Category Archive

I don’t know how many times I heard today that I can change my mind, or go back if I want to. I so appreciate that sentiment. And I know that I can.

I wonder if I will. I know that life takes us in all kinds of crazy and wild directions that we never plan on. I know that we can make plans that turn out perfectly, and we can make plans that never come to fruition, because something different crosses our path in life.

I know that when I left my agency the first time, I never planned to go back. One of the hardest things for me today is remembering the day my current supervisor called and asked if I was interested in a position. I was miserable at the job I had at that time, and couldn’t wait to leave. Nary a tear was shed leaving that job. I felt like on some level she saved me. I began growing as a clinician, therapist, social worker, and person again. I learned and changed. I loved what I was doing again.

I wish I wasn’t so tired, I wish I hadn’t had the year I had. But life does that to you, we don’t get to control it, and you have to do what you have to do (another phrase I’ve heard many times in the last month). But it’s true. I needed to make the choice that was ultimately right for me, for my family, for my future.

Right now? I hope I go back. I already miss my coworkers and families desperately. More than that, I feel like I cut off my arm, or some critical piece of my identity. I loved being a social worker in the foster care system, loved supporting families and working with children who needed more, loved doing therapy and eventually supervising other clinicians. Loved, loved, loved it. But I already know that even if I went back tomorrow, things would have shifted. Something would have shifted and it would not be the same. If I went back in six months, in a year, in two, it would not be the same. That doesn’t mean I won’t go “back”, but it means I cannot go backwards.

And so I feel sad for some moments, and try to focus on moving forward. I welcome the sad, I don’t want to push it away too vehemently, because I want to be able to walk through it and move to the other side, looking forward and moving on.

Embracing the future, and moving on.

I will say this:

I know it is a painful decision, but sometimes the most right decisions are the most painful or confusing ones.

It is painful, but it’s also the right one for me. I know that without a doubt.

I’m leaving with a great deal of sadness, some frustration, some guilt. But also- with peace. Peace knowing that I’m making the right choice. If I didn’t know that I wouldn’t do it.

Here we go!

This morning I walked out of my door into freezing cold. I almost walked into him or her. It was a little bird, on the sidewalk in front of our apartment. He was just sitting, and I almost walked into him. There’s no way something wasn’t wrong, because he didn’t fly away. I thought something was wrong and he was probably dying. I looked at him as I walked away, and as I drove away. I couldn’t think of anything to do. It is the circle of life that sometimes birds die, but I also felt like I should do something. I wanted to save the bird. I couldn’t bring it inside, because - well, her name is Rory. Bring the bird to the vet? I don’t think so. So I drove away.

And I cried. I cried. I thought- I don’t know what to do. I want to save you, or be there with you, but I don’t know what to do.

When I told co-workers I was leaving, I tried not to show how happy I was. I was so ready to be done. So tired. So burnt out. So, so, so tired.

Then I started telling my kids. One after one- I have something I need to tell you.

One after one, the next question was always the same.

Why?

It’s one thing to explain it to coworkers and foster parents. They may be sad, but they can understand. They understand burnt out. They get emotionally drained. They tell me you need to do what you need to do. I would nod my head and agree. It was time. I told myself you need to go before one of your kids or families pays the price for you being burnt out. My foster parents had a range of reactions- tears, lots and lots of questions, disbelief at my next move (insurance?!?!?), and understanding, compassion, and support.

It’s one thing to tell them.

It’s a whole other thing to answer why from my kids.

How do you tell them? How do you explain to a six year old that you can’t walk around carrying his pain anymore? The pain that he deals with personally every day- how do you explain that?

How do you tell a fourteen year old you can’t fight for him anymore? That you’re running out of energy and can’t fight his battles for him? How do you explain that you are scared that you won’t be able to fight the way you have for the last two years and that he will end up paying the price for that?

How do you explain to a thirteen year old that you are leaving, again, and that she’s going to have to have a new worker, again. How do you respond when she tells you how much she hates changing workers, and tells you that she tells you everything, and won’t have anyone else to do that with?

How do you help an eleven year old understand that you can’t finish the work you’ve started with her, because it’s time for you to go? What do you say when she asks why? I just don’t know.

