The Forgotten Children

It's so true that you should love the children you feel drawn to, and definitely not feel guilty if you don't feel you can handle the unique challenges of a child with complex medical needs. I think for the most part people that know themselves know what they can and can't handle, and guilty should never be a motivating factor for taking on the awesome responsibility of caring for a child with medical difficulties. There are also those that think only people that have cared for ill children or family members before should take on these children (or at least those that give preference for adoption by people that fit that profile). It seems logical that it would be the case that the best case scenario would be at least one parent with fairly deep medical knowledge, such as a professional doctor or nurse. But I definitely think anyone willing to love through those challenges, and to learn all they can to support the child medically and emotionally will be capable of making a wonderful home.

Posted by: bandstand at 10/15/2005 09:19 PM

You know, the stories shared here ARE beautiful, yet I wouldn't want anyone to feel guilty if they do not feel moved to adopt children with medical difficulties. There are people who love to serve in this way, but others would experience it as burdensome, and that's not good for kids, either. It doesn't serve the world well if we do things just to be noble. There are plenty of physically uncomplicated children with tremendous emotional needs, just like there are physically challenging kids who aren't emotionally complicated - they just want to be loved. No matter what your skills are for dealing with the different kinds of difficulties, you can make a big difference in this world by loving the children you feel drawn to.

Posted by: accomplice at 10/15/2005 05:25 PM

I think it's fantastic the attention that this special segment of the population has started to receive in recent history, but I do find it troubling what typically happens to AIDS orphans in particular when thrust into the welfare system.

I think it's easy for welfare professionals, and anyone for that matter, to see physical challenges in children and others as more pressing than emotional/mental challenges, in part because there are very specific things that can be done to help heal physical ailments -- vaccinations, targeted medication, etc -- but there are not necessarily cut-and-dried ways of treating some of the mental and emotional anguish, in part because there is not as much known about many mental disorders and how to treat them; even the drugs used to treat things such as depression, hyper-activity, etc. in children have not been around long enough to truly understand their long-term effects or why they work in the first place. Plus, there is a natural stygma associated with the complexity of some mental illnesses (that's not to say physical illnesses aren't complex, but they are definitely easier to label as "A" or "B" caused by "X" or "Y"). People fear truly addressing mental and emotional problems, regardless of their cause We see it every day in the way people with mental illnesses are treated in society. If you have suffered from a mental illness or emotional trauma, there's societal pressure to keep it quiet, as it is often viewed as a weakness, or, horribly, as something "affected" in order to gain attention.

AIDS orphans that are not HIV positive, because of limited resources of the welfare system or for whatever reason I think have more of a tendency to slip through the cracks and not get treated appropriately for the emotional trauma they have been through due to the loss of their parents. Because they don't have physical symptoms or the HIV virus or AIDS, or the need for medication to keep these physical symptoms under control, they often become just more children crowding an already over-crowded system of older children, that often have a difficult time being placed as it is. And many of them act out because they have been traumatized, and thus are even more difficult to place in stable homes. Of course, ideally, the world would stop thinking of emotional and mental challenges as taboo for discussion, but because this is probably not going to happen over night, I think there needs to be more of an awareness of the special circumstances of these AIDS children to help them through it. While no more or less important than any other child, they certainly have special circumstances to deal with that should be addressed and treated in whatever way that would help them; if it had not been for their parents illness, many would still be in their original homes, with their birth mothers/fathers.

Posted by: bandstand at 10/13/2005 04:31 PM

This article shows how much impact just one couple can have for so many other families. The love that they are showing not just for their own adoptive child, but for the millions of other children that are HIV positive, is to be commended. The fact that they are not only uniting these needy children with loving and steady families, but are also speaking and teaching the rest of the country and the world about these children shows the care and concern that they have for the plight of these children. This article really opened my eyes up to this very important segment of society that needs love just as much as any other child does.

Posted by: jmrodg at 10/09/2005 08:15 PM

The advances that have been made in the area of adoption for HIV/AIDS babies, just in the past barely 20 years, their adoptive parents and families absolutely astound me. This story is just another inspirational testament to what dedication, perserverance and love without bounds or prejudice can accomplish, and is a welcome change to so much of the negative stories we are daily inundated with regarding AIDS and its devastation on a daily basis.

When I started working in foster care and adoption a mere 4 years ago, I worked for an agency that had started one of the first successful programs specifically designed to meet the complex needs of these special children. They were working with professionals to seek out these babies early in life, and finding funding countless vaccinations and medical plans that would cover the cost of treatment for children with HIV and AIDS, or simply children that had lost their parents to the disease but were themselves uninfected (a rarity indeed!). Because of their work, many babies were able to fend off infection by the disease and in many cases eliminate the threat of HIV with vaccinations given early enough in life so these children had a chance. On top of that they were finding loving permanent homes, and not just make-shift foster homes, for these babies, children and young adults that would give them a sense of stability and a chance to heal, thrive and grow in a loving environment. Even at that time, they were one of the few programs in the world doing the kind of work they were doing, fighting on a daily basis to preserve the opportunity for a good, healthy and productive life that every child should have.

It's great to see that other agencies and organizations have followed suit, and that these programs are growing in scope, scale and funding. It's also wonderful to see there are loving and open-minded people willing to take on the awesome responsibility of an HIV or AIDS-infected child to give him/her the life and boundless opportunities he/she deserves.

Posted by: avalanche at 10/09/2005 09:42 AM