They Just Want To Be Loved: An Older Child Adoption Story

Like many hopeful adoptive parents, Mark and Becky Robles envisioned themselves welcoming home a baby. But as they learned about the many older children waiting for loving families, they opened their hearts to a 10-year-old boy from the Philippines — and soon found themselves both lucky and blessed.

Aaron is home with his mom and dad, Becky and Mark Robles, in Southern California. As he sits on the couch with his parents, he puts his head on his mom’s shoulder. He has short-cropped hair, a warm, slightly sideways smile and a healthy glow in his dark eyes.

Although he looks like a typical California teenager, Aaron spent the first ten years of his life in a care center in the Philippines.

“He went from this small town in in the northern part of the Philippines, which is a good eight-hour drive from metropolitan Manila …. And then we just plucked him out and dropped him, you know, in the middle of LA,” his mom, Becky, says, explaining the abrupt change in his life when he joined their family.

When Mark and Becky first decided to build their family through adoption, they didn’t expect to adopt a 10-year-old. Like many childless couples, they came to Holt hoping to adopt a baby. But as an older couple, they faced age restrictions to adopting a younger child. Also, they soon learned, it’s not really feasible to adopt a baby internationally anymore. Almost all children now eligible to join a family overseas are older. The youngest are toddler-age, and they will likely have at least some medical or developmental special needs.

But as they learned about the children who needed families — older children, sibling groups and kids with special needs — their hearts, and their vision for their family, expanded. That’s when they learned about Aaron.

“We read through hundreds of just summary profiles and then we kind of narrowed it down,” Becky says. “And then for some reason, we just looked at Aaron and then we pulled his file … It just seemed to fit.”

Mark also grew up in the Philippines, which was one reason they pursued Holt’s Philippines adoption program.

“Because I’m Filipino, I can understand the culture and it will be easier for the child, too,” Mark explains.

Aaron’s file mentioned that he had some cognitive and speech delays. He had also been adopted before — by a family in the Philippines. He was with them for several months. But eventually, the family returned him to the children’s home, where he lived ever since.

Mark and Becky felt equipped to handle Aaron’s delays, and through Holt’s pre-adoption curriculum, they learned more about older child adoption and what to prepare for.

“Holt was really good,” Becky says. “They have this whole process you have to go through with reading some books and articles and watching videos. And they connected us to another local family that also adopted an older boy. So we met with them and they shared their experience with us — the difficulties and the joys.”

One of Mark and Becky’s biggest concerns was whether Aaron would be able to bond with them. Aaron had only briefly lived in a family and had experienced several disrupted relationships with caregivers in his life. After 10+ years in a children’s home, they wondered whether he be able to form a healthy emotional attachment with them.

“Everybody kept telling us that bonding with us would be a real issue,” Becky says. “But we didn’t have that issue ever.”

Three months before they traveled to the Philippines, Mark and Becky were able to meet Aaron remotely via Zoom. They connected with him each week so that he could grow more comfortable with them. A bond began to form. By the time he met his new parents in person, he was beside himself with relief and joy.

“When we finally did see him in person, he just fell into our arms,” Becky says.

Although meeting him remotely helped, Becky believes he was also just ready to be part of a family. He attached quickly to them, and didn’t want to share them with the other children at the children’s home.

“The first two nights, we stayed in the children’s home with him, and he basically just locked us in the room with him … he didn’t want to share us,” Becky says.

Although they had brought toys for the other children at the children’s home, Aaron only let Mark and Becky play with them for brief periods.

“He would pull us back into the room,” Becky says. “He just wanted us to be his and we understood that.”

The following two nights, Aaron stayed with Mark and Becky at a nearby hotel. But before traveling home to the U.S., they returned to the children’s home for a goodbye party for Aaron. For the first time, they saw some of Aaron’s trauma come out.

“He just flipped out. He started crying. He started kicking everything,” Becky says. “And we didn’t know what to do.”

Due to Aaron’s speech and cognitive delays, he was not able to communicate in words what he was feeling. But after talking with the executive director of the children’s home, Mark and Becky realized that returning for the goodbye party had likely triggered a fear in Aaron that he would be left again — like his previous adoptive family had left him.

Once they calmed him down, they were able to have the party. But after packing up Aaron’s belongings and saying goodbye, it was like Aaron never wanted to look back.

“We never returned to the children’s home. We stayed with him in our hotel and just kept assuring him, ‘We’re not going to return, we’re not going to bring you back,” Becky says.

Adjusting to a New Home and a New Life

Once they arrived home in California, Aaron’s transition continued to go relatively smoothly. In the first few days, they did encounter a brief battle of wills as Aaron was accustomed to being the oldest in his children’s home.