I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know how to explain that I can’t carry their pain and fight their battles anymore. I don’t know how to reconcile the fact that I can’t be there for them,  yet I ask them to live with their histories and their pain every day of their lives. I don’t know how to explain the personal toll that my attachment to them, my passion for helping them, changing their lives, has had. I don’t know how to help them understand that the toll has become too great, at least for a time.

I’ve always wanted to be a social worker. There’s never been anything else for me, besides mom. I knew I wouldn’t fit anywhere else. I just knew. There’s always been a passion inside me to fight for those who are helpless. The bird, the children. I’ve always wanted to rescue them. As I became a little more experienced, a little less naive, I realized that I couldn’t rescue them. But I could show them someone who cared, I could be someone who was willing to fight for them, I could advocate for them. If I changed their lives in some small way, if I saved one of them in one way, it would be worth it.

I feel like I’m not only leaving a job, but that I’m cutting off a limb. I feel like I’m walking away from a part of me that has always been there. People joke that I am going to the “dark side” and I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’m walking away from such a huge part of who I am, in order to save the rest of who I am. This is something I still don’t completely understand. I know on several levels that it’s time to go, that I personally need a break and a change. I know that I need to focus on other parts of my life right now, and that while I am still pouring my heart and soul into these kids I cannot focus on the things that I need to elsewhere. I know, but I don’t understand.

I know. It’s a lot of emotion for someone changing jobs. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I’m overestimating the impact that me leaving is going to have. But I see the look in their eyes as they asked why. I hear the frustration they feel at finally finding someone they trust, only to lose yet another social worker. I feel the pain of having to say goodbye to someone yet again.

I feel guilty for causing any of them any kind of pain. It’s one thing to be the bearer of bad news, it’s another to be the cause. I know, I know I need to do what I need to do.

I want to save you, but I don’t know how anymore and I’ve run out of energy trying.

Why, indeed?

Questions Again!

Meredith asks: I’m here. Here’s a question, and maybe it is too personal. Knowing what you know about the social services system, would you ever personally adopt a “waiting child” to be part of your family? Adoption is on my mind a lot these days.

We would absolutely adopt, and will absolutely adopt. I feel very strongly, for us, that it is important to adopt from foster care and from the US. I do not mean that is the best choice for everyone. There are a few reasons I feel strongly about that. The first one is in regards to private adoption. I feel that there are couples waiting in line to adopt privately. If you go on any private adoption website, there are hundreds of couples with “letters to the birth mom”  up on the site. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for a child. Waiting to be matched. Waiting to be chosen. Don’t get me wrong- there is always some kind of wait involved in adoption. However, these couples are knee deep. I think it’s great on so many levels. It gives moms who feel that adoption is the best choice for them the opportunity to carefully choose the couple that she feels fits best. I don’t think it’s right for us. As far as international adoption- clearly there are more babies, toddlers, and children then there are families waiting, although you wouldn’t think that given, again, the wait times. But there are clearly children in the world that need families and homes. I am somewhat uncomfortable with two aspects of international adoption. The first is that if we went through with international adoption, we would be taking a child out of their own culture and history. Now, I don’t think this in and of itself is inherently evil. Again, those children need families and homes. I just wish all the money we spent on international adoption could go towards fortifying those countries to adopt their own children. Which brings me to my second point, and probably the most potent of all my reasons to adopt through the US foster care system. I do not feel comfortable adopting a child from another country when I know there are children here, in my own backyard, that desperately need loving homes. There are babies, toddlers, children and teens here. They all need homes and families that love them. I feel some kind of responsibility to extend our home and family to one or more of those children, when we are able.

However. We are young, and have never parented. We will likely not start with teenagers. Both of us would like to parent an infant. If we do not have our own biological children, or decide to adopt before doing IVF, we will get approved as pre-adoptive foster parents and wait until an infant who is legally freed is available. This is of course a wait. But those babies still need loving homes. (as do they all.)

After that? Who knows. Like I said, we are young and have never parented. I hope that we will continue on that path and foster and adopt more children, perhaps not all infants. But we need to take that step by step, and it’s obviously not all my decision, either. We need to see how things go and what life throws at us. We need to evaluate, each step of the way, where we are in life and as potential parents to children with special needs.

