The Perfect Child

by Lucinda Berry

Why did the universe allow people who hurt kids to have them? Why couldn’t it give them to people like me, who wanted them?

It gave us an opportunity to miss each other, and sometimes you needed that in a relationship even when you loved each other as much as we did.

“Hi,” she said hesitantly. “Are you going to fix me?” I nodded. “I am, sweetheart. I promise.”

It never crossed anyone’s mind that someone else might be in trouble. I wished it would’ve. Maybe then things would’ve ended differently.”

“He was fully aware of her potential difficulties and problems. He just didn’t care.” It was what I loved the most about him. But it was also what had gotten him into the most trouble.

We were sprawled out on the living room floor coloring when she suddenly started screaming. They were angry, violent screams. Not scared screams—rage screams. There were no tears. She wouldn’t let us get near her. Every time we inched closer, she screamed louder.

it’s going to take a long time for the psychological and emotional healing to happen. That part isn’t going to start until she’s settled in a more permanent home. Even if she’s not consciously aware of it, at some level, she still doesn’t feel safe. No kid feels safe when they don’t have a home.”

Dysfunctional parenting usually spanned generations, and most of the time, the family member didn’t do any better than the parents.

“Oh, hell no. That ain’t what she was like. She never cried. She just stayed woke. Like I said. She just laid there staring at the ceiling. She didn’t want nuthin’ to do with me. Didn’t even care I was her grandma. How you s’pposed to care about a baby who don’t care nuthin’ for you?”

“Parenting a traumatized child is horribly difficult. Most of them suffer from severe attachment issues, and mothers are usually the targets of their rage. It can get pretty awful.”

Piper had always told us it took a year to adjust, and she had been right. It had been almost nine months since we’d become Janie’s parents, and even though it didn’t look anything like we’d planned, we were reaching a new normal.

“She said she wanted to make Elodie cry. When I asked her why she wanted to make her cry, she said that she likes to see what people look like when they cry.”

“Her jealousy disappeared almost right away because she had something special to take care of that was all hers. I think it really might help Janie if we got her a pet. What do you think?”

NO. do NOT get her a pet PLEASE. DO. NOT.

But in kids with reactive attachment disorder, it goes much deeper than that. Sometimes they’re unable to form any sort of connection with another human being. They have problems with empathy, so we see them do things like hurting other children or animals, just like you’ve been describing. At times, they don’t seem like they have a conscience. One of the most common characteristics we hear from parents whose children have reactive attachment disorder is how charming and delightful their children are in public.”

There had to be treatment. There just had to be. She was too young to be broken for life. Nobody was that damaged. I refused to believe that.

well…

I fell in love with my baby boy instantly, marveling at his perfection and that he’d lived inside me for so long. My feelings stemmed from the deepest parts of me. He wasn’t a stranger in my arms—it was like a missing piece of myself had been returned.

We’d failed all of them. Christopher was never going to be the same again after he heard this. He had to believe that children were born good and pure, that no child was beyond repair, in order for his world to make sense. This would shatter his core belief.

Unlike Christopher, I knew there were children who were too damaged to be fixed. It was an awful fact of life and my job, but that didn’t make it any less true. You couldn’t fix what Janie had, but he would spend his life trying. That much I knew for sure, and he would do it alone unless I was there for him.