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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Another Holiday Season Without A Family
Diedre can’t get fifteen year old Troy out off her mind. He is going to be celebrating yet another holiday without a permanent family. She wants his wish to come true for him — his wish for a family to “love and accept me as I am.”
Troy is a lot like other teenagers. He likes video games, reading fiction, listening to music. He has a favorite pair of socks that have come to be known as his “lucky socks.”
Unlike most other teenagers, every Friday Troy calls his Arizona case worker to ask if there is any progress yet on the search for his family.
Since I heard Diedre talk about him I haven’t been able to forget him either.
Please take a look at Troy’s photograph and read a little about him. If you’d like to join the effort to see that he will spend his next birthday in a forever family, share his story with a friend.
It would be the best holiday gift we could give him. Thank you.
http://www.adoptuskids.org/_app/child/viewp.aspx?id=46232
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Real Life
Over a cup of coffee this week Sue Mohrman reminded me that life is full of losses. She isn’t a cancer survivor. She is a “thriver”. She recently published* her reflections on the emotional struggles of her journey through the corridors of fear and devastation to emerge renewed.
Sue mentioned the universal process of losing a dream or expectations we have of our selves when we face real life experiences. The conversation reminded me of some of the unforgettable words of Dr. Barbara Tremetiere, adoptive mother, therapist and trainer.
Standing before a room full of adoptive parents, Barbara knew the moms and dads in the room had gone into adoption with notions of what they’d be like as parents. She also knew that reality ruthlessly shatters pre-conceived images and not one person in the room was 100% satisfied with themselves. We never are.
“I’d thought a lot about it,” she began. “I knew without a doubt that I’d be a good mom. I had images of sitting serenely with a child on my lap and my other children gathered at my feet. They would smile lovingly up at me and call me blessed.” The knowing laughter in the room confirmed that we all have trouble living up to our own expectations.
In real life, when some of Barbara’s children joined the family, they were already taller than she was. Wounded and angry from the experiences that brought them into foster care, they didn’t sit still long enough to notice much. They certainly didn’t see her the way she’d imagined she’d be. And it didn’t take long for her to realize it wasn’t working out the way she’d pictured.
We aren’t perfect, after all. But it is painful to not even come close.
The Education Center of The Adoption Exchange offers classes on a wide range of subjects for parents and professionals. They aren’t designed to help you become the legendary Cleaver family. We are pretty sure that isn’t going to happen. What will take place is that you’ll meet other wonderful and imperfect people who are there as trainers and participants (all are both, just as you are). The workshops and seminars are created to help you grow and thrive in your own reality.
The more we know about the specific challenges in our lives, the easier it is to create realistic expectations of our selves and others.
You can check the schedule by clicking here. Or to find out about how to bring these growing opportunities to your local community contact Dan Mills, Senior Director of Education at dan@adoptex.org.
Mohrman, Sue. Journey to Renewal. Tattered Cover Press, 2012.*
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Almost 18
Recently Reggie Bicha, Executive Director of Colorado Department of Human Services, noted that in the state where he lives and works there are 43 youth in foster care who are 17 years old and in danger of emancipating from the child welfare system with no family.
When he said those words, I thought of Tamika, who was almost 18 years old when her adoptive family discovered her. It took 13 months from the time we were able to begin recruiting a family. And … just when other adolescents were counting the days until they could leave home, Tamika at last got a home where she would stay. A home where she belongs.
Why do we think 18 is a magic number? We know young people aren’t ready to be alone in the world before they’re twenty. Or twenty six. In fact, we aren’t ever ready to be entirely alone in the world.
Time is running out for the youth who are approaching 18. If you have a place in your heart for an older adolescent, send us an email or give us a call.
Meet Chanson, Amy Jo, Justin, Andrew, April, Stephen, and Emily.
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Complicated Emotions
The overlay of feelings of loss and longing are complicated. For children in foster care hope blends with despair. Anger is mixed with tenderness. The collision of emotions is complicated and confusing.
The Pew Commission invited a number of youth who had experienced foster care to express their feelings through art and poetry.
Mama, Carry Me Home
I lose my eyes at night and dream; Your face the first I see Just as tomorrow's gleam Still devastated from the day They took my brothers and I away By the look you gave me I knew I'd see you another day Over time, I've grown emotionally stronger Not wanting to feel pity; Only accepting the facts of life God has written for me Yet still I miss those days I felt the safest; from your hugs and kisses Never doubting your love for us Now you're the biggest of my misses In my sleep, I can hear the songs You used to hum and sing to me. The melody making the belief it's once again reality. These past three years haven't been so easy; Although I know things can be worse Like some days, I feel I can't walk on my own... I just need you, mama — To carry me home.
