An orphan goes to church and asks someone, anyone to adopt him
October 16, 2013 7:30 PM   Subscribe

This had been his idea. He'd heard something about God helping people who help themselves. So here he was, on a Sunday in September, surrounded by strangers, taking his future into his own sweaty hands.
posted by SkylitDrawl (23 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
What a brave young man. May he find the forever family he (all kids!) deserve.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:41 PM on October 16, 2013 [9 favorites]


Read this earlier today. Heartbreaking.
posted by dry white toast at 7:43 PM on October 16, 2013


It definitely is heartbreaking. I am a struggling single parent, way old enough to be my son's grandpa already, sigh.. I couldn't do this.. but I'd like to think/hope some brave and loving-hearted souls out there read this, are not automatically cynical or squeamish... and give this boy a home. So many kids out there deserve better.
posted by anguspodgorny at 8:24 PM on October 16, 2013


My heart hurts reading this. He's a good looking young man with a lot of guts. I hope things go right for him. Stay strong, Davion Navar Henry.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:10 PM on October 16, 2013


I hope this works out for him.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:11 PM on October 16, 2013


Related, What Now is a fantastic blog by an adoptive parent who foster-adopted a teenage boy in LA. Not an easy adoption and now not an easy parenting route, but so much love and awareness of what having a home means for him, and how much being his parents has meant to them.
posted by viggorlijah at 9:16 PM on October 16, 2013 [5 favorites]


viggorlijah: your link is quite something. It's first thing in the morning, and I'm already burning for the boy 'E'. I started out with plenty sympathy, but then he chose to sing a Temptations tune. Oops. My #1 Motown favorite. I relate too well to the description of his situation.
posted by Goofyy at 9:46 PM on October 16, 2013


Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.-- James 1:27

There was a time when I would have thought: "He's definitely getting a home now! He went to a church and this is exactly the sort of thing Christians are called to do." I'll just say that I'm less optimistic now, for good reasons. But I would love it if this church comes through for him. It's right there in black and white, guys. If we're following the Bible, there's not a lot of wiggle room. Let's do this.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:52 AM on October 17, 2013 [13 favorites]


It's sad, but we all -- me included -- hope that "they" take action. Not "we" or "me," but "they."
posted by Houstonian at 3:47 AM on October 17, 2013 [7 favorites]


I honestly wish that we (meaning my partner and I) had the room and resources to take in a foster child. It is something I am working towards.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:40 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


I've got a lot of feelings in my eyes now. I hope he (and the other thousands of fosters) find a great family.

and hey industrial prison complex let's maybe work on not destroying so many families so that children can at least mourn their parents
posted by jetlagaddict at 5:22 AM on October 17, 2013 [1 favorite]


Great kid. I hope that this is just the beginning of the long walk forward for him. Whether a family comes through or not --- and it's probably better that no one has come through too quickly --- it sounds like he's started taking responsibility for his own destiny. He's fighting a very tough environment.

The passages about how little support he gets in his foster home really hit me. I think about my seven year old son, and all his little aches and pains and booboos, the number of times he needs me or his mom to look at something or help him with something. Parents --- loving, attentive, available parents --- are so crucial. It's amazing that Davion has been able to hold himself together as well as he has. Here's praying for his success.
posted by alms at 5:33 AM on October 17, 2013


When I read this, I was tempted to print out several copies and have them ready for if I ever met any pro-life advocate who used the "but so many loving families want children" argument. Then I would hand them a copy of this article, with the bit about how he still hasn't found a home yet highlighted.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:53 AM on October 17, 2013 [18 favorites]


Much like the shopkeeper who received the sound of money in exchange for the smell of food, perhaps you'd get a statistics lesson in return.
posted by yerfatma at 8:34 AM on October 17, 2013


Yeah, wow, I still can't get this image out of my head, hours later-- this poor boy, one of 120 other foster kids, just trying to find a family. When I was his age, I was still shy about selling play tickets and Girl Scout cookies, for heaven's sake. I'm not in a good place to support a foster kid, but I'll be reaching out to try to do something for him.
posted by jetlagaddict at 9:54 AM on October 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


Very sad. Hope hope hope...
posted by greenhornet at 2:02 PM on October 17, 2013


I'm a foster parent of a 22-month-old, and I have a four-month-old biological kid. I got three calls about possible placements in the last two months of my pregnancy (two calls were about sibling pairs) and had to actually force myself to say no before I could ask any more questions about the kids. I knew that with a toddler and a newborn (and moving, and LIFE IN GENERAL) that we didn't have the resources for these kids, but it is so hard for me to say no when I know a kid needs a safe place.

My first instinct with this boy - who is less than 15 years younger than I am, and who is in another state which would significantly complicate things - was to see if there was a way we could take him. There isn't, of course, at least not in a way that would benefit him and take our other children's needs into account, but man. The poor, brave boy.

