The failures in my future wife’s historical family settings had taught her by default, the things that she would use to construct her own list of family wishes.

I Just Wouldn’t be the Child in That Family

My wife came from a painful abusive neglectful dysfunctional “messed up” home and family life. Her first father was a notorious stalker. According to her first mother, he was a suspect in murders that were later attributed to Ted Bundy. When Amy was fifteen, she went to the police station looking for help. They told her they didn’t have a place for her to go, so she could go back home or spend the weekend in juvenile detention. My wife told them to lock her up. They did. Then after some temporary placements she was moved into a foster home “business.” I say that because the parents in that family had learned how to manipulate the system and pulled in far more than the money allotted for each of many foster children, by using a series of loopholes and weaknesses in the system. Before the end of my wife’s time in high school, her family wishes were pretty much that “family” as an institution, could cease to exist.

Having constructive family wishes is difficult when children are lumped in as part of a demographic that cannot be believed.

Amy turned eighteen in early December of her senior year. That signaled the end of the financial payments from the state to support her. The foster parents told her that they would adopt her and allow her to stay in the home, sharing a small bedroom with a foster teen that suffered from schizophrenia, based on several conditions. Every month, she would need to replace every penny of what the state had been paying them, which equated to more than the rent on a two-bedroom apartment during that time. Also, she would need to continue to “help” around the house. Help meant to care for the other foster children while the foster parents worked their jobs and spent their evenings partying. She was even taught how to mix their drinks. When food came up missing, and the perpetrating foster child refused to confess, my nineteen-year-old wife was forced to take her lashings with a belt along with the other foster children. Of course no one outside the family knew. Foster children have learned not to talk about things like that because of so many instances when people didn’t believe them. Having constructive family wishes is difficult when children are lumped in as part of a demographic that cannot be believed.

Sometimes those who talked the most performed the worst in family settings and my future wife decided that they could say what they wanted and spew propaganda about family wishes, but she knew better.

At church and in settings where my wife heard people talk of the importance of family and the wonderful organization and blessing that it was, she cynically considered their words to be hypocrisy and lies. Sometimes those who talked the most performed the worst in family settings and my future wife decided that they could say what they wanted and spew propaganda about family wishes, but she knew better.

The failures in my future wife’s historical family settings had taught her by default, the things that she would use to construct her own list of family wishes.

At the peak of her cynicism, Amy began to consider the possibility that it might be possible to have a successful family. The failures in my future wife’s historical family settings had taught her by default, the things that she would use to construct her own list of family wishes. Amy tells of a light coming on in her mind as she realized that she really could have the family of her dreams; she would just never be the child in that dream-family.

My future wife’s family wishes were quite practical, in nature. She didn’t want her family to be a photograph façade, but a practical tool that was used to build people, protect them, and prepare them for the rest their lives.

My wife wanted a family where the mom and dad worked together as a team. She wanted a home where no one was ever abused. Amy wanted her home to be a place where people could be helped and taught to make their own lists of family wishes to prepare to build their own successful families. My future wife’s family wishes were quite practical, in nature. She didn’t want her family to be a photograph façade, but a practical tool that was used to build people, protect them, and prepare them for the rest their lives. She set out to construct the conglomeration of her family wishes with all the intent and planning of contractors erecting a skyscraper.

It wasn’t until we moved toward our dream of adding daughters to our family, through international adoption, that we saw any degree of wavering in the family wishes that Amy and I had embraced.

We started our family with three biological sons with two years between each. When we could no longer have children biologically, we adopted a one-month old little boy who had Down syndrome. Though it hadn’t been a priority (or even a goal), that young family was a picture-perfect one. It wasn’t until we moved toward our dream of adding daughters to our family, through international adoption, that we saw any degree of wavering in the family wishes that Amy and I had embraced. In our first (and what was intended as the only) experience in adopting from Russia, we brought two biological sisters and another little boy into our family. At that point we realized the trauma they had experienced would add challenges to our family that we had not experienced before. Still, we were confident. Amy had experienced trauma in families, before, and had learned to move beyond it. (I would have a hard time saying that anyone ever completely “gets over” such trauma.) What better asset could there be to help children to move on from trauma than a mother who has already done it?

The realization of these other siblings and their challenges was the first time we realized there were paradoxes in Amy’s and my family wishes.

The real challenge came when we learned that our new daughters had teenaged sisters that we hadn’t been told about. As we searched and researched, we learned that these older siblings, who were still in orphanages, had been severely damaged. We were told of behavioral problems and “perhaps, disorders.” People in Russia counseled us not to bring them into our family. The realization of these other siblings and their challenges was the first time we realized there were paradoxes in Amy’s and my family wishes. Our daughters had sisters. Family was there to help family. No one from a family should ever be left behind. Amy could not deny these traumatized teens what she wished someone had done for her.

If we brought traumatized children into our home, our family wishes that no one in our family would ever be abused in the home, would need to be sacrificed.

On the other hand, teenaged children who had lived lives filled with trauma would come with complex challenges. They would only understand abuse as a way of life. If we brought traumatized children into our home, our family wishes that no one in our family would ever be abused in the home, would become sacrificed. The only question was the degree of abuse that would emerge. If I was a person who tried to draw Biblical parallels at every occasion, I would compare my wife’s actions to Abraham building an altar to sacrifice his son. But I am one who struggles with faith. So I can only tell you that in many cases (perhaps more often than not) the angel doesn’t come to stop the sacrifice. The knife does what it was intended to do and the fire consumes.

Our family wishes have evolved.

Of course there were very difficult things that followed. There is no reason to delve into the details, but those who have children who come from trauma will imagine quite accurately. We are no different from you and your family. We share the same struggles and pain that you experience. We cry when we see our children suffer whether it comes from past conditions, or at the hand of uncontrolled anger from another family member. But our family wishes have evolved.

Thank God for my wife and her family wishes; even those that she burned on the altar.

We can no longer say that abuse has not occurred in our home. But we can say that our family has been strengthened by our experiences. All of us are better because of our family, even with all of its weaknesses. Some of our children have learned to forgive family members, like their mother did. Some of our children have learned to deal with their histories of trauma, like my wife did. All of them have grown stronger, like my wife did. Thank God for my wife and her family wishes; even those that she burned on the altar.

If you come from a history of failed families and family wishes, know this: You can have the family of your dreams, but you will not be the child in that family. Still, put that history to good use by helping a child to get through the same thing. If you are a member of a family who struggles on the mountain of challenges that come with traumatized children, take heart. Be brave. You can and we should do hard things. Know that you are not alone. In fact, I would dare say that you are in good company.

Often, readers receive as much help from other readers in the comments section as they do from the blog article, itself. Please be generous with your thoughts and experiences in the comments section. There are lots of people who need what you have to share. This is your chance to help them. Your comments matter.

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