Parenting Pearls-Dec. 6, 2006

Open your hearts to children in need

By: Dr. Mae Sakharov
   The year 1978 was when my life irrevocably changed as it was then I became a single adoptive mother of a 5-year-old girl.
   Single parents were not generally approved of at that time though the practice has become commonplace today.
   I chose to adopt for many reasons, foremost of which was no predilection for continuing my bloodline. My view of family was global and not restricted to the history found on family trees.
   The family you have is the one you make. Small wonder I believed this, coming from a place in which I was neither treasured nor acknowledged.
   Thus, it was not out of the question for me to explore adopting a so-called "hard-to-place child." I could not stand to see children languishing in institutions, exploited and shifted from one less than adequate foster home to another.
   The most successful adoptions are not, as responsible adoption counselors inform, based on the romance of saving a child. Adopters even of infants need to understand the ramifications of taking a child that suffered neglect and poor health care and who may subsequently face years of psychological counseling and/or specialized academic instruction. But if you are up to the challenge, a family is born.
   Over the years, I have become friends and worked with many such made families that come from many different backgrounds and economic strata. Some are among the rich and famous; others, like me, a graduate student.
   I was living on $13,000 a year in 1978. Wondering how I was approved? Most probably it was my history of working with children and innate acceptance of diversity.
   The time between our initial meeting and her arrival was short.
   Just a few short weeks before, a phone call from the social worker: "We have a child for you to meet. She is at a local orphanage, and we want to get her out of there as soon as possible."
   I was stunned, and although I had applied to adopt six months prior, the fact an actual child was waiting took me by surprise.
   Several days later, the social worker and I drove to the orphanage where I met her by a broken swing set. Her head was down with a voice that was barely above a whisper.
   How does one judge if a child is right when adopting? Then do birth parents choose their child? Intuition and love are the guides.
   After the initial visit, the social worker arranged two more meetings, one off the orphanage grounds and another a weekend in the country. On that weekend, I was to ask if she wanted to come home with me.
   "I does" was the answer. Suffice to say she called me Mom from the first. How important that was.
   She turned the light switch off and on as if to make sure the room was real and would not disappear when it slipped into darkness. On the floor beside her was a paper bag with neatly folded clothes and a small stuffed penguin: all of her possessions in the world. Nothing more.
   My daughter did not have an easy start in life. A mother hooked on illegal substances left her in the hospital where she stayed until detoxified from her mother’s prenatal gift. After living with one family, she was sent to a pre-adoption placement, which failed.
   After nine months she was returned to the system as damaged goods. The adoption agency feared that the father in the pre-adoption home had been abusive.
   I was told she was fearful of men and, as a single female parent living in a racially diverse neighborhood, I was considered a good match. It cannot be denied I was fearful of being a single parent, and it took a tremendous amount of adjustment. Mistakes were made along the way as in all families. We lived frugally while I completed my doctorate and years thereafter.
   Looking at my history, having lost a mother at the age of 6 and virtually bringing myself up, it is understandable to surmise I would be the kind of person that chooses to adopt and create that family. No matter what the intentions are of most orphanages, throughout the world they are generally grim places where children languish without love.
   Growing up in such environments, compounded by abject poverty, portends tremendous obstacles in the years ahead. Having worked at an orphanage myself in Vietnam, I saw children with one wish, "someone that loved them," yet few would ever find that someone.
   I truly believe similar life-worn motives are behind the rash of movie star adoptions, including the most recent adoption by Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie, who adopted precious little David from an orphanage in the African nation of Malawi. This child, who lost his mother shortly after birth, had lived in an orphanage since he was 2 weeks old.
   When world got word about Madonna’s adoption, it was roundly criticized in many quarters as celebrity do-gooders traversing the world and bringing back children who should remain in their native cultures. And it is, of course, true many children are waiting in this country. That was one reason I chose to adopt within the United States.
   Others choose to adopt overseas, and over the years I have known wonderful intentional adoptive families.
   Madonna lost her mother at about the same age that I did and from the same disease: cancer. Her father raised her and her brothers as best he could.
   Living in New York at the start of her career, it is documented she often visited Sloan Kettering and spent time with the children on the cancer ward. She spoke of having an affinity for them because of her own life experiences.
   When a person understands loss and encounters others that have, a bond is immediately formed. I cannot help but think that that is one reason little motherless David and she connected.
   The bottom line is children throughout the world face unendurable circumstances. Time passes without love, warmth and history.
   Such children become statistics, often have literally no one in the world to care for them and fall prey to exploitation and lives of crime. I salute and am so deeply grateful to persons who are generous enough, tolerant enough and who have a big enough heart to adopt these children.
   Be the family that of Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Mia Farrow, Rosie O’Donnell or countless others, adoptive parents make remarkable families that are colorblind, history blind and handicapped blind.
   Adoption was right for me, and I deeply encourage others, knowing all roads are rocky, to open their hearts to children in need.