Category Archives: special needs

not the same: confronting demands for conformity with love and truth

Posted on by January 26, 2023

I’ll be honest, the last post blew me away. I guess maybe the feeling was mutual.

Thank you so much for the support you’ve shown our family. Little Kav is in his hard cast and the five (!) pins are scheduled to be removed next week, when he’ll get a new cast for a few more weeks.

not the same: confronting demands for conformity with love and truth

We’ve gotten texts from friends and emails and messages from strangers offering to help and it has been super encouraging. We’ve also gotten a few (literally, a few) forwards of ignorant, rude, or outright nasty comments (from a social media platform we no longer participate in) opposing what we did.

It’s so miniscule, less than 1% of responses…or, you know, about the same as the actual danger of Covid. (Smile.)

But just for kicks because I think it’s fun (and often funny), let me tell you what they were. They all basically said the same thing, though in different ways: “Why don’t you just do/say/parent/think the way I do?”

The short answer is: Because we are not the same.

I don’t think they should have to do things the way I do. They should have a choice in how they parent their kids and make decisions for their future and their health. They should have a choice when they go to the ER to do things to protect themselves, and protecting ourselves doesn’t always look the same for everyone because we have different health histories and values. I think they should benefit from laws that are in place for patient care, and we should, too.

They apparently don’t think that. We are not the same.

Hospital staff, including security, nurses, a staff supervisor, and a surgeon, acted in direct violation of the Patient’s Bill of Rights, the Americans with Disabilities Act, HIPPA, and EMTALA, just to start, because of a “mandate.”

Quick legal review: Mandates are not laws. Laws are laws.

They were wrong. According to an email we got this morning, they’re being investigated.

They refused care to our injured three-year-old who needed emergency surgery. Defending them because of a political agenda in spite of law and basic ethics exposes some serious heart issues. If you think other people need to voluntarily relinquish both their rights as citizens and responsibilities as a parent because that fits the narrative you’ve come to believe, that’s not political. At the core, that’s a wholeness issue.

When loyalty to a job or company or person or a narrative leads to demands of others at the expense of truth, love, and justice, the result is an exposure of pride and insecurity. And those are two sides of the same coin that show up in different ways, including people pleasing, virtue signaling, narcissism, greed, selfishness, attention seeking, and cowardice.

Basically, here’s the demand: Why don’t you just give up your choice and your rights to conform, like me?

And here’s my answer: Because I’m not like you. We are not the same.

We come from different worldviews. We’re using some of the same words, but with different definitions.

For example, take the concept of responsibility. I think responsibility means being accountable for your own choices. Other people think being responsible means getting double (or triple, or whatever) jabbed for a virus that’s 99.97% safe. They think we’re irresponsible for refusing the Covid swab for our healthy toddler, even though the swabs are unreliable, have been shown to cause injury, and are being discontinued by the CDC. We are not the same.

Their definition doesn’t sound like responsibility to me; it sounds like fear. And fear is the most pandered sin in the church.

Why don’t you just do what the hospital says? Why don’t you just let them do what they want with your children? Why ask pesky questions instead of leaving your brain at the door?

I’ve been reading The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell, and he gives a great answer: “…Third-party decision making by surrogates for ‘society’ offers no a priori reason to expect a closer approximation to omniscience.”

Thomas Sowell is crazy smart, and I admit it helps to have a drink handy while reading him (I mean coffee, not wine, or don’t bother) so here’s a translation in easier English: Third parties who think they’re doing society a favor by making decisions for them are playing God, and they’re not very good at it.

“On the contrary, such surrogates not only lack the detailed and direct knowledge of the innumerable circumstances surrounding each of the millions of individuals whose decisions they are preempting, they lack the incentives of direct gain and loss from being right or wrong, and they have every incentive to persist in mistaken policies (from which they suffer little), rather than admit to being wrong (from which they could suffer much).”

– Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed

Translation: Third parties who attempt to play God not only lack the information necessary to do it right, but they tend to persist in the inevitable errors that result because those errors do not directly impact them, and admitting fault would.

Or, a quicker summary: Decisions should not be made by those who don’t have to live with the consequences and cannot be trusted to admit fault.

Why don’t you just mask, and get admitted yourself a day or three later? Why don’t you just allow experimentation and ineffective tests on your children?

Translation: Why don’t you just roll over and do everything you’re told? Why don’t you just make the same choices I would? Why don’t you just think like me?

This is only a few steps away from “Why don’t you just tell the Germans where the Jews are? Why don’t you just slap that yellow star on? Just put the sign on your window? Just take the thirty pieces of silver?”

I’m a nurse and don’t you know I’ve sacrificed so much as a frontline worker? Haven’t you seen the commercials? The heroic dance routines? Why aren’t you bowing to my revered, new celebrity status like all the other virtue signalers?

I have friends who are nurses. I love nurses. One in particular has walked closely alongside us in this situation with support and inside knowledge. But, sweetheart, moms and dads were frontline workers first. We are the first frontline when it comes to our kids. Consider that.

And my favorite: “Why didn’t you just git yer shots and protect yer kids?!”

