I’ve Seen The Damage

In my young adulthood, I saw some of the worst. Any substance addiction is not an easy nut to crack. It’s impact on parenting can’t be denied. Today’s story asks this question – Is it possible to support someone in parenting in ways that are physically and psychologically safe while that person is using meth?

A family friend who is incarcerated has a baby who has been in foster care since birth. The baby will be returned to her when the mother gets out of prison when the baby is about a year old. A parent-child rehab program will be provided, follow up substance use disorder programs will be offered, and the mother has access to familial financial support as well as support with housing and childcare (though she has currently declined childcare assistance). But she permanently lost custody of her first child due to inadequate care of the infant as a result of daily meth intoxication, and I want to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. She has had relapses every time she has left prison or rehab or psych facilities throughout her entire adolescence and adulthood (but she is a very young adult). I hope she doesn’t resume use, but I was wondering if anyone had any advice for helping her keep and take good care of her baby/ toddler even if she continues to struggle with addiction to the point that eliminating use of meth is not possible for her.

A physician comments – Being under the influence of drugs is NEVER safe. There is NEVER a safe amount of use that is ok. You can’t hit “the pause button” in being the person that is responsible for child while you get high and think that your entire constitution and judgment isn’t taxed and under the influence for a considerable amount of time after. If you are still using, then do not trust yourself that you are actually caring for your self, and much less adequately caring for additional humans who are critically growing and very needy, independent beings.

However, another person had a very different perspective – you see it at its worst. You don’t see it functioning day to day. Big difference. My SIL was a functioning parent with substance use disorder for decades. My neighbor as well. Many others I have known. It’s like anyone dealing with chronic disease. They need support.

The doctor responded – I deal with addicts, families, social workers, lawyers every single day. That’s 70% of who is in an ICU bed right now that we are caring for and all paying for. Yes, I agree they do need support 100%. They do not need to be responsible for a child while *using* drugs. Blessing to your SIL to have a support system around her, like a loving family that cares enough to do that. Most addicts do not have what your SIL has. That is not the reality of most people in this world, and one of the reasons they get into addiction to begin with. There is no such thing as a safe amount of drugs. It doesn’t work like that. Your brain gets rewired and your judgment is altered.

To which the person responded – I am so tired of people not understanding that there are people that are functional but still struggling with substance use disorder. They hear the word drugs and they make some serious assumptions about the person. I am going to “not all” here because I am so tired of the assumptions being made when it comes to substance use disorder.

Many have a support system for when they are active that keeps children safe. Being that support system is important. I didn’t see one comment from anybody saying that the original poster should be a support system. The only thing I’m seeing is people saying “nope can’t parent” “drug user? can’t parent”. People parent with disabilities that can also put children at risk, but nobody says a thing about them losing their kids.

Functional drug use IS a thing ! Stop making broad brush stroke assumptions of those challenged with substance use disorder !

Bottom line, there is this – The safety of the child has to come first. If someone is actively using they are at risk for psychosis (and if you haven’t seen that in someone you love I pray you never do). Absolutely the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen and I felt unsafe as an adult being around someone in that state. It’s extremely dangerous for the child if the parent is seeing things that aren’t there, having delusions, etc. If you know someone is actively using around a small child you should either be intervening yourself or reporting them.

Recovery is possible and family and friend support play a big role in that. Just because someone has relapsed doesn’t mean they will again. It also doesn’t mean they will be using around their child. It’s great that’s she’s willing to go into treatment with baby. I would do everything you can to support her and let her know you see her beating the odds and are proud of her if you have the kind of relationship you can talk about those things.

And there was this advice – Her focus should be finding employment with medical insurance so that she is not on welfare and is not a target for state intrusion. She should focus on taking care of her children, being physically active and healthy, join a gym, exercise, garden, take care of her house. Keep the rif raf away from her house. Maintain normal hours – no rotating cast of strangers through the house – no visitors after 10 pm. Work hard at maintaining a schedule and sticking to it. She probably has ADHD and should get medication like Ritalin or Wellbutrin for it, which will address chemical imbalances that she has. She has to work extra hard at keeping up appearances – she’ll be held to a higher standard of care than other mothers. She can’t mess up. Nothing is worse for a child than having their parent taken away from them and even if she cannot take care of her child full time, every effort should be made to have her do as much as she possibly can for her child as a parent, not as a visitor.

I’ll end with this observation – it is hard to overcome generations of addiction, mental illness, and poverty. It’s just not simple.

