December 2011
2 posts
My mother’s life is a mystery to me yet she is with me always never more so then on Christmas morning. Thank you mother for everything!
We are family…
Thanksgiving comes around and the holidays seem to be a magical time. We carol into Christmas and somehow loads seem to be lifted for a short time only to return us to where ever we were headed anyway. Perhaps the let down is attached to the magical thinking and wishing for Santa to bring us what we want and need. Maybe the real purpose of the holiday is to give respite from the...
August 2011
2 posts
When is a person not endowed by their creator with those allegedly inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
When they’re adopted that’s when. Seemingly for adopted people the world colludes in your statutory disenfranchisement.
Surely the ability to lay claim to one’s lineage or at the very less have access to the legitimate original documents after a time is in the...
Take 15 5-9 year olds put them on a double decker commuter bus for seven to eight hours with three teenagers providing supervision and what do you get?
A school bus without a matron, a brake, or destination in other words at least one of the outer rings of hell. Just when you think the image of preteens swinging from tv monitors and seat backs, running the aisles inside a giant torpedo...
July 2011
3 posts
As I interpret what was in my mother’s heart the truth that matters most to me is when the words wouldn’t come her eyes smiled and I was nurtured.
My mother’s heart had no voice yet I heard every word. My mother’s heart beat silent and I learned to leave no love untold.
Just in case you were wondering what it’s going to take to parent a traumatized child let me be the first to warn you. It will at times be the hardest job you’ll ever undertake. It will make demands on every aspect of your life and give you reason to question every decision and thought. It will leave you changed forever and that’s a fact.
The media either glamorizes or satirizes parenthood only...
At the heart of every adoption:
A family has been torn apart.
A child has lost his bearings in the world; often its childhood identity and innocence as well.
Parent(s) devastated by the loss of their child and/or their role in it carrying scars forward for future generations.
A new family dynamic is forged under duress, always seeking acceptance based many times on a foundation of spoken and...
June 2011
1 post
When it hurts to breathe. When the pain becomes a constant state that doesn’t seem to subside. You are probably depressed. It’s important that many of these issues are addressed before we reach this level of function. Aside from the misery a depressed individual is emotionally crippled. Often they are incapable of mustering enough energy to be proactive in their placement.
Many foster/adoptive...
May 2011
5 posts
Although parenting is not an intellectual exercise it is crucial that initially your drive to provide foster care be thoroughly thought out. Due to the emotionally charged nature of foster parenting it is imperative that you consider your intentions and expectations from both an intellectual and an emotional level.
Stage 1 We must make an intellectual commitment to fostering a child.
Stage...
MY SALVATION
I remember the day you appeared to me: beaming smile and twinkling eyes. loving spirit warming the room filling it with charm. I was dark and vacant
in the days before you: bitter, confused and afraid. Smoldering embers of a benevolent soul kept alive and nurtured by your example. Loving me so at a time when at my core I believed that I was unlovable; lighting the way that I might discover...
Mother's love in 3D
Suddenly weary barely able to keep my eyes open dishes in the sink and still way too much yet to do. Happy mother’s day to all the hands that rock the cradles everywhere.
Families over industry children before dollars.
May is National Foster Care month. Go to fromplacetoplacemovie.com see what 8 billion tax dollars a year buys us.
One woman gives birth to a child. Another woman gives that same child her life. Love blooms and settles in the child’s heart.
People say what difference should a secret make when you have been loved so very well. The child asks why and the people shrug. The child asks what does it mean the people just shut their eyes to her question and smile.
One woman gives birth to a child. Another woman...
April 2011
6 posts
ADOPTIVE PARENTS:
THE NEW BRAIN WHISPERERS
Friday, April 29th, 2011
from
9am to 1pm
Church of the Village
201 W.13th St, NYC
(Corner of W.13th Street and 7th Avenue)
To register e-mail: ygbpat@msn.com
Dr. Brenda McCreight, Ph.D., provides an Overview of The Neuro-Biology of Anxiety, and Grief and the impact on adoptive families’ stress. Anxiety, and grief are natural outcomes of the...
Good People
The sometime murky world of foster care and adoption can leave a person feeling depleted and violated. A journey that often starts out full of hope and good will ends with devastated families and lives redrawn by traumatic experience.
Dedicated social workers, foster parents and therapist’s are broken by a seemingly endless parade of dysfunction. The absurd becomes the norm and even abuse...
“THE ADOPTING TEENS & ‘TWEENS RADIO FORUM”
8pm-9pm Tonight
Presents BRENDA McCreight, Ph.D. http://www.am1240wgbb.com
adoptingteensandtweens.com
Missed Adopting teens and tweens radio forum? →
Visit our new Adopting Teens and Tweens Radio Forum archive. Hear the voices of Americas’ foster children and find out what you or someone you know could do to help. We all benefit from healthy, loving relationships.
http://adoptingteensandtweens.com
Adopting Teens & Tweens Radio Forum
Adopting Teens & Tweens Radio Forum
SUNDAY APRIL 3RD 2011 YOU GOTTA BELIEVE! ” The Fleecing of Foster Children”
8pm-9pm
www.am1240wgbb.com
Robert C. Fellmeth, J.D. Executive Director Children’s Advocacy Institute
Source: am1240wgbb.com
Adopting Teens & Tweens Radio Forum
SUNDAY APRIL 3RD 2011 YOU GOTTA BELIEVE! ” The Fleecing of Foster Children”
8pm-9pm
www.am1240wgbb.com
Robert C. Fellmeth, J.D. Executive Director Children’s Advocacy Institute
March 2011
6 posts
500,000 children served?
