When I was 4, my parents were making a move from North Carolina to North Dakota. It was an exciting move for my parents, since they’re originally from North Dakota. It was a normal day. It was moving day. There was nothing extraordinary that stood out and it was like any other day, that a family in the United States would go through when relocating for a new job.
It wasn’t a normal day for me. The day the movers came, I clutched onto my mothers leg, crying and telling them I don’t want to leave. But not because I didn’t want to leave my friends and the house I’d become familiar with. I cried and was terrified because not even a year prior, I had been in foster care and shuffled around. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought that the family that I had grown to become familiar with, was getting rid of me. I didn’t want to go.
Foster care at age 3
Today I read some of the issues that would be impacted by the GOP’s tax bill reform. A flood of emotion and heaviness overcame me. These “pro-family” Republicans want to get rid of the tax credit that assists families with adoption. They will also very likely succeed at doing this.
I just want to be clear….the children who are being swept up into an unending cycle of being placed in the system and shuffled around, don’t matter? Believe me, I could go on and on about the other injustices happening to kids at this very moment across America, but today I’m focusing on this.
I was in foster care for almost three years at the beginning of my life. I had no stability and security, didn’t know where I belonged, no unconditional love and didn’t know who I was. The first three years in a child’s life are also the most crucial. Ask any psychologist, psychiatrist or medical book. You don’t need a Ph.D. to know this and science has demonstrated what most people intuitively know; the bonds and attachments made in a child’s first three years of life are some of the most crucial. The stability of these relationships will serve as the foundation of that person’s future relationships and mental well being.
One of the only images I have of me before my adoption
People always tell me how lucky I am to have been adopted. They’re right. I was lucky. But the emotional scarring that happened during that time has and will always live within me as a now 39-year-old adult.
The adoption tax credit took some of the financial burdens off of families who want to adopt, whether to help more children or because they couldn’t have children of their own. Guess what? The more families can financially afford to adopt, there will be fewer children rotting away unnoticed in a flawed foster care system.
My parents and I
I’m not a victim and never want to come off as one, however, I can tell you first hand what children go through in the system and how they have zero control over their futures. They are voiceless. The wound can heal, but the emotional scars will never go away.
Taking away a tax credit for families is an all out assault on parents who need the extra assistance to adopt, as well as an all out assault on the many children living in foster care that are waiting for a forever home.
Do not tell me you are “pro-life and pro-family.” This is not an abortion debate, this is about giving a damn about children who need a home. There is something completely morally bankrupt and nonsensical in this kind of thinking. If you’re pro-life, then that should be all life. Supporting this tax bill is offensive and an attack on adoption hopefuls and the foster kids in this country.
My mother, sister and I
To the families, couples and even single adults out there who could be affected by this and won’t be able to afford adoption, I’m sorry. To the many foster kids out there who have been abandoned and lost in the system, I’m with you and I will fight for you.