Husband And Wife That Took In 18-Year-Old Boy Forsaken At Infancy Says All Children Deserve Permanent Family

Oct 27, 2020

Casey and Peter Douglas from Athens, Texas always knew that they would never be able to bear children as Casey suffered from a health condition. To still be able to give a child a home, the couple decided to become foster parents and took in 16-year-old Randall. But the family's paths didn't separate when the boy turned 18, instead Casey and Peter adopted Randall in January 2019.

As Casey Douglas approached adulthood, she learned that she had an unusual health condition and as a result, she would never be able to bear children. For Casey, this news came as a serious blow. In a blog post she wrote for Love What Matters, Casey noted that as the daughter of a church pastor, she was expected to bear enough children to fill an entire pew for Sunday service. Casey lived her life feeling different than most young women until she met her future husband, Peter. Casey remarked that Peter didn’t care that she would never be able to biologically have children and the two eventually became husband and wife.

The happy couple felt from the start that God wanted them to serve others. As such, Casey and Peter became volunteer youth pastors at their church, helping children from low-income families get the right start in life. After three years of mentoring their community’s youth, Casey and Peter felt that they needed to do more and decided to become foster parents. Still, in their 20s, Casey and Peter met with a mostly negative response from the older people in their lives. Undeterred, the couple began taking classes at Child Protective Services to prepare for their future as foster parents.

In the nine months that it took for Casey and Peter to get their foster care license, the couple became the subject of even more ridicule in their community when they announced that they would only foster children over the age of 13. Many questioned why the young couple would want to raise another person’s kids and remarked that foster children usually come from troubled backgrounds.

In spite of all these comments, Casey persevered, later telling friends that she often wept in the rooms of her future children for fear that they would never know the love that she felt for them.

As Casey and Peter earned their license, they were informed of a special child that needed foster care. By the time he was 16, Randall had been passed around from relative to relative his entire life, living in abuse and neglect. Casey and Peter welcomed Randall into their home and the teen wept at the kindness shown to him.

"He looked at me and said, ‘I have waited my entire life to be treated the way y’all treat me. I have never had real parents before’," Casey wrote on her blog.

As the three became closer, Randall worried about what would happen once he turned 18 and became a legal adult. One day, Randall burst into tears, begging Casey to allow him to stay even after he became an adult. Taking hold of Randall, Casey promised that she would always be his mom.

The three legally became a family on January 10, 2019. As Randall took Casey and Peter’s last name, the three declared before a judge that they would always love and care for one another. Randall is now leading a life he never thought he would have. His favorite hobbies are baseball and fishing as he shares on his Youtube channel. 

Speaking of the adoption, Casey says, "Parenthood came to us in a really unconventional way, but it has been more than I could have ever hoped for. In two years Randall has come so far and continues to grow every day. The boy whose dream was to smoke pot and get by on his own is now a new person."

Parenthood doesn't always have to mean that you raise a young child and help them become adults; it can also mean that you enter someone's life at any point and support them to become who they really want to be. There continue to be various stories of others who were also adopted as "adults", so to say, and how their lives change because of an adoption. 

Rebecca Masterson, for example, also adopted her son Johnny when he was 18-years-old, which has changed both her life and her sons'. About her children, she says "These two define me, they’re my life’s work. Which is funny because these children were not on my bucket list. They just happened somehow." Though it is not always the case that adoptions are unplanned (most often quite the contrary), for some people adoption may have never been on the radar until they met an orphan in need who changed their life.

Parents who create and nurture their families, no matter how their children came to be a part of it, are truly some of the most generous and loving people out there. We continue to be thankful to the wonderful parents who have opened their hearts and homes for children that are not biologically theirs. After all, family need not be blood—all that is needed is love, kindness and empathy to make a house a home, and turn a group of people into family. 

What do you think of Casey and Peter adopting Randall at the age of 18? Do you have friends or family who are foster parents? Tell us in the comments section and be sure to pass this article along to your friends and family to spread the Douglas' story.