When parents let kids down

Today Tiny had a visit scheduled with her Mama. It’s her standard visit – every other Friday at 1 o’clock. At a meeting last week we discussed the visit with her Mom so she definitely knew about it. Yet today, something went wrong, and Mom didn’t show up for the visit.

There could be a million valid reasons why she didn’t show up. Maybe one of the other kids got sick. Maybe a car broke down. Maybe a relative or neighbor had a crisis that she had to help with. Who knows. It could be a valid reason. But at the end of the day, she didn’t call or tell anyone that she wasn’t coming, and just didn’t show up.

It used to be we could just surprise Tiny by presenting her to her mother at the visit location, so there wouldn’t be a let down if the visit didn’t happen – we could just drive off and she’d be none the wiser. But Tiny is old enough now that she recognizes where she is and knew that she was in the location that she goes to for these visits. She got incredibly excited when she realized where she was, and was thrilled to get out of the car. When she had to get back in the car without seeing her Mama, she became absolutely inconsolable. She sobbed and sobbed and begged my husband “please can I see Mama [name]?” over and over again. She didn’t stop crying until she was back home and finally fell asleep.

When parents let their kids down, it takes a toll on everyone, but mostly the kids. If this had been a one time thing I would have rolled with it much better, but this is not the first time a visit has been missed by Tiny’s Mom. And it’s not the first time Tiny has been absolutely wrecked by having a visit not happen. We know Tiny’s mom loves her so much, but sometimes she just isn’t able to come through for her.

Unfortunately, sometimes bio parents do let their kids who are in foster care down terribly. Kiddo’s mom let her down several times early on during her stay in foster care, and Kiddo would react with violent anger when she got stood up for a visit. There was nothing we could do but batten down the hatches, say goodbye to some belongings, and let our hearts break as we watched a beloved child tear through the house trying to find some outlet big enough for her gigantic terrible emotions. Tiny is more sad than angry, but it’s just as hard to watch.

Consoling devastated kids is part of the job of a foster parent. All we can do is reassure kids that their parents love them very much and tell them that sometimes things get in the way of visiting. But I secretly get so angry – sometimes unreasonably angry – at the parent who just hurt a beloved kid so much. Then I have to set my feelings aside and continue to partner with the bio parent to try to get the family reunited anyway because most of the time that’s what’s best for the child. Not always. But most of the time.

Foster parenting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This gig is not for the faint of heart. 💔

It’s Official!

We are now parents of a teenager! We managed to spring her from her facility for the last time yesterday and she now lives with us. We picked her up, stuffed my vehicle with all of her belongings, and brought her home. She’s still in a room full of boxes but it’s officially her room now.

The timing seems perfect. This coming week is spring break week, so she and I will have some time to hang out and do some fun things. We’ll get our nails done, and she’s got some money to spend at the mall so we’ll do a mall trip too. And she’ll have plenty of time to unpack and settle in.

The woman who chairs the welcoming committee at our church gave her a gift of money and a very sweet card to welcome her to our church community. For the millionth time, I feel incredible gratitude for the forces at play in the universe that brought us to our church. The community supports us in so many ways, and I am so glad they’re eager to welcome our teen. The church will actually be open for Easter – it’s been closed because of Covid – so our teen will get to experience at least a small part of the community next Sunday. Long term, I don’t plan to force her to go to church every week if she really doesn’t want to go. She’s previously spent time with a foster family who was super religious and she wasn’t into it, and I am not into forcing religion on anybody. But I do hope she’ll decide she likes it. After all, I’m not really in it for the religion so much as the community myself.

Of course I have prepared Easter baskets for all of the kids: our teen, Kiddo, Brother, and Tiny. I had way too much fun making the Easter baskets for the three big kids by gluing theater size boxes of candy together. And each little kid has some little toys and some goodies in their basket, and our teen has a small but expensive item in her basket. Tiny’s basket was the most fun to fill because I don’t want her to have a ton of candy, so I got her more toys. She’s got a basket full of stuff related to her favorite movies. My personal favs are (from the movie Frozen) an Elsa dress, and (from the movie Home) a little toy Oh with Pig Cat on top of his head that spins around when you push a button. She’ll be delighted.

