The World Came Tumbling Down

Sometimes things go as planned in foster care. Once in a great while, something that has been expected comes to pass. Most of the time though, things will be trucking along looking like they’re headed one way, then everything goes pear shaped.

As it did with us and Miss Kicks.

She started going AWOL in June, and then started acting out in pretty spectacular fashion. She ran for the third time in July on the day she became legally freed for us to adopt her. She’s still AWOL and won’t tell anyone where she is, though I talked with her briefly today and she swears she’s somewhere safe.

This is her pattern. It’s what she does in foster homes. There’s a golden period, then she explodes into a flurry of bad behavior and running away and blows up the placement. We thought she’d be past that pattern because it had been more than 3 years since she’d done it because she’d been in a residential facility during that time. We figured she’d have matured past that point. It’s such a common behavior pattern for kids – especially teens – in foster care.

But, she hadn’t matured past it and waltzed through her typical pattern before our eyes, helpless to stop it. We are made of tough fiber and figured we could endure all her attempts to get us to kick her out. But it turns out even we have limits.

She’s not welcome back in our home. For Seth it was the drugs and drug paraphernalia being left where the little kids could have accessed it. For me it was that primarily, plus trying to steal my gold Tiffany’s starfish necklace, getting caught with it, ripping it off her neck to give it back, and then its costing me more than the beloved thing cost originally to get it repaired by Tiffany’s.

It’s funny what gets under one’s skin. I find it’s seldom what one expects.

We have gotten used to interactions with the police because of Miss Kicks. I have to say our encounters have been very professional and positive, with NYS Troopers and our Village police having endless patience with Kiddo’s questions (“Is that a REAL GUN?!?”) and our wayward teen.

Am I heartbroken? Yes and no. I’m still pretty numb. It’s only been a little over a week since the wheels came off. And I’m fairly angry with some of the shit she’s said to me. I’m angry with her for ruining her future. For ruining so many opportunities. For wasting taxpayer resources. For hurting the littler girls. For hurting Seth. For taking advantage of and using us.

Is my anger reasonable? No of course not – she’s a mixed up broken kid. But my therapist tells me anger is a warning sign that someone is hurting us so we should put up our guard to protect ourselves. And that’s what we are having to do. Mostly we are having to protect the littler girls. But even if we had no other kids I don’t think we could take her back even if we wanted to because she wouldn’t stay. The bottom line is that a stable loving family is deeply uncomfortable for someone who has never known one before.

It’s all so predictable but no less tragic because of it.

She tells me her primary goal in life right now is to get pregnant and have a baby so someone will love her unconditionally. She may try to live off benefits after having a baby but is going to find it hard to support her lifestyle that way. I doubt she’ll be able to keep custody of a child but perhaps she’ll surprise us all and stop the cycle. I doubt it. But I guess I have been surprised before.

For now, I’ll keep trying to ferret out where she is when she contacts me, and I’ll clean out her room and prepare it for another kid.

Not a teenager though. Never again a teen. Their problems are so much messier than those of the littler kids. Seth and I have decided to stick to girls since we are already inundated with them (two girl human children, three girl cats, and a girl guinea pig) and feel more adept at girls than boys. And in an ideal world we’d accept a kid between 4 and 7 – between Tiny’s and Kiddo’s ages. Old enough to wipe their own butt, young enough not to be using drugs yet.

We’ll see though. We’ve been surprised by who we’ve taken in before. First though, a little break while I work out some of my health issues, and we enjoy the two lovely hellions we already have beautifying our lives.