyday things we do. I noticed construction workers with jack hammers able to work incredibly hard, men on top of tall buildings creating new sky scrapers, children walking alongside their mothers picking up leaves from the ground, people riding bicycles, walking their dogs and driving cars..." (Pam Blackburn)

Pam Blackburn is the mother of five children, both by birth and by adoption.  Three of her children have special needs, including daughters Hannah and Melissa whose stories she tells on her website, http://mydaughtersvoice.com.

Pam’s daughter Hannah, 26, has Down syndrome and autism.  Her daughter Melissa, also 26, has cerebral palsy and is partially-paralyzed.  Both Hannah and Melissa are nonverbal and, on her website, Pam explores and describes their thoughts and feelings from her own perspective.  At 52, Pam describes herself as an “older mother,” but it was as a young woman when she had serious health problems, the kind usually experienced by people in their later years.

In her twenties, Pam Blackburn underwent emergency surgery ("emergency," although the tumor had caused her debilitating physical and emotional symptoms for some time) to remove a brain tumor.  Not long after coming home from the hospital, she had to return, this time with meningitis.  The experience changed the course of her life.

“It was on the trip home from this hospital stay that I first realized all I have taken for granted. Ordinary things caught my attention and I realized how lucky most of us are to be able to do the ordinary, mundane, boring, tedious everyday things we do. I noticed construction workers with jack hammers able to work incredibly hard, men on top of tall buildings creating new sky scrapers, children walking alongside their mothers picking up leaves from the ground, people riding bicycles, walking their dogs and driving cars,” Pam writes in a blog post.

“The grass was greener, the sky bluer, the clouds more pronounced, and I was in awe. I remember thinking that if I ever recovered I would appreciate life much more, spend more quality time with my children, family and friends, stop to smell the roses, and help others to see all that is perfect with the world. The truth is it would take me a long time to recover and many more years to learn to appreciate all I had in spite of the small deficits. … It is because of this experience that I first thought of welcoming children with special needs into my life.”

Pam’s passion is helping others “gain understanding, acceptance, and compassion for my (adult) children with special needs as well as others who are considered to have disabilities or 'special needs.'”

After I adopted Mia, who is typically-developing, people sometimes approached me and said, “You are such a good person to have done this.  She is so lucky that you adopted her.” Their intentions were kind, but the message in such comments is that, somehow, Mia didn’t have the right to a family, but that it was a favor we were doing her to give her one. I saw the wonderful film, “Lovely and Amazing” not long after Mia came home from Guatemala.  It’s the story of a family, and one in which Jane Marks, an “older mother” with grown children, adopts a young daughter, Annie. I love the line in the movie when someone praises Jane, played by Brenda Blethyn, for adopting her daughter. 

“She's lucky to have you,” the person says.

Jane responds, “She's not lucky. She’s entitled .  Every child's entitled to a mother.”

(Amen.)

If people, such as the fictional Jane Marks, are regarded as angels for adopting typically-developing kids, what sort of sainthood is thrust on parents who adopt children with special needs? Pam Blackburn is adamant: “If there is anything I would love people to know about adopting kids with special needs it is that we are not saints, we aren't perfect, we make mistakes, we get angry and frustrated, laugh and cry, have joys and challenges -- just like all parents.”

“I can't tell you the number of times people have come up to me and wrapped their arms around me and said, ‘I'm hangin' on to you 'cuz you're going straight to heaven!’ Sarcasm and humor are my friends, but it took a long time to get to that point,” Blackburn said.

She also bristles when people expect her children by adoption to “somehow carry gratitude in their hearts every day” for being adopted.

“I get somewhat fired up about this because first and foremost all children are chosen. Abortion and birth control are our rights (not that I advocate abortion, but it is a choice), and placing a child for adoption is a choice as well. So, in my mind, if you are raising a child whether through adoption or birthing (or fostering or whatever), that child was chosen,” she said.

“Meeting Melissa was life changing, and she has become my greatest teacher. I admire her attitude, unconditional love, fighting spirit and love for life. She is much more of a survivor than I ever was. She refused to give up where I would weary of fighting. She adapted where I was stagnant, was brave where I was fearful, and was happy where I was miserable. She has taught me more than words can express, and showed me how to love, laugh and appreciate life again. My challenges have made me stronger and happier, and I’ve learned not to take anything for granted. I truly appreciate and am grateful for each day that I wake up and know I am incredibly blessed.”

Thanks Pam for sharing your story.  

You are blessed indeed.