The foster care system is the biggest failed experiment in institutionalized baby sitting ever and a true testament to short term thinking. One day when the accountants and entrepreneurs have left the building maybe we’ll take a long hard look at the futility of continuing to throw billions of dollars at the wrong end of the system. This is one problem that we can fix when we decide we...
Family never gets old but foster kids do.
How old were you when you moved into your first apartment? Eighteen, nineteen, twenty something? Did you have room mates or maybe a spouse/partner? Do you still go “home” for the holidays? If you lost your apartment tonight who would you call and where could you stay for as long as you needed to?
The reality:
Over twenty five thousand young people between 18-21 are put out of foster care...
Adopting Teens & Tweens Radio Forum
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE!
SUNDAY MARCH 20th 2011
8pm to 9pm eastern time
The Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement PRESENTS
REGINA CALCATERRA
on
“THE ADOPTING TEENS & ‘TWEENS RADIO FORUM”
listen live-stream
www.am1240wgbb.com
Click: Enter
Click: listen live
8pm-9pm
PAT O’BRIEN & CHESTER JACKSON
Regina, was one of five siblings, who grew up in the...
Tyranny of teasing
Guilty as charged. Recently my wife and I were considering that our baby girl is approaching 18 years of life. Taking stock of what my parenting experience has been sometime I wonder what legacy I have passed down through the different stages of my own development.
Twenty years of preparing prospective parents for the adoption of older children and countless hours advocating/seeking...
Heartaches/sacrifice: why adopting teens rocks
Adoptive parenting is a maze of emotional mind fields. Adoptive parents become too cautious and over wrought by stress to realize the true power they assume. Some prospective adoptive parents will only consider children of a certain age doubting their ability to “mold” an older child They talk of wanting to be needed longer or being able to grow together with a child as if the...
The good/bad about adoption
Wanting to have a child is as natural as breathing. Trying to give birth and struggling to conceive can be an unspeakable trauma threatening families and devastating relationships. Many people are forever scarred by infertility and allow their dream of becoming parents to die a slow agonizing death. Some folks look to other areas of their lives for fulfillment turning their desire to nurture...
February 2011
1 post
Love: Locked and Loaded
Love heals like a hot meal with someone exciting after a long mean day. Love keeps us high and mighty in the face of trauma and despair. Love can save us as surely as heaven is a destination and hell is the space we’re running away from. We often confuse love with something that we feel. The butterflies, the emotional erection, the heady waves of diminishing self and focus on the...
January 2011
4 posts
Note to Adoptive Parents:
Our children’s best future rests in our ability to accept the task of sorting our needs from theirs. There will be a time for both just not always the same time. Parents make choices everyday from the understanding that commitment, sacrifice and sharing are the only pillars upon which love can grow. We must not be too afraid to risk all in the name of healing the hurts of childhood, theirs...
Look Ma no hands...
Trying to pick and choose the instants in our lives that have meaning in the moment and beyond is impossible. Sometime we might recognize a moment and occassionally be proven right. Yet most of our lives are dotted by scores of instants that past without notice into memory until life intersects and accents those periods with an exclaimation mark.
Everything tried bares your name...
My Mystery: Livin for the rushes
Today like before
I am struck dumb
and cease to know
the how of happy
Life as it rolls
keeping me in touch
with the little bit
that might have
been so very much
Still faltering
insecurity numbing the
impulse to act
courage smiles at me
as I turn away alone
in the richness of my mystery
Not one more moment...
The private anguish in me would blame it all on a twist of fate. I am free to choose again in everything that I wish, do, say, think, feel, and fight. I am stronger than I have ever been and wiser than I will ever know. The world that I create is not always the one I want, need or deserve. It is fear that I battle and love that I crave. Pardon me while I work this shit out.
December 2010
1 post
The most wonderful time of the year
As I sit transfixed in front of my computer beads of sweat begin to seep through my santa hat as I machine gun the scurrying enemy soldiers before they can reach my stronghold. The stage successfully completed I reflect on how much I love the holidays.
I love the idea of good will toward men and joy to the world. The build up and anticipation of Christmas morning and my family...
October 2010
1 post
National Adoption Month?
I suppose public recognition of the importance of adoption in our world is a good thing. Certainly celebrating the notion and formation of families is always a tribute to the best of us and that’s worth doing.
I wish we didn’t trivialize it so much. I wish the sentiment lived up to the experience more often. Mostly I guess I wish it was unnecessary. Fact is however we dress it...
