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Since her family grew to a boisterous ten in September 2004, Debbie Alexander has found the difficulties greater and the joys more powerful than she ever imagined. At first, the children ran around the house like toddlers, playing with the knobs on all the electronic devices they had never seen before. They were delighted with simple luxuries. A bathtub filled with hot water. A machine to wash their clothes. Their first elevator ride was a marvel.Cultural differences have also made parenting a challenge. Having experienced warfare, the death of their parents and living in a home where there was but one caregiver for 40 or 50 children, the kids had learned to suppress their emotions. They all see a child psychologist who understands the problems of children adopted from other countries. David and Debbie encourage the kids to show their feelings. Each in their own time has opened up. One day, Mercy told her parents about the fear she felt when the orphanage was attacked. At age 15, she had prayed to God for strength if it was her time to die.
Sometimes the cultural differences are comical. The children have had to learn American customs, like not walking into a neighbor's house without knocking. Once, one of the girls clicked her teeth at her brother during a fight. He became enraged. David and Debbie couldn't figure out why. They asked Seeboe and David what clicking teeth meant. "Oh, Dad," young David explained. "It's very bad."
Another time when a fight broke out, Debbie lined up all six on a sofa and read them the riot act. In the middle of her lecture, a police officer came to the house. Debbie wondered if neighbors had called the cops. No, the officer explained, someone at her address had called 911 and hung up. He was just checking it out. Debbie also checked it out -- James, trying to call a friend, had mistakenly dialed 911. Needless to say the phone was off-limits until he learned how to use it.
The racial difference makes itself felt in subtle ways. Strangers do double takes when they see the family together. The first time Debbie and the boys went to a barbershop, all the barbers stopped talking. But they've only encountered one episode of ugly racism. While on a family vacation, a stranger yelled an epithet. Josh and Matt turned livid at the insult. Though the Liberian kids were hurt by the name-calling, they saw that their big brothers would stand by them.
Mercy, Teta, Joe, and James experienced their first real Christmas last year, amid a house full of Santas and greenery. At the orphanage, a Christmas gift was a tiny portion of meat. Now there were boxes of clothing, electronics, toys.
In the orphanage, the children had no choices. Here, there were almost too many. America could be tempting, confusing and frustrating. But in their new land, new home, new family, each child was now free to imagine a future of possibilities.
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