Wait, wait, wait – the shot that doesn’t protect people from Covid can prevent toddlers from breaking their arm while sledding? Bless your heart.

If you fall into any of these camps, there’s no getting around it – you are saying that it’s okay for nurses, surgeons, and hospitals to strip patients and parents of their rights. You probably won’t like it put in those terms, but let’s be honest about it.

And if that’s the case, you probably justify it by saying you’re willing to relinquish those rights for “the good of society” because you’re convinced that society needs to be upended for a virus that’s 99.97% safe for the population — so many times safer than the normal flu we’ve lived with all our lives. If you’ve chosen to believe liars and ignore data, I can’t and won’t argue with you.

But I will point out that your decision to relinquish your rights does not obligate me or anyone else to relinquish those same rights.

My willingness to do (or not do) certain things does not obligate you to do (or not do) the same things. This works two ways, friends. You’re not being selfless or righteous if you’re demanding others to make the same decision.

And, just a warning: Whatever rights you relinquish so easily now, there will come a situation when someone tries to take something from you that you do care about.

There will. And you should think about that.

When that happens, you’ll have every right to fight for it and stand your ground.

But it might be too late. Because by then, those whose rights you’ve thrown under the bus might not be there to stand with you.

_________

P.S. Should the Lord allow, next week I plan to get back to my normal cozy, quirky writing and off this soapbox. Grab your favorite clicker pencil and put your nerd face on: Best books of 2021, coming right up.

made to grow: why we surrender to win

Posted on by November 22, 2021

There are seasons of motherhood when I spend all day saying stupid things like “No, you may not swing the cat in the pillowcase,” and “No, you may not take the cat outside on a leash,” and “No, you may not put the baby overalls on the cat,” and also (lest you think every wild idea around here involves a cat) “Why are you on that part of our roof?” By the time we make it to bedtime, our sons think putting pajamas on is a contact sport and I am so sick of refereeing the game that I want to eject everyone from it.

made to grow: why we surrender to win

That’s just normal parenting. Throw in special needs or health issues or a major home repair, and everything feels overwhelming and out of proportion. Life is hard, full of real problems that platitudes have no answers for. In those seasons, we dread the morning and the new day. We do not know what the future holds, but if past performance is any indicator of future results, it seems safer to just stay in bed.

Some of my kids have special needs, and usually those needs are far more behavioral than physical. Sometimes they just refuse to grow and move forward, and there is nothing I can do to move them past the place they’ve dug their heels in.

And the thing I have learned — and am still learning — is that parenting, adoption, and special needs are not necessarily pass/fail endeavors. Because the child makes his or her own choices, and eventually the child has to learn to clean up their own mess. We all do, right?

We’re all meant to grow. And the more a child refuses to grow, the more God grows me. Either way, God brings healing and wholeness. It’s just more fun when we don’t resist it.

If God is giving you the opportunity to grow and heal in these days, to rip something out and start over again, then for the love of all that is holy, do not squander it. Do not shy from the Lord’s probing questions, gentle correction, or nudges toward alignment and surrender. Our joy is at stake in these opportunities to clean up the mess.

We have to do the heart-work of wholeness and forgiveness, of understanding our triggers, of maturing past that old, unattractive hang up, whatever it is. The healing can come in just a few minutes or it can take years, but the timeline rests on our own willingness to surrender.

Here’s a good word for us: The sun doesn’t insist on shining on everything all the time; it surrenders every day. It yields to clouds and isn’t diminished by the presence of something that blocks its light. It’s not in competition with any other light or any other thing that gets in its way and creates a shadow. It just keeps shining, doing what it was made to do.

Every night, it is beautiful in surrender. And regardless of how cold or cloudy it was the day before, it never fails to rise the next day. That might be a word for us, too.

Sooner or later things start to take shape and we can see what the Maker is up to. And it’s always good…eventually.

But surrender is hard. Haaaaarrrd, say it with me in four syllables. If it wasn’t, would it be surrender at all? But it is also powerful, because surrender is also birthing, bringing new life. And when we see the fruit on the other side of it, we see the beauty and joy and breakthrough that come from laying down our agenda for His.

It doesn’t matter if it’s homeschooling, writing a book, parenting, learning anything new, or finally mastering the act of getting dressed in the morning without tangling up your pantleg and tripping yourself (hey, I only write about what I know), we are always learning and growing.

Or, we ought to be. There are those who choose to stagnate, but that’s probably not you.

So, a word of encouragement: If you are feeling the burn of an uphill climb, it’s because you’re going somewhere. Stretching. Moving. Making strides. Gaining ground. Advancing. Moving forward. Going places.

Once you surrender, the unexpected won’t stop you. Mistakes, once realized, confessed and yielded to God, will only advance you further.

So, press in – there is no setback God won’t use to move you forward when you walk in surrender to Him.

____________

This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume 6: Surrender to Win. The ABIDE series is now complete, and it’s available here and everywhere books are sold.

the cost: a challenge to adoption agencies, from the families who are living it

Posted on by June 19, 2023

Thirty-seven thousand dollars. That’s how much it cost to adopt two of our children.