“He was kind of like the alpha male in the children’s home,” Becky says. His behavior was defensive and a bit rebellious, and both Mark and Becky had to hold firm boundaries. In hindsight, they realize that he may have been protecting himself because he may not have fully understood what they were asking of him. But also, his behavior was understandable. Everything was new to him, and they understood it would take time for him to get used to living with them.

“He’s coming into a new family, a new environment. He doesn’t know what a family is supposed to look like or feel like,” Becky says. “So it took some adjustment.”

As time passed and he grew more comfortable, more of Aaron’s personality started to emerge.

“He’s extremely loving and joyful … I think that’s always been a part of him,” Becky says, “but it’s really come out, I think, as he’s felt the security and the stability.”

They knew going into his adoption that there were certain things that would remain unknown. He never really learned language — not even Tagalog, his native language — and they’re not entirely sure why. They don’t know if his cognitive delays are from birth or due to growing up in a children’s home. Even though Holt and his children’s home provided as much information as they had, Mark and Becky knew that not every question could be answered in a file.

“There’s a lot of holes that you need to fill in because we don’t know the past 10 years, although we saw the documents, the files,” Becky says. “There are so many things unknown. Sometimes we wish we had him since he was [a baby] so we could provide the help that he needed back then. But God’s ways are not our ways, right?”

Mark and Becky enrolled Aaron in speech therapy, and he also received some occupational therapy. As it became clear that Aaron was struggling in school, they advocated for him to get an individualized education plan (IEP).

Be open to an older child. Be open to a sibling set. Be open to a child that has special needs. … Just go for it because there’s a kid that needs to be loved and they just want a family. … You’re just giving a gift of love and family to a child. And it’s not the child that’s lucky and blessed. It’s you as the couple that are lucky and blessed.”” — Becky Robles

But even with an IEP, Aaron seemed lost in a large classroom environment. To help their son receive the one-on-one time and attention he needs, Mark and Becky decided it was best for her to quit her part-time job and homeschool him.

Gradually, Aaron’s vocabulary and comprehension began to improve, and his strengths emerged.

He’s very interested in figuring out how things work — especially electronics.

“He loves anything automated, electrical, all that kind of stuff. He’s fascinated by it,” Becky says. “He’s developed a love for airplanes. He’s learning to play the guitar. We’re exposing him to those things.”

He also loves playing basketball and volleyball. Mark and Becky taught him how to paddle board, and how to ride a bike. Although it takes him a bit longer to figure things out, he eventually gets it — and can enjoy many different activities alongside his parents.

A Family Forever

It’s now been about three and a half years since Aaron joined the Robles family, and he is now 14 years old.

Mark acknowledges how resilient he is. Even with all he’s been through, he is just a happy kid who sings Christmas songs in the shower. Although they never saw him overtly grieve the loss of his friends and caregivers — and his birth country — they realize that grief may express itself later. They are very intentional about preserving Aaron’s Filipino culture as much as possible — cooking familiar foods, visiting Jolibee in California (a popular Filipino fast food restaurant), and keeping the Filipino custom of calling Mark and Becky’s friends “Aunt” and “Uncle.”

“[We try to] keep as much of his culture as possible because that’s an innate part of him … and it’s important to keep that,” Mark says.

They continue to remind him that he will be with them forever, no matter what.

“Even now, we still reassure him, particularly if he gets in trouble and we’re angry, we always tell him, ‘No matter what we will always love you,’” Becky says. “’We always love you. We’ll always be here for you.’ And just reassuring him in that way, particularly as he’s getting older and he’s starting to kind of connect things.”

For other families considering older child adoption, they advise them to be patient — and prepare for unknowns.

Becky also stresses the importance of understanding what an older child is experiencing and giving them grace as they adjust to their new life.

“Really giving them your time, your attention, a lot of grace with a lot of guidance … all of that with an unconditional amount of love and patience and understanding and trying to put yourself in their shoes, understanding where they came from,” she says, adding that she sometimes forgets that Aaron grew up in a small rural area of the Philippines instead of Southern California.

Although they initially wanted to adopt a baby, they say their perspectives have changed since they welcomed Aaron into their hearts and lives.   

“Be open to an older child. Be open to a sibling set. Be open to a child that has special needs. … Just go for it because there’s a kid that needs to be loved and they just want a family. They just want to be loved, and the rewards far outweigh anything else,” Becky says. “You’re just giving a gift of love and family to a child. And it’s not the child that’s lucky and blessed. It’s you as the couple that are lucky and blessed.”