You asked about the social services system. It is so clearly broken it’s not even funny. I’ve had intimate encounters with just how broken our child welfare system is. I watch TV about children in abusive homes and the heroes wanting to put them in foster homes- and I cringe, thinking- what if the foster homes are no better? It’s a crap shoot at best. We try our best to make it better, and to provide children in foster care with loving, safe homes. But the truth is the system is broken and needs alot of work. And we are placing children with complex and unique needs into homes that often do not have enough support, and those folks are human too. The needs of the child welfare system, and it’s brokenness, are not going to determine whether or not we foster and adopt. Regardless of the system, those kids still need homes.

That said, there is a big caveat. I work in what we call “therapeutic” of “specialized” foster care. The kids in my program come with a history of many placements, dangerous behaviors, difficult behaviors, mental health histories, psychiatric medications, etc. They come with a variety of letters attached to their names: RAD, PTSD, ODD, ADHD. There is no telling what any child will grow up to be, and any child Khalil and I take into our home we will be committed to. At this point in our life, we aren’t ready to parent a child with those kinds of needs. Again- in ten or twenty years? Who knows. But now? We’re not there. So we probably wouldn’t parent through the specialized foster care programs.

There that is. My long and possibly very disjointed answer. The one thing I want to make clear: This is where Khalil and I are now, always subject to change, and our choices are not everyone’s choices. I very clearly feel that each person/ couple/ family tries the very best to make the choices that are right for them, whether it’s foster to adopt, private adoption, international adoption, or nothing of the sort. These choices are personal and private, and I would never dare to criticize another person’s choice.

I’ve written about my job a few times before.

Leaving it is not going so well.

My mom said, and I think she’s right, that it’s amazing how quickly people ‘get over it’ once you leave. That there is lots of brouhaha when you are in the process of leaving a job, but that once you leave they kind of- move on.

I guess that’s supposed to be reassuring. And it is, in a way. I care so much about my kids and my families, that I don’t want them falling apart when I am gone. I want them to transition to different social workers and clinicians seamlessly, because I don’t want to be the cause of any kind of difficulty for them. My job for two years has been to support them and get them through the hard stuff.

I think that’s the hardest part. My favorite foster mom (yes, sorry, I have a favorite. I love most of them but I have a favorite) started crying when I told her that I was leaving. She asked me what she was going to do. I talk to this foster parent almost daily. She calls me for the little things- ‘what time are you bringing him home’ to the big things- ‘he blew up and walked out of the house. we need you’ and everything in between. She cried and told me she felt like she was losing her right arm.

If you have a good one, the relationship between social worker and foster parent is an odd one. I’ve said before, it’s a bit like co-parenting. They call to ask how to handle different and difficult parenting decisions. They call to share joys and praises- good grades, good decisions, good moments. They call for the difficult stuff- the days the kids are a mess, the days they feel like they really just can’t do this anymore. You, as that child’s social worker, understand the special needs of that child in a way their friends who are raising biological children do not. You understand the special needs and issues that are associating with raising children in foster care. You support the parents, day in and day out, through all of that.

We are there to understand when they say they can’t do it anymore. To be with them and encourage them to hang in there, for one more minute, hour, day, week, month. Hopefully, before anyone knows it, it’s turned into years. We’re also there when the cost on them is too high and they can’t do it anymore. We may get angry at them, but we do our best to support them anyways.

So yes. Will other workers be able to do it? Absolutely, I know that they will. I know that because the other worker’s families are as attached to those workers as mine are to me.

But they are my families. And with a few of them, I have spent 1-2 years pouring my heart and soul into those families and those children. You cannot pour your heart into the children without doing the same for the parents and the families, because they are who keeps those children together day in and day out.

I knew she’d be upset. I had a feeling I might cry. I know it’s a boundary thing, but we in foster care talk alot about boundaries. How they are just not the same in foster care, for all the reasons I talked about above. You get attached, and they do too. They tell me they’ll miss me.

I know I will miss them. I know that I need a break, I know I need to move away. My heart and my head need some time apart. I need to take some time to focus on myself, as selfish as that feels. I battle that constantly- how can I do this?

