31 for 21: Water and Fire

I suddenly realized that these two metaphors represent one of the main questions in the adoption journey: What is the vision for the adoption?

Some people are "Fire" adopters.  They learn about a country, or an individual institution, or an individual child in dire need, and are driven to rescue the neediest of them.  As the Christians say, "the least of these".  These children may have severe special needs, extreme malnutrition and neglect, and/or be older.  They may take this on because they have medical training that has prepared them for the extra care required.  They may have other children with similar special needs.  Or they may be filled with a sense of commitment and faith that bolsters them to do whatever it takes.  I certainly find these stories inspiring, and wonder if my family and my community could handle one of these.  I wonder how many people would follow that example, rather than write it off as "you're crazy" or even just "wow, I could never do that".

Then there are the "Water" adopters.  They, too, learn about the neglect suffered by children with special needs in developing countries, and are moved to take action.  But they reason, "Let's rescue a child who is still young enough and healthy enough that his/her needs will be more manageable.  Let's rescue a child before they become needy enough to require a "Fire" adopter to be saved."   The babies and toddlers I posted about recently fall into that category, as do most of the children in the 3-5 year old category and many of the 6- to 9-year-olds.  These stories are also inspiring, but in a much more low-key way.  Mostly, they are stories about adorable children being loved by their families and blossoming instead of falling further and further behind in an orphanage.  I can definitely see people in my community being open to this possibility if they saw an example of it.  These stories have a much more normal feel to them.

Which brings us to the final metaphor.

You are walking with your friends and family along the road.  On one side of the road is a lake, filled with drowning children.  On the other side, is a burning schoolhouse.  What do you do? Do you stand there paralyzed because you can't save everyone?  If not, do you run into the fire, swim into the lake, or run down the road ahead as fast as you can so you don't have to hear the cries...?


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Religion Connection, for those who want it:

1. We just passed Yom Kippur, when we not only repent of our sins, but we contemplate our own mortality.  We ask,

"who will live and who will die; 
who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; 
who by water and who by fire...."

 2. Proverbs 24:11-12:

If you refrain from rescuing those taken to death and those on the verge of being slain will you say, "Behold, we did not know this"? Is it not so that He Who counts hearts understands, and He Who guards your soul knows, and He will requite a man according to his deed?

31 for 21: About that fire

As I said in a previous post, I don't think that special needs adoption should be like running into a burning house to rescue children.  It should not be scary and dangerous.  It is a challenge, to be sure, but one that many more people could probably handle.  But there is an aspect of that metaphor that I want to pursue further.

If a house is burning, the first thing one should do is call 9-1-1.  The firefighters will come, and start to put out the fire.  At the same time, firefighters and other brave souls will run in to save the people caught inside.  In this analogy, the firefighters putting the fire out are like the charities that try to improve orphanages and social structures so that other countries can catch up with the USA in taking care of children with disabilities. Eventually, most children with disabilities could be taken care of at home, and the few who are relinquished can be handled by foster care.

The firefighters and brave souls who rush into the blaze are like the families whose blogs I've frequented, who rescue children from the orphanages and institutions, blazing a trail for others.   But reading a story about a hero is not the same as being there.  If when you came upon the scene in the original post, you were not alone but with a friend, and if your friend rushed in, how much more likely would you be to follow the example?  If you were with a crowd of friends, and several rushed in, would you join them, or would you stay with the others outside?  Would you be the type of person who, knowing that others will follow if anyone would lead, become that leader?

Yes, there are legitimate helping roles for the ones outside, but how many more of us would rise to the challenge of heroism -- whether the burning building variety or the drowning child of my followup post -- if we were in a community where this was considered the norm?

31 for 21: I love home-preschool!

Just sayin'.  I love exploring a topic, or a skill set, and watching the 4-year-old and the 2.5-year-old grapple with it each on his own level. Love it, love it, love it!  I can just see integrating a little child with Down syndrome into the mix.  Yum!

For example, when we do the Buddy Walk on Sunday, the 4-year-old will definitely walk the whole time, but his little brother will probably take breaks in the stroller.  Will you please sponsor us?

31 for 21: The greatest special need

Check out the Reece's Rainbow pages for the youngest boys and girls with Down syndrome.  They are so squishy and adorable!  And so young, that their delays are not severe yet and would easily be overcome with some PT, OT, ST and LT (Love Therapy).  However, notice how many of them are from Russia (with a number and a letter after their name  -- e.g. 2H is St. Petersburg region, 15H is Moscow, etc.).  Russian adoptions are expensive -- usually $35-40K!    A few of the children have significant RR grants or agency grants, but the rest are probably going to stay on the rolls, getting older and more delayed.


What a pity -- the greatest special need that holds families back from adopting these kids is the one that is imposed on them by the adoption bureaucracy -- money!


ETA: I did some rough arithmetic, and it would take nearly $4 million to pay for the adoption of the100+ babies and toddlers with Down syndrome listed on RR, about 75% of whom are from Russia.

31 for 21: A mid-life crisis?

It has been suggested that my obsession with saving children with special needs from terrible places is a mid-life crisis.