And that was – forgive me – a screaming deal. We adopted them at the same time, from the same country, on one adoption fee instead of two separate fees. Many adoptions cost that much or more just for one child.

the cost: a challenge to adoption agencies, from the families who are living it

Talking about the numbers and the money bothers me because children are not commodities. Ignorant people joke to adoptive families about buying or selling children, revealing their cluelessness about the reality of child trafficking. Adoption expenses are not a sale; it’s more like ransom money to get children out of institutions where they are languishing and put them into a family where they can heal.

And if you’ve adopted or have been a reader here for any length of time, you already know. Healing can take a long time.

And healing is worth it.

But here’s why I’m bringing up the money and numbers: Those costs do not come close to those incurred after adoption, literally and metaphorically. And people need to know that. People making insensitive jokes need to know; people thinking adoptive families get paid (what the what?!) need to know.

Potentially adoptive families need to know.

In discussing all the adoption costs with different agencies, it was never required (or even recommended) that we save for therapy. Personal health insurance was required, yes, but that doesn’t begin to cover the entire costs of therapy and counseling for multiple people in a family – parents, adoptive children, biological children – who undergo the turmoil, trauma, and secondary trauma those early adoptive years often involve. When you are replacing a destroyed mattress every six months for the first two years and repairing or replacing other damaged necessities, the copay for therapy becomes out of the question since it’s not a basic need.

We applied thousands of dollars to our international travel expenses. Hundreds of dollars were set aside to be converted to euro and lev just for meals. But also, it would have been good if we knew to set aside an account for therapy — $3000 to $5000 would have been a good start.

Why don’t adoption agencies require or recommend this? I mentioned it to a friend, and her response was, “They’ll never do it. Adoption agencies are making a sale, not equipping people for life after adoption.”

It sounds jaded, but from my experience I have to agree with her. Are we wrong? I hope adoption agencies will prove it.

It’s not just adoption agencies, though. Friends who adopted through foster care and private adoption said this:

NO ONE PREPARED US. And we know they knew. Other families were and are our saving grace in this area of support.

It would have taken just one home study writer or one agency worker thirty minutes to give us the real low down, and no one ever did.

I contacted our adoption agency three times about Upside Down after it gained the merit of being featured on Focus on the Family. I told them we hear from adoptive families all the time. Most of these families are desperate, and almost all of them tell us that Upside Down has the information they wish they had before they adopted. So I asked our adoption agency to consider making it one of their required (or at the very least, recommended) materials.

Three times I contacted them. Why three times? Because I never heard back. Not once.

We adopted two children with that agency. We are one of their families. And I never heard back.

Maybe my friend is right. Maybe they are more interested in the sale, and not interested in equipping families. Maybe they are concerned about losing a sale if they scare people off.

(Maybe, after the obligatory first two years of intrusive home visits by a 20-something social worker whose sole parenting experience was with her biological toddler in a two-income family, they figured we’d consumed the entire plethora of support they offered and we were on our own. Or maybe that was just us.)

But here’s the thing: If a family is easily scared off after reading a 100-page book or being told that part of the requirement for adoption is to save a few thousand dollars in an account for future therapy, those families should not be adopting in the first place. This is an easy filter.

I’ll be contacting that agency again soon, and several others also. We’ll see if the response is better this time. (UPDATE: After some emails back and forth over about 6 months, our former agency last told us they got a copy of the book and were still reviewing it — it’s a 40 minute read, front to back — and then declined to return my phone call or last email. So it sadly looks like they are in the business of selling adoptions, and not supporting adoptive families.) And if you are an adoptive family, you are welcome to contact your agency and recommend materials you wish you’d had when you were in process, too.

Meanwhile, though, what can we do for adoptive families now? How can we encourage and empower them, and help them toward wholeness? What can we offer to potential adoptive families who are rightly curious about what they might be signing up for?

We can be honest with them, because what we’ve learned hasn’t come cheap. We can be as transparent as possible while still honoring the privacy of our kids and families.

The core of adoption support is not going to come from professionals who don’t have personal adoption experience. Those services are basic and they can help, but the most impactful support to adoptive families is going to come from other adoptive families who have been there. If that weren’t the case, one of the most common things we hear from adoptive families wouldn’t be “I would never tell this to someone who hasn’t adopted, but I know you understand.”

But that’s what we hear, because we do understand. Nine years later, we’re still walking this out every day.

So here is some of that honesty from a mom who’s been there: Don’t Make Me Use My Mom Voice: Adoption, Attachment, & Discipline, a 1-hour training by yours truly. This was originally requested by an adoption agency who is actively equipping their families, and now we’re making it available to other adoptive (or potentially adoptive) families who need it. Foster families, too. This training will help you feel more equipped in all your parenting and relationships and personal wholeness.

We need people who have been where we are – and are still walking that road – to come alongside us and say, You’re not alone. You’re right, you really do know what you’re talking about even when you don’t feel like you know nearly enough to do this. This is really hard, but we’re going to get through it.

And that’s cheaper than therapy.