I know, though, that if I don’t, eventually I will be no good to anyone. I constantly use the analogy of a well with parents. Talk about their own wells and the wells of their children. If we as adults don’t keep our wells full, they will run dry. And we will have nothing left to give.

My well is dangerously close to dry. And before it dries completely and I have to cover it for good, I am going to take a break. Fill up my well, and come back- in one form or another- full and ready to give again.

I will miss them though. I wish they could understand just how much. I carry them all with me, and I think I always will.

I’ll be changing my “About Me” page in about 4 weeks.

I’ll no longer be a foster care social worker.

*moment of silence, please*

I’m actually leaving direct care altogether, for a time. Not permanently, I don’t think, but who knows where life will lead? I need a break, I’ve been very burnt out. The first time I stated that I didn’t care about what happened with a situation with a kid, I knew it was time to go. The truth is that I did care, I do care. But I am at the point where not caring has seemed like a really great option, and I cannot do that to my kids. I won’t do it to my kids.

I’m leaving a job where I work about 45 hours a week, and come home at all kinds of crazy hours. (9:30 tonight). I will be going to a job where I work 8:30 to 5. Every day. With a lunch break. With a gym onsite. Yes, I will be working on what us in the mental health field think of as the dark side- an insurance company. But I’ve been promised I’ll still use my clinical skills, and I think I will. I also think that I will learn and grow in other ways.

At the very least I will get a much needed break from some of the total BS I’ve been dealing with for two years.

My co-workers and bosses know that I have been unhappy, and that I have been wanting a change. My clients know nothing of the sort and I dread telling them. I’m sure they’ll all be fine, but I have built of very strong relationships with some of my families and kids, relationships that we’ve worked very hard at in the last two years. I will miss some of them very, very much.

But it’s time for me to move on. At the very least take a break.

I’m very, very excited.

There are days, like today, that I just can’t believe the world I work in.

Not the “system”, although I spend plenty of days angry at the “system” and what it does to our children- what WE do to our children.

But today? Today I’m pissed at a world in which we treat children like they are less than the puppies in the pound. Worth less. That’s what I’m pissed at today.

I’m so, so tired.

We’re interviewing in our program.

Interviewing for case manager/ clinicians.

I want to ask questions of these people, but I don’t know how to put into words what I do every day. When they ask what a typical day looks like, how do I explain what it is I do all day? There’s the pat answer, of course. The “well, mornings are typically catching up on paperwork, answering phone calls/ e-mails, and meetings. the afternoons are for home visits. At night you pray you don’t have any crises so that you can stay afloat.” That’s the answer I give, minus the praying about crises at night part. We talk about doing case management and clinical work. Talk about parenting and managing kids with difficult behaviors. I inevitably ask about their knowledge about attachment and loss, and trauma, because there isn’t a kid in our program who hasn’t dealt on some level with all three of those issues. If they ask me what any of them are, well…

Now you know what to expect if you interview with me. Kind of.

Here’s what I really want to ask them about and tell them.

When I ask how they deal with stress, and tell them that this job can be emotionally draining, I want to tell them something else. I want to tell them to get ready to have their heart stomped on. I want to make sure they know to let go of their social work schooling on boundaries. I want to tell them that once you start working with kids in foster care, you have to let go of some- not all- of your boundaries. Not all- you have to keep some so you can still do your job, and do it well. And good luck finding the balance.

I want to ask if they know what it is like to look into a kid’s eyes while you are telling them that the world they’ve tried to build is going to crumble, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I want to tell them to be ready to get drunk once in a while because you just don’t know how to handle all the emotions you just took in that day.

I want to ask them how they feel about sometimes sacrificing their personal lives if it means you might save a kid’s “placement” which really means family.

What do you do when the needs of two of the kids you’re working with are directly in conflict with each other?

How do you answer a sobbing fifteen year old who is crying that no one wants her- when it’s true???

What will you say to a foster parent when they tell you that they no longer feel they can parent the child they have parented for two years and told that they will never leave?

What will you say to the state agency when you feel that your kids are not getting something they need, but they’re the guardian of the child? How about when they cut you off from that child? When you’ve been the most consistent person in that child’s life?

