Transcript of CS#101: Dr. Ray Guarendi Adoption

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Ray Guarendi about adoption. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

Adoption- Choosing It, Living It, Loving It at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1004817/Adoption-Choosing-It-Living-It-Loving-It/

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Chris Cash: Welcome to Catholic Spotlight. This is the Catholic Spotlight, the show where we talk about what’s new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. I’m your host Chris Cash director of E-Commerce for catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.

And today in this Spotlight, we have Dr. Ray Guarendi. We’re going to talking a little about Adoption: Choosing it, Living and Loving it. Welcome, Dr. Ray.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Thanks Chris, thank you for having me on.

Chris Cash: Now, this is kind of a – it got to be a fun situation for you, you probably are – used to be on the other side of this microphone.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: It as easy, I get to talk about myself.

Chris Cash: Oh, well and there you go, there you go. ‘Cause usually you are talking about everyone else’s problem. Because adoption not being a problem, but so, tell us a little bit about what got you started in the adoption process for – now you have 10 children who you’ve adopted, what got you – of course your wife says 11, right?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes. And her 11th is her most difficult.

Chris Cash: Absolutely. But what got the two of you started in the wonderful field of adoption?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Like most folks Chris, we couldn’t biologically conceive. We both wanted a family. My wife wanted a large family, I didn’t know. At that point, I was kind of out the church, so the whole idea of accepting children as gifts from god never really entered my radar. My attitude was well maybe we can adopt one, possibly two if we’re lucky. My wife said, “Let’s try.” Fortunately, we attempted the adoption arena. At that time it was 22 years ago and I would say it was quite a bit of little easier to adopt then locally. There were still birth mothers as a group giving up children for adoptions. The numbers are less now, as more birth moms are probably choosing to keep their babies.

We adopted my son through a great sense of God’s good fortune, and we figured that’s it. Okay, we got a kid, ah, now in the adoption world you don’t get more than that too often, I got one I’m grateful for that. We said, we ever get a chance for two, we can try. We got on the adoption list and it just so happened that the birth mom said, “I sure would like my baby to have a big brother. I always wanted a big brother growing up. We were the only people on the list with an older boy; he was one and a half at the time. And so, we were placed one girl, so we had a boy and girl, we figured oh, well that’s it done. Okay, not a problem we got one boy one girl jeez. We couldn’t be more fortunate. Just as an impulse we told the local adoption agency, if you have a child that’s difficult to place call us, we’re open. My third child Sera was born by racial. She was supposed to have been born white, but she was born by racial, which at that time made her much, much harder to place. They called us that we had a child for you. At that point, we had three. We figure we had hit the adoption lotto, plenty of kids.

Well, Chris, it’s like eating potato chips. You always think you can eat one more, we just kept eating, we kept eating open. The secret to adoption that many children, if you cannot care about the color, you can’t necessarily care about the age and you can’t care about things like drug exposure, more prenatal care, maybe some mild learning difficulties, those kinds of things. So, worked all the way up to 10 by the grace of God, we stopped only because I think we got too old. I like it, I do.

Chris Cash: That’s right. And well, she’s got more kids than you.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes, yes, she’s more tired.

Chris Cash: Well, so, now, what’s the age range you’re children currently?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: At one point, we had 10 children under the age of 12, so right now my old is 22, my youngest is 9. Five boys, five estrogen-American.

Chris Cash: Well, I am only half the family that you are so…

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes, but hey, one thing you have…

Chris Cash: But I am about to *** [05:24] up.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: See there you go. Once you get past 5 or 6 kids, you can use the same parole officers for the younger kids. It makes it a lot easier.

