On Our Own, Dad and Son

How can a single dad with a full-time career meet the demanding physical and emotional needs of a needy 10-year-old who has never experienced the healthy love of a family?

My 10-year-old son's chest rises and falls in rhythm with the gentle sighs of his breathing that fills his room. From his perch on my son's pillow, our 11-year-old cat raises his head to look at me as if to say, "Everything is under control." Then he flicks an ear, sniffs my son's still-damp hair, and places his head back between his paws, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh. I pause to reflect upon the marvelous changes in my life this scene represents.

When Josh was first placed with me for adoption in mid-1997, I knew that there would be many issues that would need to be addressed. He originally came from a background of prenatal drug and alcohol exposure, profound neglect and gross abuse, then spent almost four years in a very unfortunate foster-care situation. As a consequence, he had some chronic medical conditions, and was noticeably behind his age-peers on several physical/emotional/social milestones.

In terms of challenges, Josh's physical and emotional needs have perhaps been the most demanding, particularly since I am a single parent and have a full-time professional career. There have been occasional weeks when not a single day has gone by without a visit to one or more members of the helping professions: pediatrician, psychologist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, or teachers. Looking back on those times, I honestly cannot fully say exactly how we managed all of these, as well as soccer and homework. I was successful in structuring my teaching schedule so that I finished teaching in time to walk to Josh's school to pick him up. I do know that there were many nights I worked at home quite late after Josh had worked late on his homework and had gone to bed, or got up unusually early to finish some piece of grading, or to plan a lesson. I also made more work time by taking sack lunches to work instead of eating in the faculty dining room, thus allowing me to gain much-needed time for grading and other activities, although the price for this was less time spent with my colleagues and friends. I also know that several projects at work that had seemed pressing in years past somehow paled in priority, and that I managed to surprise myself with the number and variety of ways I found to simplify my work life.

At home, the strategies for leveraging time were similar in some ways. For example, while I had never been a compulsive house-cleaner, I discovered that some chores such as vacuuming could go a full week or two before it became bothersome. I discovered that other chores could be either delegated or shared. Since Josh had not previously had the typical experiences by which children learn the work ethic, a basic system of unpaid chores and paid household jobs created an amazing amount of work which I initially had to supervise closely, but which now runs reasonably smoothly -- often enough. Anything that either of us does not have time for during the week simply does not get done during the week and is saved for the weekend.

Because of my son's early history of physical and emotional neglect, one daily ritual that has gone unchanged has been morning "couch time." When my son first gets out of bed (at a time much earlier than he would prefer), we spend time together on the couch for 5-15 minutes as he wakes up. Sometimes we chat about issues of concern to him, but mostly we go through a ritual where Josh initially pretends he is sleepy enough to go back to sleep, while I teasingly challenge him into more active modes, ending (at his request) with a vigorous round of tickling. This ritual provides both of us with a cheerful startup that usually sets the tone for the day. I am embarrassed to confess that early in our life as a family, I resented the time spent in this activity, since mornings always feel rushed for me. Starting my day 15 minutes earlier has provided the needed time that I feel I need, and deep down I truly do not begrudge this time, although there are some mornings when external pressures sorely tempt me to skip this ritual.

As I watch my son sleeping, I cannot help but review the many nights early in our life together that have been spent allaying fears of the dark, helping him learn to trust adults, and even helping him learn to give affection to and accept affection from our pets. The peaceful scene playing out gently before me has not come without some cost to each of us, but the rewards have been far greater.

Two consequences of severe early neglect and later physical and sexual abuse which I saw in Josh and which are characteristic of the many children who each year suffer similar experiences, involve pervasive difficulty with both trust and empathy. More so than adults, children derive much of their security from a structured, predictable environment, even if that environment is harsh or abusive. To this day I must marvel at Josh's ability to walk away from the only world he fully remembers in order to start a new life with a virtual stranger. I was able to build many bridges of trust between us by incorporating daily and weekly rituals, such as our daily couch time, very regular meal times, bedtime stories, eating out on Friday nights, trips together, consistent rules and consequences, and the like.

Over time, the trust built in these ways allowed Josh the freedom to begin learning empathy skills with adults, then later with his peers. Until recently however, Josh was literally unable see the world from the point of view of our three cats. He literally was unable to understand that much of his sudden, rapid movements, that picking the cats up from a dream-filled nap, or at other times when cats simply do not wish to be pestered is not the way to gain their trust or affection. The result, of course, was that they were wary of him, and (much to his chagrin) would avoid him. Only within the last four months has he learned to sufficiently control his movements, and to respect the signals from the cats before deciding whether to approach or pick one up. In their turn, the cats have begun to show their trust by taking shifts sleeping through the night in Josh's room, and on his bed. Since the puppy is a very recent addition, and since the processes by which dogs bond with their families is different, it sometimes feels as if the process is starting over, though not from the very beginning.

