There has been a very tragic story going on in northern Wisconsin. In a small town called Crandon, where I spent some time at my great-grandparents cottage, an off-duty police officer shot and killed six people. He was then killed by fellow officers. Their funerals have been taking place all week. The gunman was laid to rest today.

On the surface this may seem unrelated to foster care and adoption, but it has hit me like a sledgehammer. I received a call from Sammy’s foster mom yesterday and Sammy is back in jail. It’s a complicated story, but the jail time is justified.

One of the parts of the story in Crandon is that some people are offering words of sympathy and condolences to the gunman’s family. I looked at my husband and I said “that could be us someday” referring to the gunman’s family.

If you would have asked me when I began my adoption journey if those words would ever cross my lips, I would have told you that you were crazy. I thought that love, structure and a consistent home environment would be enough to “heal” Sammy. I couldn’t have been more wrong. My son is severely mentally ill. While I will hope and pray that I will never be in the position that the gunman’s family is in, there is the very real possibility that I may be someday.

In a separate news story, there was a report of some parents who are very upset with a school district in Portland, Maine because they are giving birth control to middle schoolers. A horrible thought, but their statistics are even more horrible. In the past four years, seventeen middle schoolers have become pregnant. That makes me sick on so many different levels. My husband spouted off something to the effect of parents needing to buckle down on controlling their kids. My statement again was “that could be us someday.” Sammy is in high school, so we won’t deal with a middle school pregnancy, but there is the potential that a pregnancy could come much earlier than it should.

With the talks that I have had with Sammy I think (and pray) that he’s not having sex yet, but given the poor choices he’s been making, I can’t be sure. Of course, in order for there to be a pregnancy a girl would have to be interested in him, and he doesn’t keep friends for very long, much less a girlfriend.

When you give birth to a child there is no guarantee that you will live a trouble free life, but with the number of children entering foster care who have fetal alcohol issues, we may be seeing more of these types of reports. The cause and effect thinking just doesn’t exist. We live in a time when mothers can do unthinkable things to their children before they ever exit the womb. What a scary thought.

News articles on Crandon shooting

Maine birth control article

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