I want them to tell me how they will heal a foster parent’s heart when it’s breaking because a kid’s heart is breaking. How will you heal the kids heart when it’s breaking because the system that’s supposed to save them is failing them again? And you’re part of that system?

I want to tell them that sometimes you can’t leave the kids at work, no matter how good you’ve been at it in the past. I want to tell them that sometimes you’ll find yourself thinking about how your kids are doing at the oddest times.

I really want to find out, when I ask how they handle frustration at work, what they will do when they are so angry with foster parents they could throw something. What will you say when a school tells a child he can’t go there, when he’s been planning it for 8 months, 4 days before school starts? How will you encourage that kid? How will you handle frustration then?

Social work teaches us all kinds of things: boundaries, taking care of yourself, big words- “vicarious traumatization”, case management, all different kinds of therapy. Social work school can’t teach you how to love your job. It can’t teach you how to have a passion for what you do. It can’t teach you how to connect- really and truly connect- to the people you work with, the kids, the families, the other social workers. There is so much about what school can’t teach you, that is crucial to doing this job.

No amount of schooling can teach you the real stuff about this job.

The heart of it.

I don’t want to say I’m burnt out. Because I’m not. But all last week, it felt like I was dangerously close.

And not just at work.

I got home at 9:30 east coast time, which was 6:30 am west coast time. (I live on the east coast.) Besides for a few hours sleep on the plane, I had been up since 9:30 east coast time- close to 24 hours. I came home, showered, rested, and went to work.

I never recovered, until Friday.

Work was a nightmare. As I described to my supervisor, after you have to hear people not want the kids you work with anymore, and convince them that they do want them, and spend hours keeping families together and hours putting kids together after the families fall apart… you start to feel like you’re carrying around a huge weight. The weight of all those little lives. I’m not the one who destroyed them, but I’m one of the grown-ups charged with trying to piece them back together.

I didn’t have the words for the week, nor the energy to write them. I didn’t have the time.

I took Friday off, and spent the weekend regrouping. Not talking to many people, totally and completely zoning out. There was an ANTM marathon on Friday, and a SYTYCD marathon the rest of the weekend. Khalil is very sick of models and dancers. My brain has appreciated the break, as have my emotions.

And so I totally bombed at Blog September.

But alas, I feel like myself again, rather than a very tired, fizzling out version of me. I’m hoping to start the week off on the right foot- either swimming or doing the Firm. Wish me luck!

What? You guys thought that I dropped being a social worker and just became a grieving person trying fad diets? Is that what you thought?

I don’t write about my job often, however, my post on being a foster parent is still one of the most clicked-on posts on my blog. Funny thing. I hope it’s helpful to those finding it.

I want to get back to writing about foster parenting and foster care. That’s the aspect of social work I work in right now. I love what I do. What I do is hard work, however I have a special place in my heart for the children and families I work with. What I do is hard, what foster parents do day in and day out is 100 times harder, and the lives my kids have led is 1000 times harder. Those are the reminders that keep me going when my job is hard.

The reason I don’t write about my job often is because I struggle with how to write about it. I so wish that I could tell my kids stories. But those are their stories, and they need to find their own way to tell them. I hope one day that they can, and that brings healing to my kids.

I think, though, that writing about what foster care is, what it isn’t, what I do, what I don’t do, etc., may be a good place to start.

I often read Baggage. She is a foster parent and has an awesome, honest perspective. She recently posted asking if folks have questions about foster care. I’d love to know the same- do you have questions? What would you want to know from a social worker? Hopefully this will give me a way to start talking about what I do and love.

A blogger I love, who is an adoptive mom who adopted through foster care, wrote a post about adoption.

It’s a wee bit presumptious of me to try and say more. It’s very good. Go on and read it. Then come back here and laugh at how I try to say more. No, really.

Khalil and I, yeah, we’ve been trying. And it’s not been going well. I have always known that I want to do foster care. The grand plan is to have a few of our own kids, then when they’re a little older to do foster care. I like that plan on many levels. For one, it involves at least one biological child. Which is turning out to be more important than I thought it would be. Another reason I like this plan is that I would like our biological children to be old enough and mature enough to handle adding to our family through foster care and adoption. This is not always an easy task. Lastly, it gives us time to grow as a couple and as parents in order to be ready to parent a foster child. But last night Khalil and I had a talk about what we would do if. What would we do if we couldn’t have our own. Just you know… if.