Chris Cash: All right, well, so now, a lot of people who are looking at adopting they have a lot of misconceptions about     it. Can you talk to us about what are some of the major misconceptions about getting into adoption?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Chris, there are a lot of people who would be willing to adopt, who would actually want to do it, but they don’t get over what I call the adoption inertia. In other words, they have a lot of anxieties, fears and worries about what’s going to happen. Let me give you some of the common ones. For example, what if birth mom changes her mind, what if a year and a half later she comes back through the courts and she says, I want my child back, even though the media has a few high profile cases that have worked out like that in fact that is very rare, the courts are scrupulous about making sure that birth moms rights are terminated properly, legally and this almost never happens. It’s not a worry; it’s almost like getting struck by the lighting, not a worry. Many parents will say what about drug exposure, what about those kids whose birth moms used crack cocaine or smoke marijuana. Wouldn’t that mess the kid up? Not necessarily, most of the research says that God designed the womb to be a pretty protected place and by and large, the cocaine scare, the crack kid scare was just that. It was a scare.

Many of my children have been drug exposed. For the most parts, they do quite well, academically and in other ways. I have my older son is in bio-medical engineering, my oldest daughter graduated college at age 20. My third daughter went to college at age 15. So, for whatever drug exposure they had, they certainly seemed none the worse severe. Another common misconception and this is voiced to the *wrong* [07:51] people by the shrinks, all adopted kids have this aching need to find their birth parents. Escaping home in their psyches, it has to be filled by seeking out birth parents, by calling and finding birth moms, and they are going to hold on to this until they are 16, 18, 22 and then they’re going to do it. In fact, Chris, do you know the percentage of adopted children who seek out birth parents?

Chris Cash: I know, I know.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: It’s under 10 percent. The vast majority of adopted kids view mom and dad as their adopted mom and dad in the words of my son he said, I can’t imagine being in any other family. This is my family. These are my parents. I tell adoptive parents all the time. You are mom and dad, biologically you didn’t give birth to that child, but at the same time biologically you are not related to your spouse either. And for most of you, your spouse is the person you love more than anybody in the whole world. I use that reason with my son, aged 14. He came to me and said, “Dad, would you love me more if well, dad you know.” And I said, “If you mean you were born to us.” He said, “Yes, that’s it.’” I said, “Andrew, who do I love more than anybody in the whole world?” He said, “Your ex-girlfriend Tiffany.” I said, “No, no, not anymore.” He goes oh. And I said that mom and he said, “You’re not related to mom?” I said, “No, I’m not.” And that satisfied him. He was totally at ease with that.

There’s another common misconception and another one would be that personalities established by the age of five or six, so that if you adopt a little five or six year old kid, you’re kind of stuck. But that kid is who is and there is nothing you can do about it. Well, that’s crazy, because first of all, that’s a whole psychological theory and second of all that’s by telling a Holy Spirit, well you know I’d like you to work some grace in me and transform who I am, but it didn’t really get to me before I was eight or nine. So, we can’t do much Holy Spirit. Now, that’s as best as eight and nine *** [10:22] grace. Those are some of the more common misconceptions.

Chris Cash: Yes, and honestly I can speak to misconception on the birth parents. I have a cousin who was adopted out and he came back seeking grandma, but really had no desire at all to be in contact with mom or dad because he had heard in some round about ways the issues that existed with mom and dad and didn’t want to be part of that, so…

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes. And that’s not an uncommon scenario. A lot of times kids are taken from birth parents and go in – they go into a – not a facility but an agency, the agency has custody, so its no longer a matter of birth parent having custody and relinquishing it. The child is now placed with the agency, and the agency makes the placement. And sometimes the birth parents rather tragically have a very difficult history, very difficult life situation that the child does not wish to immerse himself back in that.

Chris Cash: Yes. But you know at least in our family luckily the rest of the family has now at least got to know our cousin, and he has turned out quite well.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: So, they adopted at the infancy?

Chris Cash: I believe so, I believe so. He was adopted before I was born, so. I don’t know a whole lot about the situation, but I do know him now.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes.

Chris Cash: Anyway, back to we were talking about the fears and misconceptions people have, so I think you’ve pretty much covered that. You know it’s probably a good time for us to take a short break to hear from our sponsor. So, we’re going to do that and when we come back, we will be speaking more with Dr. Ray Guarendi about Adoption: Choosing, Living it and Loving it. This is the Catholic Spotlight.

