FREERIDERS! Start at 233 and join in the outraged n00bhunt.
Posted on 11/08/2007 8:41:58 AM PST by Lorianne
The moment Julie Jarman set eyes on Zahina she was smitten. The seven-year-old girl from Tanzania was desperate for a loving home and Julie felt sure that she and her 11-year-old daughter could provide it.
In turn Zahina would become the second daughter Julie longed for. "When I met her for the first time, she was a bit shy. I saw her hiding behind her social worker's skirt, peeping out at me with an enormous grin on her face. She was gorgeous.
"She was with her foster parents in Somerset. Laura and I spent a week with them, taking things very slowly.
"One day we took her to the park and one day we went swimming and I remember seeing Laura and Zahina teasing each other in the pool and thinking I had seen a glimpse of how things were going to be."
It was settled that Zahina would come to live with Julie, a programme manager for Oxfam, at her house in Manchester in July 2005. Julie was thrilled and spent the final days before her arrival getting everything ready.
She decorated her room with an African theme, she made curtains from some cloth she'd bought in Africa, and hung two framed batiks of African women on the wall.
She even stocked up on oats so she could make a similar porridge to one Tanzanian children are given called uji, which is made from maize-meal.
"She didn't seem upset at leaving her foster parents and was quite excited about the move," says Julie.
But almost from the moment she arrived Julie sensed a barrier between them. "Zahina would chat to me and ask questions about this and that, and on the surface it was fine.
"But I sensed that at a deeper level she was resisting me - I felt she was waiting for her mother to come back. Before she went to bed at night she would give me a hug but there was no warmth there. She was going through the motions.
"Often when I asked her to do something she would do it as the Tanzanians would say, 'kichwa upande' - unwillingly, or holding her head to one side."
As the weeks passed the house became filled with unspoken tensions, resentments and discord. Most worryingly of all, Julie's own daughter Laura began to withdraw into herself. In fact Zahina seemed to go out of her way to try to upset her.
"Once when I asked her to remove her mud-covered boots, she marched over to Laura, who was sitting in front of the fire playing Patience and parked her filthy foot right on top of the cards.
"Another time the three of us were supposed to go and see an African band but Laura refused to come because she was upset about something, but wouldn't say what.
"During the interval Zahina said to me, 'Laura was really upset, wasn't she?' and I could see she was really pleased that Laura was upset and that she felt she'd driven a wedge between Laura and me. There was something deeply unpleasant about the way she said it."
Her behaviour was a far cry from what Julie had hoped for. Indeed on paper, she reasoned, Zahina had been the perfect choice.
Her circumstances were particularly sad. Her family in Tanzania were very poor and she and her sister lived with their mother and stepfather in a one-room tenement.
"It is not clear why her family decided to send her to Britain but she arrived here after it was apparently arranged for her to stay with an uncle and his British partner.
Soon after this, however, the couple separated and the uncle's partner was left alone to look after Zahina. Attempts to send her back to Tanzania were unsuccessful because her parents could not be traced. Unwanted in Tanzania and here in Britain, she was taken into care.
One of the reasons Julie was drawn to Zahina was because her own daughter, Laura, now 13, was half Tanzanian. Her father is a Tanzanian teacher whom Julie had a long relationship with while working in the country as an aid worker in the Eighties.
Julie was pregnant with Laura when she returned to Britain in 1994. The relationship with her boyfriend ended the following year but Laura continues to see her father, who remains in Tanzania.
Julie had hoped she might settle down with someone else and have another child, but it did not happen. Five years ago, aged 44, she accepted that she was highly unlikely now to fall pregnant if she met someone and began to consider the possibility of adoption.
"I really felt that I wanted to become a parent for a second time and the idea of having two children appealed to my sense of family."
The following year she applied to Social Services to be considered as an adoptive parent.
She hoped she would be able to adopt a child aged three to four, preferably a girl, because Laura had said she would love to have a sister.
She underwent a rigorous assessment process, including inteviews with social workers about her past history and family relationships, her motivation and expectations of adoption, and a six-week course in which issues discussed included the emotional needs of children who have been through the care system.
Being a single parent was not an issue; Social Services now consider all types of family set ups. In 2004 Julie was told her application had been successful.
The next year, her social worker showed Julie an advertisement she had spotted in an adoption magazine in which an appeal was made for a home for Zahina.
"The ad said she was lively, bright and intelligent and said she had formed a close attachment to her foster carer and would have no problems doing so again. I thought she looked lovely, she had a really appealing face."
But appealing as Zahina undoubtedly was the little girl clearly had problems, too.
Julie says that for the first six months she lived with them she put in a huge emotional investment trying to establish a mother/daughter relationship with Zahina, chatting to her, playing with her, taking her on outings, but it was always the same.
