REAL

So I wrote this post in 2011 and put it on my facebook, but I thought I should share it here.  It was a particularly difficult time in my parenting journey. I am very proud to say we have come a long way.  The most important being that ALL of my children know they are valuable to me:

Last week I spent three hours in therapy, four hours meeting with teachers, two hours at the doctors, I shopped for clothes and food, and I attended a choir concert. I lost sleep full of worry and concern.  This does not even begin to touch the time I spent cooking, cleaning, and listening.  All of this for one of my eight children, yet I cannot manage to grasp the ever elusive title of REAL parent.  Sometimes I sit awake at night wondering what it would take for me to become a Real Parent.  Do you know how many times I have watched Pinocchio?  I have done everything they said.  Yet I remain not real.  All the paperwork in the world can’t prove that I am real.  And unlike the Biological parents, who get to be real no matter what they have done no matter what I sacrifice I never get the honor of just being mom.  So you ask why do I do it?  Don’t worry I have asked myself the same question many times. 

            I do it for the honor of watching them overcome it all.  Of seeing them break through the chains that bind them to generations of bad behavior and watch them reach beyond what anyone thought they could.  I get to rejoice in the little things like getting them to bathe properly and I am absolutely giddy the first time they don’t crawl into the fetal position when they get in trouble, because they are afraid we will send them away. 

            I have never been one to do things the easy way.  Just sitting back and watching my biological children grow up.  With love and nurturing and protection from the world.  I took for granted all the little things they did because it was expected.  They had been taught from birth.  But changing a child’s birth pattern is challenging.  It can be very disheartening.  There are days you cry yourself to sleep because you wonder if you can’t make any real lasting difference.  And days when they call you mom, that makes it all worth it.

            Adopting a child is like ripping your heart out and putting it on display in the mall. People are constantly judging the end product.   There is absolutely no way that it can be done without an entire army of people.  Teachers, Friends, specialists, but even with all of those things, it can’t be done without love.  A greater capacity than ever known to exist.  A love that can take rejection, loneliness, and pain and still come back for more.  A love that can hold on when everyone else tells you to quit. Without that, you can’t possibly hope to succeed.  Success doesn’t mean you get a doctor or lawyer, a productive member of society.  Success is a child who knows they are worth your love.