“I hate you! I’m going to kill you tonight after you fall asleep,” screamed 9-year-old Jerry to his foster mother. It was hard to believe such hateful words could come from this adorable child with big blue eyes and an impish face.

Dee loves Jerry (I have changed their names to protect their privacy) and wants to adopt him, but these angry outbursts frighten her. She tries to imagine what he will be like, if he does not learn how to control his anger, when he is a teenager and she is outsized in both height and weight. The court says she must make a decision this month on whether to keep him. She is torn about what to do.

Two years ago, 45-year-old Dee, a beautiful redhead who never married, decided that the only way she was going to have children would be to adopt. She became a foster parent with the hopes of finding a child she could love and raise. Within a couple of months, the agency called with an 8-year-old redheaded boy who resembled her enough to be her own. Dee was warned that Jerry had serious anger issues. The boy had been passed from foster home to foster home since birth and had never known a stable home life. Dee’s heart went out to Jerry.

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