It might be telling of my experiences as a foster parent in the last two years that my second thought was "What in his file is scaring off potential parents?"
posted by SeedStitch at 8:48 AM on October 18, 2013 [3 favorites]


When I read this, I was tempted to print out several copies and have them ready for if I ever met any pro-life advocate who used the "but so many loving families want children" argument. Then I would hand them a copy of this article, with the bit about how he still hasn't found a home yet highlighted.

The thing is - they're not wrong because of this (though for other reasons, yes.) Lots of loving families want babies. Lots of loving families do not want 10th graders.

And it makes sense, honestly, to a certain extent. When people adopt, they're usually thinking of creating a family - but also having a child. A tenth grader isn't quite a child anymore. I'm sure even people who would adopt largely are looking for someone who will love them and look to them like a parent - not just someone who wants to be driven to football practice and not have to unlock the bathroom.
posted by corb at 11:45 AM on October 18, 2013


Corb: the people who use that "so many loving families are looking to adopt" are using that argument to persuade a woman to continue her pregnancy. So carried to its obvious conclusion, the "Love" from these families is conditional upon the orphan they adopt being a baby, and if you're an older orphan, well, it sucks to be you, I guess.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:29 PM on October 18, 2013


I'm sure even people who would adopt largely are looking for someone who will love them and look to them like a parent - not just someone who wants to be driven to football practice and not have to unlock the bathroom.

It's interesting to see how people frame this kid's search for a family. I see a kid who is is looking for someone to love Him, to care for Him. It sounds like you're saying you see a kid who just wants to be driven to football practice and better accommodations because his life's a drag. I hope I'm misreading you on this one.

Folks who adopt because they want someone to love them and look to them as a parent perhaps should not adopt. Parenting is loving first, being loved second.

If you're born into this world loved, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to to ask for love...and what it would do to a person's soul to have to.

Yes, it's true that lots of people want babies. But the reality is that they don't want babies born to drug addicted, incarcerated mothers...they don't want babies who have potential mental health problems, learning disabilities, heath issues. Adoptive parents can be picky shoppers, if you will. The longer child is in the foster care system, the longer the odds are they will find an adoptive family. It's a huge myth that most infants get sucked up quickly. This kid wasn't.

It's hard to fault someone who does not have the financial and emotional reserves to care for an older child who lost the parent lottery and is so damaged by the system. I'd hope viggorlijah's blog link above is enough to give folks a pause to think, 'hey, maybe I do have those reserves after all and maybe my life would be more graceful for it.' The parents in that blog sound as if they feel like they have a child and a family every bit as much as someone who has biological kids or who adopted cute babies.
posted by space_cookie at 12:41 PM on October 18, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's a huge myth that most infants get sucked up quickly.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Most healthy babies born to healthy teenage mothers tend to get adopted quickly - I'm well aware that for every complicating factor, it goes down a lot.

I have a bio-kid and plan to have more bio-kids - I don't really know what you should do as an adoptive parent because I don't see myself ever needing to be an adoptive parent. But the people I know who talk about adopting are always talking about the joy of teaching kids to this-or-that, or the joy of seeing the look in the kid's eyes, and it just seems very clear that given what they want, young children are really all that will fit the bill, with babies extra doubleplus preferred. I didn't mean to make it sound like these were my choices.
posted by corb at 1:25 PM on October 18, 2013


corb, I think what I'm getting at is that we both know that it's the babies that the adoptive parents most often tend to get, and the older kids who get left out, which is precisely why "oh but there are so many loving families who want homes" should not be used as an excuse by the pro-life crowd.

Which was precisely my point with my little thought exercise there, that the case of this poor kid going un-adopted even after asking for help from the people in an actual damn church was the ultimate "gotcha" I was gonna spring on the next person who pulled that argument on me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:32 PM on October 18, 2013


Thanks for the clarification, corb. Sorry for the knee-jerk. I don't often get all hyper-emotional about Stuff On The Internet, but fuck did this story get to me.

People surprise themselves when they have a baby (biological or adopted) who has intensive needs...ones that, if the parent had thought about it for 3 minutes, they'd think 'no fucking way could I deal.' But they do - often with unbelieveable grit and force.

The needs of older kids in foster care are more of a known quantity than a baby or toddler's. Of course those needs invite the question 'Am I up to this? Can I do this?'. I hope I didn't imply any scorn or derision towards folks who pass because they really love and want the day-to-day joys and discovery of seeing little'uns grow into big'uns. It's not a bad or selfish thing to want or need that. It's one thing to take, as given, the child that was given to you. It's quite another to be up to the task of raising a near-adult with a painful and fraught life.

Still. People surprise themselves.

It took me about 10 minutes to calculate all of the changes I'd need to make in my life and living arrangements to create a home that would meet the bare minimum requirements for fostering a kid. If I were determined and persistent, it would take 6 months to a year, at least.

And yeah, EC. For all of the Right's screaming about Binders Full of Adoptive Families... Well. There you go.

PS. I passed this story onto some family in Florida, they said there have been nearly 10 thousand inquires into his case...not sure how accurate that figure is. Nothing yet, but everyone's hoping.
posted by space_cookie at 11:09 PM on October 18, 2013


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