[Break]

Chris Cash: And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight with Dr. Ray Guarendi talking about adoption: Choosing, Loving it and Living it. Now, although I’ve butchered the title now, not quite but out of order a little bit. Its Choosing, Living it and Loving it. So, Dr. Ray, what was it that made you decide to write this book?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Chris, I get so many questions from people who want to adopt, but who have worries on adoption. A friend of mine called it the fear factor. She says, “These are people who would adopt. These are good Christian folks who want to take care of the widows and the orphans, like St. James says, but are reluctant for any number of reasons.” They are afraid their kids won’t accept the child, they are afraid their parents won’t accept the child; they are afraid of adopting a bi-racial or black kid because of racial issues. They are just stocked and I thought I’ve got to lay the risk some of these concerns, some of these worries and fears, so that the people who have a heart to adopt will adopt. Beyond that, after people adopt there are certain struggles that they could have. For example, its not unusual for parents to adopt an older child one who has had a rough history, one who is four, five, six years old and already has some patterns in place. For that parent to have to work harder at this one or harder at supervision or harder at socializing and moralizing the child. And the parent wonders you know am I failing, what’s going on here, why is there such a struggle? I attempt to give them good answers regarding that, how they could stand stronger, how they could first appear, how they could be a better parent with this kid who maybe difficult? I talk about what do you do when the child has questions about his adoption? How do you do the quote unquote, adoption talk so to speak? I try to tackle those things Chris, both before and after adoption that people have honest, heartfelt struggles with. And I want to answer them in a no nonsense, non-psychobabble way. I want to get his past some of the junk that’s out there, psychologically speaking, and all parents to see the kind of adoptive parents that they can be.

Chris Cash: Now, I am guessing that your family is probably is very, very colorful ethnically. How has that had an effect on your family?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes. We got three white, two Hispanic, two bi-racial and three black. Chris, I can emphasize, we have seen very, very little, virtually non-existent in the way of prejudice, in the way of this treatment. We believe and it’s been my experience that our society is far, far more color bind than people would believe. My son Peter is black, he’s 12 years old. We adopted him at first; he was born two months premature. The lawyer told us that if we did not adopt him, she only had one other option that was a family in Washington State. This was a lawyer who specializes in adoption, so he had a lot of family. My son Peter couldn’t be more my son than he is, the only difference between Peter and I is that the pigment in his skin is slightly darker than the pigment in my skin. I am Italian, so I am a little on the dark side. So, that’s it. And to look at my son Peter and somehow can talk this racial issue, this racial divide, racial identity on the basis of something so stupid, as skin color is inane in the deeper sense of the word. So, we’ve found almost no complications, at least within our family or from others in our social circle regarding skin color.

Now, that maybe some matter of issues when the kids are older and they have a date and pursue a broader social circle. But for right now, I will tell you my children’s identity is shared with me.

Chris Cash: So, what kind of advice would you give somebody who was actively considering adoption?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: I would tell them you got to do several things, you got to decide whether you want to go foreign or local. Foreign adoptions have their pluses and minuses, local has pluses and minuses, you got to decide which direction you want to go. You got to realize that you will love his child pretty much as you would love a biological child. No question about that. This is your kid, if you have a worry and some people do have this worry. They – I’m not sure I would love ‘em like I should, you will. You may struggle with some of the behavior if you adopt an older kid, that’s for sure. But in terms of adopting a child, especially an infant, you will bond very quickly.

I would say, don’t let money stop you; the government will give a $10000 tax credit for adoption, which can help to pay a lot of the costs, especially locally. If you go overseas, you can get up more to 30, 40, 50 grand’s, but locally, especially…

Chris Cash: It depends on if you have to pay the mob bribes.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Well, yes, that’s it. If especially…

Chris Cash: My – I have cousins or my wife has cousins who adopted from the Ukraine and a big part of the fee was the mob bribes that you had to pay to get the child.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes, there is definitely that whole underground over there. But locally, for example Chris, if you would adopt through an agency, especially a public agency, there is no charge at all. You won’t pay anything. All right, if you go to children services or state adoption agency and you attempt to adopt a five year old – a two year old let say, you won’t pay anything. So, don’t let money stop you. I would also say that you may find you like doing it and like we did, we felt we’re going to adopt a couple and we ended up adopting ten, because we just enjoyed the family life and we just enjoyed the kids so much. I use this *** [21:05]. If you talk to someone who does not have any children and they say, well, I talked it over with my spouse and really I just think that we’re more content without children. Ah, children don’t appeal to me, I look at other people’s children and they don’t move me. I’m not really interested in kids. You know too often when that happens, you say yes, but you don’t understand when you have that child, that will be a completely different thing. You will underestimate how this child just calls underneath your heart and emotionally connect with you. It’s the same with adoption.

