** 21st book of 2021: Trauma and Children **
- “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” *
Adoption is a leap of faith of a different order. With biological children, parents have control over many circumstances, especially in-utero and in early childhood. Even if adopted at birth, adopted children face the inevitable trauma that must be processed. When adopting kids that come from the foster system, parental control is further diminished. The Berrys insist that while it’s critical to be as honest as possible with adopted children, they shy away from the specifics of their own stories. Still, their advice hints at the tribulation adoptions, especially later in life can bring: have locking doors in the house to keep kids apart, safety plans to protect kids from potentially violent biological family, and be ready for litigation at any point. Throughout the book their advice veers back towards honesty with the children, empathy for the struggles they face, and drawing clear and consistent boundaries for acceptable behavior. That advice is useful anywhere, not just the trial-by-fire that caring for 23 kids can bring.