ABSTRACT
A family therapist once saw a family with four children: Adam, who was twelve; Betsy, who was eleven; Charlie, who was eight; and Alan, who was seven. Charlie had been adopted a year or so earlier. His birth mother, a serious drug abuser, had finally given up trying to raise him and had entrusted him to an elderly aunt. When the aunt could no longer care for him, she asked a neighbor family with whom he was close to adopt him, which they did. To everyone’s horror, the birth mother died of a drug overdose the very day of the adoption.
