Saying, "I Do" to your Adopted Teen (How Teen Adoption is More Like a Marriage....)

Adopting a teenager (or two) is about as unnatural as it gets. Everytime I recall how I acted toward my parents during my teenage years, I just cringe. I knew everything, all their rules were stupid, and they just didn't get it. I have heard people declare that this is God's plan to help parents prepare for their childrens' departure from the nest.  In a "normal" situation, this is quite brilliant. When you are adopting teenagers, however, this really makes a mess of things.  The adoption professionals say you are supposed to cocoon, and bond, and attach.  In theory, this sounds great, however, typical teenagers really want nothing to do with their parents. So, how on earth do you simultaneously bond with your newly adopted teenagers AND prepare them for life outside of the nest?  I have no idea. Apparently, no one else has any idea either because, as I always say, there are no books for this!

One thing that I have learned about adopting teens is that good old-fashioned parenting tactics aren't particularly helpful.  If you are an avid follower of Dr. Spock or even Parent Magazine, and/or have already raised four successful adult members of society and "know exactly what you are doing", good luck with this! I don't care how experienced anyone claims to be at this, the truth is we are all just treading water. From what I can tell on Facebook, the experienced teen parents and the blissfully ignorant adults who have never raised teens, both end up with about the same level of disillusionment at some point. These kiddos are all over the spectrum with emotional intelligence, development, and traumatic pasts. Advice from friends and "parent experts", no matter how well meaning, is just not going to cut it. 

So, here is my best non-expert advice in regards to raising adopted teenagers:  Pretend you are marrying them. I know how strange and unconventional this sounds, but stick with me for a moment. Adopting and/or hosting a teenager really has more similarities to dating and marriage than it does to bringing home a new baby.

To illustrate my point, let's play a little imagination game....

Pretend you are a 14 year old girl growing up in a poor nation.  Life has never been easy, and from the time you were 4 years old, you were helping to raise all your younger siblings. "For your own good", your parents arrange a marriage for you. The man you are to marry is a nice, Christian man. He lives in the United States. Sure, it is on the other side of the globe, but you will live in a fancy house! You will never go to bed cold and hungry. You can afford all the clothes and luxuries your heart desires. You will get a good education. You understand that your parents want you to have a better life, and have your best interests at heart.  You want to do the right thing, but you don't really want to leave your own country.  Even though you have met the man you are to marry, and he seems to be an upstanding person, you are scared to leave your family and everything you know.

  

This new life is supposed to be BETTER, even if no one speaks your language. Even if the culture is completely different from the one you are used to. Even if the food is different, the people are different, the smells are different, the rules are different, the schools are different, and your own friends and family are half a world away. It's "better" you are told, and so you do what you think is best.

Pretend that after you have agreed to this marriage, everything is progressing as planned. For your future husband's sake you are trying to act excited. Half of you is anxious to see where this new and better life takes you, but the other half of you is hesitant. You see how happy your new husband is that you have agreed to this marriage. You even believe that this man you have agreed to marry is genuinely in love with you. Now, imagine that one day your taxi driver tells you, "Don't go to America with this guy. This is a scam! He is paying your parents a lot of money. When he gets you to America, he is going to kill you and sell you for your body parts."

Does this sound insane? It is.  Does this sound a bit dramatic and far-fetched? Yes, it certainly does. Is this true?  It is absolutely 100% true that at some point your children will be told this.  It may not come from the taxi driver. These words may come from a caretaker at the orphanage, a trusted teacher, or even a biological family member. Why on earth would these adults say such things to a child?  Is it because they are jealous of the orphans or because they hate Americans? Maybe, but as recently as 2005, there was an actual ring of criminals who were busted for killing and harvesting organs from orphans and prisoners.

It's beyond my imagination, but this was actually a real thing. I'm sure you heard all about this on the news. No? Well, in your defense, 2005 was the year that Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch to declare his love for Katie Holmes. 2005 was also when Brad Pitt left Jennifer Anniston for Angelina Jolie.  There were some pretty big, important events happening in the United States at that time, so if you missed the organ harvesting of orphans news, it's completely and totally understandable.

Back to our imagination game...
Fast forward a few months and you are trying to adjust to your new and better life. Everyone who meets you and your new husband congratulates him on what a GREAT thing he has done by bringing you to the USA, the best place on Earth! This man is a saint and you should be grateful. He saved your life! You know you should be grateful, and you *are*, except you miss your homeland. No one comments about how brave you were to leave everything you knew. No one thinks to ask how you are doing. You are in AMERICA now.  Of course, you are happy!  You won the lottery!

Now, pretend you allow your true feelings to show. You get sad. You get angry. You may even cry. You might shut yourself in your room for the day, because the sadness of it all takes over. Perhaps, you even run away. You love your husband, and you are thankful to have a warm house and food on the table, but it doesn't take the place of HOME. You are now a citizen of the United States and going back home just to visit is costly and complicated.  You are overwhelmed by the reality of this situation and you feel so alone. You can't even communicate your feelings to your new husband, because your English is so limited.

In a good situation, your husband understands your feelings, hugs you and cries with you.  He understands why you are so sad and wishes he could change the things he has no control over. The best he can do is help you through the grieiving process and let you share your feelings.  He helps you to maintain contact with the people you are missing so much, and allows you to continue to honor the traditions, beliefs, religion, and culture you are used to.  He will want to try new foods, he will not insist that your new country is better, he will honor the family you are no longer with. He will be happy when you meet people you can converse with in your native language.

