ROAD TO ADOPTION - HANCOCK FAMILY STORY

(MUSIC PLAYS) 

No Audio: Ron Hancock, Adoptive Parent

Ron Hancock: The reason I decided to adopt, or to start the adoption process, is, I've always wanted kids, but being 40 years old, single, the likelihood of that happening any time soon was not, you know, looking good. If I had been married, by now I would probably had four or five... you know, five or six kids. 

So, when I hit 40, I said, "This is where I might as well go ahead and bite the bullet and do it and start, or, you know, I'm just going to be too old to do it." 

No Audio: Steven, Adopted at age 15

Steven: You know, you always wanted a family, but you never seem to get one. I mean, there's always the little kids. Well, when you start growing up and then you get older and older and older, then your hope starts to fade a little bit. 

Ron Hancock: The lady that was the teacher of the class was like, "Oh, you're a natural for teenagers." I'm like, "No. Don't want a teenager. I want a three, four, five-year old, tops. And I want a little girl." And she kind of flinched a little bit and she said, "Well, not saying it can't happen, but you being a single man, you getting a little girl is going to be slim pickings. So let's try for a little boy." 

So, we started the process with a little boy and she kept saying, "But, Ron," all through the class, "you'd be great with teenagers." I'm like, "I don't want somebody else's headache. Let me get a little, you know, younger one." You know, and the process was getting longer, a little bit longer. So I said, "Okay, we'll go to a nine-year-old." She said, "Okay." 

So they kept looking and finally she said, "How much do you trust me?" I'm like, "That's a loaded question, Sharon. What, you know, what's your point?" She goes, "We have a kid here in the children's home who just turned 15. He was placed in 12 different foster families before he moved into the children's home." That's from two to nine, 12 different families. 

Steven: I don't remember any of them. It was just like go, come, go, come, go, come. 

Ron Hancock: She goes, "We have started a new project called the Heart Gallery that we got involved in. And they take pictures of the kids and they display them in galleries in malls and churches. Just go look at him. That's all I'm asking you to do. Just look at his picture and see, you know, what you think." 

So my sister-in-law went with me and we are going through and, I mean, it was very nice. They had all the kids' portraits professionally done. They were, you know, put in frames. 

So we're looking and we're looking and we're looking for a child named Steven. Towards the back of the gallery, we turn the corner and there was his picture. And as soon as I saw it, me and my sister-in-law both looked at each other and said, "That's the kid." He had that twinkle in his eye like, "I can take on the world." He had that glimmer, you know, he just - "I'm not going to let anything get me down." 

So we looked a little longer and we kept going back to his picture. And, so I said, "Okay, I'll call her and let her know." So, this was a Sunday. So I called her on my way home. And I said, "Sharon, this is the kid I want. Let's make it happen." 

She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yeah. He's mine. He's a Hancock. Look at him. You know, just looking at him, he's a Hancock." So, she said, "Okay. Think about it, you know, at least another day and call me." So Monday morning at 8:30 I call her. I said, "Sharon, this is my kid." So she said, "Okay, we'll do the process, we'll do the matching and we'll give you his information and see if this is really what you want to do." 

So, we went to the match process. Everybody's a great match, and they said... you know, they told me his history. He'd been in the children's home since he was, you know, for nine years. He had been in foster care since he was two, and, you know, he had some rough points about him, too, as well as good. And so I said, "Let's go ahead and do it. Let's, you know, it's a roll of the dice. You're either going to make it or you're not." 

So they present it to him and they said, "Listen, you know, we got somebody interested in you. We're doing a picnic for prospective families to meet the children. Let's... you know, we'll send both of you."  And, come to find out, when I went there that Saturday to do the picnic they, you know, they told me that Steven didn't want to come. 

Steven: The first time that I knew somebody was going to... interested in adopting me was when I went to the aquarium. They told me to come to the aquarium and I'm like, "I don't want to go." And then they said, "There's someone there that wants to meet you." I'm like, "I don't want to go," because I'd been to so many of them things, and they're like adoption picnics. I'd been to like 20 of them already. Never works. And this time it worked. So I was glad I went. 

