"Two? Are you Crazy?!?" How we Came to Decide to Host a Sibling Pair

WAY back, when Shad and I were first married, and I was having major baby cravings, I got Shad to agree to adopting a kitten. Believe me, this was no small feat! When Shad and I were dating, he told me he wasn't really a "pet person".  I never took that comment seriously. So, as with the comments he made about only wanting two kids maximum, I knew this was something I could manipulate down the road.  When he fell in love with me enough, he would want nothing more than my happiness. Of course, he would see that I needed a cat or three. (And a baby or six...)

So, one blissful, April, Saturday morning we went to the Broward County Humane Society in Florida. If you haven't had the pleasure of visiting this particular Humane Society, it is one of the fanciest places I have ever been.  It's the Biltmore or Taj Mahal for unwanted cats and dogs.  The establishment is immaculately clean and doesn't even smell like animals. I wish I could say that the institution where two of my kids spent many of their childhood years was even half as well funded as this place, but I digress....

Back to the Broward County Humane Society, where we found the two cutest kittens alive.  How would I ever choose between the two of them?  They were two female kittens from the same litter and they were absolutely adorable. I knew that I was already on thin ice, so asking Shad to get BOTH of them, would have been absolutely out of the question. I wasn't going to press my luck.

Now, in order to adopt a pet from the Broward County Humane Society, you need to prove that you are worthy. There was paperwork to be filled out, a waiting period, and then an INTERVIEW before we could even hold the kitten we were interested in. I was certain they were going to see right through Shad and *know* that he was a self-proclaimed "not a pet person". It was a stressful, emotional day! (Go ahead and laugh...at the time, this was stressul stuff!)

Finally, *the* moment arrived when we could actually meet the kitten that we had inquired about.  I guess our references checked out and we passed the intensive interview session enough to give the appearance that we were capable of remembering to feed a cat and change its litter box.  We were invited into a special room, where we were going to get to meet our little bundle of joy! For reasons I still don't understand, they brought in BOTH kittens.  Shad held one, and I held the other. We were so excited to have reached this momentous occasion where we could be the official parents to one of these cute, fluffy creatures!

Now, if Shad was the one telling this story, this is where he would say, "Cue the Crazy Lady!"  To this day, Shad is absolutely convinced we were scammed. About 90 seconds into our big moment, a lady with puffy, red eyes asked if she could come in and hold one of the kittens. She claimed that she knew she sounded crazy, but these kittens looked exactly like a cat that she'd had for years that had just died.  Of course, we said, "Yes".  Without saying it out-loud, Shad and I were both thinking, "Perfect! This lady will take one of the kittens, and we will take her sister. What a fortunate moment!"  After a few lovely minutes of passing the kittens around and "oohing" and "awwing" over them, Shad finally asked Grieving Cat Mother, which one she wanted. He explained that we would take the other one. Now, this is the point where Shad became concerned this woman was a con-artist, and I became convinced she was an angel from Heaven.  Her response to his question was a horrified face and "OH NO!! You can't separate these two! It would be devasting for them!  These cats were born to the same mother and they need to be adopted TOGETHER!"  

The end of this story is that we adopted both kittens.

Now, before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I am in NO WAY suggesting that adopting cats is the same as adopting children. I actually wish that we didn't use the word "adoption" for choosing to raise a cat or dog that we didn't give birth to.  It's borderline offensive, but I don't make the dictionary or semantic rules, so it is what it is. For whatever reason, there are not two separate words in the English language to distinguish between raising animals and raising children that were birthed by another Mother.