Time To Be Grateful

Blogger’s note – I once worked for a rental management company. Sometimes people were evicted. I rarely saw any of that up close, though one memorable experience was checking a vacated house next to our office to see if any roaches were still alive after fumigation . . . later in my life, I left a bad romantic relationship and dropped into St Louis with a suitcase and $500 – no car, no job and no friends. I had to sleep in the room I rented with the light on (after cleaning all the trash out for the owner who didn’t do it many weeks after I started sleeping on the couch in their living room). Yeah, the roaches were still that bad . . .

What if you were a single parent with a child ? You work full time for $14.00 hr. You bring home roughly $800.00 per paycheck (bi-weekly).

Your monthly bills are:
$1,000.00 / rent
$ 150.00 / electric
$ 250.00 / car payment
$ 150.00 / car insurance

So do the math :
You bring home about $1,600.00 a month and your monthly bills average about $1,550.00 (give or take). You’re making it – barely. This amount does not include groceries, internet, cable, cell phone, etc.

Now, it’s a really cold December and you get a surprise power bill for $600.00 (blogger’s note – something like that actually happened here in the local area where I live). How do you pay that ? To put it simply, you don’t, because you can’t. Therefore, your power gets shut off. Your lease requires connected utilities, so now you will get evicted. You try to make your case in court, the judge doesn’t care. You are given 10 days to leave voluntarily.

If you’re lucky, maybe you found somewhere you could live, the rent is only $650.00 a month, but you only have 3 days to spare and you must pass a background and credit check first. And you won’t pass it because you just got evicted, even though you’ve never been a criminal. Even so, you’d be looking at $1,300, just to move in, after paying the deposit and first month’s rent.

The landlord shows up at 7am with the police and they change your locks. Now, you’re living in your car with your 7 year old son. You have everything you could salvage in the car with you. You try to get a storage unit, but you don’t have a billing address, so they won’t rent one to you. You have only taken what would fit in your backseat. You pay to shower at local truck stops and eat whatever you can cook in a gas station microwave.

Someone sees you are living this way with your son and calls Child Protective Services. Guess what happens next ? ? ? Your child is removed from you. And now, you lose your job too. (Because “as an employee who has lost their child, well it just reflects poorly on the company.”)

At this point, you apply for an apartment with a waiting list of 3-7 years. Then, you go to Wal-Mart and put in a job application. Returning to your car, you see that your back window has been smashed. Someone has helped themselves to your belongings.

Now, remember that it is December and really cold. Your only shelter is no longer safe.
You call your car insurance agent, who says your deductible is $1,000.00 and the bad new is now they’re going to increase your monthly rate because you’ve become “ high risk”.

As a last resort, you call the homeless shelter. All their beds are full. I’ll stop here ….. because you probably understand the point of this story.

The people we work with everyday are these people. We may even be these people ourselves.
We are all so close to homelessness and often we don’t even realize it.

All it takes is –

one unexpected bill
one fender bender
one lay-off
one house fire, etc.

There are people all around us who are poor, homeless, or in need of assistance. Be grateful that you’re not in their shoes (if you are not already).

Stay humble and be kind – and always, BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE.
Many of us are struggling in some way.

Blogger’s note – My youngest sister spent 4 years homeless. I don’t know how she survived it but she did. Sadly, we are estranged because her untreated mental illness causes her to be very cruel towards me. Still, I am always grateful that she is no longer living on the street.

A comment on the story above shared a “game” that has been around awhile. It illustrates a similar point – the terrible choices some people have to make every day, just to barely get by (if they’re lucky). Here’s that game – LINK>PlaySpent.

Ending on a happier note – just Everyday People . . .

There Seems To Be No Solution

Today’s concern is a lack of mental health options within the foster care system. A woman who provides foster care wrote a long piece detailing the problems which I won’t repeat entirely for this blog. After describing several recent situations, she gets to the heart of what is troubling her. “My thought is . . . what is the alternative for kids who are so far gone mentally? There is a huge shortage of foster homes for kids with mental illness or on house arrest. I have extra space, but I am not taking more while I have (this one) because she needs my full attention.”

Being in mental institutions or group homes seems to cause these kids to deteriorate especially over time. There seems to be no solution for the ones who need so much monitoring that a foster home simply can’t do. Maybe a therapeutic home run by doctors could, but how many if those exist?! What’s the solution? I’m referring mostly to teens since that’s what I saw, though it could apply to some younger kids.

