Single mom creates family harmony with adopted, foster children
Deborah Moutry is mom to two foster children, three adopted teens, a pre-teen, a 21-year-old, a college student, three cats, two dogs, three doves, a crab, turtle and goldfish.
And she doesn’t do well with chaos.
So harmony is a priority at her six-bedroom ranch on Green Bay’s far east side, where the single mom has quashed discord by strengthening her daughters’ caring hearts.
“That’s the art in me, that’s the music in me, how to orchestrate and get this music composed so it comes out with a beautiful melody,” she says.
All her children risked having lives of discord. They came to her with special needs including bipolar diagnosis, attention deficit disorder and behavioral issues such aggression and cutting themselves. Some came to her with lives so out of synch that others told her not to risk bringing them into her home.
In their eyes, Moutry saw the people that they could, and have, become.
“I tell social workers all the time, just let me see their eyes,” she says. “If I know there’s a warm spirit there, I can work with it.”
Doing it right
It’s always been Moutry’s style to look at children for who they are, not what others say about them, says Sue Hull of Bellevue, who worked with Moutry at Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin.
“She just has a natural ability about her to form good healthy relationships with kids,” Hull says. “She treats people individually and looks for the good in them.
“She’s consistent and sets clear boundaries, and has a willingness to forgive.”
Kris Schumacher, a teacher and guidance counselor at NEW Lutheran High School in Green Bay, where three of the girls are honor roll students, sees the results of Moutry’s belief in her girls every day.