Particularly during the first eight months or so of our "family hood" there were many days that called on me to respond to Josh at many developmental levels at one time. In other words, there were plenty of occasions where I felt as if I was dealing with a child who was going through the typical developmental crises of a one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old, up through thirteen-year-old, all in the space of a single day.

One particularly painful episode like this occurred during our first spring. A terrible storm moved through the area with winds well in excess of 70 miles per hour and dumped about three inches of hail, ranging in size from pea-sized to about three inches in diameter. Several low-lying areas underwent flooding. These were the statistics we listened to on our way home from school, but they did not begin to match the actual devastation that unfolded before our eyes as we drove into our neighborhood. A few of our neighbors' homes with vinyl siding actually had baseball-sized holes completely through some of the exterior walls, and most homes had lost several windows. Josh became silent and rigid as we neared our home and saw that while our home was not nearly as damaged as many of our neighbors' homes; we had not been spared. We had lost most of our windows, the paint had been stripped from both the front and back deck, a portion of our roof had been damaged, and the siding was badly dented in places, but our home was habitable.

At first, Josh seemed to shake off his initial pall, pitching in to clean up broken glass and the pureed plant matter that coated most of our flooring, even helping to calm the pets and one almost-hysterical neighbor. A short time later, during our supper, his behavior with food was more typical of the explorations seen in a two-year-old, as was his behavior when sent to take his bath. Later, after his bedtime story, as lights-out came closer, he became much more nervous. After I had tucked him in and given him a goodnight kiss, Josh asked me in a wee-child voice, "Daddy, what would happen to the cats if another storm came and hurt the house while we were gone?" I replied that the cats would probably do fine on their own, since they would look for small, safe places to hide. "Daddy, what would happen to us if the storm came back tonight?" I replied that I had checked the weather, and the storm would not bother us tonight. I will never know what the third question would have been, since Josh got only so far as "Daddy, what if..." before he fell asleep, his tiny hand smothered in mine.

Although I made several trips to Josh's room that night and for several nights thereafter to comfort him after nightmares, to this day Josh has no memory of those long, terrible nights. Nighttime thunderstorms still cause him to cry and sometimes scream in his sleep, although he reports no memory of them when he awakes.

It has taken me months to really understand what that night must have meant to Josh. For the first time in his memory he had found a stable world in which he could consistently see the causes-and-effects of events around him. Suddenly that world was turned upside down in every conceivable way -- a safe home damaged, nurturing pets themselves in need of nurturing, and even friendly-if-standoffish neighbors unhinged by the press of events. The fragile roots he had put out in a new world were deeply bruised, but not destroyed.

As a parent and as an individual, my most important growth resource during these episodes has been a very strong system of supportive friends. This support system includes friends who are psychologists and social workers, and others whose major characteristic is excellent common sense, such as colleagues, neighbors, and other adoptive parents or adoptees. E-mail, telephone calls, and occasional visits have done much to help me explore some of my own reactions, to help me keep my perspective. Above all they have allowed me to keep my sense of humor so that I can better appreciate Josh as a unique individual, particularly as his own sense of humor has begun to emerge.

Even as recently as one month ago, Josh's humor was very restricted in range, and limited in many of the ways characteristic of a five-year-old-knowing when a laugh was expected, but not grasping the deeper logical or social meanings. Recently, however, there have been signs of a maturing change, showing more complex understandings of the world and of the absurd. On a recent Sunday evening during our supper, we were listening to a musical radio show, hosted by a colleague and his wife. One particular song featured a yodeling cowboy, who had an amazingly high range. Josh looked me squarely in the eye, and with complete seriousness intoned, "You know, I think he needs to buy his underwear a size or two larger."

As I watch my son sleeping, I ponder the many changes that have occurred in both of us during our time as a family. I cannot truthfully say to what extent the changes I see in him represent his actual changes versus the extent to which I have grown and learned to see and appreciate these changes. I can truly say that it is a tremendous privilege to watch the miraculous unfolding of growth in both of us. As I turn to go to my own room, I can only shake my head at the wonder of it all. I can hardly wait to see how the rest of our story unfolds.

Addendum: This past summer, "we" married, adding a wonderful wife and mother to our family!

Credits: Gerald W. Sparkman