Reasons not to Adopt - Thievery and Bullying

This may be the first installment of a series. Those looking for levity and humor should probably look elsewhere. While I may throw in some sort of sarcastic backhanded and self-deprecating humor this particular series is (at least this first one) written in the rawest of moments. In today’s case I just finished off explaining to my daughter Lena how daddy has given and given and given so that she might have lots of nice things and experiences. Daddy has given to the point that he cannot afford even the $5 to have one of his church shirts pressed and that he’s even gone so far as to cut down on the amount of lunch he eats. Why did I give this little lecture? Because my oldest daughter regularly bullies and connives her brother and sisters into giving up their most treasured toys. Call it what you will but I call that theft and it crushes my heart. It crushes my heart so much that I was a sobbing wreck of a man when it was time to go to church. I told Jenn to head to church without me. So if there is a distinct lack of mirth in this little article just remember that I wrote this after picking myself up off the couch, drying my tears, and sitting down in front of the computer to type out how I *really* feel.

October 26^th 2012 we brought Lena and Sujin home for the last time. That was our “Gotcha” day (as it’s called in adoption circles) and it was full of rejoicing. For those that aren’t familiar with our long journey into adoption it all started in early 2011 and there’s a post on that somewhere in this blog. Lena was 10 and Sujin was 7 at the time we brought them home. Both Jenn and I thought we knew what we were getting into but of course we were both completely wrong. Within a few days we were both completely overwhelmed. I was “lucky” because I was working as a commander at the time and was saved from turmoil in the house because I was working insane hours. Jenn took the full brunt of the post-adoption blues. I saw a lot of the same symptoms in her that doctors ascribe to post-partum depression. We worked through those first few months but our take-away lessons were these: Sujin has attachment issues and Lena has territorial issues. This particular post is about Lena’s territorial issues.

Back in the orphanage Lena was one of the only non-Korean kids. She was a blond Caucasian girl growing up in an almost-exclusively Korean orphanage. At a minimum most of the other kids were at least half-Korean. Additionally their orphanage was located in the Korea-equivalent of the flyover states (aka Redneck country). Like most homogenous cultures Koreans are prone to a little bit of xenophobia (the Collegian inside me calls this “identifying the ‘barbarian other’”). Now factor in location (redneck country) and society (orphanage aka Lord of the Flies) and you might correctly think that Lena was the target of quite a bit of bullying. Now, academically I know that she’s got a history of being the target of bullying. I also know that it is very much human nature to use those same bullying tactics when one comes to power. On an intellectual level it is completely understandable that Lena resorted to bullying and stealing once she came into our house. If only I could live in an intellectual and academic world. Too bad I live in the real world where I have a bully who is psychologically and physically terrorizing and stealing from the other three children in the house. Forgive me if I become a little emotional over these things.

I’ve spoken to Lena about these issues before. I’ve counseled her, corrected her, shown her object lessons, shown her love, poured out an unending flow of love, gifts, and concern. I’ve also yelled, threatened, confiscated, cried, and lost my temper on a number of occasions. As a result she has slowly started to give up her evil ways. However Jenn discovered last night that Lena is still collecting tribute from her brother and sisters. She’s just doing it a little more quietly and with more discretion – using the silent treatment, threats, and intimidation to keep the other kids quiet. It has gotten to the point that the other kids have started sneaking in to Lena’s room to gather back their things. Think of Lena’s room as a mythical dragon hoard. Lena is the dragon. She’s not spending her hoard, nor is she really doing anything with it but she JEALOUSLY guards it. My kids are literally making Bilbo Baggins-esque runs into the lair of Smaug in order to retrieve their own personal Arkenstones.

So when I heard about this last night I went in to Lena’s room and as calmly as I could (I showed some remarkable restraint. No yelling, even) let her know that the gig was up. I then spent 3 hours in bed tossing, turning, and desperately trying to come up with a way to fix the problem. At about 11:30 after 2 hours in bed I decided upon “The Nuclear Option.” I prayed for a bit, asked God to give me discernment while I slept and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, convinced that the metaphorical destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was in order I wrote the following terms to Jenn for her approval.

1. Lena is evicted. She gets her clothes – that is it.
2. Everything in Lena’s room will be redistributed to the other kids
3. Lena will NOT be allowed upstairs to play in the other kids’ rooms
4. Lena will sleep on an air mattress in the living room. She will put up and take down her “room” every night and morning.
5. Lena will not be allowed to play with the other kids while unsupervised. Homework is the alternative
6. This will last 1-2 months. 3 weeks is the BARE minimum

For those who attended Basic Training in the late 90’s and had a thief in their company you might remember that private going through something similar to this. I’m not going to lie and tell you that basic training wasn’t my inspiration for “The Nuclear Option”. This, of course, precipitated into a talk between me and Jenn. For anyone who has ever witnessed a “talk” between my wife and I you know that things can get loud, quickly, if one of us happens to be emotionally charged. See the first paragraph one more time real quick and you’ll see that I was the very definition of “emotionally charged”.

My wonderful wife reminded me that this is a long process – that Lena has almost 11 years of bad habits to work through and that the nuclear option was NOT an option. I reminded my wonderful wife that we had three other children to worry about and that while one child worked through her issues the other three were living in fear and that continuing along the path that we had been was NOT an option. Now, quickly I want you to replace the word “reminded” from the last two sentences with the words “screamed” “hollered” “loudly exclaimed” “raised my voice while pounding on the bathroom counter” or another more emotionally charged phrase, crank your argument volume-meter to the Spinal Tap setting on your internal amp and read it again. Welcome to the Galstad’s. We aren’t too good to not have a knock-down drag-out before church.

So after going downstairs and expressing my extreme frustration to Lena – I’m also not too great of a dad to not cry in front of my kids – I retreated to the basement and now I’m sitting in front of the computer, typing this out while trying to come up with a way to teach my daughter what I learned from Jesus.

You see the whole Genesis behind the adoption was Jesus. Anyone who has asked me what caused me to adopt has gotten the quiet explanation of “It’s a Jesus thing. He adopted me so I figured I’d do the same thing.” So now I somehow need to show my daughter that just as I have accepted Jesus’ love and shower that love on her that she can do the same thing. She can now take my kindness and be kind. She can now take my love and love others. She can now take all the help that I give her and help others. She can now take all the wisdom (or attempted wisdom) I give her and try to answer the hard questions of others. There is no more need for her to steal from her brother and sisters because all she has to do is ask for it from me and I’ll GLADLY give it to her. And so I sit here and wrestle with the best way to teach those things and unless I’m trying to teach the justice of Old Testament God (which I’m not) then “The Nuclear Option” is not an option.

So this is where I am right now. Still in the basement, still trying to come up with the best way to raise my children and correct a problem. It will take enormous amounts of patience and love – patience and love that I DO NOT possess. And this is why this post is entitled “Reasons not to Adopt.” You do not currently have the patience and love to do it. You don’t have the boundless reserves of grace, self-control, peace, or any of the other fruits of the Spirit to do it. Sure, you might think you do. You might think like I did that “God will provide what I need because I’m doing His will.” I am here to tell you that God just might not – even if it is His will that you adopt. Jesus loves me, this I know, but He very well might give me a hard row to hoe. So right now I am daily falling on my knees and asking for more wisdom, more grace, more humility, more love, more patience and more joy. Because right now I am completely overwhelmed and completely dependent upon the mercy of a loving God. So unless you want to suddenly find yourself out of your depth and on your face begging for mercy from God then I suggest you don’t adopt. It’s not the message you usually get from adoptive parents.