This is the part about adoption that gets me angry faster than any other. When family and friends who have known an adoptive parent for years, or in the case of parents and siblings, their entire lives, and those friends and family allow an adoptive child/teen to cause division. If you could see me sitting here at my computer right now I am scowling at my screen. I’ve just read two stories by amazing adoptive mama’s who are being crucified by their extended families. Those families have taken in the adoptive child/teen and have not only given that child/teen a place to live, but have been vocal on social media bashing the adoptive parents.
In the adoption world this is called TRIANGULATION and I write quite extensively about it in my book, Adoption Combat Zone. Triangulation can be between spouses but more and more often today it is between friends of the family, extended family members, neighbors and even fellow church members.
I want to SCREAM! NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY, spends 8 to 14 months of their time putting together mountains of paperwork for the adoption then goes through invasive local, state and federal background checks including a home study where a social worker goes through your entire home top to bottom scrutinizing you on everything including how clean your toilets are, do you have hot water, what do your existing children’s bedrooms look like, and what types of food do you have in your refrigerator. You get FBI fingerprints done, a physical exam and a PSYCHOLOGICAL exam to be sure you are fit parents.
THEN you have to pay approximately $25,000 per child/teen AND travel several trips back and forth to a country where you don’t speak the language and where there are many pitfalls. You either pay extra money to take your existing children with you or leave them at home for weeks, missing them like crazy. You pee into holes in the ground (squatty potties) and go all day without food because you’re stuck in a teeny town trying to get an original birth certificate and the closest gas station or restaurant is hours away and what was supposed to take 15 minutes takes 9 hours.
You do all of this just so you can get the child/teen back home and say, well, that was fun, but I don’t want you to live here anymore!!! ACK!!!! NO!!!!
Let me just say this. I did not kick her out. I did not kick him out. I’ve never kicked a child/teen out of my home. But she will tell anyone who will listen to her that I did just that. In my last blog post I wrote about Joey, a young man in Utah who is looking for a family. Seems his adoptive family didn’t want him anymore, nor did another family who took him in for awhile. RED FLAG!!!!
A girl who is friends with my youngest daughter showed up at our house a few weeks ago with a packed bag asking if she could stay awhile because her mom kicked her out. RED FLAG! I asked her in then asked for her mom’s phone number. I told her I had to speak with her mom before I made my decision. She reluctantly gave it to me. I called and to my surprise – NOT – the mom did not kick her out. The message to the girl was if you’re going to live here you must stop smoking in our home and do your schoolwork so you can graduate high school. Of course the girl didn’t want to stop smoking or do her homework so instead she did the easy thing and walked out. I turned to the girl and told her to get into my car so I could drive her back to her home. Her mother loved her, was waiting for her, and only wanted her to grow up and do the right thing. (Oh! And by the way, she was adopted. Yup!)
However, in so many of these cases, instead of making that phone call, the friend or family member BELIEVES the child/teen and automatically judges the adoptive parent just as the child/teen describes them. Things like, “My mom hates me. My dad hits me. All my mom does is sit around all day while I work and clean the whole house. I work a job and my mom takes my check. (Yeah, putting it in your savings account so you don’t blow it all in 5 seconds.) My mom won’t let me have a phone. (Yeah, cause all you do is go on it to connect with strangers on the dark web.) My mom blah blah blah.” All total lies. And for some reason they are believed. Maybe it’s because people have this mistaken idea that children/teens do not make up stories. HA!
WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE that they throw out years of relationship for a child/teen who is bent on destruction and self-gratification?
If you are a family member, friend, or neighbor of an adoptive parent ask yourself if what that child/teen is saying sounds anything remotely like the person you’ve known all of this time?
An adoptive mama reached out to me. Her entire extended family, including her parents, had turned against her and told her what a horrific parent she was being – AFTER they watched her raise to adulthood five amazing children. It makes me crazy! How can they know this woman for more than 50 years and not give her the benefit of the doubt?
It says a lot on how manipulative these children/teen are. They’ve learned the art of manipulation very well both in the orphanage and online in places like VK. They are great actors. They’re so good at it because they honestly don’t care about anyone but themselves. They have ZERO remorse. They have no conscience.
