Guilty?? (please!)

I've been internally and real life venting. Now it is time to blog vent. I had someone actually ask me on Thursday "Don't you feel guilty that you already have so many children and yet you are continuing to adopt children that another family without children or with just a few children then can't adopt?".

ARE THEY KIDDING? Do people really think that there is some long line of people waiting to adopt children from foster care that I somehow prohibit them from adopting?? Are people really that dense????

I proceeded to tell her that 4,000 children per year age out of foster care without ever being adopted. They leave foster care with little to no support of any kind! They have no birth family connections most of the time and if so then they surely couldn't be great ones or they wouldn't have been in foster care. They never had a "forever family" adopt them.

I also let her know that if people want to adopt children then there are THOUSANDS of children still waiting.

Now if you think that surely the worst of the conversation was surely over at that point then I am sorry to tell you that it wasn't. She then went on to say that she understood because a friend of hers had recently adopted a baby that "no one else wanted as well". That baby had a "brain problem" she said.

Now which part of that was worse for me is hard to explain. Number one, "no one else wanted as well" is one sure fire way to tick of any mother when used to describe her children like they are some undesirable affliction. Also to speak of special needs children in such a way as she went on to describe the baby with the "brain problem" is a sure way to offend and make the mother want to "offend". I also have a friend whose little girl has hydrocephalus which I guess is a "brain problem" in this woman's words. A little guy that I want to adopt badly and stole my heart in Julianne's old foster home also has hydrocephalus. To refer to a child with special needs like this as having a "brain problem" that "no one else wanted" surely ticks me of in a serious manner.

Now I can say with humbleness that I managed to leave without a criminal record. I stewed most of the way home. I have prayed, grumbled, prayed some more, and talked to some friends and family about the experience. I am now calm enough to write about the experience. I will say that it is one of those times that I am thankful that I am raising RAD children though because without the practice in self restraint that I have had so much experience with in parenting them, I might not have been able to respond as Christian-like as I managed to do.

To think that all of that was just because I needed a teeth cleaning. Do you think that the dentist would mind if I request another hygenist next time?