Bonding

I have a confession to make: I’ve had a hard time bonding with Little Dude so far. This is not uncommon, and is a fact of life for foster parents. Sometimes it takes a month or two for me to really develop a bond with a child and that month or two is hard.

Why am I having a harder time bonding with him? I don’t really know. What I’ve observed is that the kids I have a harder time bonding with initially are typically suuuuper active kids, not overly affectionate, and hard to keep up with. They’re the kids who are a lot of hard work to care for. I find this is a trait often found in boys though we’ve had one girl who was that way too.

Dude Man is a high energy kid. Our house is not really baby proof because we have toys for 9 and 3 year olds, so when Dude is down and roaming around he has to be watched constantly. And he’s soooo active! He’s walking like a little bow-legged champ, toddling about the whole house, blowing raspberries on toys and reaching for everything and putting things in his mouth and babbling loudly. By the end of an evening I can’t wait to get him in bed so I can SIT DOWN and hear myself think. He’s hard to feed – Mr Independent sucks at eating off a spoon! It’s slow and painful and frustrating unless it’s finger foods he can feed himself. In short, he’s requiring more energy than some of our other kids and I don’t have vast reserves of energy because of my health issues.

Thankfully the kid is growing on me in a way that tells me I’ll love him like my other kids – heart and soul – with a little more time. This morning when he woke up he was in a super snuggly mood, out of the blue, and that helps tremendously with bonding. Hugs and a kid nuzzling into my neck has an amazingly heart warming effect. And he’s got a wicked little grin that, when I see it, makes me feel warm and fuzzy and amused.

I had said previously that we would be taking girls rather than boys, and that’s for a whole variety of reasons. We have more girl clothing, if we need to swap bedrooms around we can, and because Seth and I both bond faster with girls usually. It doesn’t really make sense, but it’s a fact we’ve observed over time. When we got the call for Dude Man, the head of Homefinding is the person who called and she just asked if we wanted “babies.” We said yes, and then she said “he” and I realized we’d just said yes to a boy rather than a girl. In the grand scheme of things it’s fine – we’ll love Dude like we love all our kids – but it does make for a slightly harder start.

I’ve wrestled with this fact about myself – that I have trouble bonding with some of our kids. What does it mean about me? Does it mean I don’t love kids like I think I do? Does it make me a bad mom? But over time I’ve come to accept it as a fact of foster care. I think it’s a fact of mothering in general – I have friends who had a harder time bonding with one of their bio kids than another. Some kids are the right “fit” from the start, and others just take a bit more time and work. Love for different kids can feel different, and that’s ok, so long as they’re being treated with equity and kindness and patience even if those sentiments are a little harder to muster.

Perhaps this weekend I’ll take Dude Man somewhere alone. That helps with bonding too – focusing solely on one kid’s experiences interacting with the world. Maybe the zoo, or maybe a playground. I’ll come up with something. I’ll keep working on the bonding thing until it comes naturally. And I’ll be relieved and happy when I finally feel full heathy attachment to our little Dude Man.