What is the system supposed to do with kids, especially teens, with serious mental issues too complex for most foster homes to handle? If group homes are so bad, which from what I’ve seen they are, then what is the solution? Also it’s apparently very hard for them to find long term care for mentally Ill teens.

The amount of time and appointments needed make it very difficult to parent these kids even like “B” who isn’t so far gone. She still has a great chance at getting and staying better, going on to have a nice happy life which she wants. There are no good group homes I’ve seen for long term. There are not enough foster homes willing to accept teens. Not to adopt them but provide a place for them while they do what they need – therapy, school, job, etc – to step into their next phase having a successful adult life within the next few years.

blogger’s note – I don’t have a solution to this but I am putting it out there because there seems to be a serious need to address it.

Even so, one adoptee shared – My son has a mental illness and we placed him in a residential treatment center for 18 months when he was 11. Some kids there were foster kids. A few parents who placed their kids there, chose to have them go to foster care after treatment instead of returning home – usually for the safety of their other kids. PLEASE don’t judge them. The foster parents who took these kids in went through special training and had to develop relationships before taking them home. They also had a ton of resources available to them for free. This is the way it should be.

Another person explained – Kids with the most intense needs often end up in foster care because their families cannot handle them. Mental health resources for children are terrible. Kids like this need therapeutic school environments as well as trained living situations. Even excellent insurance only pays a tiny fraction of inpatient treatment after the child is no longer suicidal. I know families who terminated their rights in hopes the state would pay. The kids ended up in a cycle of group homes and short stay hospitalizations. It is heartbreaking. I don’t have a clue how to solve this. Kids are in serious crisis. There are residential facilities but the good ones cost the moon and abuse there is also a BIG issue.

blogger’s note – I understand this completely because my parents were faced with an inability to help my sister due to the costs that would have been involved. She was already an adult and never in foster care. And my were unable to get any information about the extent of her problems due to health care privacy laws.

From an adoptee who is also a behavioral health social worker – I know of no state that provides adequate mental health services for children and adolescents with intense behavioral, emotional, and mental health needs. Sadly, services are patched together to try to meet needs, until eventually many of these young people cause enough trouble that they end up in the criminal justice system, where unfortunately, there’s always room for one more.

It Isn’t Always Possible

You just want so desperately to see your child happy, content, and safe and to watch them reach their full potential and succeed in obtaining everything they desire in life. This is in the heart of every parent ever. But what you want is not always possible to achieve. So, if right now, you feel so defeated that you wonder if success will ever be possible for your child, take some time to inform yourself fully. You may feel in your heart that if they continue on the self-destructive path they are on right now, they’ll miss out on every chance they’re given to succeed.

I guess I was vaguely aware of something known as the Troubled Teen Industry. Programs like Outward Bound which began in 1962. In the case of that organization I read – the fatalities—cardiac arrests, mountaineering falls, drowning, hypothermia—have not been widely publicized, and the company has never been held liable for a death by a judge and jury. I found this article at LINK>The Adventure Blog titled Controversy At Outward Bound! from as recently as 2021 by Kraig Becker that may be worth the time, if you are considering such a program.

Actually today’s blog started at LINK>An Open Letter to Families Considering the Troubled Teen Industry by Blythe Baird. Certainly, the teen years can be challenging. I am grateful that it has not been the case with my sons (now 18 and 22) but I do remember some challenging moments with my daughter, who was being raised by her dad and a step-mother. Not to worry anyone – she turned out to be an amazing adult and a wonderful mother to her two children (always an inspiration for me, when I was around to see it).

Googling the term – Troubled Teen Industry – I found another site – LINK>unsilenced.org. They note that – Every year, thousands of children are sent against their will – often ripped out of their beds in the middle of the night by strangers – to private facilities to be treated for various mental illnesses, addiction issues, and perceived behavioral problems. Due to inconsistencies in the definition of what a therapeutic program is and a lack of regulatory oversight, the exact number of these centers and children in them is not known but it is estimated that there is over 120,000+ children kept in over 5,000+ centers around the United States and abroad. This is collectively known as the “Troubled Teen Industry.” Also noted is that the industry represents a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States. The programs market themselves to parents, therapists, state and judicial agencies, and insurance companies as providers of therapeutic treatment for almost every problem. The cost of these programs ranges from $5,000-30,000 a month with an indefinite internment timeframe.