Ron Hancock: Steven was there, so we got to talk quite a bit. So, again, that was a Saturday. After the picnic, get on the phone with my caseworker, and say, "This is the kid." 

Steven: When we there and we just kind of hung out, and then we talked for a long time, and then, you know, I went back to the campus, and he went back home and I'm thinking that it's not going to work out. And then, you know, a couple of weeks later they said it was happening, so. 

Ron Hancock: She matched... you know, she gave him my information. At first he was kind of hesitant, because he wanted a traditional mother, father. Then he thought, well, you know, they'd talked to him and they told him, you know, "Steven, this is a good match. This is a good guy." So he said, "Okay, I'll meet him. You know, we'll go forward." 

So I learned all of his background. He, you know, he was a rough kid. He was having trouble in school. He was heavily medicated. He was diagnosed bi-polar, and every time they would tell me something about him, I'd just nod my head. And like, you know, and Sharon said, "This doesn't scare you?" I said, "Every bit of it scares me, but it's the roll of the dice." If he was my birth child, if he had these problems, would I have to throw him out? No. All we can do is try. 

And so, we started doing our meetings. We, you know, they do a formal presentation where you meet him. You know, you tell everything. He said, "Sure, I want to go with it." We started doing some visits at the children's home. We started doing some visits away from the children's home, and then by summer, he moved in with me. 

One of the things I stressed to Steven, too: yeah, man, you had a rough life to begin with. Either you can use that as a baggage, or you can put it aside and move on. You have a family who loves you now. You can go forward with your life and be anything you want to be. Or you can carry that baggage around and feel sorry for yourself. 

Has it been a breeze? No.  You know, we've had our ups and downs. There have been times I wanted to kill him. And I know there have been times he wanted to kill me. But he's 15. He's been in the system since he was two. So you have to give a little - or should I say give a lot. 

And you have to be able to not be so rigid. You know, this is what I'm expecting, this is what... you know, you didn't raise these children from birth. So things that you tell them they can do and can't do, they're going to test you. And, trust me, they test you. They know the buttons to push. But you have to learn to roll with the flow. 

Don't sweat the little stuff. Wait for the big stuff to come along. You sit down as adults, especially they're teenagers - they think they're adults - and you set the ground rules. Don't be over stringent and don't be overly strict. As I told Steven, I'm the hangman. I'm going to give you enough rope to hang yourself. 

Steven: You know, it's like you get this much freedom and then when you don't abuse that, then he gave me a little more and then he gave me a little more. 

Ron Hancock: The more I can trust you, the more rope I'll give you. 

Steven: And then, you know, now I pretty much, you know, can do what I want, as long as, you know, I let him know what I'm doing. 

Ron Hancock: You have to go in with an open heart, willing to be flexible and with trust. And a lot of love. And it's well worth it. I recommend... I mean, I personally recommend to adopt nothing but teenagers. They're the ones that need it the most. 

Everybody wants a cute little three-year-old. I wanted a cute little three-year-old, but I don't think I could be any more blessed with my 15-year-old that I have, who's now 17, who calls me "dad." Who introduced me to his friend as "dad." Who supposedly from his friend's perspective, "you had the coolest dad." I mean, to be the coolest dad, that's pretty good. So, the rewards are far better than the worries about it. 

Steven: You have to have trust to make the adoption successful. I mean, you may not trust the person going in, but, you know, you have to earn it. It's a like a two-way street. You each got to trust each other and then it'll work. 

Ron Hancock: Like I said, he was bi-polar, he was on six meds and he was about to be sent to a alternative school program. As of right now he's a senior. He's in National Honor Society; straight A's. He's president of two of the clubs that he belongs to. He works a part-time job. 

He's on no meds. His psychiatrist has released him and re-diagnosed him. He no longer has bi-polar. And he's just a typical 17-year-old kid that drives you crazy at one moment and, you know, makes you stand in awe of him the next.  After 40 years of just being, you know, I'm my mom and dad's son, I'm my brother and sister's little brother, I'm so and so's friend... To be actually called somebody's dad - best feeling in the world.