I already know. I know I would adopt through foster care. There are soo many ways to adopt- international, domestic, foster care, infant, toddler, older child… and combinations of those. I’d love to adopt or foster some babies, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see. One step at a time. I know where my heart lies though. I’ve worked in international adoption, and I have just always felt that for me- for me, foster care through our country is what I want to do. Through foster care. I just… have to. I don’t disagree with Angelina, who looks at the world as one and feels that all children everywhere deserve families. And they do. But I look into the faces of children almost every day who at some point in their life have been desperate for families. And I cannot turn my back on this need.

All that to say. To say what? To say- there are so many myths about foster care and adoption. And I LOVE the way Baggage addresses them. The biggest being- if I do foster care, I will have to give the babies back. I get it- most people, many people- that’s a huge job. It’s not something everyone can do. When you foster, you get attached. You spend a lot of time fixing the broken, picking up the pieces and attempting to glue them back together. You finally get them somewhat glued, the glue is drying, and then the children go back to their parents. When you see the child again, the pieces have fallen apart again. It’s not easy. It’s not. But it’s not the only way to foster.

Again. I’m going to refer you back to Baggage here. She explains the differences in foster care well. If I try to do it I’ll try to explain all of the differences in foster care and there are alot of subtle differences. These also vary state to state and in some states, county to county. I will get overly detailed and confusing, trust me. So go see her.

I don’t know what we will do, altogether. Given my job, I know some of the things we won’t do. I know some of the things I will look for, and some of the things I would like to do. I’m also not the only one making these decisions, and so Khalil has say as well. These are decisions we have to make together. They aren’t easy. Regardless of whether my grand plan works, the decisions will need to be made at some point.

I know what warms my heart though. Hearing a foster mother I know has struggled with infertility, almost lost her marriage through it, say something like this, “This is my calling. It’s what I was meant to do.” She was talking about foster care. And adoption. She has adopted four of our foster children. She is in the process of fostering and likely adopting another. She cares for her niece. If we’d let her, she’d take more. (We can’t. There’s a six child limit. We try to stick to it.) Hearing that- knowing that, despite the pain of infertility, she has found a way to be at peace and do such an amazing job with those children- it reminds me that no matter what or how, Khalil and I will have children. And we will love them and raise them well.

There are alot of things that annoy me on a day to day basis. People who drive in the left lane with their left blinker on, for example. People who drive the speed limit in the fast lane. The law about cell phone use. That I gain weight if I so much as look at a fattening food. You know, the normal stuff.

Then there’s the stuff that makes me angry or frustrated. You know- when someone is mean. Or rude. When someone is offensive. People who are stupid. I get alot of all of these at work- not typically from co-workers, but from… other people I have to interact with on a regular basis.

But there is one thing that puts. me. over. the. edge.

It is when someone messes with “my kids”. Nothing makes me flare up more, makes me swear more, or initially act more unprofessionally than when someone has done something to one of my children. The children that I am responsible for day in and day out. The children who have been hurt, abused, neglected, abandoned, and trampled their entire lives.

We had a situation at work this last week or so. It’s messy and complicated, and I won’t get into details. I’m sick of them and you don’t want to hear them. But the bottom line was that a coworker of mine inadvertantly, by doing something unwise, put the placement of three of my children at risk.

I saw red. I don’t mean pansy red, like that kind of pinkish-red you see when you’re annoyed. I don’t mean that kind of bright red you see when you’re angry. I saw deep wine red- the kind you see when you’re so mad, so infuriated that nothing really makes sense anymore. And you just keep talking to people and none of them are acting quickly enough for you. I was so, so, so mad.

Hopefully the situation will resolve. Hopefully the children will be able to stay where they are. Hopefully I will calm the hell down (which I have done alot of already almost a week later). Hopefully other people will learn that really? It’s best if you don’t mess with my kids.

I’m a protective “momma” bear. Sometimes, I’m the only one they’ve really got.

