Possible vs. Impossible
Every person has ideas of what should or shouldn’t be. Those ideas are usually predicated on personal preferences with the assumption that others feel the same way. In many situations, others may not feel the same way at all.
We hear a lot about how terrible it is for children to be separated from parents. (It is interesting that often the talk is about separation from mothers with no mention of the fathers!) The news of what is happening at the border of our country has reminded me of the work my husband, Keith, and I did on some of our American Indian reservations when we worked in dormitories where children were staying while being educated.
It was common practice on our Indian reservations to have boarding schools. At Lukachukai, AZ, on the Navajo reservation, children were allowed to be checked out one time each month. Parents could visit them at any time and it was common to see horse-drawn wagons come to campus bringing parents to visit. They would bring melons, apples, candy, etc. and the children had big smiles when they came. It was also common for parents to bring us their children and hand them to us. On one occasion I was kicked until I had bruises on me as my glasses flew to the ground. I hurt inside as I saw the pain in the faces of her non-English speaking parents and sensed the little girl’s fear.
What was the alternative to this program? There was no electricity on the reservation. Hogans were scattered miles apart. If the boarding schools were not there, the children would have no education and they would be left at home sleeping on lice-infested sheepskins. By staying in the dorms, the children had clean clothes, good food, and an education. A public health doctor came one time each week with a public health nurse to care for our sick children. Each Saturday morning was spent on the lice problem. Instructional Aides and the children, themselves, would work on picking nits from the heads of the children. Those who came in with impetigo were soon healed. By the time the lice and major problems were near conquered, the parents would come for the monthly checkout. The kids would go home and come back with lice and the procedure would start all over.
A few years after we had transferred to other places, electricity came to parts of the reservation. The government built a beautiful high school in the central part of the reservation. Many felt this would be a wonderful thing to keep the teenagers from having to go to off-reservation schools away from families. After the first year of the school operation, parents began complaining that the teens ate too much and would not obey the parents. Many were wanting their children to go back to the off-reservation schools!
When my husband and I adopted our two older boys, the social worker told us, “You know, in some cases it takes more love to give up a child than to keep it.” She was saying that parents who were thinking of the best for their children would be willing to give them up for their own good. That is what we had observed many times as parents had brought their children to us and placed them in our care. They wanted an education for their children and things for them that they could not provide.
Things are not always as they seem. Sometimes we have to accept less than what we would consider the ideal for a better outcome. Just as Keith and I took our jobs very seriously to provide the best for the children, I feel confident that there are many doing the same at our border. In one picture I saw cartons of milk. No doubt the children are getting better nutrition than what they have previously gotten. As a mother of four, I would have to say that if I had traveled the great distance the people traveled, I might welcome someone taking my children and caring for them a short period of time to give them what they needed. This may be part of the consideration when children are sent to summer camp or to their grandparents for a time.
Our people are probably doing the best they possibly can in a situation where the ideal is impossible!