You’ll remember that we were awaken on a Tuesday morning by the arrival of a CPS worker with a list of accusations (you can read them here; “ CPS Investigation: The Accusations”). The accusations were followed by individual interrogations of every family member. (You can read them here; “ CPS Investigation: The Interrogations.”.) After that the family waited for weeks to hear the outcome as the reality of the situation hit home. (You can read about it here; “ CPS Investigation: Reality and the Silence”.) After reality hit, so did the devastation over the horrible, incredible loss of a close friend and the family’s relationship with her young children. Some found it hard to believe the devastation considering no one was removed from the family home by the CPS worker. (If you want to try to understand you can read about it here; “ CPS Investigation: The Devastation”.) The family was still waiting for some kind of information from the CPS worker.

After the CPS worker finished reading the list of accusations (you can read them here; “ CPS Investigation: The Accusations”) she began the interrogations. She looked expectantly at the husband and wife waiting for a reply. Feeling overwhelmed by such a long list of accusations, and betrayed by obviously someone close to the family, they began. Since the list was not in front of them, they did not actually respond to everything.

The girls are not treated the same as the boys. (Correct, they are not. Their issues, partly due to prenatal drug and alcohol exposure, and partly due to older child adoption through foster care, are completely different, requiring different parenting. )

Outsiders may recognize how stressful caring for an aging spouse with Alzheimer, or a terminally ill parent can be, and they may offer some support. For example, my church’s families frequently provide meals or help clean their houses. Unfortunately, nobody seems to recognize how stressful it is to care for special needs children except other families caring for special needs children. While we do occasionally offer respite care for each other, the time is usually used to take another child for services. When I read HeathDay News’ headline, “Caregivers may be prone to physical and emotional stress” the first thought I had was caregivers of special needs children. Of course, I am sure their intent was the temporary caregiver position of caring for a declining adult. For parents of special needs children, there may be decades ahead of care. That thought alone can increase the stress level.

Many are passing judgment on the family who recently sent their 7-year son with FAS back to Russia after 7-months of parenting him. The papers have indicated that the child’s problems were just too much for the family to bear. Not surprisingly, the media attention has brought several Russian adoption horror stories to the surface. Apparently, alcohol consumption during pregnancy in Russia is a huge problem. According to the press, many children in orphanages are presented to adoption agencies and families as being healthy and on target, but are not. In fact, according to the article cited, most children presented for adoption have FAS. One family in particular, the Harshaws, were interviewed recently by the Virginian Pilot, the local newspaper of Virginia Beach about their 8-year-old Russian born son with severe FAS.