HELPLESS : adoption

How to stem the tide? My daughter’s birth mom agrees with me that she probably has ADHD. I’ve seen what undiagnosed ADHD does even to professionals with degrees. There’s a case I know of where the manager of a Black female was pretty sure she has ADHD. But the HR department said it wasn’t anybody’s place to ask her to be assessed . This young lady had already been moved from a job she was not performing well. And now, she was going to be moved yet again to smother lower paying role.

We know more who immediately get fired. Even those who are diagnosed and whose bosses know. How much more my child’s birth mom who’s in the kind of job that accepts people who don’t have degrees. Job security is reduced. Have a worker who can’t pass the written part of a menu exam and it’s a mess. It’s a set up for someone with undiagnosed ADHD to fail. Learning ingredients and being tested. No concessions. No checking if she even needs to know the ingredients or if she can’t call a different waiter to do that part if a customer asks. Or give her time to learn the ingredients as time goes by. But nope, she failed the written part and was only given a part time contract. Not the full time job she’d hoped for. Waitressing. And given the staff share tips, they don’t get to keep their own tips, the waiter who might recite the ingredients on her behalf gets some of her tip anyway. Imagine her being a phenomenal waitress, bubbly, but she gets the same tip as a surly waiter who might have not received any tips. And I know she would get tips. At her previous job, customers went out their way to praise her. I even saw an email sent to her manager about her. She is definitely getting tips on the few days she’s working. Pity she’s sharing them. But that’s how that business works. Just sad that there’s no protection for her. It’s not like she could afford any meds for the ADHD anyway. She has to pay for the baby’s nanny and their food clothing…

Helpless.

We had tried to stop the cycle. Birth mom warned and warned her daughter about premarital intercourse. Offered to go with her to a clinic if she thought she’d want to have sex before she’d studied at university. Then we found out the teen daughter had a baby. And there is – yet again- an absent father. Just like with birth mom’s case except for the middle child, my daughter. He is present. Just unemployable. Sad that those with jobs aren’t taking care of their children. And so, it’s all on her. And now she has a grandchild too. All on a waiter’s part time wages.

I might have typed all this when I first mentioned birth sister had a baby. But at that point I didn’t know the potential dad would be absent. I didn’t know all of this would be on birth mom’s shoulders. Even if she wasn’t already clinically depressed and on anti- depressants, this whole situation would have caused depression.

And so, despite our hopes, the cycle has passed onto the daughter. Unplanned baby. No baby daddy present. No formal post high school education (yet.)

I’m sad. So, so sad. We can’t change anything from the outside no matter how high our hopes are. And I mention this because I realise that I’m relieved I never did become a child psychologist. If the child is depressed because of abuse, I can’t help them. If a child is depressed because the mom favours a different child and mistreats them, I can’t fix that. I can’t change the situation. Teaching resilience and strength isn’t what I wanted. I wanted to change a child’s world for the better. But there are too many forces out including the there that prevent that from happening. Including the child herself.

Helpless.