This is another post responding to a question from a friend. How do Seth and I stay connected through all the craziness of foster care? Do we have date nights?
Answer to the latter question first: no, damnit, not since Covid started. Before that? Rarely. And lordie do we need dates! What I wouldn’t do for a dinner where no one complains that anything is “disgusting” and the conversation is that of adults only! Or a night at the race track, vroom vroom! Siiiigh. Those nights will happen again, someday.
Truthfully we have had a super easy and super hard time with babysitters. We have two sets of neighbors who have babysat for us for free multiple times and I always feel so guilty! They’re amazing. We are blessed with our neighbors generally these days. One of those neighbors has an 11 year old daughter who dotes on Tiny and has even been known to ask to borrow her in the afternoon for a few hours of fun. The other neighbor has a son who dotes on Tiny too. Both the boy and girl neighbors have bought gifts for Tiny and Kiddo which is just about the sweetest thing ever.
Paid babysitters have been harder to find though we finally have yet another neighbor who is babysitting age now. Until recently the county required all babysitters to be 18 years of age or older. Now with the new “prudent parenting” standard I think we can go a little younger which opens up some possibilities. The high school girl across the street managed to wrangle the twins into naps when she babysat them so I have great faith in her abilities to manage whatever kids can dole out. So maybe once Covid is better managed as the vaccine starts circulating more we will have some babysitters I won’t feel so guilty about burdening with our kids.
So, absent date nights, how do Seth and I stay connected? Hard work, good chemistry, and shared goals. A lot of therapy. A lot of talking through things. We could undoubtedly do better but we do pretty well.
We talk a lot, including sometimes in front of the kids. I swear it’s important for adults to talk about life things in front of kids. It’s good to model healthy conflict resolution and negotiation.
Like most couples, our biggest disagreements are typically about household chores. Blech. We both hate them so our house gets messy which stresses us out. We’ve gone through some major purges of stuff lately which has helped, and are working on making sure all things have a place where they belong. Covid quarantine was great for that – we were so bored we cleaned. We have to be really bored or really panicked about a visitor coming to deep clean, apparently.
When it comes to taking kids, two of our biggest disagreements ever came from me wanting to take a child and Seth not wanting to. He wanted down time after Gronckle left. I wanted another kid to help fill the aching void in my heart and give me something to keep me busy and keep my mind off the pain. We struggled big time with how long to wait before another child came. Then I got a call from placement and made Seth call them back because I was tired of saying “no,” and he surprised me by saying “yes” to Mouse. In retrospect we took exactly the right amount of time off because we needed Mouse. We’ve also disagreed over taking this teen with my bleeding heart wanting to take her and his wanting to protect Kiddo from disruption from her old room. Kiddo solved that disagreement by agreeing to move in with Tiny, bless her.
Seth and I both have therapists, which is hugely important. I’ve been seeing my therapist for something like six years now, and Seth has been seeing his for perhaps six months, and he had another one before. We both love our therapists and are well matched. Having therapists allows us to blow off steam by complaining to a neutral third-party, and getting a reasonableness check back. It helps me figure out how to talk with Seth about certain issues. It also helps us just cope with all the stuff that’s going on for us, even if it’s not related to our relationship per se. It helps keep us feeling stable and well grounded. We have gone to a therapist together a couple of times before and that was really helpful as well. And we make a point of talking with each other about what we are working on in therapy, which means we have really meaningful conversations with each other on a regular basis, no matter how busy we are.
We each have our patterns that get us in trouble sometimes. But on the whole, having kids we both love has drawn us together. I love watching Seth parent. He’s silly and goofy and playful with kids, but also sensitive and has learned to have hard conversations with Kiddo that end in hugs and better understanding. We talk about behavioral issues, and work together to try to understand and handle them. And we share our frustrations with “the system” with each other which is validating.
I think I got insanely lucky when I met Seth. I think he’s a big part of the magic that keeps us going. He’s kind and sensitive and smart. He’s an amazing parent. He’s giving to a fault. He’s handy with house and cars. He’s willing to go to a therapist and isn’t machismo about anything. He has good friends, which I’ve discovered is really important for the health of our relationship because it’s healthy for him. And he’s hot. That totally helps too. 🙂
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