The couple who adopted 20+ special needs kids

This is a can't-look-away, extremely long article in the New Yorker about a couple who adopted 20+ kids, some of whom were disabled and sick.

Their intentions were generally admirable, and kudos to them for wanting kids nobody else wanted. HOWEVER, my general impression was horror: they had little money and they sound like animal hoarders, but with humans. They didn't have the resources to care for them, and is a home really better than no home?

My other, overriding thought was: intelligent design, my ass. These people attempted to pick up the slack caused by human Pez machines: stupid people, drug addicted people, amoral people who shit kids like turds, dump them into the social safety net, and walk away, only to keep making more. Many of these kids they adopted bred similarly. Why is forced sterilization such a bad thing?

It's just a damn shame that the default for humans isn't sterility.

I had a friend who was her parents' only natural child; they adopted 5 children over several years. The adopted kids apparently had constant health issues, but they kept getting more. My friend didn't talk much about it, but what she did say sounded like her early life was pretty negatively impacted because her family was constantly financially strapped from taking care of these sick kids her parents insisted on getting.

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bell_flower
This is a can't-look-away, extremely long article in the New Yorker about a couple who adopted 20+ kids, some of whom were disabled and sick.

Their intentions were generally admirable, and kudos to them for wanting kids nobody else wanted. HOWEVER, my general impression was horror: they had little money and they sound like animal hoarders, but with humans. They didn't have the resources to care for them, and is a home really better than no home?

My other, overriding thought was: intelligent design, my ass. These people attempted to pick up the slack caused by human Pez machines: stupid people, drug addicted people, amoral people who shit kids like turds, dump them into the social safety net, and walk away, only to keep making more. Many of these kids they adopted bred similarly. Why is forced sterilization such a bad thing?

It's just a damn shame that the default for humans isn't sterility.

Human Pez machines, it is so accurate! If effort was required to overcome sterility most people would end up in a sterile default.

Sometimes decisions we make at 12 may not be the wisest ones huh? Maybe they romanticized the situation a bit too much and let it get wayyy over their heads. Think I wanted a Lamborghini at 12.

Think most people would consider over 20 kids to be too much to handle. There are probably some 12 year olds who understand this especially if they had to help with lots of younger siblings, cousins, etc. It is called perspective based on experience.

Many of us may have said some things at 12 that now seem ridiculous because we have perspective which this couple lacks. It also seems the wife was the major pusher of adoption yet she managed to spend most of her time hiding at work while her husband raised all of the kids.

20 kids is too many to give each the love and attention they require, even if they are all healthy children. I'm not sure at what point it becomes impossible to provide emotionally, to say nothing of financially, but 20 is way past that limit.

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yurble
20 kids is too many to give each the love and attention they require, even if they are all healthy children. I'm not sure at what point it becomes impossible to provide emotionally, to say nothing of financially, but 20 is way past that limit.

Not sure if it was 100% but it was very close to 100% of their daughters who had baybeez as teens or in their young 20's. But what is expected when the message clearly is how important baybeez are. It isn't as if any of the kids were given much attention anyways, 20 is impossible.

In my state 30 years ago a fundie married couple was arrested, charged, and convicted in the beating death of one of the 13 special-needs kids they had adopted in other states. They also had had four children of their own. They lived and traveled around the country in a school bus, relying on government checks and the kindness of others to help feed the brood.

The boy who died was aged 13. He had had emotional problems and had done such things as defecate in the other kids' belongings. The parents were ill-equipped to handle this, and the punishments and beatings they dished out to this boy became more and more intense over time. The death was the result of the wife beating the boy as the husband revved the bus to hide the screams. This kid, in a news columnist's words, "wound up nude, restrained with hose clamps, forced to eat his own feces, and ultimately dead".

Both parents served long prison terms, but have been out for several years. He served more time than she did, even though she was the killer. In the believe-it-or-not category, after her release, the wife had managed to find a job in a different part of my state working with elderly patients. She lost that job after the local newspaper discovered her whereabouts. Her husband was still in prison at the time. They are in another state now.

The whole incident led to questions about how many handicapped children a couple should be allowed to adopt and how authorities should monitor the children's care. I mean, adopting 13 and then traveling in a school bus with no means of support? But this newest case shows that nothing has changed despite the hand-wringing then. Couples are still allowed to collect 'em all, and no one stops it because authorities are glad to find someone willing to adopt such kids. Watch for more such stories over time.

Why on earth did all the girls keep getting pregnant? Didn't they ever discuss birth control with them? Or is that against their religion?

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JoJo
Why on earth did all the girls keep getting pregnant? Didn't they ever discuss birth control with them? Or is that against their religion?

That's just what I was thinking! Honestly, I will imagine most if not all of these children were the products of teen pregnancies themselves. We do know the willingness to engage in high-risk behaviors can run in the genes, and if they don't have the guidance to override that...

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But then Flory got pregnant at nineteen. Geeta got pregnant. SueAnn got pregnant again and quit college. Geeta got pregnant again. Alysia got pregnant. Flory got pregnant again. Alysia got pregnant again.

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JoJo
Why on earth did all the girls keep getting pregnant? Didn't they ever discuss birth control with them? Or is that against their religion?

A lot of intellectual disabilities aren't just "dumbness" but reductions in planning capability and other traits required to make good choices about reproduction. For instance fetal alcohol syndrome leads to poor impulse control. Add to that the fact that people with more severe mental disabilities are much more likely to be sexually abused or taken advantage of, and I'm not surprised things ended this way. If they were higher functioning, they probably still lacked some critical thinking skills, and if they were lower functioning, they easy prey to any creep who came their way. Pregnancy is almost inevitable, unless the bits aren't functioning.

Once I've seen an article about a husband and wife in India who raised about 20 kids (don't remember the exact number). The article was on a very Catholic website and put an emphasis on the fact that 12 of their children became priests, nuns, monks (because oh what a holy family). I thought immediately that it's no wonder that the majority of them chose probably the only way of life that allows them to be childfree in their culture...

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yurble

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JoJo
Why on earth did all the girls keep getting pregnant? Didn't they ever discuss birth control with them? Or is that against their religion?

A lot of intellectual disabilities aren't just "dumbness" but reductions in planning capability and other traits required to make good choices about reproduction. For instance fetal alcohol syndrome leads to poor impulse control. Add to that the fact that people with more severe mental disabilities are much more likely to be sexually abused or taken advantage of, and I'm not surprised things ended this way. If they were higher functioning, they probably still lacked some critical thinking skills, and if they were lower functioning, they easy prey to any creep who came their way. Pregnancy is almost inevitable, unless the bits aren't functioning.

This makes lots of sense. Thinking now that this may explain lots of teenage and young 20's pregnancies. Lots of people may have no apparent intellectual disabilities but their brain may not be fully developed yet or they may be lacking critical thinking skills. Maybe not as severe as fetal alcohol syndrome but still not high functioning. They're in the baby cute category and succumb to peer pressure.