Fifteen children call it home; so have hundreds of others

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The household of Lori and Randy Ross is nothing short of a phenomenon. Consider, for starters, that Lori actually can remember her children's names and ages -- all 15 of them.

One recent evening, they sat around the table before plates of grilled beef, cheesy hash-brown potatoes and canned green beans as Lori made an impressive round of introductions.

That's Damion, 12. Next to him is Shianne, 4. And Katie, 3; Keyonna, 11; and Matthew, 3. That's Tyler, 6, in the wheelchair. He's got cerebral palsy. Then there's Jimmy, 7; Hunter, 5; David, 7.

"David, we pick up our food and bring it to our mouth," Lori instructed. "We do not put our mouth to the plate like a dog."

Jacob is 9. Natalie, in the other wheelchair, is 17. Nicholas, the red-headed vegetarian who seems to be dining this evening on bread with butter, is 17. So is Nathan, who is at work at the moment. Sitting at the counter are Emma, 12, and Carly, 9. They're the two youngest of Lori and Randy's five biological children.

There are more. In the Ross home, when you move out on your own, your picture "graduates" from the dining room to the hallway wall. The current lineup: Robin, 28; Vincent, 22; Liz, 22; Kenny, 21; Jessica, 20; and Catina, 19.

Oh, and let us not forget the 400 or so children who have called the Ross household "foster home." They've stayed for as briefly as one or two days, as long as five years.

Children's advocate

"Saving the world is what she plans on doing," Randy, 41, said of his wife, who is 42. Although she might like to, Lori cannot take all of the state's foster children into her 4,500-square-foot Blue Springs home. So Lori speaks up for the rest of them in Jefferson City and elsewhere. She also shares with other foster and adoptive parents her extensive expertise in the challenges of children who have been abused and neglected.

Her advocacy work, which began as an outgrowth of her work as foster mother, four years ago evolved into a full-time job as executive director of the Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Association. It has snagged her numerous honors. Over the past two months, she has been recognized by the Bank of America and the Cornerstones of Care, a consortium of five treatment centers that serve troubled children.

The North American Council on Adoptable Children commended her, as did the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, which tagged her as one of its "angels in adoption."

Vinnie Ross, now 22, says that while there wasn't a lot of one-on-one with his parents, he remembers them always being around. And then, as now, he said, "When you need it, they're there. My dad is my best friend, and I go to lunch with my mom all the time."

The Rosses launched their family with daughter Liz, born to them in 1984. A year later they took in their first foster child, 6-year-old Robin, whom they adopted about three years later.

From there, it was a simple matter of addition. One here, one there, then a pair of brothers. Lori and Randy sought children not likely to be adopted. A sibling group of three. A boy born with cerebral palsy. A group of four siblings.

The threesome, Lori recalls, was able and quite willing to turn a room upside down when they arrived.

"It took a year to calm them down," she said.

David, now 7, is in the sibling group of four. By the age of 3, he'd been in eight foster homes in a six-month period. He'd hurt a cat and "was freaking people out," according to Lori.

His sister Shianne was in six homes in six months before they took her at the age of 13 months. Hunter, now 5, cycled through seven foster homes in six months.

Love and boundaries

For all of them, the madness ceased once they got to the Ross house. In 21 years of taking care of children, Lori says they've got a system down. They make sure their children feel loved, but they also make the boundaries clear.

"Super Nanny can't touch us," she quipped.

"Katie Ross -- you're done," Lori said firmly when she noticed the 3-year-old pushing too much food into her mouth at once.

"Matthew, are you going to eat? If not, no snack."

Then, turning to Jimmy, "I've been entertained enough for tonight. Jimmy, zip it."

At times it sounds a little harsh, a bit like boot camp, but Lori insists they need it that way.

"A lot of people think you can just love them and things get better," Lori said. "That's a big mistake. For these kids who have had so much chaos they need to know someone is in charge so they don't have to be scared."

As children were added over the years, so were helpers. About 15 years ago, after their third child was born with cerebral palsy, the Rosses hired their first helper. Now they have one person, sometimes two, nearly all week. They process the baths, the meals and the homework, allowing Lori to "sit and enjoy the kids."

They're able to pay for the helpers because of a state subsidy of $3,000 to $4,000 a month, in addition to Lori's and Randy's salaries.

Family commitment

Joe Beck is a licensed clinical social worker and director of therapy services at Spofford, a residential treatment center for children. He's known the Rosses for years, and for the past two has visited their home twice weekly to do therapy with six children.

He considers Lori and Randy exceptionally adept at raising children, especially those who pose the toughest challenges.

"They both have developed quite a knack for assessing kids and figuring out, 'Is this something we can change?' They're clear on their goals for the kids: to get them to be as productive as possible given the hand they've been dealt.

"If you hang everything on [having] a child who will love you back," Beck said, "you're set up to be very disappointed when it doesn't happen. Lori and Randy have hopes and dreams for all of their kids, but their success in the world isn't hung on their children. One of the greatest privileges I've had in working with this family is to see the commitment Lori and Randy have to each other and how they can handle things that could cause any other family to fall apart."

Far from falling apart, Lori and Randy say they've seen miracles. Small ones on a daily basis, big ones on occasion. They have two 17-year-old sons, both of whom had "rocky starts," who will start college next fall.

"It's going to be pretty quiet around here for us," Lori said.

In the Ross household, of course, that is subject to change.