Anyway, back to our teen, in theory she will start school right after spring break. There may be a one day delay since I’m not sure how many folks are working at the school this coming week and whether they will be able to sort out her schedule in time for her to start on the Monday after spring break. But they have most of her documents that are needed for registration and are working on figuring out her classes.

I hope they choose her classes appropriately so that she has a smooth transition. In New York, we have what’s called the Regents, which is the state-wide curriculums. Unfortunately, it wasn’t offered at her facility’s school and I’m so worried that it will set her up to be behind in classes. I’ll be furious if that’s the case because a bright, hard working kid shouldn’t be penalized for having been stuck at a facility rather than having a family who can take care of her. I guess only time will tell.

Anyway, I’m so happy to be embarking on this journey! It was a joy at dinner last night to look around the table at the four of us and think, “Hey, this is my family now.”

“Are they all… troubled?”

I went to the doctor yesterday for some routine blood work. As so often happens, I chatted with the nurse who was taking my blood pressure and pulse and in the course of conversation she asked if I have any children. I answered her that I’m a foster parent. She then asked me what ages of kids we have, and I told her we have an almost 3-year-old and will soon have a 16-year-old.

She paused what she was doing, looked at me, and asked “are they all… (whispering) troubled?”

I think that’s a question that lots of people want to ask and don’t have the nerve to do so.

My answer is this: all children in foster care have experienced trauma. All of them. Period. That does not mean they are all kids with behavioral issues though. Many foster kids have very understandable “behavioral” issues that stem from their trauma. But most we have found to be pretty ordinary kids.

As I relayed to the nurse, we have a perfectly “normal” two-almost-three-year-old whose only behavioral issues are those that are completely typical for a kid her age: the occasional tantrum, some drama, and some trying out her independence. On the whole though, she’s whip smart, feisty, well behaved, and funny as hell.

Tiny trying out her independence by choosing some fabulously clashing outfits.

And we have a very good teenager, who, I joked, occasionally drags her feet about leaving the house and whose room can devolve from neat to a sea of discarded clothing in minutes, but who is a very good student, ambitious, a good influence on her peers, polite, funny, and a wonderful big sister to Tiny.

Looking back over the kids we’ve had, none of them qualify as “troubled” in my mind. Kiddo has always presented us with some challenges but mostly she’s a really good kid, just one with A LOT OF ENERGY. She can’t put a sock in a hamper to save her soul, and occasionally gets sneaky trying to get her way. But she’s loving and affectionate and a good student and funny. Her biggest problem is self esteem related, in that she can occasionally bully other kids in class the second she senses a whiff of their judging her. She’s got an “offense is the best defense” approach with peer insecurities. We’re working on it. That comes out of her trauma past. But I wouldn’t ever call her “troubled.”

Gronckle was a HANDFUL but again it was mostly high energy. We could see some issues around controlling his temper, but he was too young to tell if it would amount to anything problematic in the future. Mostly he was just an ordinary rambunctious little boy.

Mouse was a completely and perfectly well adjusted little toddler. She was sassy and adorable and well mannered.

The twins were a major handful but partly because there were two of them and they were both going in opposite directions at high velocity every second of the day. They did have trouble bonding with us, which comes out of their trauma past. But as much as they gave us a run for our money, I wouldn’t call them “troubled.”

I’m honestly not sure I’d ever call a kid “troubled” because it seems to reduce an entire human down to a few narrow problems and it’s unkind. I understand what the nurse was getting at though. She wanted to know if all foster kids are difficult behaviorally. If they’re uncontrollable. If they’re hard to love.