Khadijah, age 16
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Taking Risks
The following words are credited to several people. Joseph Lawler claims to have written them. Others credit William Ward or Janet Land.
The Dilemma
- To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
- To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
- To reach out for another is to risk involvement
- To expose feelings is to risk rejection.
- To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.
- To love is to risk not being loved in return.
- To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure.
I am grateful every day for the adoptive families who take the risks of loving.
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
The Lighter Side
Laughter is good medicine. Psychologists have noted that a sense of humor can also be an indicator of mental health.
I’ve often heard adoptive parents talk about helping to teach their children how to enjoy a good joke. There hasn’t been much to laugh about in their lives. So it takes time to relax and appreciate nonsense. And even longer to learn to appreciate a joke on themselves.
Family humor is great medicine. Groucho Marx said it works faster than an aspirin when you’re feeling a little pain. And as an outlook on the world, humor allows us to put life’s absurdities into perspective. Laughter helps us cope with disappointments, fears, failures, joys and tenderness.
It must be a fabulous feeling for a youngster who spent years feeling like he’s on the outside to finally be on the “inside” of a favorite family joke.
Author Henry Miller said, “A clown is a poet in action.”
So when I hear a mom say, “Okay, it’s time to quit goofing off,” I know there are some healthy poets in that family.
We should all clown around more.
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Learn more about Dixie.
Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
I’ve Been Thinking
We ask ourselves how it can be that unstable parents with unmet needs of their own could nonetheless ignore the necessities of their children. How can it be that they let themselves get lost in drugs or alcohol? Have they forgotten what it is like to be alone and helpless? How can they let themselves forget there is a child in the apartment upstairs who is hungry, cold, unprotected and desperate to be nurtured?
How could they?
Despite our judgments, you and I sometimes catch ourselves looking away from the photographs. To let ourselves know the haunting loneliness is too painful today. To really look would demand action; and there are times we’re too busy or financially strapped. Or our minds are occupied with other things.
And so we let our eyes slide away.
How can we?
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
He had burns on just about every inch of his little body. As if someone had systematically pressed a hot cigarette into his tender skin over and over and over again.
If an adult approached his bed in the sparsely furnished room at the city’s general hospital, James would begin to tremble in fear and turn his head to the wall.
As if the physical scars aren’t enough, James will always carry the bruises in his heart as well.
Every single minute in the United States a child is used or abused by an adult from whom he is powerless to escape. Often the abuse is repeated again and again. According to the federal government 695,000 children are abused every year. Most of their stories are too horrific to tell. They lose their innocence, and they spend the rest of their lives attempting to patch their souls together again.
It shouldn’t happen to any of them. And it certainly shouldn’t have happened to James. But the Wyandotte County child protection team kept him from returning to his abusive circumstances.
Soon the hearts of strangers were touched, and James was given a family with protective parents to keep him safe and help him heal.
It took a long time for him to trust others. It took a long time for him to begin to believe that he is loveable. In the circle of love created by his family, he learned. Step by step he grew, and he slowly discovered that he is worthy of respect.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Cherrie’s Poem
I am a foster child
I wonder if I’ll always be
I hear people talk
I see nothing change
I want to be adopted
I am a foster child.
I pretend that I am not
I feel lonely
I worry if my dreams will
ever come true
I cry when I’m hurt
I am a foster child.
I understand I am
I say my feelings
I dream of having
a family
I try to be patient
I hope to be adopted
I am a foster child.
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Dixie van de Flier Davis, Executive Director
Julius
I am lucky enough to know one of Julius’ sons.
Julius himself is sort of a legend. He was the oldest of a large group of siblings that were raised in a government run orphanage. Somehow he made it through those years determined to keep his brothers and sisters together.
In spite of the fact that institutions separated siblings in order to house the children by age groups — regardless of the fact that they had different bed times and day time routines — despite residing in separate cottages that were far apart on a large and lonely campus, Julius never let this little cluster of children forget that they were a family.
They all grew up. Julius became a well known, all-American type softball umpire – the kind that created stories for the players to tell for years. And there are now children and grandchildren. When Julius died, he was a great grandfather. Even though he is gone, he left a large, sometimes boisterous extended family who go to church, have important careers, raised their own children, and enjoy big reunions with an annual golf tournament.
The son I know became a mental health professional and a child welfare supervisor. He is a father and grandfather through birth and through foster care adoption.
We enjoy a healthier community because a boy in an orphanage … a mere boy … knew the power of family.
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