Mary Jo Jackson from Rhode Island has always wanted a big family – so much so that she warned all the men she met about it. Many of them, according to Mary, got scared and ran away. But then she met her future husband, Michael. Michael and Mary Jo Jackson had seven biological children. Perhaps, says Mary, there could have been more. But with age, they decided to take up adoption.
In total, Michael and Mary have adopted 30 children over the years, including several children with disabilities. Some of them still live in the family’s home in Richmond.
When Michael and Mary first adopted a foster child, they were over 40 years old. Getting permission to adopt in the United States at that age was next to impossible.
“They didn’t approve of large families at the time,” says Mary. – But then the borders of Russia opened, and then Bulgaria, Romania and other countries. There were no special requirements for adoptive parents, it was enough just to pay the money.
It was so unusual that Michael himself went to a Russian orphanage to adopt their first child.
Brian Peter was four years old when he entered the Jackson family. Like many of their other adopted children, he was disabled – he was missing part of his leg.
“When I came to Russia and saw the conditions in the orphanages, I realized that we in the United States live much better and take a lot for granted,” says Michael. “When I saw the condition of the orphanages, the solution became obvious.”
After the family adopted their first child, it was only a matter of time before they continued.
“He came back and told me, you won’t believe what this place is like, we need to do it again,” Mary says. “I agreed, and since then we have adopted 30 children.”
Mary Jo and Michael have children from Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, China, South Korea, Kazakhstan and Vietnam. In recent years, they have adopted several children from different states of America.