Many parents wonder, can I adopt? What happens if I adopt and then emotionally I don’t connect? I tell them well, have you talked to friends who have said that about biologically conceiving? Yes. What do you tell them? Well, I tell them it really doesn’t, it really doesn’t effects you emotionally until you have the child, then you realize what it’s emotionally all about. I said exactly. And there’s parallel to that to adoption.

Chris Cash: And you know one other kind of misconception I think that just came to my head that we might want to talk briefly about is the misconception that, all adoptive children are from a troubled background of some sort. You know especially when you are looking at say somewhat older children, sometimes it’s been just a real family tragedy that’s put them into the adoptive arena?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: That’s exactly right Chris. It varies. You can have children for example who are older who are in a wonderful foster home, they are well disciplined, they are well socialized, pleasant kids. And even if you adopt them at seven, eight, nine, they are not coming from a troubled background. Like everything else, there is a wide variety of histories, of personalities, of temperaments, of connection if you will across kids. And we adopted four of our children older, two, three, four and four were their ages. And the four olds in fact did not have the best adopted background, but they were also in a decent foster care setting. So, now, they are both 19 and one son talks about wanting to go to the missions and my other daughter works as a preschool teacher. So, you’re absolutely correct, not every adopted kid comes from a troubled background, and even if some of them do, a good solid, stable home can go a long way in smoothing out a lot of history.

Chris Cash: Well, and I am thinking in particular. I went to high school with somebody who within the period of a year, both their mother and their father died and left him orphaned and a younger sister.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Oh, my.

Chris Cash: And you know it is not uncommon for something like that to happen in a situation where our family member is not available to step in and take up the *** [24:35]. Now, this particular time, an uncle was able to step in and take on responsibility for them, but especially in families with more than two kids it can be quite difficult to find somebody within the family who is willing to step up and take on three or four or five kids. You know myself, if my wife and I died, we’ll be in a heap of trouble or kids would trying to keep them together.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Yes, you are absolutely correct, because the higher the number you get of children, the less the number of potential adoptive parents are out there. And it’s absolutely true. And family is usually the first line, but if there is no one in the family the agency will step in and attempt to find placement. I – I am familiar with the superintendent friend of mine who several years ago, he and his wife were in a tragic accident. He was killed and she was placed in a nursing home, they had eight children. And the kids fortunately were adopted by the uncle as you say. But you are absolutely right; it would’ve been very difficult to find a placement maybe for eight kids outside his family. But it can be done and looked like those kids were good kids.

Chris Cash: Well, it’s about time for us to wrap this up. Were there any other things you wanted to share with our listeners before we hit on out?

Dr. Ray Guarendi: If they are interested in the book Chris, they can go to my Website which is drray.com, the book is there. And I tell them, don’t get that book if you’re thinking of adopting which you haven’t yet, because I think it will convince you to do it. And if you have adopted, well, get it, because I think it’ll smooth out some of those many questions people have regarding the adoption and adoption family.

Chris Cash: Well, thank you very much, Dr. Ray for coming on over and sharing with us. For those of you who are our regular listeners, this is show number 101 Wo Hoo. We’re still going strong and please hit on over podcast Alley, leave us a nice vote there to help us get the podcast in front of some other people. Also, leave us some positive reviews over iTunes, it helps us get in front of more people and share the gospel in many, many ways. Everybody, God bless, you have a wonderful day.

Dr. Ray Guarendi: Chris, thank you so much for having me.

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Transcript of Interview with Dr. Ray Guarendi about adoption. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

Adoption- Choosing It, Living It, Loving It at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1004817/Adoption-Choosing-It-Living-It-Loving-It/