"I simply couldn't reach her. I suppose I did get frustrated by it. I would say to her sometimes: 'Do you want me to be your mummy?', and she would reply: 'No, I've already got one.'
"Zahina would repeatedly push the boundaries and disobey me, it was very difficult. I would tell her she had to stay on the pavement when she went out on her roller skates, and she would go on the road. I would tell her she couldn't go knocking on friend's doors late at night, and she would do it.
"Once when she had done something or other I had asked her not to, she just gave me this look as if to say: 'What are you going to do about it?' I thought to myself: 'You just don't care, do you?'
"It was not the incidents in themselves that bothered me, more the underlying emotional gap."
She sought help from Social Services, asking if any psychotherapy was available for Zahina, with counselling for her, but was told it was not possible to access those services in Manchester.
After seven to eight months, Julie says, something inside her "gave up".
"I realised I would not be able to attain with Zahina anything approaching a mother/ daughter relationship. I was worried that I might in the future feel a creeping resentment towards her.
"Looking after children takes time, energy and effort and I wasn't getting anything back. I felt a dull ache inside me. It was awful.
"I could see myself in ten years' time being like one of those parents who go on about how they've done so much for their children, and got so little back."
Meanwhile, Zahina was clearly unhappy, too. She took to writing stories about her toy tiger, Stripes, and asked Julie if she would like to hear one.
"In this one, Stripes was living with a nasty adoptive mother who threw him out on the street saying: 'Get away you naughty cub, you can't come back here.' Luckily, all was not lost because Stripes found his birth mummy.
"I took a deep breath and asked Zahina whether she thought she might be thrown out on the street like Stripes.
"She said yes and though I tried to reassure her that this would never be the case, it hit me really hard. I rang the social worker for advice but she told me not to worry, saying it was great Zahina was expressing herself."
Over the following few weeks, Zahina wrote four more stories about Stripes. "The adoptive mother was not mentioned again, but they all talked about Stripes losing his mother and setting out to look for her.
"I didn't need to be a psychiatrist to work out what Zahina wanted most in the world. It was heartbreaking, because I knew she'd been abandoned and that no one was coming to get her."
Laura, too, was suffering and had started to retreat to her room to escape.
"But even then Zahina would not leave her alone and would push her way in," says Julie. "Sometimes she took things from Laura's room, causing terrible rows.
"With the benefit of hindsight I don't think Zahina should have been placed with someone who had a birth daughter, she would have been better going to a couple who had no children and would be able to give their undivided attention.
"She saw it as a competition to try to supplant Laura, not consciously, of course, and it was the behaviour of a deeply unhappy child.
"I think our situation reflected something in her past. I think she saw her sister as the favourite in Tanzania."
Around this time, Zahina wrote a letter to her mother in Tanzania, asking when she was coming to fetch her. Eventually she received a card, but there was no reply to her questions.
"The penny dropped, and she realised her mother wasn't coming to get her," says Julie. "She had no other option but me. At that point she actually started making more effort, but it was too late by then.
"It's hard to explain, but deep inside me I'd given up and I couldn't go back. I began to be very anxious about what to do."
A year after Zahina had come to live with her, Julie was confronted with the most agonising decision of her life - should she go ahead with the adoption?
She decided she did not want to but, desperately worried about the impact this would have on Zahina, avoided doing anything about it.
Ironically, it was Zahina herself who forced her hand. The little girl must have sensed that Julie was withdrawing from her and was having nightmares about falling down a hole. She was calling out to Julie but she wasn't there.
"I realised we couldn't go on like this, with all of us so anxious," says Julie. "I felt it might be damaging for Zahina."
She made up her mind - she would give Zahina back. "It was very sad and distressing, of course, but I could not ignore the fact that things weren't right."
And so this little girl, shunted from one place to another, was to be rejected once more.
"When I did tell Zahina she was incredibly upset, she just sobbed and sobbed. It was hard to take. She said she'd tried so hard, and got nothing back, and I told her I knew what she meant because that was exactly how I had felt.
"By that I don't mean I was blaming her. I was the adult in the situation and I had to take full responsibility."
One must ask at this juncture whether Julie was rather naive in undertaking this adoption. Zahina was not a baby, she was a seven-year-old whose life up to that point had been a deeply unhappy one.
She was a thinking, feeling young person having to cope with the distressing knowledge that her mother had dumped her in a foreign country to be rid of her.
Surely she was never going to be the malleable blank canvas Julie appears to have wished for.
And was it really so surprising that there were tensions and jealousies with Julie's own daughter Laura, an 11-year-old only child who was suddenly expected to share her home and her mother's affection with a stranger?
"When I told the social worker she didn't seem particularly surprised," says Julie defensively.
"She asked me to keep it from Zahina until they found a foster home for her because Social Services believe it is better if a move happens reasonably quickly."