Adoptees and youth who have spent time in foster care arrive into any home they are placed in with trauma and that can certainly lead to behaviors that the “parents” are unequipped to deal with. Trauma Informed Therapists are crucial in these situations and must be carefully vetted that they don’t do more damage than good. You may wish to read more – LINK>What Is Trauma-Informed Therapy? Do this for the child you care about before you send them off to hell.

Satanic Panic

Melvin Quinney

I heard the story about this man (who could be any white person’s kindly grandfather) on NPR last night. He is a San Antonio man wrongfully convicted in 1991 during the so-called Satanic Panic hysteria. In court last Monday, Melvin Quinney had his charge dismissed by 227th District Court Judge Christina Del Prado. The state exonerated Melvin Quinney of his conviction of indecency with a child back in February but Monday’s hearing made the exoneration official. “It’s like the beginning of the end of a very long nightmare,” Quinney said.

I wish I could say these kinds of “miscarriage of justice in the name of religion” cases were only in the past but unfortunately, even today, I know evangelicals who still believe these kinds of things. Satan and evil in this world especially related to child trafficking (QAnon certainly is on that page). It’s not that I don’t think that such things happen and I do feel that anytime a child is sexually abused – it is a travesty. But under religious fervor, these heartfelt feelings, can do a lot of harm. A friend said to me once, “It has everything to do with pagan rituals and actual Satanic influence in many places. It’s because of my love for children that I will fight with all I have to rid this world of those things. If I had not studied Biblical Prophecy and Pagan rituals I probably wouldn’t understand what I am seeing now.” Sigh. I understand it is heartfelt for her.

Today, I found this blog – Friendly Atheist by Hemant Mehta LINK>A victim of the “Satanic Panic,” Melvin Quinney has finally been exonerated. The “Satanic Panic” was a conspiracy theory that really took hold among a certain kind of Christian in the 1980s. Perfectly innocent people were accused of ritualistic child abuse, bad behavior was blamed on the devil, and the modern-day witch hunt ruined countless lives. No evidence ever proved this organized abuse was occurring—certainly not the way accusers insisted it was—but as with so many conspiracy theories, its power had nothing to do with the facts.

Melvin got trapped by this when he and his wife were going through a divorce in 1990. It was she that accused the 43-year-old Quinney of leading a Satanic cult that murdered people. His kids were soon taken into custody by Child Protective Services. John, his 10-year-old son, accused Quinney of sexual abuse. After weeks of coercion from therapists, their mother and other adults, Sarah and John developed “memories” of abuse and occult rituals. John came to believe that their father was the leader of a satanic cult that had committed murder and sexually abused him and his sister Sarah as part of satanic rituals. Melvin was arrested in 1990 and charged with indecency with a child. John testified at trial about his “memories” of his father’s abuse of himself and Sarah.

Melvin was released from prison in 1999, an early release for good behavior. However, even then, he was forced to register as a sex offender. This deprived him opportunities to get his life back on track. It wasn’t until 2012, that he finally attempted to get back in touch with his kids (who had grown up believing their father abused them). His children had grown up in foster care. Finally, in 2020, his children testified that there was no evidence that their father ever did those things he was accused of. His son told the court he realized much later, that those stories were entirely fictional. They had been fed to him by his mother, her evangelical friends, and other adults working against his father as a way to override the “good memories” he had of him.

His ex-wife was unable to care for the children not long after he was imprisoned and so, they were pushed into the state’s foster care system. His wife mother passed away in 1999. Her son says that she was clearly mentally ill. He says, “Instead of getting help with the real mental problems she was experiencing, she was persuaded and kept mentally ill with pseudoscience and superstition.” For years, the children thought they would be targeted by satanic cult members. He has since forgiven her.

The blog ends on this thought – the Satanic Panic has always been that no matter how many bad faith actors use Satan as a metaphor for what they hate, there are many pastors who spend every week convincing their congregations that Satan is real and needs to be eradicated from their lives. They’ll never admit they’re lying because they genuinely don’t believe they are. As long as that belief perpetuates in churches, it’s next to impossible to convince people that Satan and the abuse associated with Satan are entirely fictional. That means, much like sin itself, conservative Christians have invented their own problem out of thin air, while presenting themselves as the only solution.

Better Than Punishment

From an editorial by Dr Ruchi Fitzgerald in LINK>The Hill – It is unimaginable to think that seeking medical care could lead to losing custody of their children, yet this devastating predicament is all too real for pregnant women with addiction in the United States.