They say parenting is the hardest job. I contend that foster parenting is the hardest job. All of the struggles of parenting, fewer of the perks, more difficult children and lots of people constantly evaluating you. Essentially you are the janitor of children: you get to clean up other people’s messes.

I asked what to write about, and MerseyDotes of Elevated Umbrella (I’m on her fantasy team for NaBloPoMo) suggested I talk about foster parents. Whch is a great idea. Foster parents make my job easy and hard. They are amazing and frustrating. They do the job, we tell them how to do it and they put up with us.

If I had to write an ad in a paper for foster parents, it might go something like this: “Seeking certifiably crazy adult or adults to bring chaos, destruction and heartache into their life. Pay is horrible and not enough for abuse adult will endure. You will have no less than two people telling you how to do your job. Training is thorough but you will not integrate it until you are living it, if then. Benefits are: children in your home, for all the good and bad they bring. Also, self-gratification that you are doing “something good”. Must have own psychiatrist to apply. Good luck.”

No, I kid, I kid. Mostly.

I have to preface this by saying again: Foster parenting is one of the hardest jobs you can ask someone to do. Children are hard, our children are harder. They have undergone some sort of loss, abuse, neglect, betrayal, and/ or trauma. That’s what got them into our system. Once they’re in our system, we’ve often abused and traumatized them more, if that’s possible. Foster parents get to do the 24/7, day in and day out of the mess that abuse and neglect makes of these kids.

And it makes a mess. Abuse, neglect, and trauma are horrible on children. Children are absolutely resilient, however they bear the scars of the parenting they did or did not receive. Our children act out all over the place. They lie, swear, and steal. And those are the easy kids. They hit, kick, and punch. They pee the bed if you’re lucky: if you’re not lucky they’re peeing in your flowers or on your carpet. They poop their pants if you’re lucky: if you’re not they smear it on your walls. They have nightmares and daymares. They react oddly to the strangest triggers. They’re horribly inconsistent and difficult to figure out. (A side note: I work in therapeutic foster care. The kids we have require an extra level of training and support because the children are more difficult and require more work. There is a level down and those children are not quite as needy and difficult. Ideally.)

So. While I have the utmost respect for the foster parents I work with, they can be SO FRUSTRATING. I’ve written before about our kids not being puppies or returnable clothes. That said, here is what an ideal foster parent has/ understands/ are:

Our best foster parents have:

~Some experience with children. They don’t need to have parented before, but need to have some kind of experience with children. Have nieces and nephews, have taught, mentored, something. People who have no experience with children are going to struggle with fostering.

~A working knowledge of age-appropriate expectations. One of my most frustrating experiences with foster parents is when they have to be told, or explained, that the three year old they are fostering is not “oppositional/ defiant” in terms of having a disorder, but is just acting three. Or that their fourteen year old boy is not looking at internet porn because he has been sexually abused or is going to be a sexual offender, but that he is doing something considered age appropriate for him.

~A working knowledge of how abuse and neglect affects children. These children are not typical children. It makes me cringe when new foster parents expect our children to “just be normal kids”. In some senses, sure. In many, not so much. If you expect them to be “normal” you will be blindsided quickly.

~A good support system. This is crucial.

Our foster parents need to understand:

~Love is NOT enough. I cannot stress that enough. I. Cannot. Stress. That. Enough. Love goes a very long way, but these are children whose parents- the people who are fundamentally supposed to care for and protect you- have failed in the most basic ways. You loving them is not going to fix that.

~Our children are not going to be grateful. WE will be grateful, more than words can ever say. Our kids, your kids? Not so much. They are angry, sad little people and don’t have the room to be grateful to you. More often they will take out their anger and frustration at the world on you.

~That if you have ANY unresolved issue, foster children will bring it out. Then they will recognize it. Then they will use it to their advantage. So resolve as many issues as you can before foster parenting.

Our best foster parents are:

~Committed.

~Patient.

~Long-suffering.

~Calm

~Realistic

I know. It sounds harsh. But to do the hardest job in the world, you have to be ready. Some of my foster parents are amazing and ready. Rarely are our new ones, but they learn with time. We have some that just don’t get it. Again, these are not our agency requirements or what we actually talk about. Some of this we do talk about as an agency. But these are MY perceptions on what I think a foster parent needs to succeed.