Fast forward over a decade as we are trying to pick a child to host....  OMG! I cannot even begin to explain how hard this process is!  (This is another blog post altogether.)  In a strange twist of fate, it was my husband who kept looking at the picture of the brother-sister pair who now share our last name.  My response was, "TWO?  Are you CRAZY?!?"  We had raised one child for close to a decade and were finally reaching the stage where things were getting "easier". The thought of hosting one child from another country, who did not speak our language seemed insane enough. My husband was suggesting that we take the insanity just one step further. He actually thought we could handle a 13 year old girl and her 11 year old brother. Whoa!  I wasn't so sure. I was terrified, quite honestly. My husband, (God Bless him!), is an elementary school teacher. He has worked with 5th-8th graders for 17 years.  I am a firm believer that the secret to his success with this age group is that he is not that much more mature than they are. He seriously fits right in. (Bathroom humor? Right up his alley!) I couldn't believe that he was suggesting that we host two children. It went against everything I thought I knew about him.  This was the guy who didn't think we should adopt two KITTENS, and now he was suggesting that taking care of two KIDS was a good idea?  Clearly, he had lost his mind. Furthermore, anyone who has ever met my husband knows how incredibly tight he is with money. Parsimonious, is actually a much more accurate word. (For those who aren't currently studying for their SATs, this word basically means: as cheap as cheap can be.) So, if I was getting this all straight, not only were we going to be out-numbered by children, but we were going to pay the hosting fees for two children (double the money), then potentially we would adopt two children (double the money), and then raise three children (much more than double the money).  I went to bed that night thinking that this was just a phase, and that in the morning he would be the same tight-wad husband I was used to.

It wasn't a phase.

I suggested that perhaps we could ask Julia (our future adoption faciliator and the individual who had actually interviewed all these children) for her opinion.  Trying to bring my husband back to reality, I thought Julia would set his mind straight.  I instructed Shad, specifically, to make sure she was keeping in mind that we had a 9 year old only child.

 Here is where I need to say that God definitely has an incredible sense of humor.  Guess who Julia's first recommendation was!  (I know, this is a ridiculously easy question two years later.) In the event anyone is confused, she recommended Valeria and Vitalik, the same sister and brother pair that Shad had already set his heart upon. Within a few days we were were sending off our deposit check to Marina's Kids to make sure that we could host Valeria and Vitalik before anyone else had the chance to have them.

I am not always the most generous wife with giving my husband credit for anything. We are both pretty stubborn, know-everything, control freaks.  But, here, I am going to put it in writing, for the entire world wide web to see.....my husband made one of the best decisions of our lives. I am so honored and proud that these two children have now given us the title of Mommy and Daddy.

What you should know about Orphan Hosting (part two)

This picture is from the first hours we brought our host children home.  We weren't even trying to be all color-coordinated and cute... it was just good chemistry!

If you didn't read my "What you should know about Orphan Hosting (part one)" I would highly recommend reading that post first.  It is a view of hosting shared mostly from the eyes of the host family.  This post is going to be more about how hosting benefits the child or children that you are hosting.

There are some people who have very strong negative opinions about hosting orphans and their logic goes something like this, "It is cruel to bring these kids to America and then to send them back." There is one particular blog that makes me so IRATE every time I read it, that I can't help myself from bashing it here publicly.  The title of this particular blog post is, "Host an Orphan (and mess with a child's head) Program."  The article goes on to claim that one particular Orphan Hosting program brings these poor foreign orphans from other countries to affluent American towns to "showcase them." This particular blogger has no problems with a domestic child having the same opportunity "locally". He  states that he  thinks the foreign orphan trial period is tasteless and cruel, and that it helps facilitate foreign child trade.

He goes on to say, "The sheer brilliance of this promotional program is this:  hosting families are not obligated to agree to a purchase-plan -- all they have to do is showcase the kids, so others can look over the inventory, and decide if a foreign orphan would fit and feel right in the potential client's home.

It does not hurt if the showcase advertising hosting family already has an adopted orphan or two. ("I not only help support the big sellers in Adoptionland, I'm a paying member, and proud orphan owner, too.").

This just disgusts me.

