So we've adopted the term BLT (Bill, Larry & Torrey) from Jennifer (one of the crazy women of the north - you all know who you are) to ease conversations with friends and family. It's faster to say and grows on you with use. I wanted to cover where each of us are in the process of learning to parent since it's a frequent question asked.
Bill is being possessed and having flashbacks. He finds himself being exactly like his parents which horrifies him. He was imprinted with the desire to control and moderate from his own childhood and anyone who's met Tre can tell you he and control are distant relations at best. He's struggling with separating his experience of childhood from how he wants to parent now. There are a lot of moments right now where they get locked in a struggle to decide who's going to make the oatmeal as an example. He's recommitted himself to laying his parents to rest and being a more present parent. But before I leave you with the impression that Bill is seeking Tre's ultimate submission to his will, I wanted to share that he is so enthralled with Tre as a tiny person. They spend time building things that whir and buzz (children and art) across the living room floor. Tre often uses Bill as a portable bed, climbing onto his belly and hanging out together. There is no doubt that he is Bill's son.
Larry is doing great overall, ironically he has more conflict with us right now over Tre than with Tre himself. Larry had a very harsh and restrictive experience of fathers in particular his step-father so he is extremely sensitive to any notion of the Boy having a foot on his neck. He wants Tre to run feral it seems at time rather than risk squashing his free spirit and independent nature. As the person who frequently cleans up after Tre I find the idea less than appealing. We spend time reassuring Larry that our choices to limit Tre's behaviors are more for his good than our benefit to which Larry cautiously agrees. Other than that one sticky issue (those of you familiar with Larry and his "lants" know exactly what we're talking about) his is also deep in the throes of fatherhood like Bill. He and Tre are often wrestling, laughing, and screaming their joy to the ceiling to my counter cry of "Inside voices!". He has a clear and present bond with the Boy that is mutual.
Now for me, have no fear I have no intention of leaving myself untouched in this editorial of our parenting. When we first got Tre I had two major bouts of crazy (ask Bill or Larry, they may mention more but they lie..............really they do) centered around him. First was my fear/worry/waking nightmare if you will of being responsible for raising an "oreo". That the best I could do was raise him Queer when in all likelihood he would be straight. I obsessed about if he was tough enough and were we helping him be ready for racism in the larger world. I was certain he was going to find fault with his non-black father for cutting him off from a core part of who he was. Yes I knew he was three but still all I could do was flash forward to high school and life beyond. So after making myself miserable and the rest of the adult population in the house as well, I sort of snapped but in a good way. I would do what I could for Tre knowing it would be incomplete since I wasn't black. Raising his with a Queer culture would serve him in facing prejudice when he got older, we Queers have faced our share of violence, ugly words, and hatred through the years so our community had the resources to deal with those sorts of things. Queer is what we had so Queer is what he'll get. I wanted to love Tre and be there with him so it would have to do and it helped. The twisting spinning pulsing walls faded and I was better.
The second was the fact he was a concurrent placement from the county. For those of you unfamiliar with the term I will elaborate. In a concurrent placement the county is 90% to 95% sure that reunification will not happen (for numerous and sundry reasons) and they want to get a head start on getting the child to a more permanent placement sooner to cut down on the number of placements/disruptions they could experience. So an adoptive family has a better chance of being matched sooner by opting to be a concurrent placement family but they run the risk of the child going back to their birth family despite the odds. We had all talked about it and decided to go forward as a concurrent placement family. That in itself was a little scary but it felt manageable and we knew the whole process of adopting through the county was risky with our unconventional relationship.
So along came Tre who was badly beaten by his relatives (like me), had numerous scars at a young age (like me), who's extended family didn't want him (like me), who was suffering from a lack of prenatal care (like me), who had already been rejected by other adoptive families (like me) and who seemed destined to remain in the system till he aged out (again like me). The second crazy time for me stemmed directly from these facts. I felt an immediate connection to this child, while our lives differed on several points I knew enough of his story to see the life that was out there for him. We hadn't even finished the Telling (that's what they call the meeting you have where they give you all the details of the child's life) and I knew my answer. To their credit, Bill and Larry knew the answer as well.
Tre came home and then I wrestled with the whole "non-black parent" thing. I dealt with that and then to my dawning horror I realized perhaps for the first time that he might not stay with us. That he could go back to his parents. Yes I know they explained it to us and in fact I had just explained it to you but they forgot to mention that the child could be a person so achingly familiar to you that everything in you says bond! So I freaked out a little more as any good gay man can. I spent moments in my head that looked like this.
"Ok, he's doing great lets praise him and let him know I care."
"Too much he could go away!"
"Ok, he wants to read and cuddle, great signs - he's attaching."
"Stay distant he could go away!"
So you get the drift. I was yo-yoing back and forth between trying to stay distant but be with Tre and address his needs. I watched in in silence as Bill and Larry threw themselves into the whole thing, screaming in my head about how terrible it was going to be when and if Tre had to leave us. As before I snapped in that good way. Tre was here for now and that's what mattered. I would be what he needed in the moment and go from there.
So now I feel saner and I adore the Boy. He is an essential part of our family and we are blessed each day when he sees us and says "Hi!". He knows we're his daddies and he's our son.