September 2010
1 post
Do you know where your parents are
http://youtu.be/U8cHtpTUdnw?a
Can’t they all just… get a mom? We must do better. Adoption from foster care is mostly an accident that happens inspite of our best efforts to thwart it. Where does it end? It ends when we begin to care about our lost children of foster care. We just don’t care. The older the child becomes the less we believe in their right to family,...
August 2010
5 posts
Fear said I wish you would...
As parents we live in a state of almost constant fear.
Fear that holds us locked in our miseries large and small. We pray for what we don’t want and wish at the rest. Sometime as I tip toe toward something bigger dragging the nagging dread of what I might miss, the burden seems too heavy to budge.
Fear dances around us while the music dies and the lights shine somewhere...
God has truly blessed the child that has his...
http://looneytunes09.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/i-just-need-a-mom-please/ For foster youth we continue to deny the fundamental truth that no amount of therapy can fill the void created by the absence of a functional parental figure in their lives. We must recognize that a parental figure is a birth right and we do great harm by our unwillingness to recognize this fact. We may all die...
Grant that this day and everyday hence I shall use this space in pursuit of sharing the kind of sharing that comes about with healing As a father I strive to be present and strong for my children As a husband I seek the courage to share my fears and tears with my mate As a voice for adoption I strive to remember that loving, positive relationship in all it’s forms is the key to world...
Listening to the rain
I often find myself rooted in the mundane trevails of everyday life. I stand voice raised in indignation at some perceived violation of every persons’ inalienable right to be miserably trapped in the unyielding morass that is relationship. Foster children are denied this most basic of human rights. Are they better for it? Are they somehow better balanced as individuals? Do they contribute...
Excerpts from a time that never was
I am sometime restless with anger, bitterness and shame.
My mothers were good women.
Yet here I stand.
Posted by Chet at Thursday, June 07, 2001
Each of us bare the mark of choices allegedly made in our name for our protection in pursuit of our greatest good. Leaving only confusion and doubt to be sorted out with perilously little information to process. Ask your experiencing self...
July 2010
8 posts
Why adopt an older child? Watch this:...
Life is a box of chocolate...
One of my mentors told me years ago that it’s better to adopt sibling groups because it increases the odds of getting one that you like.
I love that because the idea of getting one that you like is in many ways at it’s core one of the many unspoken beliefs about adoption from foster care. The myth being “don’t adopt children from foster care because the...
Close the door the AC's on...
Sitting alone in the center of my living room I realized that virtually every corner of my house bears witness to the people that occupy that space. Faces aging progressively in school photo’s. Soccer, softball, track and field trophy’s, medals, patches and pins lined up each tied to a moment, season or year. “My chair” beside the bookcase waits all week allowing...
Whateva...Adoption or Nothing?
Well there was a time when I was a hot headed, brash young advocate running around stomping my feet and demanding adoption or nothing. I ranted about the importance of folks coming forward and going all the way. My argument was legal adoption makes the clear statement that I am here for you/ you are no longer a foster child/you belong with me and mine. This seemed so clear to me that I...
The shameless plug...
Listen to Pat & Chester on that July 4th radio broadcast: http://www.kjoy.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=4778372
Now What?
Okay so you’ve made the decision to adopt through your state’s foster care system. First thing is to come to grips with the fact that first you will be a foster parent. Now put whatever that means to you aside and begin to accept that this is a process. You will need to connect with/and be certified/approved/sanctioned by your local Department of Social Services or private...
Why adopt from foster care...
Why adopt from the foster care system? Several really good reasons. If you’re seriously thinking about adoption you have no doubt been considering this decision for some time. You might have explored a little bit and discovered that private adoption can be a very costly proposition, financially and otherwise.
If you’ve been considering adoption for a while you might...
Making Believers...
When the end of our lives draws near we will consider the decisions that we have made; those which have brought us the most joy and we will thank goodness the opportunity was present and that we had the courage to act.
If you decide to parent through adoption you will learn the power of the spirit of love and the true meaning of the word commitment. Nothing in...
June 2010
3 posts
Welcome to Summer
How do you relate to another the intensity of your personal pain? When prospective parents present themselves, we professionals look to “prepare” and “train” them for the rigors of this journey. We attempt to educate them to the dangers of “caring too much.” We open our judgment books and use our professional pulpits to batter and harass them until the family...
June 20th 2010
Asked to think about what I want for Father’s day I find myself stumped. I could use a fancy hi-tech hydrolic cyber charged cell phone with GPS and super powerful tweet speeds. There’s always room for one more three pack of underwear or tube socks. I got a couple of lawn chairs one year and that is still one of the more useful and fun gifts. This father’s day I woke up...
Happy Father's Day
June 20th is almost here and I have nothing much to say. I ‘d like to tell a great story that highlights the type of man my father was. I’d like to recall the way he’d counseled me on girls when I first starting looking. Thinking back I’d like to describe how proud I felt when I introduced him to my teachers on parent teacher night. I couldn’t imagine how...
May 2010
12 posts
PBS's 'This Emotional Life': This Interconnected... →
http://huff.to/aW5nWu