After giving up my profession to become a wife, a mother of one,
then suddenly seven made life very taxing for me. I soon came
face to face with a challenging question. How did my identity
become so obscure that I lost track of my hopes and dreams?
Believing that I did not have any time left in my hectic
schedule to accomplish my goals, I slowly began to lose
perspective of whom and what I was about. My life became filled
with doctor’s appointments, therapy sessions, counseling,
grocery shopping, laundry, house cleaning, dance classes and
swimming lessons.
I anticipated my various new roles but they were not quite the
way I imagined them. Adopting four children seemed like a really
noble idea but the reality was that its profound vertigo-like
existence of seemingly insurmountable ordeals, trials and
triumphs followed by more trials was very challenging for me.
Its intense effect led to my struggling with the choices I had
made in life.
First I chose to marry my husband, who I knew would be
transferred from the city where we lived at the time of our
marriage. This meant giving up a job that I loved, and that
family and friends would now be two thousand miles away. This
marked the beginning of my abandoning many of my aspirations and
dreams without any insight into all the other wonderful things
that would emerge as a direct result of that. Outwardly I
expressed the joy of being a newlywed; inwardly I mourned the
loss of my friends and colleagues and then quietly expressed my
thoughts through poetic writings.
Two years after marriage, my first child was born and this was a
joyous time for both Bill and I. Remembering his own childhood
and having been raised like an only child, Bill did not want to
inflict the same ordeal on his child. He was the last of three
children, born eight years after a sister that preceded him. He
brought up the topic of adoption when our son was five months
old. We had discussed adopting prior to marriage, so when our
son Trey was ten months old, we started our state-mandated
parenting class. It was at these classes that I first viewed the
photos of our four beautiful daughters. The children’s photos
were in pairs of two, so naturally I thought it was a family of
two. Upon inquiring about the two children, I was told it was a
sibling group of four. I certainly was not interested in
adopting four children, but I could not shake their precious
little images from my mind. On occasions I would inquire about
the progress of finding a home for the children. The answer was
always the same: Most people were interested in one child maybe
two but not four. After months of prayer and soul searching
William and I decided to bring them home.
After our daughters came home, life was far from what I imagined
it would be. My beautiful daughters had some struggles of their
own. Moving from the house they had come to know as home was
very traumatic for them. They were not equipped with any
training or experiences to make the transition easier. With
limited self-expression the older children acted out their fears
and frustration by throwing temper tantrums and bullying their
younger siblings. For the most part our household was in
constant commotion. I became very focused on wanting to makes
things better. Pretty soon I took on their issues as my own.
There were numerous difficulties, from struggling to adjust to a
new home, to dealing with abuse from their past, to learning
difficulties. Through it all I learned to love them and took
measures to make life better for them. Simultaneously, I
bemoaned the fact that they were not the perfect children I
dreamed of parenting and to add to my already precarious
situation, I became pregnant with our sixth child.
I gave birth to that child soon after we consummated our
adoption. I now had six children ages zero to five years, after
four years of marriage. Time to do the things I loved was now
non-existent. I was compelled to eliminate all other activities
that were outside of home life. This, however, had a profound
impact on me. I slowly became conflicted. Having to meet the
needs of my household was overwhelming; yet I had to do it,
convinced that if I faltered it would mean that I failed my
children. I held firmly onto my preconceive idea that if I give
them my all there would be a miraculous improvement. Instead I
became frustrated, then discouraged and resentful. No longer
tactfully problem solving, I began to focus on all the things I
wanted to do and no longer had the time to do. I stopped taking
pride in my accomplishments, even though I had made great
progress with my children. Every negative encounter I had became
magnified. I felt that they were a direct reflection of my
community and their views of me and my family as a whole.
Having lost focus of the things that were important, I no longer
took pride in the things that a mother found fulfilling, like
teaching my five older children how to read fluently by age
five, despite some of their academic challenges. I was now
finding it very difficult to help my youngest daughter with her
reading. In the past, teaching my children was worth more to me
than its weight in gold. Not wanting to give into the
misconception that giving up my profession to become a homemaker
had some how robbed me of myself, I started to reflect inwardly.
Where did the vivacious, cheerful, fun-loving side of me go? I
loved my family! Could the inner struggles I was having be as a
direct result of my choosing to dedicate all my time to them? I
needed them as much as I needed the woman I was. They needed her
too.
Paging through my diary, hidden within the pages of the many
poetic entries was my hopes, fears, my love for my children,
lost love and dreams for the future of forgotten hurting
children, all the things that made up the core of who I was.
Then being the dreamer and risk taker that I was, I compiled my
very personal thoughts and submitted them to a publisher in the
form of a book called Fantasy/Controversy or My Reality.
Having taken this fascinating journey through my struggles, I
now had a new understanding of some of the challenges that
mothers of large families, adopted and foster families have.
These struggles which sometimes included giving up social
events, having a full calendar of appointments, and frequently
having to carry all the children grocery shopping, were very
humbling for me. While it thought me to become more reliant on
my creator it also changed my dreams and goals, for they now
incorporate other foster and adopted families. I know who I am.
I also know the value of having others around to help and offer
support. I also know the importance of taking time to replenish
myself. For many adopted mothers, this is currently not apart of
their lives, but I would very much like for it to be, even if it
comes in the form of post-adoption services. I dedicated my
poetry book to hurting children everywhere so as to hold unto
this dream of making a difference in the lives of hurting
children. I hope to accomplish this by donating a part of my
royalties to agencies that provide services to adoption and
foster families.
Life-altering circumstances changed the direction of my life and
momentarily robbed me of its joy. If one person can benefit from
it, then living through it is worth it. It was my struggling,
loving and advocating for my children that has rewarded me. I am
now mindful of the things that are most important, for I have
been blessed in ways I never thought I would be.
Copyright © by Ruth Andrews Garnes. All rights reserved.
Ruth Garnes’ Fantasy/Controversy or My Reality can be purchased
on line from Barnes & Noble.com, Amazon.com and from the
Publisher at Publish America.com. For more information about the
author visit her web-site at http://home.earthlink.net/~rgarnes
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