Kelly writes, “…Hard to do when we are stuck in a trauma cycle, and constantly having to defend ourselves as parents,” and I really want to expound upon that thought.

Why do we have to defend ourselves as parents? The general population thinks we’re suckers, or stupid, to knowingly add troubled, traumatized children into our family, for trying to make a difference in someone’s lives.

Our new children think we must be equally as deluded for trying at all when their own birth parents did not do so. Why should these strangers, usually in a long line of other well-meaning strangers, why should anyone love children who feel so unlovable?

And why trust these new people? All the other once-new people are now gone…just as expected. Even though I’ve been here some twenty years with some of my kids, their deepest internal, primal fears involve me finally throwing up my hands screaming, “I’ve had enough,” which I know I’ll never do

Other people shake their heads, “I don’t know how you do it, Cindy. I can hardly take care of my own two children.”

Or the big one…WHY? Like I must have taken leave of my senses, like why would a reasonably normal woman attempt this in the first place?

I used to try and explain until I realized I didn’t really have the words to do so; to justify this life choice other than I simply felt it was a calling.

Or I have to explain, re-explain and justify why I don’t join the ladies group at church, nor participate in the Singles Ministry, or feel able to attend Adopt America Network Seminars. Because I don’t like to leave my family, they like it even less, sure in their paranoid world view that I’ll not return.

They, the kids, like to know that I’m at home, tending to meals, the laundry, the gardens, the housework, and the little kids while they’re at school. They never had that before. This is what they want from a mama. “Doesn’t that get old?” I’m asked, responding, “No, it’s my choice.”

I chose this life and I chose the sacrifices; not always thrilled with the aftereffects of traumatized children and their many outbursts, bored to tears with explaining, re-explaining, and defending this life and my parenting of 39 children. Don’t interrupt me, and tell me it can’t be done, when I’m neck deep, and decades into doing it successfully.