When adopted kids struggle

When former nominated MP and assistant minister Bett Tett and her husband William Tett adopted little David Tett, it was to bring him up to be a responsible adult alongside their natural siblings.

David was only one year old when he lost his mother, a sister to his aunt, Betty Tett. He was first taken into a foster home before the Tetts took him into their family. They had all the good intentions for the toddler.

David grew up surrounded by all the trappings of good living and love like his biological siblings. He had a privileged upbringing that included taking him to prestigious schools.

Despite this, he proved to be “a difficult, troubled child” and difficult to discipline. He was always on the wrong path, doing mischief and criminal activities.

Despite several attempts to make David a responsible child, the situation became uncontrollable.

At age 31, it seemed there was no turning back for the now-adult David, and despite carrying the name of his foster parents, his destiny seemed to have been sealed.

He on September 6, 2011, together with a criminal gang, hatched a plot when he and his gang stormed into his parent’s home and violently robbed his foster father in Karen, Nairobi. During the incident, police shot and killed two gangsters.

David was later charged with robbing his father William Tett at gunpoint Of Sh157,000 in kind and cash. At the time of committing the heinous crime, David was already a father of one.

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On June 28, 2013, David William Tett was sentenced to death (After appeal it was reduced to 15 years. He was released in 2021).

The case drew a lot of public interest.

In an interview in June 2012, during the trial period, Betty narrated how the family had lived in fear following their adopted son’s threats to their lives.

During his sentencing, the former assistant minister described her foster son as a troubled child.

During the trial, the heartbroken mother told the court thus: “We brought him up and took him when he was very young, he could have been one year old when his mother died, and we brought him up as our son gave him the best education; we gave him everything we could give in life. My children did not go to the schools David went to,” Betty Tett told the court.

The Tetts are not alone.

In June 2012, Simon and Lucia Ngure appealed to the Nyahururu court for permission to eject their adopted twins Samuel Ngure and Mary Ngure from their home on claims that the children were unruly.

The couple had adopted the twins in 1999 after they were abandoned at birth by their biological mother who had never been traced.

Reportedly, Samuel had turned out to be a petty thief, stealing from his foster parents and selling off property, while his twin sister was abusive to her foster mother.

At the pressure of relatives who were eying the property, they wanted the twins who were adopted at the tender age of two years old and are now adults, to be struck off as the couple’s children.

The couple discovered to their chagrin, that just like natural births, the adopted children’s situation was not reversible.

The court ruled they were not only taking the children back but also giving them their “rightful” inheritance – a five-acre piece of land each from their 25-acre land.

According to Jerusha Otieno a mother of two adopted children, Ken Otieno, 29 years old, and Lynett Otieno, 27 years old, dealing with adoption can be a struggle for parents, who seek to compensate the adopted children for their indiscipline might be overwhelming, making them overly lenient or, in many cases, show open favouritism towards them, which can be detrimental.

“The saddest part of the Tetts story was listening to David’s defence, claiming he was a victim of kidnapping and his foster parents had used the incident to ‘fix him” because he was a ‘black sheep’ of the family, which he blamed on poor upbringing by them,” says Jerusha Otieno.

But that was not all, says Jerusha reminiscing on David’s further claims he was a victim of his foster parents’ plot to disinherit him of his deceased parents’ property and hand it to their natural children (cousins).

Jerusha says she keenly followed the proceedings with sadness back then because she had a special interest. She was raising two children who she had adopted almost at the time the Tetts were adopting David, alongside her now 33-year-old biological daughter.

She says she drew many hard lessons from the Tetts situation, lessons she says, helped her bring up her adopted son and daughter.

Jerusha says parents of adopted children must know that adoption just like birth is non-reversible, and must do what it takes to hold the family together.

“If well-managed adoptions become knit families where it is difficult to differentiate between adopted and natural children. Parents should realise all children, natural or adopted, can come to a bad end especially if their foster parents do not indulge them.”

The mother of three, now adults, is herself a success story that not all adoption cases end in tragedy, she says, she has since the public interest story of the Tetts tragedy and heard beautiful success stories of redemption of children from desperate circumstances, whose only promise was a bleak violent future. “Cases of children turning against their parents are not only isolated to adopted or foster children – there are many reported cases of natural children involved in scary things,” says Joan Mwangeka, a social worker.

“Parenting a foster child can be more challenging than parenting biological children, and sometimes even though it is the wish of the foster parents to bring up an adopted child just like they would do with their own, this is not usually the result,” says Mwangeka.

She explains that adoptive children may not always warm up to the foster parents, a natural reaction as sometimes, they may not have experienced a safe environment and may be resistant to their new family. However, she says, over time, they will love their new family, just as you love them, and will build trust within their new life.

Ken Otieno and his sister Lynett Otieno, are perfect examples of a success story of adoption gone right. Both young adults who have already left the nest talk about their foster mother in awe, who they call “our wonderful, caring, loving and irreplaceable mother”.

The two, who only discovered four years ago that Jerusha was not their biological mother, say though naturally, they would like to know their biological parents, they would not do this at the expense of the only mother they have known all their lives.

The two expressed feeling “very loved and cherished” growing up. “It was like any other childhood that someone would have, and we just knew recently our adoptive parents weren’t our biological parents, and it does not matter much,” they say.

“It is the parent’s responsibility to shape the values that a child grows up with. This is because children learn from what they see and hear, and if a parent is irresponsible and shows no respect for other people you can’t expect them to be well-behaved in general,” says Mwangeka.

Finally, she says, when the time comes, natural and adopted children should be let go when they get to adulthood so that they may fend for themselves and take responsibility for their own lives.

“While it may be prudent for parents to host their adult children for a short period, parents should not, under any circumstance continue to harbour any grown but unproductive children on the premise they are helping them to get started and shielding them from the vagaries of life – that is a recipe for disaster, the social worker advises.

Jerusha Otieno in her over two decades of parenting and adopted son and daughter shares that in many ways, adoptive parenting is not much different from parenting a biological child. The adopted child, like the biological child, needs a loving home and a loving family.

She, however, explains that raising an adopted child comes with the responsibility of sharing their adoption story and where they came from. But how do you do that?

“If you are parenting or planning to parent an adopted child, ensure they are confident in who they are, where they came from, and how loved they are by you.