Conversations

It's been really interesting having conversations with different people about the idea of IVF and whether or not it's a good idea to go through it, or whether or not it's a good idea to pursue other options.

Most of the people who I've spoken to about IVF have said that they know someone who has gone through the process and had a good result. One person I've spoken with went through the process herself and it didn't work, so she adopted. All of those people seem comfortable with the idea itself.

One close friend of mine took the opposite view - he argued that if nature is telling us not to have biological children, then perhaps we shouldn't interfere with that. There's a certain amount of logic to the position. I argued that you could take it to the extreme - you could end up arguing that any medical intervention for any purpose is interfering with the way nature is telling us things should go. So, have a headache? Don't take aspirin or advil, Nature wants you to have a headache! My friend pointed out that the slippery slope argument doesn't hold up as well with IVF because you're not trying to fix something that's gone wrong, you're trying to create something new and bring it into the world. And that takes us back to adoption, because the obvious solution to that would be to skip IVF and go find a kid who is already in the world.

Another friend of mine, upon hearing that I would consider adopting out of foster care before doing a private adoption had the most vocal reaction of concern I've experienced so far with any option. She wasn't flipping out or anything, but she was very, very concerned about the issues facing kids in the foster care system and whether or not it's a good idea to take those issues on.

I kind of figure that I know the kids in the foster care system pretty well, I work with them directly every day, and I know that at their most basic level, they're just kids, just like everyone else. So, it might be that instead of bonding to a dad or mom, they bond to a strong older kid who lives on the streets, and they continually run from foster placements back to whoever that older kid is. Is that safe? Nope. Good idea? No. But is it any more of a surprise than a non-foster kid who would go to extremes to get back to his own family if someone tried to separate them? I don't think so.

The scenario can be painted two ways by the adults in the situation - a popular description you might hear for a runaway would be: "The youth continually defies the foster parents and refuses to return to their home. The youth is suspected of being involved in street prostitution and drugs. A warrant should be issued for the running behavior and the youth held in contempt of court." The facts would likely be true. The legal sufficiency for the issuance of a warrant would be met. The youth would likely be held in contempt if/when he/she got picked up. The other way of looking at the same scenario would be: "The youth has bonded to a prominent older street kid. The youth feels safe and connected to that person, who is encouraging the youth to engage in risky, unsafe behaviors. The youth trusts the older kid to keep him/her safe, but does not trust the foster parents to do the same." All of those facts would also likely be true, but there's no neat way to sum it all up. We don't yet have a way to fix that problem, so instead we send the kid to jail for a few days and tell them to write a paper about how unsafe it is to live on the streets.

The first scenario disconnects us from the actual experience of the youth and makes him/her just seem like a huge problem. The second scenario connects us to the experience of youth and makes us see that the problem is the emotions of the youth driving him/her to make bad decisions. I don't really view my youth clients solely in light of the first scenario (although I recognize the facts of my cases). I try really hard to see the second scenarios, and because of that I think I see them just as kids with the same needs that other kids have (in this example, the need to bond). Because I see them that way, I don't really have a fear of them or their problems. Do I think it would be easy to bring a troubled teenager into my home? Not at all. In fact, I think it could be really chaotic and stressful. But any kid can grow to be troubled, any kid can turn into a runaway, or a drug addict, or a prostitute, regardless of how well you raised him/her. That doesn't mean that those kids aren't deserving of homes or families.

But. Not everyone feels the way I do, not everyone works with the kids as much as I do, so there's a lot of fear around adopting foster kids. I understand that. I also just think the concrete idea of how that would play out is really foreign - all of a sudden some 6 year old kid moves into your house and you're a parent? You look around and there sits a little boy on your couch watching tv, and he's not going anywhere? How discombobulating!

I like having the conversations. I like thinking about the options and analyzing the pros and cons. I'm not defensive of any choice, and I wonder if I will remain this way.