Wasn't Love Supposed to be Enough?
Wasn't Love Supposed to be Enough? Biographies of a Long-Term Adoptive Parent Support Group by Barbara VanSlyck, Ellen Wristen, Alan Dupre-Clark, Richard Mague, Rosemary Haggerty Publisher: Privately published, Paperback, 351 pages
ISBN: 0966875206
Some adoptive parent support groups get together and vent. Others meet online.
Wasn't Love Supposed to be Enough is a look into ten years in the life of a support group that has developed real-life long-term bonds as they work to build strong family units in the face of extraordinary challenges.
All contributors to the book are intimately connected with special needs adoption. Support group members are adoptive parents of kids who meet every definition of "special needs," and the book's several co-authors are adoptive parents and professionals. The book also includes poetry written by adopted teens, reflecting their thoughts on adoption. Family stories are interspersed with commentaries from the authors who offer practical suggestions for obtaining assistance, how to choose a therapist, and issues to be addressed.
I found it fascinating that although most group members had "done their homework" about adoptions and special needs, none of them was prepared for the challenges that were to come. Learning to deal with their own issues as well as their children's are chronicled in their own words, and stories are told with a no-holds-barred range of emotion - from the most positive to the most negative.
Specific challenges of particular interest to me were grief and loss, attachment disorder, and behavioral issues like stealing, lying, and violence - all requiring a degree of commitment I can only imagine. Sharing the emotions of parents who were told that love would be enough to surmount all obstacles, and hearing of the extremes to which their abilities, understanding and resources were pushed, was almost unbearable at times. Against this backdrop, these parents came to this support group, and what they found were not absolute solutions but understanding, skills, resources, and most of all, a group of other parents with whom they could share the load.
The authors do an excellent job of discussing weaknesses in the system and provide some well-considered suggestions for change, relating to the scope of adoption covered in the book. Costs of various levels of care, availability of services, the need for advocacy, and general information on adoption are also included.
These stories, and these families, are all still evolving and no one walks off into the sunset for a "happily ever after," but when I finally put the book down (a couple of boxes of kleenex later), I felt encouraged, and found I had learned a tremendous amount, not only about counseling, special needs, kids, and their parents, but about myself and my preconceived opinions and biases.
An insightful resource for adoption professionals working or planning to work with families, and for selected pre-adoptive situations. The book contains many abrasive and contentious, albeit human, views and statements.
© Nancy S Ashe
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