If these extended family and friends only knew that they are setting themselves up to be the next victims of the adoptee. Once the child/teen feels secure in their new position they will return to the same behaviors that caused the disruption from their adopted family. And if you’re anything like me, I tried to warn people about her because I didn’t want them to go through what we did. Most times they didn’t listen. The number of times I’ve heard, “I wish I would have listened to you about her, or him.” Me, too. Me, too. I think again about Joey in Utah who has been “kicked out” of two families….hmmmm….. Who will be victim family #3?
I’ve watched the victim merry-go-round in our adopted girl at least five times in the last three years. She burns bridge after bridge, each time telling the new “mark” her sob story of being a poor orphan brought here to America and then abandoned and kicked out by her adoptive family. They buy into the story and give her everything she wants and let her nest in their home. All it takes is for them to start asking her to be accountable for her actions or take responsibility for cleaning up after herself, or even worse, get an actual job to help pay for her own personal items and they WILL become the new enemy, she will be on the lookout for the new savior and she WILL make their lives hell. Then they’ll call me. Either to help them get rid of her or to apologize to me for not listening to me about her.
I just got a call from her current “boyfriend” on Saturday. He told the same story that I’ve heard from her four other “boyfriends”. “All she wants to do is sit on her phone and look at porn. She screams at me to give her food and refuses to clean up after herself.” Yeah. Heard it all before.
He asked me to let her come back home. HA! NO!!!! Not ever again will she set foot in my home. He was looking for a way to get her out of his apartment. I’m not the answer, sorry…not sorry. But don’t worry, I told him. Just tell her that in order to stay at your place she needs to clean and cook and get a job and before you know it you’ll come home and she’ll be gone. And she will tell the next guy that you kicked her out just like she told you that we kicked her out.
Bottom line, if you are a friend or family member of someone who has adopted BELIEVE THEM FIRST! Do NOT believe what you are told by the adopted child/teen unless there is indisputable corroborating evidence coming from another source other than the adopted child/teen. Sit down and talk face-to-face with your friend (the adoptive parent). Believe them. Support them. Don’t get sucked into the madness of adoption trauma drama. It will not end well and you will have lost a good friend.
This is Simply My Opinion,
Kathe
www.adoptioncombatzone.com
https://www.facebook.com/adoptioncombatzone/
www.katheray.arbonne.com
How many adoptive parents commit suicide?
Good question. I know so many who have lost everything including their spouse and bio children. It’s so sad. Kathe
In response to Linda’s question- I can say that I
definitely considered suicide during our darkest period
after bringing home our Ukrainian teens and we already had three adopted children and had been to all the foster/adoption classes, read all the
good books, etc. So thankful for a family who supported us during those few years when the boys were home.
Kathe- thank you for being so transparent in what you have experienced.
We adopted domestically prior to our international adoptions and our eldest girl told everyone we kicked her out. Truth is that she left on her own a week after turning 18 because she didn’t like her curfew and our expectations (keep a job, no drunk or high driving and no illegal substances at home). Yep- so she left and continues to spread lies about us. But time has a funny way of revealing the truth.
Same story, different family. Over and over again. Hundreds of families dealing with the same issue. Thanks for your comment. Kathe
I have two “in the wind”. One has chooses homelessness when he can’t find a woman to let him live with her. The other has done exactly what was described here. After leaving our house because we wanted her not to vape and to save her money, she went to a GF’s house. GF’s mum bought the story – hook, line, and sinker. Three weeks later GF was begging her mother to throw AD out. AD is now with BF family. In neither case, did the parents check with us or even meet us to see if her story was true. Thank you for writing this – it made me feel better. (or less bad)
Yeah, I get it. I have one homeless right now. Missed Job Corp appointments because “something” came up. He likes sleeping more than working. There are so many parents like us. We want more for these kids but they don’t want it. 🙁 Hugs, Kathe
Because you couldn’t make their lives perfect you blame them for their abandonment pain. So much for unconditional love, you people are a joke.
At some point a person needs to take personal responsibility for their lives. There is a huge difference between unconditional love and living with abuse from someone who refuses to get help. Unconditional love does not mean you put up with constant unending abuse from another person. You can’t want something for someone more than they want it for themselves. I grew up in an abusive home. I, more than most, understand where these teens were coming from. I could have chosen the route they did very easily. I didn’t. I decided to take personal responsibility for my future and make the changes within myself to be a better person and rise above my circumstances. No one could have made me do that. I had to make that choice on my own. These teens refuse to make that choice and have instead, chosen to live as victims, taking advantage of people and society. I am in no way blaming them for their past or their pain. I am holding them responsible for how they are choosing to live that out. Kathe