I spend most of my time on Daily Kos griping. I'm what you might call a glass-half-empty sort. Well, if you were nice. If you were not so nice, or maybe just a little more honest, you might simply say I'm an [insert expletive here]. More often than not I find myself in what I like to think of as the Cynical Minority. But I thought I'd take a brief break from the pursuit of misanthropy to share a story that, for once, will make you feel good. Every once in a while we could all use a reminder that the world isn't all bad.
One of the students in my school, a third grader I will call Barrett, is a ward of the state. He lives at a local "residential facility," a fancy way of saying "group home." I happen to have once worked at this particular facility, so I know it pretty well. And it's a good place, as these places go. The staff is kind and well trained, but they're still a staff. No matter how much they care for their charges -- and they do -- it's not the same as having a family.
Barrett has lived there for about two years. He came to them from a very troubled and dysfunctional home. The specific details aren't important, suffice it to say that there was both abuse and neglect. The situation was serious enough that Barrett's parents lost custody and all contact was severed, which anyone who has experience in social services knows is rare. Barrett became a little boy without a home.
Most of the residents of the facility where Barrett lives also attend school there, but Barrett was deemed appropriate for public school. Nevertheless, we were told (read: warned) that there were a host of emotional and behavioral issues that could be problematic. Over the years, I have received a lot of big, fat files on kids that describe in excruciating detail everything that is wrong with them and why they will be a nightmare to manage. I have learned that the best thing to do with these files is to stick them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them. They are never accurate. They focus inordinately on the bad and tell you absolutely nothing about who the kid really is. And so it was with Barrett, who turned out to be a charming, funny, sometimes mischievous, and entirely normal kid.
It can't have been easy for him. When the other kids go home at the end of the day, he goes to a program. He can't have friends over to his house, because his "house" is a residential facility under contract to the state. And he can't go to a friend's house unless that friend's parents, and any other adult living in the house, have been subject to a criminal background check. Sleepovers? No. Birthday parties? Maybe, but only if a staff person is available to chaperon him. It's not a normal way for a kid to live. He bears it all with a good humor well beyond his eight years. But there's no way it doesn't hurt.
Kids Barrett's age rarely get adopted. People want babies, once a child is above the age of three the odds of finding a family to take them drops precipitously. At eight years old it's virtually impossible. To say the odds were not in Barrett's favor is an understatement. But damned if the little bugger didn't beat them.
Barrett has always been well liked by the faculty and staff of our school. One staff member in particular formed an especially strong relationship with him. A few months ago she and her husband began to explore the possibility of taking Barrett in as a foster child, with an eye toward eventually adopting him. After extensive discussions with Barrett's social workers, school officials, friends, family, and their own kids, they decided to go ahead with it. Yesterday Barrett found out that he would be part of a family once more.
Ever seen a kid over the moon? I have.
Update: There are over 100,000 children in the United States waiting to be adopted. For more information, consult AdoptUSKids, the National Adoption Center, or your city, state, or local social services agency.