When you adopt a kid from the foster care system, especially a teen, and more especially one who was living in an institution (the old orphanages), you have to recognize that their experiences have led them to thinking  – and not thinking – in a way that is often very surprising. And troubling. 

Anthony’s video about his own adoption is out there online now (Family Focus Adoption on Facebook or Instagram) and I know that he wrote, and then spoke, the truth from beginning to end – which is why we recorded it and put it online. I am writing this afternoon to talk a bit about my perspective on him and his adoption. 

Anthony’s judgement is not good. Like many of the kids with his kind of background (and far too many Americans) he lives by his feelings.  Like a young kid, he wants what he wants when he wants it. And this has caused him problems. And driven me crazy. 

Example: he had a great position at Amazon for the past year and a half. He liked it; he was good at; and he got paid really well. But he wants to be on his phone when he wants to be on his phone.  For doing it more than once, it got him put on probation. Then, last month, he did it again, while on that probation, and he was immediately fired.  

Prior to that, my second car, that I was letting him use, died. He decided that he wanted to get a fancy-dancy car. As my car dealer called it: a “vroom vroom” car.  Anthony found a used one at a dealer in the Bronx.  I told him not to buy it: that a car in the city would most likely have much more wear and tear on it than a suburban car. But he was determined. I told him what to watch out for from this used car dealer and I watched as Anthony just blew past every red flag that I saw and pointed out to him. And there were plenty. I asked: “What are you going to do if this lying guy is selling you a lemon; what if you have to bring it to him for repairs and he keeps the car for weeks to do them? What if the lemon can’t be fixed? Where will you get the money to buy a different car?” And so forth and so on.   But he’s 20 years old – I couldn’t forbid him. So, he bought it. I told him that he was on his own. I wasn’t helping him buy it; I wasn’t driving to the Bronx, etc. (of course I violated that when I took him to my mechanics later.)

Within days, the “check engine light” came on. My mechanic, around the corner, opened the hood and said that there was no way he could fix the car.  We took it to my dealer’s mechanic and he said something that he had never said to me in 25 years: “We cannot fix this car.”  He recommended a specialty shop that fixes “vroom vroom” cars.  We brought the car there a month ago and they – on first look – told us to bring it back to the dealer he got it from and get his money back. But Anthony wanted this car, this model specifically. So, we asked if it could be fixed.  They thought so – but it would cost. They gave us an estimate and began work. And as they did the work they came up upon more and more issues. The estimate kept going up and this week had reached 10 grand. 

Yesterday, they called us in and told us that it wasn’t worth fixing; that there was some (even criminal) issues regarding how it passed inspection etc. They told us what to do to walk away whole and how to get the dealer to buy the car back and pay for the repair work already done using DMV. We will do it and see. Meanwhile, Anthony is without a car still. 

But three times, while we were in the garage, while we walked to my car, when we were in the car, Anthony said to me, “Pop, what are we going to do?”  

I wanted to scream at him for bringing this all down on his head, and mine.  I wanted to tell him that he’d made his bed and he will have to lie in it. I wanted to tell him that “I told you so.”  I wanted to tell him a lot of things. 

But I didn’t. 

Because I was experiencing in that very moment, through his language and his presence with me,  his conviction that he and I were a “WE.” I wouldn’t have talked like that at his age. I would have said, “What am I going to do?”  Anthony said, “What are WE going to do?”

Not a doubt in his mind that WE would be doing something. 

That, folks, is the joy, and the realness, of being a father to this young man. And to all those who have been betrayed as he was.

That is what adoption is about: “Pop, what are we going to do?”

WE.

Jack