My answer to the question whether all foster kids are “troubled” has to be an emphatic Nope. They’re just kids. They’re amazing, lovable, young humans with tremendous potential who have just experienced some really unfortunate things no kid should ever have to go through, and who deserve a little extra grace.

Three is Company

I am currently the only crazy person awake in the house but it won’t last for long. Soon I’ll have Tiny (2) and Kiddo (9) wide awake and literally climbing me. The teen (16) will sleep in because she’s a teen and potentially to avoid some of the chaos of the littler girls.

But eventually it will be a full house of wide awake kids and it will be rowdy and tumultuous. I’ll get hugged and sat on a lot by the younger girls. I’ll (potentially justifiably, eh hem) get picked on for my cooking by our teen. I’ll be saying “Leave [name] alone!” a lot. We have three kids who don’t know what an inside voice is, one of whom just got a gift of toy handcuffs so if you forget to watch for them you’re likely to get handcuffed to the furniture in a hot second. We also have a 10 year old dog with spring fever who will be chasing her tail and romping through the house like she’s 2. Plus we have 5 cats, each of whom is insane in their own special way, and one of whom is intent on making me lose my mind by refusing to obey our rules about cats on counters and tables, and three of whom want to go outside and back inside roughly 100 times per day. There will be sneak nerf gun attacks by Kiddo, and Tiny will beg to watch TV and trash the play room, and the teen will complain that our wifi just went down again.

And I will love the hell out of every glorious loud minute. I apparently have a thing for chaos.

It’s all sort of temporary. Kiddo only spends weekends with us because she really lives with her mom, and our teen is still in the process of transitioning to our house so she’s only spending weekends here still as well. I’ll milk it for all it’s worth. Monday will come around too soon and be far too quiet with just Tiny in the house.

Fingers crossed, we will soon have a full-time teenager though! The goal is to have her move in here so that she can start school in the new district right after spring break. The transition has not been without its bumps and I expect plenty more along the way, but we absolutely adore this kid and are thrilled to bits that she wants to live with us.

There’s so much to do between now and when she moves in. It’s all a bit overwhelming, and not made any easier by the fact that her caseworker is leaving the county and a new caseworker is taking over, so we have to start all over building a rapport with the new one. The rumor is that she is very good, so I’m thrilled with that, it’s just that it’s one more thing to transition during an already chaotic time. We will get through it though. And on the other side? Two full-time kids will live here. And my heart will be even fuller.

Support Rocks

As y’all know, we’ve got a 16 year old who is slowly transitioning to our home. Right now she is spending weekends with us, with the goal of having her move in within the next month or so.

She’s a fun kid, who loves Tiny and it’s mutual. She loves to pick up Tiny and swing her around and dip her upside down which is greeted with shrieks of delighted laughter. Tiny can’t pronounce our teen’s name and has come up with her own shortened version of it which is adorable. She wakes up in the morning and wants to go on a quest for the teen, who is not keen on rising at six something in the morning on her weekends so we have to try to shush and distract Tiny for a few hours in the morning. There’s some major adoration going on!

Yesterday, our teen and I did a girls only afternoon and got pedicures and manicures and had a lot of fun. She’s got some wicked claws going on right now! I’m living vicariously because, while they look fabulous, they would drive me absolutely bananas.

While things are going well, it’s not all smooth sailing. We’ve had to engage in a crash course in parental controls on a Chromebook and on an iPhone in an effort to keep our teen safe. Technology is a blessing and a curse, and is scary during the teenage years. Thankfully, between Apple’s controls, Chromebook’s controls, and the Wi-Fi network, we are able to put in place a lot of limits on the activity that can be conducted on any particular device.

We are getting a tremendous amount of support from our teen’s caseworker, who is amazing. She was our caseworker for years before she transferred to her new position, so we already had a great rapport with her, but it’s been a joy to see her working in this new capacity and witness how amazing she is. Our teen likes her too. We are also getting great support from the facility where our teen is currently living. And perhaps the best support is from an outside agency that is providing a case manager, a therapist, and a skill builder for our teen. Most of the services haven’t started yet, but the case manager has been fantastic and is meeting with Seth and me regularly and is on call at all hours in case issues arise.

