Foundation For Large Families
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Alpine family is the world in itself
By Carrie Sheffield
Monday, November 03, 2003
Deseret Morning News,
Smiling brood includes 10 adopted from all over globe
ALPINE — Holly and Greg Richardson's home is a miniature global community. The Alpine couple are parents to 14 children — four biological and 10 adopted — from places such as Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Romania and Russia
"It's kind of fun," Holly Richardson said. "You get used to it, so it's not a big deal."
Many of their brood, who range in age from 3 to 16 years, have disabilities. One of their sons, Kerry, a cheerful 5-year-old from Kazakhstan, crawls around with a bright pink cast on his club foot.
On his face is a dimpled smile. He hadn't received any medical attention for his foot and other ailments before he met the Richardsons.
"I gave birth to a child with disabilities, and we realized it wasn't that hard to take care of them," Holly Richardson said. "So now we seek out children with disabilities."
The Richardsons belong to a Yahoo e-mail group set up to discuss international adoption issues from an LDS perspective. She and nearly 100 other parents and children met recently at an LDS church in Alpine.
Families who had been sending e-mails to each other since early 2001 met in person for the first time.
Some families came to the Utah County meeting from as far away as Logan. Their children came from as far away as Vietnam, the Marshall Islands, India, Guatemala, China and Samoa.
"It's great to finally meet people who I've only known electronically," said Dellory Matthews, who adopted two girls from Russia.
Families ate lunch and played games. Children ran around the church gymnasium while parents talked about adoption.
There's the spiritual aspect: "Most of us have all felt a really spiritual pull that there are kids out there who need us," Holly Richardson said.
The immigration issues: working with the federal Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
There are the post-adoption considerations: language acquisition, schooling, attachment disorder and tax credits.
Matthews, who has worked for adoption agencies overseas and in the United States, said adoption can be costly and time-consuming. She estimated the average international adoption can take six to 18 months because of required security clearances, political instability in other countries and paperwork.
Costs often soar to $20,000. Some couples can qualify for up to $10,000 in federal tax credits, and many employers offer assistance for families who choose to adopt. Parents also draw on resources from other federal grants and medical funds from charitable organizations.
Matthews said many children who are adopted from other countries face squalid conditions. "The chances of having any meaningful kind of future is almost nothing," she said.
Often, Matthews said, people make insensitive comments about internationally adopted children without realizing what they're saying.
"People will say, 'Are they really your kids?' and I'll say, 'No, they're unreal,' " she said.
She said her daughters sometimes hide the fact that they're from Russia from their peers because they don't want to be different. Matthews hopes to erase this by helping her daughters remember their culture and heritage.
"We don't want there to ever be a stigma associated with adopting internationally," she said. "It's OK to be adopted by a family of a different ethnicity. Families can be made many different ways."
The Richardson family appears to function as well, if not better, than most American families a quarter its size. And the matriarch says the family is what brings true satisfaction.
"The adoption process is always frustrating," said Holly Richardson. "It's never as smooth as you want it to be. But it's always worth it — just like labor. You look back and it's all worth it."
By Carrie Sheffield
Visitors to our site since November 16, 2003.
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