[Two Pronged] Adoption woes: Part 1

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes. Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives. Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

I was wondering if you could offer some advice and a different perspective on a problem that we are having with our 10-year-old niece (we’ll refer to her as D.A.) whom we are taking care of and adopting.

Actually, the real problem is the relationship between her and my wife (the auntie). Personally, I’m more laid-back and tend to accept her as she is more readily than my wife. They are just so incompatible! 

We also have a 4-year-old boy that we are adopting. We’ve had him since birth. This situation is putting a lot of stress on our marriage and also on the relationship with the boy. 

In short, it’s incredibly disruptive and we’re all at the end of our tethers and don’t know what to do.

We have taken responsibility for her because her parents are unable and/or unprepared to. They cannot provide for her, they cannot discipline her, they cannot provide a safe nurturing environment for her to grow and develop.

We have tried our best to do our best for her but after 5 years we’re not seeing any real change in her personality and we’re coming to the conclusion that a leopard really cannot change it’s spots. We have found this incredibly frustrating.

My wife (being the blood relative) is really having a hard time accepting this lack of development and lack of recognition that we are providing the girl with an opportunity for a life that she wouldn’t have had. Despite our best efforts, D.A. seems to be headed in the same hopeless direction to nowhere as her parents.

This frustrates and angers my wife to the point where she loses control and often verbally (and occasionally physically) lashes out at D.A.

I find myself often having to come between them as peacekeeper and I’m feeling like I don’t know where my loyalty should lie.

About the girl:

• We’ve had D.A. in our care since she was 6 years old. Before this, she had been with her parents and with other relatives for a short time.
• She was conceived out of wedlock and the very young parents only married out of a sense of duty and family pressure rather than love for each other. They both resent this. They both view the birth of their daughter as being the end to their hopes and dreams (but it didn’t stop them having another daughter).

The good:

• She’s a very sweet girl and very helpful.
• She’s very good with her younger “brother” and clearly loves him.

The not so good:

• She is a very timid and shy personality. If she is not pushed, she will not do anything. She has low self-esteem.
• She frequently lies and tries to cover things up by making crazy unbelievable stories. She even does this about really silly and trivial matters, even when you give her the chance to tell the truth, and reassure her that if she does come clean, there will be no further trouble. It’s almost like she even believes her own lies. These lies and stories can go on for days and will only come to an end when you face her with undeniable evidence. 

The traits detailed above are almost certainly inherited from her parents. The father is shy, timid, often depressed and weak-willed. The mother is a gossip, serial-adulterer, liar and a cheat. She’s the sort of person who has no qualms about taking advantage of another person just to benefit herself. 

– End of Part 1. This letter will be continued in Part 2 next week – 

———————-

Dear Mathew:

Thank you very much for your letter, which as you can see we have divided into two parts due to its length and the issues it raises.  The second part will be discussed next Sunday.

I am having difficulty coming to terms with the gaping chasm between the supposed faults of your niece – timidness, shyness and a propensity to lie – and the effect on your wife and family: frustration, anger, disruption and reaching the end of your collective tether. 

However, when viewed against the background of your opinion of her biological parents, I suspect that in addition to her own shortcomings, you are projecting that her lack of ‘development’ will lead in some genetically predestined way to her ending up as feckless etc. as you perceive them to be.

With the occasional exception, 10-year-olds are not generally known for having mapped out, in any detail, a road map of the way they intend to live their lives. They have barely begun to appreciate what opportunities lie ahead, much less worked out who they want to be and what they want to do. I think you are making unrealistic and unfair demands on her if you expect her to be otherwise.

As for her shyness and timidity, these may be an integral part of her character, especially if they are inherited traits, but the world is full of the shy and timid and it is all the richer for that. Alternatively, she may grow out of it if allowed the time and space. 

None of this is to excuse her lying however. You do not unfortunately explain what consequences she has to suffer when faced with incontrovertible evidence of her lies but clearly they are insufficient to persuade her to change her ways.

It might therefore be worth rethinking your whole approach to this vexing problem. The key to that may be found in the reason(s) that lead her to lie in the first place. If this is a task that feel like it might be too much for you, perhaps professional help would be the way to go.

All the best.

Jeremy 

Dear Mathew:

Thank you very much for your letter and for believing we can share a different perspective that might help you view things in a more optimistic light. Actually, I think we can, and this perspective is mainly from family therapy which espouses seeing an entire family for consultation, rather than the seemingly obvious “black sheep,” your lying adopted daughter. 

That is because family therapy practitioners have seen for themselves that, while taking seeing an individual client is far less complicated and thus less challenging for the therapist, treating the entire family may be more realistic.  It is also a way to protect the identified patient (IP), the seeming “black sheep from relapsing.at least immediately but hopefully, for a very long time (if not forever).

That is because many times, even if the IP is treated, the situation he goes back to has not changed, thus he is more than likely to fail once more. It is only if the rest of the family (and not just the IP) understand where all the anger and feelings of betrayal are coming from that healing can take place. 

If not, your family may go on like before, focused on D.A., all her faults, particularly her lying and ingratitude, not realizing that you and your wife may have contributed to her behavior tremendously. 

For example, what you know about her parents seems to color your views about D.A.  It is almost as if you and your wife are holding your breath to see if she turns out like her parents and yet this hypothesis you have – that nature is stronger than nurture – may be the tipping point that makes it so difficult for her to behave any other way.

It is likely that “a self-fulfilling prophecy” could be at work here. Even if neither you nor your wife has told her your fears about her “family background” affecting her, I am sure your actions – conscious and/or unconscious – have brought this message across. 

And what chance does a little mite of 10 have, in the face of 2 adults, one seemingly bitter about unresolved issues with her own family of generation (is D.A.’s mother your wife’s younger sister?), who reassure her that nothing will happen if she tells the truth? Especially if in her own shy and timid way, she has tried to do so, only to be slapped down (figuratively and literally)  because she didn’t tell the truth quickly or forthrightly enough?

What chance did she have when she came to you already 6 years old and not as endearing, trusting and guileless as her new brother, a newborn baby?  Especially if the former has parents you disdain, and the latter has parents you don’t (either due to lack of knowledge or past history). Especially if she knows she is not loved unconditionally the way her brother is and fears being returned to her biological parents in case she makes one wrong move too many?

Indeed, her ability to love her brother despite all is a feat no lying, ungrateful bad seed would be capable of.

Finally, if my math is correct, it sounds like you adopted both children in a period of about 12 months.  One thing you might look at more deeply is what was happening in your marriage that you decided to include not one, but two, children to further enrich (and complicate) your relationship?

I realize these are merely hypotheses I am sharing with you and look forward to your telling me where I am wrong or could be right.  Next week we handle part 2 of your letter. 

All the best.

Margie  

– Rappler.com

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