In our nation, the systems that aim to protect children from the negative effects of parental substance use often prioritize punitive approaches over proven public health strategies. Fear of being imprisoned, stigmatized, or having their children removed makes many pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) afraid to seek medical care, contributing to poor maternal health outcomes. Some state laws, including the law in Illinois where I practice medicine, even mandate that health care professionals report cases of detected controlled substances in a newborn infant as evidence of child neglect. While the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) has no such requirement, CAPTA’s overall approach has led to significant variation in how states, counties, and health care institutions implement its reporting requirements when substance use is involved during pregnancy.

Threatening child removal from a birthing parent with SUD without a risk assessment or evidence of danger to the child is not ultimately improving outcomes for children. Research has long shown that children affected by the trauma of family separation tend to experience worse long-term outcomes on a wide variety of indicators, including education, health, housing, employment, substance use, and involvement with the criminal legal system. With over 400,000 children in foster care across the US, the trauma of separation is widespread.

Forced separation also brings unimaginable pain to new families – triggering in some parents such despair that it deters them from seeking or continuing medical care, including treatment for their SUD. Study after study shows child removal is associated with parental overdose, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and return to substance use. Public health-oriented policies that can result in better outcomes for families are part of the solution.

As an addiction specialist physician, I am involved with the medical care of pregnant people with SUD, and I have seen counterproductive child welfare and criminal investigations launched after a newborn infant tests positive for a controlled substance. Too often, parents become hopeless about recovery once their children are gone.

Current policies and practices related to substance use during pregnancy also result in serious health inequities. Pregnant and parenting people of color are much more likely to be impacted by forced separation than their white counterparts. Black parents are more likely than white parents to be reported for substance use to the child protection system at their child’s delivery despite similar rates of drug use, while Black and Native American children are overrepresented in foster care relative to white children in the setting of parental substance use.

Meanwhile, health outcomes are unnecessarily worse for mothers of color. Since 80% of maternal deaths are due to overdose or suicide, we can save lives with policies and practices that encourage treatment, not punish pregnant women with SUD for seeking it. Policymakers need to remove controlled substance reporting requirements that overreach and contribute to the current punitive approach.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) encourages child protective services agencies not to use evidence of substance use, alone, to sanction parents—especially with child removal; supports eliminating in-utero substance exposure language in child abuse and neglect statutes, and supports policies that extend social services benefits and financial support to families in need.

The US Senate will contemplate reauthorizing and reforming CAPTA this year. Health care professionals who treat pregnant people with medications for addiction, like methadone or buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, do not need to involve child protective services for that reason.

Recovery is possible with the right medical care and support. A pregnant person with addiction seeking medical care deserves a chance to heal and recover with her children. If we want pregnant and parenting people with addiction to access the evidence-based treatment they need, our decision-makers must embrace public health over punitive policies.

Childhood Disrupted

Short on time with a crazy week but I saw this book recommended in an all things adoption group thread and so I went looking. LINK> Aces Too High is a website related to Adverse Childhood Experiences often abbreviated simply to ACE. There is a review there which I am using to quickly dash out today’s blog.

This book explains how the problems that you’ve been grappling with in your adult life have their roots in childhood events that you probably didn’t even consider had any bearing on what you’re dealing with now. Childhood trauma is very common — two-thirds of us have experienced at least one type — and how that can lead to adult onset of chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence. It also showed that the more types of trauma you experience, the greater the risk of alcoholism, heart disease, cancer, suicide, etc.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a science journalist specializing in the intersection of neurobiology, immunology and the inner workings of the human heart. She says, “If you put enough stress on the immune system, there can be that last drop of water that it can’t hold, causing the barrel to spill over, and havoc ensues. What causes the immune system to be overwhelmed is different for every person – including infections, stress, toxins, a poor diet.”

She goes on to note – People who have experienced childhood adversity undergo an epigenetic shift in childhood, meaning that their stress-response genes are altered by those experiences, and that results in a high stress level for life. Stress promotes inflammation. These experiences are tied to depression, autoimmune disease, heart disease, and cancer during adulthood. She says, “. . . no other area of medicine would we ignore such a strong genetic link to disease.”

She has much more to say and I do encourage you to read her interview at the link. My apologies for not having more time today.

