Tag Archives: adoption

In This House: One Small Step to Reconcile My Peaceful Inside with the Raging Outside

I don’t know how to reconcile the hostile outside with my peaceful inside. I don’t know if I even want to. Can we just stay here forever? In this house, arguments and emotions rise, but eventually fall again because we know each other. We trust each other. We love each other. At the end of the day, we don’t fear a wild hand or rogue bullet. 

The African man-child that looks down at me these days might bristle for a moment under a corrective word, but ultimately circles back around with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. We have worked hard and loved much to convince him he is safe. In this house. 

Feeling Not So Empowered to Empower to Connect

So, sit down with me at a bench at Memorial Park and hear me whine. I heard whispers and statements about how step parenting is the hardest thing people have ever done in their lives, but I HAD NO IDEA!  I have parented an adopted child from trauma, but I have never parented a child that is not mine, that I see only on days when they do not have school, that is from trauma, and is often times unkind to his brothers and sisters (that means MY KIDS) and has little to no respect for me and puts on a very different face for his dad (MY HUSBAND). Good Golly!  I repeat . . .NO IDEA!  NO CLUE!