I’ve also got a little teen parents support group going on through Messenger with three amazing women from college who are also raising teenagers right now. Their insights and support are absolutely invaluable. they are all savvy, insightful, thoughtful, and caring. Having that kind of group that I can instantly reach out to with thoughts, questions, triumphs, and crises is proving to be a major sanity saver.

Whether she realizes it or not, our teen has a whole hell of a lot of people pulling for her and working hard to keep her safe and give her good shot at a happy future.

Transporting the Fam

Right now, Seth has a teeny tiny Ford Fiesta ST. It can fit a car seat in the back and technically Kiddo can squeeze into the back seat too but that’s its maximum capacity and everyone is squooshed. I get claustrophobic in it. It’s teeeeeeny.

So my vehicle is the one that we use to transport everyone. Right now I have a Ford Escape. Cute and easy to park and can fit two kids comfortably in the back seat.

Only problem? We now have three kids to transport a lot of the time! We picked up our teen on Saturday so she could spend the day with us and Kiddo insisted she had to sit in the back seat with her and Tiny which meant our poor teen had to squeeeeeeze into the middle of the back seat and sit at a funny angle to get in there. I felt bad for our shy teen being squashed against anything-but-shy Kiddo who jabbered her ear off and played terrible tween music at her.

There’s no way we could go any distance with all the kids in that car. And we DO go places with the kids. How about a trip to Seabreeze amusement park? The State Fair? A hike? Vacation even?? All now problematic on weekends when we have Kiddo.

I’ve been itching for a minivan. Ah, the ease of getting kids into seats and packing stuff and everyone would have enough space. A kid could bring a friend, even. What a thought!

Slight problem though: Seth says he’ll never drive a minivan if I purchase one and he’ll contemplate disowning me. And when I asked the teen about a minivan her face said it all. She wants to learn to drive and doesn’t want to be caught dead driving a minivan.

She and Seth mentally fist bumped.

I sighed.

That would leave us with an SUV with third row seating. Ford Explorer? Honda Pilot? Subaru Ascent? They’re all massive to me but now that I’m no longer parking in the garage at my old work with giant concrete columns I stand a chance of not scraping it to pieces. And the teen is willing to be seen driving it. And the spouse won’t disown me. All positives.

We can’t afford a new car until Seth starts working as a nurse this summer so we have some time to contemplate our options. I’m open to feedback from y’all! Do you own a crossover SUV with third row seating? Love it? Hate it? Tell me your thoughts!

If I had a Magic Wand

One of my dear friends asked me what I would change about the foster care system if I had a magic wand. That is a very good question, and a hard one to answer in a blog that may be read by my agency!

If I could *actually* have a magic wand, I would waive it so that no system would be needed at all. Kids could grow up with their parents in safe neighborhoods, with food on the table, a feeling of security, and feeling loved. No racism, no poverty, no hunger, no neglect, no abuse. However, I don’t have that magic of a wand so I’ll tone down my wishing.

The first thing I would change about the foster care system is I would funnel a lot more money into the system and – here’s the key – distribute it carefully. I would raise the rate of pay for ordinary caseworkers, and make it so that the jobs are competitive, and therefore the best of the best can be hired. Right now, those positions are so low paying that they have a hard time filling them and keeping them filled. Public positions tend to pay better than the private agencies around here, but none of them pay really well because they can’t afford to. And we need MORE case workers in our county so desperately it’s crazy.

Being a caseworker is a thankless job. It means signing up for having bio parents mad at you an awful lot because they blame you for their kids being in the system. It means having to deliver a whole lot of hard news to parents who want their kids back. It means having an ability to say it like it is, and take the flack. It means having way more of a caseload than is reasonable, and having to juggle a million pressing responsibilities at one time.

