Points of light: informal adoption in the black community

Children Today,  Sept-Oct, 1990  by Charmaine Yoest

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"It wasn't a big push," said Gale. "When I came home, I was just expected to get A's. My grandfather would have done anything to help me go to college. `You're smart,' he would say, go to school.' All his generation knew was that if you got an education You could be somebody."

Nadine's comments about MaDear echo the same sentiment:

  `She never sat us down and
      preached to us, but we knew she
      wanted us all ...  it was expected...
      that we would get an education.
      She wanted me to get an
      education because she knew she
      could only do so much for us.
      She knew that if we got an education,
      at least we would be
      more equipped to have what she
      didn't have, and to have what
     she couldn't give us.  When I
     finished my college degree, she
     was so happy she didn't know
     what to do."

A vision becomes believable when we see it modeled in someone's life. Role models also play a big part in helping young people see something better beckoning. For Nadine, it was her aunt in Houston, the one with the beautiful things and the many bottles of shiny nail polish. Inspired to be like her, Nadine collected and sold soft drink bottles to be able to get her hair done. Her aunt had gone to college, so Nadine did too. To this day, her aunt prods her on, asking about her goals and aspirations.

Human nature is so infinitely variable that there are no simple formulas which guarantee success. Though Gale-despite the obstacles-was able to build a life of accomplishment, her brother did not. And Nadine and one other cousin are the only ones out of the 16 MaDear raised together who finished college. While it is impossible to lay down conditions which ensure that a child will develop to his full potential, experience clearly teaches us that certain fundamental factors enormously improve the odds for positive outcomes.

The sacrificial, loving care, the encouragement, the positive expectations, the discipline, and the taking of responsibility personified by MaDear and Grandmother Jones provide a solid foundation for life, and opportunity to grow, develop and achieve. It is impossible to overemphasize the significance of the security of the consistent individual, personalized attention of an adult in the life of a young child.

Sometimes, children almost seem radiant with their purity and enthusiasm for life. There is a fragile, natural, spark of light which begins with a child's dreams, hopes, and imagination and must be nurtured and protected. Just as a candle's wick must be trimmed and the flame protected from a draft, so the light of a child must be shielded from the winds of adversity whose icy blast can extinguish it, leaving only darkness. With nurturing love and care, the light grows and brightens; with neglect and abuse, the light flickers, dims, and finally dies.

But even in the darkness, the dying spark can be reignited into a glowing flame with another point of light. Rekindling the spark in a child's life and nurturing the flame, as MaDear McKee and Grandma Jones did, can illuminate the path to a new and better life, renewing confidence and bringing priceless hope.