Julie is under no illusions about the impact this second rejection may have had on Zahina. "I felt sure it was definitely the right decision for me and my daughter," says Julie, "but I was not absolutely sure it was the right decision for her."
In August last year, just over a year after Zahina came to live with them, Julie and Laura packed her bags and drove her back to Somerset to another foster family.
"When I asked Zahina what the hardest thing about it was she said: 'Leaving you.' It was terrible. But as we drove down to Somerset the barriers came up again, it was a form of self-protection.
"I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her with these strangers, I felt completely devastated and was crying, I was very emotional.
"But I was also relieved. I had my life back, my family back.
"What happened with Zahina made me appreciate how good my relationship with Laura is, how it works so well with just the two of us."
Does she worry about the impact her decision has had on Zahina?
"Yes I realise that I have set a pattern of rejection," says Julie. "I would rather it hadn't happened.
"Giving Zahina back was the hardest thing I have done in my life, but when she had gone my overwhelming emotion was one of relief.
"Zahina and I had different expectations. I hadn't expected to replicate the relationship I had with my daughter but I had expected a certain emotional closeness.
"That was not Zahina's expectation of our relationship.
"But Zahina and I went on a journey together and I hope she learnt something about the nature of parenting and family relationships. While she was with me she came to terms with a lot of her past."
Today Zahina is in a children's home, waiting to be found somewhere permanent. Julie says there are a couple of prospective parents who are interested in adopting her.
"I felt terrible about having to give her back, and the way things turned out, but I do not regret it.
"In the end I did what I thought was best."
i have been a foster parent in minnesota for teen aged boys and i see kids being returned every month,,this is not new,,just not written about, currently have eight teen boys,,five of them are from failed adoptions,,i personally think adoption in older kids, in my opinion does not work out because the system fails to inform the future parents of the massive amount of problems of the child they are attempting to dump,,and yes i mean dump,,to get rid of the bill that this particular child is costing the county, as counties only see kids as a dollar amount and how does one get rid of that bill, sounds harsh,,but reality is what reality is,,harsh,,
It would have been very nice if there had been true therapy available for the entire family. I wonder if the mother was a single child herself. Because, where I come from, the behavior this child exhibited towards both her adoptive mother and her sister were normal, if only to a greater extreme. The smile on Zahina’s face when she hid behind her social worker when she was first introduced to her prospective family said, she knew a test subject when she saw one.
It is typical of younger siblings to push just how far they can get away with anything with the older siblings. A child born to the family learns early that they can get away with a lot because they are protected from harm possible by an older sibling who is not used to having a small fragile being that is not a doll in the house. They push it even when they are older, until the mother or father really takes notice and says, “Enough!” and starts to discipline the younger just as they discipline the older child. The only difference with Zahina is she is treated as a baby because of her past circumstances. When Zahina first started pulling the things she did against her sister, her mother should have realized, the child was saying “I actually have a right to be here”. When the mother did not ACTUALLY discipline her, she told Zahina “You are still a guest in this house”.
This whole story angers me, because, first of all, how in the world can you have a Social Services for Children, and no therapy to help both they and the families adjust and second one year was not enough time to decide to give a child away, third when the child cried so earnestly after learning she was going to have to leave, that was a sign that the decision was probably by far the easiest and WRONG one.
I would have told the child this: “Zahina, your birth mother is not here, I cannot do anything about that. Perhaps when you are grown and money allows we can look for her. However, I love you, but if you continue to behave as you do, I may have to send you back. Is that what you want? Think really hard about it, because we have to work together to make this work and I don’t want you or your sister uncomfortable in this house. If you really want to go back to foster homes then, here is the phone. You call the Social Worker yourself. Now if you really want to stay then you need to tell me what I ought to do to get you to behave in a fair way towards both me and Laura. This is all of our home, and you are being unfair and disrespectful to all of us, including yourself.” It puts the decision to make it work back in the child’s hands as well as makes the consequences of her behavior very understood.
The mother was not immature, just sheltered, structured, and idealistic. One week of playtime may be enough to see if a puppy is safe, but not a person, who knows how to put on his/her best behavior, when the time is necessary.
I would have pulled my hair out if I’d taken Zahina in at 7 years old and probably would have yelled at her more than couple of times. But, I have a 9 year old who is an only child and pushes the same buttons when another child is in the house or at her father’s or aunt’s house, and she still tries to see just how far she can go to make me angry enough to say “I don’t want you anymore”, and yet she panics if I step outside and stop to talk to a friend too long. She is my natural daughter. This is normal behavior, I have seen in most other girls between 5 and 11 years old. Though considering where I live, these girls are born mostly to single mothers. There may be a difference in families where the mother and father are both present.
I am 45 years old.
# 233, 239, 241, 242=
Are y’all having some go out in the street and haul them in membership drive that we don’t know about? ;)
The mod yacht needs a paint job.