I would bet my paycheck that this blogger has never experienced a day in the life of an orphan, and he is just looking to criticize those of us who are trying to do something positive. I would also venture to say that this author has also never lifted a finger to help what he refers to as "domestic orphans" and just needs to have something for his hands to do, as in typing critical things about something he knows little about.  I don't see this individual ever reaching out further than his computer keyboard to do anything beneficial to change what he sees as such an injustice. 

Here's a big newsflash to you, Mr. Cynical Blogger..... not all orphans even WANT to be adopted! That's right, this isn't quite like the cute musical "Little Orphan Annie". These kiddos don't sit around late at night singing about the family that left them and is coming back to get them someday or dreaming about rich Daddy Warbucks coming to save them from their poor, wretched little lives.  

Many of these kids are quite comfortable in the surroundings they are in. They don't know any different. They are comfortable with what they know.  Going to America where the culture is vastly different, where their native language is not readily spoken, where the food is not the same and where everything smells weird and different is not something they day dream about on a regular basis. Having parents who tell them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, is not exactly a wish come true for some of these kids who have basically raised themselves.

So, why then, is Orphan Hosting so important?

Well, for one, it gives children the opportunity to see what a loving home and family looks like. Many of these children have never lived in a home with a family. Others of them had it once upon a time, but it has been so many years, that they don't have clear memories of it.  They don't know if they want to be adopted or not, because they have NO idea what the concept even means, and it's scary. If they don't get adopted and they become adults without parental guidance, they will have some knowledge of what a healthy adult relationship is supposed to look like. Hopefully, this experience will lead to them being better partners and parents in their own lives, rather than repeating the same mistakes of the previous generation.

Another important aspect of hosting is that the children have a chance to connect with an adult mentor, or a Mother and Father figure  who say, "I love you. You are important."  Whether or not adoption is in the future, your relationship with this child can be life-long.  When Ukrainian orphans "age-out" of the system at the age of 16 many of them have no adult guidance in their lives.  Sadly, a good many of the girls turn to prostitution to survive. Many of the boys get involved in drug sales. A good number of them get swept up into human trafficking, and between 10-15% of these children commit suicide within two years of leaving the orphanage.  They are easy targets with little resources.  The statistics are sobering.

On a lighter note, getting away from their normal surroundings is a huge adventure!  They get to visit a new country, a different culture, and learn a new language. They get to eat new food and live life the way we do in America.  This is not just an American phenonemon.  Many of these kids get hosted in European countries for vacation as well, such as Italy. This picture is from our kids' first time to the beach!  We didn't know it was their first time, until we saw the utter shock on their faces that the water was salty!

Many host families are able to connect with Optometrists and Dentists who are willing to see the orphans at no charge to host families! This is HUGE! Vitalik came to us with terrible tooth pain and we found a very generous dentist who did quite an amount of dental work on our children out of the goodness of her heart.  Friends of ours had a host daughter who couldn't see. They brought her to the local optometrist and she received a free eye exam and glasses, donated by the doctor. When the community becomes involved, amazing things happen! I have even heard a story of an Old Navy store closing it's doors, giving each of the children $50 gift cards and letting them shop for new clothes!

As sad as it is for the host family to see them leave, many of these kids are happy to go back to their home at the orphanage in Ukraine at the end of their stay.  They have missed their friends! They want to share their stories, pictures, and gifts with the children who were not chosen for hosting.  These children have very generous hearts and they shared every single thing we sent back with them, from toys, to games, to clothing.  It made them feel important to be able to do this,

My most important advice to anyone considering this, is to reasearch the hosting agency. Talk with people who have first hand experience with the program and the people who run it. Not all agencies are created equally.  

My second piece of advice for any of you who are willing to step out of your comfort zone for the benefit of a child is to reasearch  all you can about the child's culture and get in contact with families who have done this before. Talk to those who adopted the children and those who haven't (and ask why). Learn as much as you can about attachment parenting, parenting with connection, and just good old-fashioned behavior managment techniques that work with any child (without yelling and physical punishment).  There are no books for this experience, but there is certainly a wealth of information out there, if you are willing to look and listen.