In A System Haunted

It doesn’t take long if spending time among adoptees to learn about the strong link between foster care and adoption. Foster care is often the first step in that direction as children are removed from their parents and placed with strangers. The official goal is reunification of the family when it is deemed safe for the children to be returned to their parents. That does happen in many cases after an emotionally damaging experience for all concerned. Other times the parent’s rights are terminated and in the case of infants and young children, often these are adopted by the foster parents or some other hopeful adoptive parent. And in too many cases, these young children “age out” in the system and are thrown out into the world as young adults with few supports, though that situation has improved somewhat in recent years.

Yesterday, I learned about the link between the building pictured above and foster care. Dr Joseph DeJarnette was a proponent of racial segregation and eugenics, specifically the compulsory sterilization of the mentally ill. He was known to idolize Nazi Germany and took the facility under his management from a resort-like treatment center to an apocalyptic prison nightmare. His determined efforts resulted in the passage of the “Eugenical Sterilization Act of 1924” (a.k.a Racial Integrity Act). This new act reinforced racial segregation by preventing interracial marriages and classifying “white” as being pure 100% Caucasian. Men and women who were admitted to his hospital were involuntarily sterilized to prevent the conception of mixed race human beings. DeJarnette also forcibly sterilized single mothers, alcoholics, those with mental conditions and epilepsy, the poor, and the incarcerated. Dr DeJarnette not only performed countless sterilizations but also medical procedures on his patients like electroshock therapy and lobotomies.

He died in 1957. DeJarnette became a state institution with a focus on children’s behavioral health issues. It is at that point in the history of this place that my interest today became awareness. If you believe emotional energy leaves traces of residual energy in a place, then in that sense DeJarnette is believed haunted. A young woman writing an op-ed for LINK> The Huffington Post brought that awareness to me.

At the age of 14, the author was relatively new to the foster care system and waiting for a bed to open up at a long-term facility. The author walked those halls, recognizes the once-grand arches that frame the doorways, the bedrooms with graffitied walls. She says, “Dr. Joe’s evil spirit is said to walk the halls. Some say they’ve heard children’s voices in the darkness or moans and other noises from the former patients reported to have perished due to medical experiments. I doubt the teens who once lived there were aware of Dr DeJarnette by name. I wasn’t. However, the building’s ties to eugenics were among the first things new kids learned about the center.”

She goes on to note that she asked – “Why did they do it?” And the answer she got was – “They think your kids are gonna end up like you. If we don’t have babies, they’ll be less of us and more of them.” She says – “I wasn’t totally sure what more of them meant but I understood less of us. Less of me.” She also shares that she lived in DeJarnette during the winter with the holidays were approaching. It was her first Christmas in the system. Her expectations were perpetually low back then. She fixated on the phrase anything you want when asked to provide a Christmas wish list with one condition – as long as it’s less than 10 dollars. She remembers asking for a Def Leppard tape even though she no longer had her boom box. Receiving the tape symbolized hope and the belief that someday, she would have a tape player again.

We don’t often consider what it is like for a teen living in foster care. That they don’t have typical teenage memories like going to the homecoming dance, having their first date, a sweet 16 party or getting a driver’s license. What she did get was a strong sense of her ability to survive. She made it through the system and didn’t become a statistic. She says that she is thriving today. She says of that residual energy – “when you consider the collective traumas and experiences of all those who spent time in that cavernous, state-run institution, there was plenty of haunting going on. It wasn’t ghosts, though. It was us.”

I Am Now My Own Parent

I’ve told some version of this story before and can’t promise I won’t again, though with evolving perspectives, these likely do change over time. My dad died only 4 months after my mom. She died first in September 2015 and he followed in February 2016. It was a profound event in my own life as I am certain it is in many lives. After my dad died, my youngest sister said, “We are now orphans.” I remain estranged from her. The cruelty she expresses towards me when we are in contact with one another causes me not to want to be involved with her. Not long ago, the state of Missouri informed me that they held some abandoned asset of my mom’s and I jumped through hoops and ended up with a whopping check for $20. Because I needed to provide my sisters names and addresses, so they could receive their own shares, I contacted my youngest sister’s conservator, who had been appointed to manage her funds. Turns out, he has been free of her for 2-1/2 years and no longer has that responsibility. The judge turned him loose and I understand. My sister is difficult and uncooperative and so, she is on her own now. So be it. I never wanted to take her freedom away from her. It was her own lawyers and the need for a family member to ask the court to look at her circumstances that forced my own involvement.

