Father fills family time with fun and games

Except for the part where his kids make him breakfast and give him a few gifts, this Father's Day will be like any other weekend day for Jamie Jackson, 43.

He will hang out with his kids and wife, Sherrie, playing with the family's Nintendo Wii. They probably will go swimming and follow that with another family game. Or perhaps he will wrestle with the kids, ages 3 to 16. Lunch and dinner will be eaten as a family, with Jamie choosing the meals for his day, of course.

In other words, today is a typical day for a Southern Nevada family that is anything but typical. In fact, you might call it unique.

Jamie and Sherrie Jackson are the proud parents of eight children. There's Alicia, 16; Megan, 14; Brandon, 10; Ashley, 8; Jocelyn, 7; Krissy, 6; Sabrina, 4; and Austin, 3.

And that's enough, they say.

While large families are not all that unusual, the way the Jacksons acquired theirs is. Six of their children, all siblings by birth, are adopted.

Their story, longtime friend Joanie Fletcher says, is heartbreaking. Or at least the part leading up to the adoptions. After trying to adopt for 10 years, suffering through miserable letdowns and several dead ends, the Jacksons gave up, figuring they were meant to be a family of four. Then their two daughters, Alicia and Megan, begged them to try one more time.

It's almost like it was meant to be. After telling the Flexible Family foster program that they would adopt a sibling group of three children younger than 6, the Jacksons got four. After all, what's one more? No sooner did they get those four home than they found out about a fifth sibling. And several months later, Austin, the sixth sibling, came to live with the Jacksons when he was 1 month old. The family grew so quickly, they went through three cars in three years.

"We thought with five we'd been done. That's how many our car seated," Jamie jokes.

"I promise you, each one of those kids was supposed to be there," Fletcher says.

Jamie, an accountant for United Health Care, always wanted to have a big family, Sherrie, says. She did, too, but at 16, the doctor told her she would never bear children. She always thought he would make a great father because he treated his mother so well. And that, Sherrie's own mother told her, is an indication of how a man will treat his wife and kids.

"When we were dating, I had to tell him I couldn't give him children," recalls Sherrie, 37. "He decided it was OK, we'd adopt. We thought about adoption from the beginning; we never thought we'd have children."

Doctors called their two biological daughters the miracle babies but, after Megan was born, Sherrie had a hysterectomy, ending any hope of expanding their family biologically.

"My wife and I always felt something was missing," says Jamie, who came from a family of seven children himself. Sherrie comes from a family of six.

Private adoptions were too expensive. Acquaintances would call them about possible adoptions, but, in those instances where they were supposed to get a newborn, the birth mothers backed out. They almost adopted twin infants from El Salvador, but their international paperwork expired, and the country never seemed willing to let babies go.

Finally, Sherrie heard about Flexible Family, a local foster program in which the foster children have a high probability of being given up for adoption.

Carol Serrone, the children's court-appointed special advocate, remembers thinking it would be hard to find a home for all four siblings. Three of them were up for adoption when the Jacksons came into the picture in 2004; the fourth was still considered a foster case.

"I had doubts. I didn't know how that was going to work," she recalls. "But there are amazing people out there. (The Jacksons) are wonderful people, it's amazing how they opened their hearts and homes to the kids. They're just really super people. The kids went from a very neglectful situation to a fantastic situation."

It was overwhelming to get six kids in 18 months, Sherrie says, but they felt that what was happening was fate. They relied heavily on their Mormon faith, getting answers to their questions through prayer.

"We believe you get the kids you're supposed to get," Sherrie says. "It has been an incredible journey."

It has, indeed, been wonderful, Jamie says, but the process of integrating the kids has not been without its issues. Children who go through the foster system become accustomed to moving. A lot. And they tend to have self-esteem issues, says Jamie, who volunteers with the nonprofit Adoption Exchange. Every once in a while, he notes, one of the children will ask him, "When do I have to pack my bags and leave?"

Then there are the thoughtless comments and questions, people asking "which ones are adopted?" or "how can you love them the same?"

"How can you not?" Jamie asks. "We always worked from the position that they were ours, forever. They didn't have to worry about having anyone to celebrate birthdays with or holidays with. They didn't have to worry about instability."

When they encounter those issues, Jamie -- "Mr. Fix-it" and "the answer man" -- handles it with aplomb, Sherrie says. You have to tell kids the truth, Sherrie says, in order to earn their trust.

"He is amazing," says oldest daughter, Alicia. "He worries about each of us tons."

Wanting to be the first man to give his daughters roses, Jamie presents them with a bouquet on their birthdays, with the number of roses matching their ages.

"He always helps us with our math homework. He's very good at math," Alicia adds. "He takes us places, and he still comes in and tucks us in at night."

Her father has made a tremendous impact on her and the other kids, Alicia says.

His biggest influence?

"That he is so giving. He thinks that he has been given so much that he might as well give some back. He's taught us not to be greedy and that everyone deserves something," she says.

It's that kind of influence that friend Fletcher hopes Jamie will have on her own two sons, 11 and 12. Their father died last year, and both need the kind of influence Jamie can provide, she says. So the boys are spending the summer with the Jacksons.

"He's absolutely wonderful as a father, a great role model," Fletcher says. "He believes strongly in everything you could ever want a husband to believe in. For Jamie, his family is the most important thing in life."

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett @reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564.