What is a mid-life crisis?  It is a transitional age.  "Terrible Twos" is a transitional age between infancy and childhood.  It is characterized by tantrums, as the toddler's abilities lag behind his/her imagination.  Puberty is a transitional age between childhood and adolescence, marked by moodiness and rebelliousness, as maturity comes unevenly, and the youth is caught in an uneasy flux.  Yet another transition marks early adulthood, as independence from one's parents is finally established.

 A mid-life crisis is another such transition.  It is a time when an adult comes to grips with being "old".  Usually this process takes a few years, during which said adult resists it, clinging onto the trappings of youth in some fashion or another. As with other transitional ages, we are expected to "grow out of it".

Am I having a mid-life crisis?

There is a small grain of truth in it.  One butterfly-wing that fluttered me in this direction was the decision that, at my age, I do not wish to bear any more children (barring birth-control failure, acts of G*d, etc....).  Just too hard on my body, too risky, etc.  Then I realized that I kept telling people that I love mommy-ing so much, that if I was 10 years younger, I'd keep going.   So in part, yes, I am aware of aging, and that awareness is probably contributing to a sense of urgency about this cause.

The cause itself, however, is not at all indicative of a mid-life crisis.  It is the same idealism I have transferred from one cause to another since my teens.

25 years ago, I went to college hoping to study biochemistry, become a research scientist, and discover wonderful cures to things like cancer.  Didn't pan out.  I wasn't that good at my biochemistry classes, and the lab work was tedious and didn't seem very inspiring.  The big project of the day was mapping the human genome.  Really important and impressive as a whole, yes, but ultimately a tedious process of filling and centrifuging thousands of test-tubes, and then entering reams of data.  Yawn.  I do not want to devote my life to being a cog in a machine.  At least, that's how it looked to me as I walked away from that.

20 years ago, I was working at a career that I found fun and challenging, but not particularly inspiring.  I channeled my idealism into political activity.  I ran for local office, and decided that I hated selling myself for votes.  I have since continued to participate in political causes I support, but this would not be the motivating force in my life, either.

10 years ago, I was a stay-at-home mom with 3 young children, and I loved teaching them and watching them grow, so I went back to school and got a Master's degree in Education.  I had visions of being a female version of Jaime Escalante ("Stand and Deliver"), inspiring girls to pursue math.  Once again, that didn't quite work out.  I love teaching, but classroom management and faculty politics.... not so much.  I now tutor privately, which is great, but I'm not going to have the kind of dramatic effect on kids' lives that I want to.  I have several former students who turned from timid C-students to confident A-students.  But in the grand scheme of things, this is not the stuff of legacies.  I thought about maybe one day becoming a rabbi.

Now I am once again a stay-at-home mom.  I am actively home-schooling my youngest 2, while helping the others with homework and puberty (see above).  I am still tutoring.  I am still politically involved.  I am blogging. And I still want to make my mark on the world.  I don't intend to ever grow out of that!

No, I'm not having a mid-life crisis.  I am too busy for it!


Speaking of busy, this Sunday my family is participating in the Down Syndrome Buddy Walk.  Will you sponsor us?

31 for 21: How I got here

I have no children with Down syndrome.   I don't really know anyone personally with it.  So how did I get involved in this?

Down syndrome really first entered my consciousness during  the 2008 elections, with Trig Palin.

Then my daughters introduced me to the show Glee, which features characters with Down syndrome and other disabilities.

My youngest child was born a few months before I turned 41.  The possibility of Down syndrome was very real, and my husband and I discussed at length what the implications would be for our family.  We realized that, with everything we knew at that point, that we would not abort a child with Down syndrome.  As it turned out, he was born with 46 chromosomes, but the idea that a child with a disability would not be a tragedy was planted.

In January of 2012 I was taking a seminar through Landmark Education, which challenged participants to think of "something big enough to be worth your life being about".  Without thinking much, I put down the first thing that popped into my mind: "Making a difference for children with Down syndrome."  I promptly forgot about this when I got home.  But after that week's episode of Glee, I did in fact start Googling for Down syndrome volunteering opportunities, and found a program through Children's Hospital Boston, which I contacted.

I also found this video and this blog.  The ABC feature was very recent at that time.  Likewise, Katie Musser had just come home a few weeks earlier, and it was not at all clear that she would even survive.  Here is her full story since then.  It is rather long, but since I have been following it -- Susanna Musser writes exquisitely! -- this has had the most impact on my feelings about special needs adoption. Please read her story -- it is fascinating!

This past summer, I took another Landmark Education program, which challenged me to take an issue of importance to me and make an impact in the community around it.  And here I am.


Oh, and please sponsor my family in this Sunday's Down syndrome Buddy Walk!  Thanks!!!

31 for 21

You may have noticed a new button on the right side of this blog.  October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month!  I think I jumped the gun on that a bit with a few of my posts in September, but I look forward to continuing that momentum this month.

To start, my family will be participating in the Massachusetts Buddy Walk this Sunday!  Please sponsor us!

If you like, you can also click back through the button and see what other people are writing this month.