Ty Naess is convinced he would be behind bars had the police not called his parents a decade ago.
In the wee hours of the morning, they asked Beth and Ken Naess to pick him up. The four-year-old had been living with his biological father and needed a safe place to go.
“Beth was there when he was born so we had been with him essentially throughout his whole life, in and out,” Ken said.
“He was in foster care for the first year. Dad took him for the next three years after that and then it all fell apart. We stepped in and said, ‘We want him.'”
The Naesses were already foster parents to the child’s uncle and had gradually come to know much of his extended family. They took care of Ty until they could officially adopt him when he was nine years old.
“If I was living with my birth family, I would probably be in jail right now,” Ty said.
“They don’t live a good life. Here, I have a future.”
Unable to have children of their own, the Naesses did not hesitate to foster and adopt older children. But not every parent is up for the challenge.
According to an adoption specialist with Alberta’s Adoption Services, the greatest need is for families interested in adopting older children, sibling groups or kids with special needs.
“We have a lot of families who are approved and are waiting for young children with more minimal needs,” Catherine Arnold said. She added the older the child or the higher the needs, the longer they will wait.
Sometimes it takes years, “if it happens at all.”
But Arnold, who has been with Adoption Services for nine years, is encouraged by a gradual shift in interest. More families seem open to giving older children a permanent home.
The Naesses had challenges as Ty adjusted to life with them.
“His previous school, he was drifting. He would sneak out the house and get mixed up with the wrong group,” Ken said. “We shut it down and gave him options for schooling; everything from home schooling to military school.”
Ty chose to pursue lacrosse at Vimy Ridge Academy in Edmonton, more than 30 kilometres from their home in Spruce Grove. Five days a week he wakes up at 5:30 a.m. in order to catch two busses to make it class. His dream is to play lacrosse in college and get a degree.
“I’m healing slowly. I still don’t like to talk about my birth family,” he said, adding he isn’t in touch with his blood relatives, by choice.
“I’ve got a better life here. More to focus on here.”
Beth says whether you’re a parent to your birth child or one you adopt, the ups and downs are inevitable.
“There’s going to be trials, there’s going to be tribulations. But there’s also going to be a whole lot of joy.”
Ken adds parents have to seek adoption for the right reason, which, in his opinion, isn’t the self-fulfilment of “rescuing” a child or the guilt of taking on a child a relative can’t handle.
“I think the bottom line: it has to come out of love for the child.”
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