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My Ducks Are No Longer in a Row
The hardest part of parenting
I didn’t realize how hard it would be when the kids grew up. We had sixteen, twelve by adoption, and four by birth. I kind of called them the first eight and the second eight. The first eight arrived between 1980 and 1996. Then in 2000, we moved to a new community. Some of the first eight had already started to move onward and upward, being grown-ups. Sort of.
In 2001 after we were settled in our new town we were asked by some social workers to consider adopting again. That was the beginning of an “adoption avalanche” as our oldest daughter described it. We added eight kids to our family in eight years. Not a good idea. I don’t recommend it.
Having a family this big has some obvious challenges. Some of them you can easily guess. Although there were never more than nine in the house at the same time that’s still a lot of kids. And there were rebounders of course. The grown ones who moved back because they lost a job or got pregnant or decided to change universities. One summer we housed a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren while their dad went away to school. More than once we welcomed our adult kid's dogs for visits that lasted from days to years.
There was always lots of coming and going. It was hard work but relatively easy when they were school-aged and in…
