No end in sight…
Lately a lot of talk has been going on in adoption circles about the problems that arise in trying to launch young adults who have fasd and the rest of the alphabet. It ain’t easy, is it folks. Nobody talks about this in the pre-adoption trainings that we all attend – no one says that there is really no end in sight for those of us who have hung on through the troubled and turbulent growing up years with the hope that at least when we are elderly, our by then adult children will be on their own.
It makes me laugh when I think of all the times my YA’s told me, in their teens, that as soon as they hit the magic age of 18 they were going to be gone, gone, gone, never to darken my door step again. Well, they aren’t gone, and that’s good, I don’t want them out of my life, but I would like them out of my wallet and out of my daily worry routine. Instead, their problems only become larger and more life inhibiting and they require huge amounts of my time as well. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t resent this – these are my children and I love them and of course I want to help them – I just wish I had realized this years earlier because then I would have made some different decisions along the way – decisions that would have allotted me the time they need now without taking it away from the rest of the family. I’m very fortunate that my youngest 5 have a great deal of capacity and can, for the most part and with only a few rages, ride along as we rescue and coddle and help the YA’s.
Tomorrow, #7 will be evicted, no place to go, and I won’t let him move home like I have always let my other YA’s due to his chronic use of drugs in my house (I tolerate a lot, but I won’t have my house smelling like pot and my younger kids inhaling second hand pot smoke!!!!), and so where will he go? No job? No home? No hope? He hasn’t called us to ask about helping get his stuff out of his residence so will it end up on the street? It doesn’t bode well. My stomach is in a knot = and I still have the daily life of full time work, laundry, shopping for school clothes and school supplies for the other 7, getting New Daughter registered into school, trying to get Party Boy to get started on his life etc.
Like most other problems in my life – I don’t have any answers for this – I guess I’ll wait and see what happens and what he needs from me in this crisis that I can provide. I hope it’s more than a ride to the homeless shelter!
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Comments
Augh – I knew it wouldn’t end at 18, but when you have kids who are absolutely determined to live their own lives at 18, yet have no clue how to do that safely – then what? As I mentioned before, I have two (now 16 1/2 and 17 1/2) who tell us every chance they can that they are gone at 18 – well, to where then? No money, no job, no common sense, no “friends” to speak of, unless you count the people who say hi to them now and then (they know their first names, they think, and they know where they get off the bus…). Yet, they have all the answers. I know this is not going to be fun…. I have a 23 yo daughter still at home, working a full time job and a occasional job, going to college full time, etc. She lived on her own for a year and had one crisis after another. She learned that life is a little harder than she expected, but she’s our own bio daughter who is neurotypical and has been nurtured and adored since birth. If she has a hard time, I cannot even fathom what my two renegades will be doing in a year from now. Any help I try to give them now is either taken for granted or rejected. I do not look forward to this. I have little kids at home who are just sick and stressed by these two as it is, I don’t want to give anymore and yet I know I probably will. I have just always wanted so much more for them than they’re willing to work for…
You may want to check out the Vocational Transitional Program at Fairview College in Alberta. The program is all about helping to prepare young adults with special needs (including FASD) for independent living. Focus is on lifeskills and job training. Funding support is available. The numbers are limited and they will only take a student that wants to be there and is willing to commit. Not sure how old they will go up to but one student this year is 24.
My husband and I have been discussing this at length this weekend. It’s hard for me to see that the younger kids are having to deal with the behavior of the “adult” kids as well as to experience our stress over it. And we have no end in sight either.
Sigh.