Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Thing

My mom works as a home health care giver for a very sweet little lady. She works with 2 sisters and they have all gotten to be fairly good friends. One of the sisters has a daughter. The daughter has 4 children. 2 of the children were fathered by her cousin, and were adopted by his family. She is "raising" the 2 youngest boys. And by raising, I mean maintaining custody and leaving them with her mother and her aunt for days at a time while she goes off and gets high. She just got out of jail, had a court date, was supposed to go back to jail, and is now hiding out from the law. The 2 boys' father is...snorting pills or something. Also out of jail on bail.

Back a few months ago, my husband and I were approached by the girl's aunt about the possibility of adopting the youngest boy in order to keep him from going into foster care and losing touch with the family. About the time that we decided we were really into the idea of taking this little boy, the mother decided that the $5,000 tax return, the WIC benefits, and the fact that her drug dealer lets her pay in food stamps (which would decrease without the kids) were worth the few days a month she deigns to remember that she has children. My husband suggested that we could pay her. It would probably work. It's completely illegal, but it would probably work. My husband was unaware it was illegal when he made that statement. Based on conversations he had with a co-worker who adopted his kids through an agency (and was told $10,000 for a black baby, $15,000 for a mixed baby, and $20,000 for a white baby)he failed to realize that was different from buying a baby. How is it different? Well, because. Regardless, neither of us feels that it is a good idea to give a drug addict money and expect her not to ask for more without some kind of official, legal document. We cannot very well legally document the illegal purchase of a baby. Anyway, we decided to tell the aunt that while we had been interested, we were no longer interested. We won't be adopting him because he is now beginning to walk. Frankly, I wish I was a better person, willing to take an older child. But I'm not that good of a person. I want a little time to adjust to HAVING a child before having to adjust to a child that is running around all over the place and falling down and active.

So that was the thing. I was surprised at how badly I wanted that little boy. I have always been a little ambivalent about the whole motherhood deal. Turns out, I want to do it. I am a little late posting this because I was surprisingly upset over the way it all turned out. I'm still a little sad. I apologize for the maudlinness...maudlinity...sorry this isn't funny or whatever. I'll be back to doing whatever it is I do on the next post.