At buck a piece, you’ll be there in no time! ;)
FREERIDERS! Start at 233 and join in the outraged n00bhunt.
Well,
they yacht needs a paint job....
so far I count erm, what
6?? Newbies-— Some who think Lorianne is the woman.
(Like the folks on You Tube who think everyone who posts the video IS the person in the video).
It’s fun to watch in a twisted, sick kinda way.
More than 6, Xenalyte had counted 16 by post 218!
Why would you return a kid who almost old enough to make sneakers in Malaysia?
Loranne posted the story. She is not the adoptive parent.
Welcome to Free Republic.
We need to start the “Lorianne is not the adoptive parent” ping list. It’s up to about 20 by now, all fresh new faces too!
And this is a Lazurus Thread resurrected on December 16th by gooberholic.
And today, the rest have joined in about 4 hours....half them fussing at poor Lorianne. All only posting once.
This smells like 3 day old tuna in July.
30
Please add me to your ping list. I'm not the adoptive parent either.
It’s up to about 20 by now, all fresh new faces too!
I wouldn't be surprised if it's 20 clones of the same face, if you take my meanng.
Sigh.... why can’t we have those quality “you guys are all meenies because muffy the cheerleader who died in that cheese truck accident was my bestest friend and a really sweet girl who was on the honor roll and volunteered at the homeless hangnail institute....” trolls like before?
They need a clue.... how about.... Larry Burkett, in the bahamas, with a turkey baster...
We did last week when a gas line blew up in LA. Someone posted that the father of their children was killed...
You know the one
_____
thefater ofmy childrn was killd in that fire you poepe are mean making jokes wehn we ar siting here scard 2 def i hope you nverhave to loze osomeon likethis
_____________
ANYHOW,
turns out that a FREEPER was literally a mile away, lived there, was taking pictures and reporting in the events.
It was funny because the poor “victim” didn’t post anymore.
He he he.
Crazed noob frenzy ping... just for old times sake.
Hi everybody,
I don’t know much about this site but i followed a link here and decided to comment. I am what you would call a RAD person (lol sounds fun but it really isnt)
After my mother left me at a very young age with family while she traveled with the air force to korea, i was raised by an emotionally abusive uncle who resented me b/c myself and his daughter were around the same age and i being happy and very lovable always garnered more attn. He made me a reject in his family of 3 daughters.
My mother returned and i had considerably withdrawn.In addition to sexual abuse by my stepbrother and my moms decision to choose my father over me - he threatened to leave if his son had to move out- so we stayed with them where i was forced to live with my abuser for years in constant fear. I further retreated into myself.
My mothers own inability to love herself deepened and she could show no love. She often had fits of anger calling us (siblings and i) bitches and other abuse. i being the eldest especially could never do ANYTHING right. She never said i loved you, would always turn away from hugs,etc.
I often witnessed my father physically abuse my mother (slamming her head in doors, throwing her down the stairs when pregnant with my brother, pulling her hair through a car window while driving and pulling out a clump of it)
I took care of my siblkings i was the adult i never had a childhood or support system. this is not to garner pity just to show a different side to the story.
i felt thoroughly rejected. I could form no bonds. I hated myself for being so horrible that even my own mother could not love me. My “friends” were only friends on the outside- there was no deep connection ever. The loneliest existence in the world. I pushed every1 away unbeknowst to myself at such a young age. This would become my pattern for many many years.
When RAD you will hate yourself and that anger and pain will be internalized to hurt yourself or turned outside to violence against the external world and others.
I was quiet to the outside world but i struggled with suicidal impulses for years.
Finally i began to understand the power in loving myself. I am older and hapier now, but unfortunately that is not the case for many RAD’s. I still struggle with my instictual impulse to push pple who love me away in fear of being hurt or rejected. Though better now i will probably struggle with it for the rest of my life. I still fear my husband ( a wonderful loving ridiculously loyal man) will one day get tired of trying to convince me how much he loves me and finally give up. I still have no1 i truly consider a friend and desire much deeper relationships.
Its the constant rejection from an early age that teaches us not to take comfort in relationships. they are not to be trusted. They are not sources of support and happiness. Only those fortunate like me will one day be able to reason with themselves that they are worthy of love and that there is nothing inherently wrong with them and begin the arduous journey of forming the loving connections that every human being needs.
The point of this post. The mother was not a villain but she gave up at the turning point. I believe a beautiful relationship would’ve evolved if she kept at it. a year is not enough for an RAD. They take years of love and care to first find themselves worthy of love and to trust others with caring for them.
Those fortunate are exposed to a loving family enviroment and happiness at least during the early formative years. They learn to connect and trust. Those not as fortunate will more than likely struggle with relationships for years to come. I dont know if this post will help anyone gain insight, but hopefully someone will learn a bit from the other side.
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