Feb. 8, 2010

The way they all became the Barkley Bunch

By Roy Mitchell

CENTRE — Midway through last spring, Doris Barkley's emotions got the best of her. “As all the grandkids were swinging on the set in the front yard” on Mother's Day, she recalled, “I just started to cry.” Whether by coincidence, fortune, or the will of God, Doris and Buddy Barkley have recently merged into the express lane of grandparenting. All seven of their grandchildren are younger than 8. Four of them have arrived in just the last year.

Eleven years ago, Doris's body was stricken with cancer. She still remembers wondering if she would live to see any of her three boys have children. Doris went on to beat cancer and today lives to hear a multitude of little voices shouting for their “Grammy.”

Doris's survival, however, is only a part of the unique Barkley family story.

Doris and her husband Buddy have three sons – Chuck, Scott and Lance. Over the past few years, all three boys ,and their wives, have adopted at least one child. The couples have also taken foster parenting classes, and two of the brothers have housed or adopted foster children. Children are placed in foster care after government agencies determine that they are unsafe living with their biological families. About four children out of every 1,000 are in foster homes with non-relatives.

Obviously, the odds are much greater if your last name is Barkley.

Three of the seven Barkley grandchildren have completed or are currently going through the foster-to-adopt process. Lance Barkley and his wife, Christy, have adopted one foster child.
“There's always that chance of a foster child being taken away,” Christy said. “The whole time we were going through it, it was like a roller coaster.”

The couple eventually adopted Skyler, whom they describe as “Mr. Independent” and “extremely smart.” Lance and Christy took their 10-week fostering course fostering class in Centre, and were fortunate enough to have contact with Skyler, who is now 3 years old, before his adoption.

“We started doing respite care on the weekends to give the previous foster parents a break when Skyler was two months old,” Christy said. “We were instantly attached.”

Chuck Barkley and his wife, Heather, have housed two foster sisters for the past year. Last week, the courts were still deciding if the girls' biological family was capable of resuming their parenting. (Consequently, the names of the girls, ages 3 and 4, do not appear in this article.)
Chuck accepts the possibility of losing the girls to the courts.

“That's what fostering is all about,” he said. “You're supposed to give the parents a chance to get their act together – to make a recovery. We'll be here for the girls just in case.”
Just days before getting the sisters, Chuck and Heather received word that they had been chosen to adopt a baby boy named Carson. Chuck said the adoption process has been a good experience for Heather and him.

“We have really enjoyed it,” Chuck said. “This time a year and a half ago, we didn't have any children. Now we have three. We didn't know if we could handle it.”

Chuck said the sisters are often mistaken for twins and are “very smart and sweet.” Carson, who is not yet a year old, is already a “big guy,” Chuck said.

Scott Barkley and his wife, Amy, have the only biological child in the family. Her name is Rylee, and the 7-year-old is creative, intelligent, and into art music, according to her mother.

“She had been praying and praying for a brother or sister,” Amy said.

Scott and Amy have also taken the fostering classes, but the couple have since adopted two boys using other adoption options.

The very first adopted Barkley grandchild, 3-year-old Jackson, is “a big cuddlebug with lots of energy.” His brother Brycen, the youngest of the Barkley babies at 9 months, is calm, content, and just beginning to crawl.
Scott said his and Amy's willingness to adopt a child regardless of race increased their odds. He also said the fact that they had adopted a biracial child may have even assisted in one of Chuck's adoptions.

“When looking through the profiles, the biological parents liked the fact that the child would have a biracial cousin,” Scott said.

Doris Barkley is proud of her family, regardless of the multifarious routes the grandchildren took from their biological birth to her home east of Centre.
“We're real blessed to have all these children,” she said. “I thank God every day for them.”

Judith Brown of the Cherokee County Department of Human Resources (DHR) said the county usually sports around 15 families that are licensed to take on foster children at any given time.

Brown said she'd like to have even more families to work with.

“We always need some homes to be vacant because we like to match children to the families,” she said. “We would like to have five to 10 more families.”

To learn about becoming a foster parent, contact the local DHR office at 256-927-1440.