Putting a Face to the Issue
Congratulations to the family from Austin, Texas, who won an R Family Vacations cruise this summer in the HRC Family News essay contest. Holly Lindsey, Carol Boeck and their two daughters have been battling the state of Texas over its proposed ban on allowing gays and lesbians to become foster parents. This hardworking family got to relax with other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families on a fun-filled seven-day cruise in July — courtesy of Volvo Cars of North America and the Human Rights Campaign. Read their story.
Our children came to us through the foster care system. Although we love them completely and have repeatedly proven our commitment to them, this does make us exceptional. It means that our family is one made by choice and kept together by hard work and stubbornness.
Our children are all considered kids with special needs because of the harm and neglect done to them by their birth parents. Horrible acts, unimaginable to most people, but the fallout of which we live with every day.
Although they have made great strides toward sanity in the three years they have been with us, our teens still have many issues. We are a therapeutic foster home, which means we take kids with difficult behaviors and intense emotional problems. Despite this, we commit to our kids to be their forever family.
Our first child, who is now 14, tested our commitment to parenting. Our first year together was filled with hours and hours of raging. The hurt and anger that poured from her ripped at our hearts. But we refused to give up on her even though everyone told us to let go. I won’t lie — it was a horrible year. But we survived it and are proud of all the steps — big and little — that she makes every day. She fights to survive and grow.
The same can be said of our 17-year-old. We watched and counseled for a year as she had flashbacks, ripping at her own skin as she slept. More sophisticated than her sister, she did not throw baby tantrums. Instead, she was mean and depressed. However, through our strength as a family (and, again, a lot of hard work), she worked through it and has become the darling precocious young woman she is today.
We are exceptional because we deal with emotional messes that we had nothing to do with creating. People often tell us, my partner and I, that we are saints. This makes us uncomfortable. We parent the way that we do because we have the skill sets and personalities to do so.
However, we live in the state of Texas, and our government is now arguing about whether we are fit to parent any children. We are obviously hurt and disheartened by this — we aren’t saints, but we feel like we have proven ourselves as good parents. We testified against the various gay foster parenting bans the last session. This session, we have done several media interviews.
It scared us to put ourselves out like that because our adoptions are not yet finalized. But we felt that it was necessary to put a face to the issue so it would be harder for people to hate us.
Holly Lindsey, Austin, Texas
Aug. 3, 2005