In a less than ideal situation, your husband will take your feelings personally. Afterall, he went through a great deal of paperwork, emotional turmoil, and money to get you here.  How dare you not be thankful and forget everything about your former life?  Things in the United States are BETTER. If you have crazy fantasies about returning to your homeland when you are 18, then you are an ungrateful wife and you don't know how things are in the real world.

He will point out what your future possibilities entailed in your own homeland, he will remind you of how you got to be at the point where you were encourged to leave your country in the first place. He will remind you of all that was BAD in your homeland and how everything in your new country is BETTER.  He may even tell you that this is what GOD had planned for you.

He may decide that everytime you talk to someone from your homeland, you act differently, so he cuts off all your communication with friends and family. He does this because the experts have told him that it is necessary to adapt properly to your new life in the United States. He is trying to do what is best. He does love you and he is trying to do the best thing.

Your new husband may even tell you that you can not dress the way you are used to dressing, you are not allowed to style or cut your hair the way you want to, you need to eat the food that is put in front of you when he tells you to eat it.  He may control when you go to bed, when to wake up, how long you are allowed to use the phone that you paid for, and who you can and cannot be friends with. He may even forbid you to speak your native language in his house.  "English only," he insists.  Again, the experts have told him that this is what he needs to do to be a loving husband and to make you the best wife you can be.  It's for your own good. You will understand someday.

How awesome does this arranged marriage deal sound?  Sign me up for this!!

How many of you would be happy in this situation? I can't imagine I would be.  Unfortunately, this make-believe scenario has many similarities to what Internationally adopted teenagers experience. My daughter tells me that many of her friends feel like a bird trapped in a golden cage. (I suspect she does too, but is too nice to say it.)

Before we adopted our children, I got some very wise advice from a friend, Shelly.  I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing her brilliant insight, because quite honestly, if there is someone who should be writing this blog post or the "How to Raise Adopted Teenagers" Book, it is her.  The problem is that she can't write this blog post because in addition to her two adopted teenagers, she has three younger boys.  The woman is a phenom, and I am so blessed to have her and her loving, realistic, and nonjudgmental advice. Coincidentally, she and her husband also adopted a sibling pair from Ukraine by the names of Lera and Vitalik!

So, here is what she said to me one day via FB messenger (because how on earth would she have time to talk in person???)  "The whole adoption journey is a lot like an arranged marriage... it's so similar to getting married because you become a family with people who have a history you weren't there for, and you commit to loving the complete package - with all of the stuff that comes with them - very much like when we fall in love with a man and take him, his crazy family, his past girlfriends, whatever, ya know?"

Truer words were never spoken.  As far as I am concerned, Shelly is an absolute genius because she understands the spirit which is necessary for raising these kids. Adoptive parents need to have respect for all the things their children managed in life long before they ever knew who their adoptive parents were going to be. If you go about this relationship in a mutually respectful way, there is a lot to be learned from these kids.  They have as much to teach as they do to learn.  That is part of the magic of adopting teenagers.

Now, before anyone gets too crazy, I am not suggesting that you need to be your child's best friend and give them everything they want, when they want it. You have to be a parent first, however, I don't think this means your kids have to hate you.  I know people who full-on brag that their kids don't like them and they are PROUD of it!  To some, the fact that their children hate them means that they are better parents.  Perhaps this is so, but I have to admit, I want my children to like me. They don't have to like all my rules, they don't have to like all of my decisions, but if they like ME it just makes life so much easier! If they like me, I can get far more out of them.  This is important to me, because I also like my kids.  Of course, I love them, but I actually REALLY like them too. I enjoy them.  I don't always like their decisions, I don't always like their behavior, but most of the time I like them, and no matter what I always LOVE them.

Adopting teenagers is not easy, but I don't think it is any harder than raising a colicky newborn.  The difference is that the newborn can't get up and walk out the door when he is mad, and the teenager can. It's difficult in a whole other way.

At the end of the day, I couldn't be happier with our decision to adopt older children. For my husband and me (and American born son), this is the stuff of Fairy Tales.  We wanted more children, and *poof!* God matched us up! OK, admittedly, it was a bit more complicated than that, but do not be fooled for one moment, this was not a Fairy Tale for our Ukrainian children. I struggle with this. I struggle with this every. single. day.  I pray that we are what is best for these beloved children of ours, but I am not always convinced. You will never hear me claim that we were called by God to adopt.  If anything, it was us dialing the phone. We called God. (And we called him, and called him, and called him until after 10 years he gave us an answer.)   I am not certain I am any better for my children than where they came from.  I was born in the United States and I have more opportunities than their parents had in Ukraine. This doesn't make me better. It makes me different. When my children turn 18 they may decide to move back to Ukraine.  As selfishly as I hope they choose to live in the United States, we will support them in whatever decision they make. This is our reality. It is a a difficult reality for us, as their (American) parents. Perhaps we have many trips to Ukraine in our future.  I don't know.  What I do know, is that geography will not keep us from loving these kids. Geography will not keep us from being their (American) parents.  They are a part of our lives and our hearts, regardless of what they decide down the road.

Afterall, we promised God to love and honor these children, for better or worse, 'til death us do part. (As unromantic as it is, we also promised a Ukrainian Judge.) It may not have been in a church ceremony for all to see, and no rings were exchanged. This is the promise we made to our kids and to God, and we will honor it for all the days of our lives.