Retarded Child Returned to Agency; Abused Girl Sent Away for Counseling : Adoption’s Other Side: 2 Stories of Children, Families That Didn’t Fit

The Rev. Bob Chandler looks forward to the day when his adopted daughter can live with his family again. Rhonda Stanton looks forward to the day her adopted daughter can live with someone else.

Their stories differ, but both tell of a dark side of adoption:

There is, on the one hand, “the excitement of adopting, falling in love with a child, wanting the child desperately and deeply, and going through the grief of learning you’re not going to have the child you dreamed about,” Chandler said.

Then there is the case of Dan and Rhonda Stanton, who returned 2 1/2-year-old Stacey to the adoption agency after learning her brain had ceased developing. Stacey lives with a foster family, but a judge has ruled the Stantons cannot sever their parental ties.

Sent Away for Counseling

Bob and Cherry Chandler sent their daughter, a young teen-ager, away for counseling for sexual abuse she suffered before adoption--abuse they blame for breaking apart the family. They and five other sets of adoptive parents are suing the state for failing to disclose the extent of their children’s pre-adoption abuse.

“Lack of information can destabilize an adoption that would have otherwise been successful,” said Richard Barth, associate professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Social Welfare.

Barth and an associate followed 1,000 adoptive families from 1980 to 1984 and found that the less information families had about their children, the likelier were such problems as runaways, disobedience or physical attacks.

Ten percent to 15% of adoptions are stopped before they are finalized and “a smaller minority” are dissolved, according to Jeff Rosenberg, director of public policy for the National Committee for Adoption, a Washington-based, nonprofit group of adoption agencies, parents, children and experts.

The Stantons, who have been married 11 years, explored adoption after exhausting all means of having their own child. Their disappointment turned to excitement when they learned in 1985 that the private adoption agency Hope Cottage was seeking 50 adoptive couples.

‘She Was Our Baby’

In October, 1986, 3-week-old Stacey came to their suburban Dallas home.

“The moment she was placed in our arms, she was our baby,” said Stanton, 39, an insurance agent. But Stacey’s mental development stopped at four to six months, said Rhonda Stanton. “She never learned to wave bye-bye, play patty-cake. Little Stacey never tuned in.”

By the time tests revealed Stacey would never develop, the Stantons had adopted her. Stacey went back to Hope Cottage last June, but Rhonda Stanton says emphatically: “We didn’t return her, we gave her up.”

Last July they asked Dallas Family Court Judge Hal Gaither to declare the child not theirs. In February, they told Gaither they were not equipped to raise a severely retarded child.

“I have a deep compassion for special children, but I don’t have the emotional makeup to teach them,” said Rhonda Stanton, 41, a former elementary schoolteacher.

Can’t Return Child

“Where do you draw the line?” Gaither asked recently. “Do you allow the adoption agency to come back and pick up kids because they cry at night or if it has blue eyes and you wanted green eyes? No. You can’t turn a child back in.”

Gaither terminated the Stantons’ visitation rights and relieved them of financial responsibility, but refused to dissolve their parental rights in case the adoption agency later had its own financial or business problems. “What if . . . an adoption agency agrees to take a child back into custody . . . and they go bankrupt or a new regime comes in and won’t honor the contract, now where is the kid?” he asked.

The Stantons say they endured painful criticism from friends and judgment by strangers because of their highly publicized case.

“People said they could never give up their child, but they were thinking of their little normal children,” Rhonda Stanton said. “I know even as I try to explain, they can’t realize the pain. We literally cried from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed.”

Chandler, minister of Highlands Christian Church in Dallas, says he can understand. The first day his new daughter walked into their home, she picked up markers and drew all over the carpet. Later, she began lying and stealing. One day she threatened to kill the Chandlers’ two biological sons.

A Rage in Her Face

“Kids threaten,” Chandler said. “But there was a look in her eye, a rage in her face that was horrifying.”

Chandler, who decided to adopt because it was a Christian thing to do, admits that as he tried to cope with his daughter’s violent behavior he thought about taking her back to the Texas Department of Human Services.

After many visits with counselors, the Chandlers finally found a Colorado psychiatrist who said the girl’s behavior was the result of sexual abuse. She has been undergoing treatment at the Colorado clinic since January; the Chandlers don’t know when she will be able to come home.

The Human Services Department revealed in a three-page summary of the girl’s case that she had been abused, but not the extent of her mistreatment, Chandler said. “The information we received was very, very general.”

With their lawsuit, the Chandlers and five other families hope to force the state to give prospective parents more background about adoptable children.

Ruled Against Parents

A federal judge has ruled against the parents, saying they have no constitutional right to the information they seek. Their appeal is pending before the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Health services officials have declined to talk specifically about the Chandler case while it is pending, but spokeswoman Diane Scott said the agency has always told parents what type of home a child came from and how the child came into custody of the agency, as required by the Texas Family Code.

The department must provide information on the child’s health, social, educational and genetic history, but can summarize that background.

Caseworkers also discuss any medical or psychological treatment the child has undergone, Scott said. “We also encourage the families to talk with the child’s physician or therapist to understand the implications of the child’s condition and need for treatment.”

The Texas Senate has passed a bill that would give parents the right to see copies of all the children’s records, edited to protect birth parents. Adopted children would be able to see the documents at adulthood.