Parents Adopted Son When He Was 18 Because They Wanted Him To Be Part Of Their Family

Mar 27, 2020

As Casey Douglas approached adulthood, she learned that she had an unusual health condition: 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 to 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. Leading a life he never thought he would have, Randall, is currently a junior in high school and is also enrolled in dual credit college courses.

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 below. Send this article to friends and family to spread the Douglas' story.