The topic today was inspired by a Daily Guide for Sunday, July 10 2022 in the Science of Mind magazine written by Rev Dr Jim Lockard. That phrase that is my title today comes from an affirmation he put at the end of his essay. He mentions that some people have never known their family of origin. That was certainly true for BOTH of my parents – as each of them was adopted and they died knowing next to nothing about their origins. I was conceived out of wedlock by a teenage mom. I could have so easily been given up for adoption but thankfully, I was not. It seems that one of my purposes in this life was to reconnect the threads of my parents own origins and I have now made it as far as is necessary for my own peace of mind. I know who all 4 genetic grandparents were, something of their stories and am aware of quite a few living, genetic relatives now that I am in contact with.

After my mom died, I came into contact again with an aunt. She is the widowed wife of my dad’s brother (my uncle was also adopted). A profound experience for me in high school was witnessing my uncle’s slow decline from Lou Gehrig’s disease. She is a nurse who met him when he was a Marine and hospitalized due to an auto accident. I had been thinking about this aunt for several days. It seems we do have a “spiritual heart connection” and so, she had been thinking about me and called me recently. It has been true since my mom died that she still calls me to check in from time to time – mostly to hear the latest for me and adds a few insights into her own life. Mostly, she just listens. I find her easy to talk to, honestly, though she is much more conventionally religious than I am. She usually asks about my sisters and how are they doing. She used to tell me she was praying for my estranged sister and I but she no longer tries to reach me that way. She had only one child with my uncle and he died a few years ago, too young and somewhat unexpectedly. She lives with an elderly sibling and that sibling’s spouse. My aunt is now 90 years old and I never know how much longer she will be in my life but she is totally lucid and I am always happy to hear from her.

Mine is a strange reality to live. Learning who my genetic relatives were and are, has to some extent, distanced me from the ones I grew up with. Even so, I remain fond of the adoptive grandparents I grew up with (now deceased) and with the aunt just mentioned and one other (my dad’s step-sister, who he acquired when his adoptive mother remarried after a divorce). My mom also had a brother who was adopted through the Tennessee Children’s Home before her. I am not all that close to him but did see him at my mom’s memorial service. It was his daughter’s receipt of his adoption file that had her call to tell me – I could get my mom’s. That opened the door for me to become genetically whole again and fulfill an intended life purpose.

Abandoned Babies

Will there be more with Roe v Wade being overturned ?

A story making national news recently is about a baby found, wrapped in a towel in a stroller outside of an apartment complex, by a Coeur d’Alene Idaho resident when they left for work around 6 am.

A woman, identified as an adoptee named Webster, in this youtube news story, is quoted saying “We are living in a time where people feel like they are alone and they don’t have a support system or a net under them.”

If you are considering abandoning your baby, you likely are experiencing many different thoughts and emotions as well as being faced with one of the toughest decisions of your life. You might have one or more of these factors occurring in your life –

Have a history of substance use and are afraid to share that information
Not have proper documentation to live in the United States and fear being deported
Be living with a mental illness or facing postpartum depression
Be afraid of the baby’s father or worried about what your loved ones might say

If you are desperate for help, you may see no other option but to abandon your baby. Perhaps, you even wonder what happens to abandoned babies after they’re found?

There are really only three ways a woman can abandon her baby:

A prospective birth mother can work with an adoption agency to make an adoption plan for her baby. This is one legal way a woman can release her baby from her responsibility to care for it.
With Safe Haven laws, women have the option to safely, legally, and anonymously leave their baby, unharmed, at a safe haven location — like a hospital, fire station, or a church.
Even so, some women, feeling completely overwhelmed and unaware of the first two options, will take drastic measures, such as the case with this abandoned baby, leaving them in an unsafe condition.

The way a baby is surrendered will affect what happens to the infant afterwards. Babies who are abandoned in an unsafe location often have tragic outcomes because help comes too late. Babies that are found safely, after they’ve been abandoned or surrendered to a safe haven location, become a ward of the state.

Safe Haven babies are typically checked out by a doctor and, if necessary, given medical care. Afterward, the state’s social services department is contacted. Once that happens, the baby will be placed into foster care and become a ward of the state. In some situations, a private adoption agency might be contacted.

When a woman does not contact an adoption agency for assistance or use the Safe Haven law locations, if she can be located and identified, criminal charges will be filed against her. That is why the police in Coeur d’Alene Idaho are actively seeking information about who the woman may have been.