You Gotta Believe!

Never done: Spoke with an adoption agency. This is a big one. I knew when I started this project that some days would feel insignificant and some days would rock my world. Well, rock on. I had a long talk with Mary Keane, from You Gotta Believe! which is a program (let's not talk about that strange name, which sounds like it's a booster for the World Series underdogs) for older child adoption in New York City. Over the past year I've called literally every adoption agency in the city, and received not one, not two, but NO return phone calls. It finally dawned on me to call the LGBT center, and ask them if they could be a resource. Terry Boggis called me back immediately, and has started to reach out on my behalf. She also recommended that I start going to GPS/MAPP classes. (GPS/MAPP stands for Group Preparation and Selection/Model Approaches to Partnerships in Parenting.)

So I called Mary, who leads the class at the Center, to tell her I would start going in early November, and we had a big full conversation. I always thought I would adopt. I grew up across the street from my (now) oldest friend, who is the only biological child in a family of four children -- her three younger siblings are adopted. They were all adopted as infants, and I think I imagined that's what I would do as well, but I've gotten to 47 without doing it, and my partner is 62, and so it's started to make more and more sense to consider adopting an older child.

I hear it already. "It's so hard." "Once they're that long in the system, they can't learn to trust." And yeah -- these are my exact fears too. But should the thousands of kids who are waiting for families never get them because potential parents think it will be hard. Well, it *will* be hard. Parenting is hard. I don't expect to go into this blindly -- or to pretend that I have no limits on what I am capable of. On the contrary, I know that there are certain things I can handle as a parent, and certain things I can't. (And hopefully the GPS/MAPP classes will challenge me on what I "know.") Isn't this a wonderful example of how to balance out the needs of the self versus the needs of the other? There it is again, the heart of Mussar practice.

Here's what I believe: I believe that every person is capable of learning to trust, no matter how badly trust has been broken in the past. I don't think it's always possible -- or useful -- to rebuild trust with the person who broke it. But I do think it's possible for a person who has been very, very hurt to heal. Repair. Tshuve.