Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Thoughts of an Adoptive Mom
A composite of words from moms who have adopted a child from foster care might read like this:
The minute I saw your picture, I knew you were to be mine. I can’t explain it. I just knew. Your caseworker looked a little skeptical. But she eventually figured out that I was right.
I’m thrilled and proud to be your mom. And I’m sad, too. I’m sorry I haven’t always been your mother. How I wish I could have been there from the beginning. To make you feel loved and safe and welcome. I wish I could have protected you from the hands that violated you. I would have made sure you were warm in the winter and that you had all of the food and medical attention you needed. I’d have read bedtime stories to you and rocked you to sleep.
I wish I’d been there for your very first day of school. We would have shopped for a little backpack and some supplies. I would have held your hand and together we would have met your first teacher. I would have told her how you love fantasies and music you can dance to. I’d have listened to you tell me about your day when you came home. And we would have explored the world together.
You are here now, and you are as much my child as if we’d had those years.
Like you, I still get angry about the things that happened to you before you became part of our family. There isn’t any place to direct my anger. But I hurt for you when I see you struggle to integrate it all. I feel my tears mix with yours and my anger swell to meet your own.
Your high school graduation is just around the corner. And I am incredibly proud of you. I watched you fight to catch up with others in your age group. I know how hard it was for you to concentrate on days when subject matter brought back painful memories. You had to balance therapy sessions with after school activities. It wasn’t easy. But after countless moves and multiple starts in various schools, you learned how to make lasting friendships – and how to apologize to someone you hurt.
We’ll have an ordinary back yard barbeque with some balloons and a cake. Your grandparents and siblings will be here. And we are going to celebrate! I’m going to stand in the audience when you get your diploma, and I am going to whistle and hoot and cheer. We will take lots of pictures and put them in our albums and frame one to put on the fireplace mantle.
With this family it won’t be over when you graduate or turn eighteen. I’ll be your mother for always. When you’re twenty-one, we’ll still be talking about your future. You have things to learn and a career to pursue. You’ll fall in love. Maybe marry and build a family. And you will still be my child.
I wasn’t there in the beginning. I didn’t see your first smile or cheer for your first steps. But I’ve been here to watch you learn to love yourself and discover who you are becoming. I can’t take credit for your uncommon accomplishments, but I am proud beyond words. I have loved you from the moment I set eyes on your photograph, and I will love you always.
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Growing Through Grief
The daily work of adoption is born of loss. Caseworkers and adoptive parents stretch every hour to catch the tears of tragedy, and we live with the burden of believing we have not done enough.
If we listen to the lessons our children in foster care have been trying to teach us, we know there is no such thing as closure. Not for the traumatized. And not for those who love and seek to serve them.
The lessons of tragedy teach us that there are gifts to be discovered if we have the courage to grope through our grief. We eventually discover strengths that were once ignored. We learn new skills. And we find new sources of strength.
On the other side of grief we begin to create meaning from the hurt, the loss of control, and the constant sense of emptiness. Eventually we can come to redefine our work and our lives in new ways, and to rediscover our own purpose.
A friend recently recommended two novels whose authors bring those struggles to life. I hope you’ll read them: Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline; The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
I’m Smiling
If there are children and adolescents involved, Boondocks is a good place to play. With fun centers in multiple states, it has become a favorite of The Adoption Exchange.
There is something at Boondocks for everyone. And when you’re my age, it feels like all of those things are assaulting your senses at the same time. But no matter what the age, it’s a place to meet, and to play. Before you know it you find yourself having a good time. Even a kid like Edgar, who pretty much gave up on ever being adopted.
On April 3 Boondocks in Colorado will host another adoption networking party for children, youth, caseworkers, and prospective parents. It won’t just be fun. It will be life changing.
Early in the morning teenage employees of Boondocks will get up early and before they go to school they will come to the TV station to answer phones for A Day For Wednesday’s Child. Most are scarcely older than the children they volunteer their time to help.
Then…the party!! Pizza, games, prizes, and people who are dedicated to keeping the children safe while they meet families who just might become their own.
Last year five of the children who attended the party were subsequently adopted. I can tolerate a lot of noise and distraction for results like that!
I just found out that Edgar got adopted. With a family who found him at Boondocks. So I’m smiling.
Join us on April 3. It’s a big day in lots of ways.
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Waiting
No one likes to do it.
We’re impatient in line at the super market. We don’t want to wait for delivery of new item. On a diet – chances are we quit before we see results.
It is just hard to wait.
The wheels of permanence grind too slowly in the lives of the children who wait in foster care. Another birthday passes. Other children come in and out of the foster home as if their journeys have somehow taken on a faster pace, while teenagers wait and watch, and eventually are tempted to turn their eyes away.
