How to Say It to Teens [antikvár]

Introduction He was hard to communicate with even as an infant. He didn't seem to respond to us the way our other children did. Sometimes he'd wake up crying in the middle of the night. We'd ask him what was wrong. He wouldn't answer. He often seemed so sad, angry, and aloof—not like our other two kids—and it had been this way since we brought him home from the adoption agency. He was our middle child. My wife, Phoebe, and I had been married for more than four years before we had our first child. We had held ofFhaving kids for three reasons. The first and most important one was that I wasn't ready for the responsibility. Phoebe was, but I wasn't. I couldn't imagine looking after a baby in addition to looking after my wife and myself. Second, we wanted to enjoy each other's company alone for a while. We knew children would change our lives forever, and we weren't ready for that. We also wanted to be sure our marriage was a good one. It was, and is. . The final reason was probably the most important in terms of practical considerations. I had a medical problem and was advised not to have my OAvn children. I had lost an eye to cancer as a two-year-old, and I was told that that form of cancer could be passed on to Idds of my own. The doctor said I'd better adopt. We spent two of our first four years of marriage living and teaching in East Africa, and adopting a child while we were there would have been difficult if not impossible. But during that time I decided I was ready for kids. As soon as we returned to New York City, we applied to an adoption agency, which approved us. It couldn't very well have turned us down since it was the same agency from which my sister and I had been adopted. In the next thirty-six months we adopted two infant boys and accidentally had a biologi-