As of last week the wait is finally over for Mandi. She’d been featured on television three times. Clearly she was growing up before our eyes. As the months dragged on, she watched her siblings be adopted. And now – at last – she has joined two of them in her own family.
As one adolescent said, “It feels like sitting down after standing up for a long, long time.”
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Treasures of a Different Sort
Today some of our staff begin to do some story telling. Faye Gardner agreed to write one of her favorite memories as a guest blogger here.
Throughout the year, The Adoption Exchange hosts adoption networking parties, which offer opportunities for prospective adoptive families, children, and caseworkers to connect while in a safe, relaxed, fun environment. In Colorado at the end of each party, every child who attends picks a toy from The Adoption Exchange’s treasure chests to take with them; this includes the birth children of foster or prospective adoptive parents as well as all of the waiting children.
A few years ago, I was helping with the adoption networking party at Boondocks Fun Center in Northglenn. The children were having a wonderful time, and the prospective adoptive parents were enjoying many fun activities as they played, talked and ate pizza with the children. I had the enviable job of helping set up the toy chests and making sure each child had a turn to go to one of the five toy chests to pick out his or her prize.
I watched when a boy about 10 years old dug through all of the treasures in his assigned toy chest and pulled out a wooden photo frame with a large, plastic horse head glued to one corner of the photo frame. It was the kind of photo frame that most 10 year old boys like and most adult women do not.
With a big smile on his face, David went over to his mom and said, “Look what I got for you!” With a shocked look on her face, his mom replied, “Wow! Thank you so much!” His dad said approvingly, “That was really kind of you.”
Isn’t that what moms and dads and families are all about? Our children bring us gifts that express their thoughtfulness and even if they are not items we would pick out, we thank them and are pleased at their generosity. I still hang the Christmas tree ornament that’s supposed to be a small tree but looks like a bunch of oddly shaped grapes with red glitter on them that my son made for me in preschool. I possess colorful art projects made lovingly just for me by my older daughter when she was in elementary school. I still have the carved wooden eagle that was purchased especially for me in Mexico by my then nine-year-old younger daughter.
I want that opportunity for all of our waiting children—to be able to give mom or dad that “awfully” beautiful object they made or chose just for them, to see the love in their mom or dad’s eyes as they thank them for the gift, to carry that beautiful memory with them well into their adult years. Those opportunities and the memories they generate are the real treasures in all of our lives.
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
What’s on Their Minds?
Sometimes when we watch Wednesday’s Child we wonder what the children are thinking about. Staff at The Adoption Exchange try to schedule an outing that will be fun. And the young people usually have a good time.
They know the purpose of the interview. And during the taping adolescents often let us all know what is on their minds. Here is a sampling of comments from some teenagers in Utah.
Brad (age 14): “I want parent would we treat me right – treat me like their son.”
Allen (age 12): “The would have to be caring and take it easy on me for a few days…like if you don’t eat all of your dinner, they’d still give you dessert.”
Terry (age 13): When you’re in a permanent home you don’t have to worry about moving.”
William (age 16): I was born into a family that wasn’t that pleasant. The other kids had families that would come to their football games. I didn’t have anyone to come to my football games.”
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
A Teenager’s Question
We ask teenagers a lot of questions. What are you planning to do with your life? Where will you live? What kind of work will you do in the future?
Teresa responded to those queries with a question in return. “What is a future without a mom and dad?”
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
A Mother’s Joy
We have you home now!
Your shoes light up as you walk,
Just as my heart does.
Ann Fleming, Des Moines, IA
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Birth Parents and Adoptive Parents
James and Maria have 13 children, though James can’t remember off hand how many are adopted. They’re just a family, even though their family may seem different than some.
Noel’s mother died when she was fifteen. That loss combined with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and other circumstances. Noel’s emotional state and her behavior left no place other than a residential treatment center for her to go. Except for one thing — James worked at that center.
Before long Noel joined James and Maria’s family. In the Native American tradition, the whole family joined together for a year of mourning Noel’s birth mother. At the twelve month mark, they all participated in a customary ritual to let go, and Noel was formally adopted into the family.
James and Maria are proud grandparents of children they would never have had in their lives if they hadn’t let themselves love Noel and her first mother, and a woman they’d never met.
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis,
Founder & President Emerita
Jackie
Love is transformative for everyone involved. Jackie describes how she is impacted by her adopted children with these profound words:
“Hope may not see, but she can hear the birds sing and her eyes flutter when the wind blows. Matthew may not be able to walk, but his smile greets me every morning. Steven may not be able to speak, but I can hear him say he loves me hundreds of times a day.”
______________________________________________________
Learn more about Dixie.