Being a caseworker in my county also currently means working with very outdated technology, which is inexcusable in my book. Caseworkers in my county are still provided with flip phones. Flip phones! In a time when text messages are a good way to communicate with people and keep a recording of transactions, they are stuck pressing a key three times to find the letter that they are looking for. It’s not reasonable or fair to the caseworkers. Money spent on tech could make their jobs easier and more efficient. But there’s no money to be had, especially right now when local governments are drowning because of Covid and lack of federal funds to bail them out.

Being a caseworker also means going into dangerous neighborhoods and seeing heartbreaking things. It means dealing with drug and alcohol addicted parents. It means occasionally feeling like you are not safe. And it means frustration with bureaucracy.

We are with a public agency, and some of these things are different at private agencies. But for our kids, they are stuck with a hierarchy at the agency that is political, and doesn’t always seem to be motivated by the kids’ best interests which is what it should be all about. It’s government, which means that the top people at the agency are political appointees and may not have experience in this field. We’ve gone through several commissioners in the 5 years we’ve been foster parents and at least one of them had no prior experience in the field whatsoever. The rumor is that he was appointed to cut costs in the system. I’m not sure if that’s true or not but if it is, it’s pretty sad.

The rest of the folks at the agency are civil servants, and promotions are often based on performance on civil service exams rather than job performance. That presents its own issues.

I want to be clear, though, that there are some amazing folks at the agency. There are some caseworkers who spend every single day going above and beyond. There are people in management positions who really care about kids and who are in the business for the right reasons. It’s just not universal enough. We have also had a colossally shitty caseworker who had no repercussions for being so spectacularly bad at his job, and that was hard as hell. We’ve had a caseworker who we really liked but who was obviously burned out, and that’s not good either. Getting rid of civil servants is hard and should be easier when they aren’t getting the work done in a quality fashion.

And then there are the foster parents. Oof. I want better foster parents in the system.

There are some amazing ones but there are some who don’t care and are in it for the money. A friend’s sister is a teacher who works with high school special education kids (ones with behavioral issues) and who spends a lot of her salary on food and sneakers for her kids who are in foster care because they are simply not getting what they need at home. That’s inexcusable.

There are people in the system so they can have access to kids to prey on them sexually. That’s horrific. I know those folks exist because I have some friends who grew up in foster care and were sexually abused in one home after another, sometimes by parents, sometimes by other kids. It’s apparently rife in the system. But what to do about it?? How do you figure out which homes are a problem? I also know some kids lie about sexual abuse because they know that’s a hell of a weapon. That happened to a friend of mine – one of her teens lied about sexual abuse occurring in her home as a way to disrupt her placement. How does one get to the truth every time when allegations of sexual abuse arise?

I suspect the caseworkers have a pretty good feeling for which foster homes are good and which ones are not. But there is such a desperate need for foster homes, especially for older kids, that the crappy homes are allowed to continue existing and functioning as always. Those beds are, quite simply, needed.

So how can we change the need for beds that drives bad foster homes staying in existence? PREVENTION. We need more and better programs for education of inexperienced and especially young moms. We need way better mental health services especially in the Syracuse area. We need way more and better drug treatment options especially now with the opioid crisis. Better schools, better vocational training, better poverty prevention programs. Payment of a living wage.

Sigh. We need to fix All The Problems. All at once. Immediately. The kids need us to do far, far better as a society.

Blogging about a teen

I loooove writing blog posts and have so much going on with our new teen. But. I want to respect her privacy!

Here’s what I can say about our weekend with her: she’s a nice kid. She adores Tiny and it’s mutual. She seems to fit into our household pretty well. Beans thinks she’s the best thing since kibble because she skritches and loves on her despite Beans’s desperate need for a bath. She’s hesitant about the cats but they’re behaving themselves so far. And she’s a typical 16 year old in lots of respects.

Seth and I are stressing about access to the internet and social media and all the things parents of teens struggle with related to online activity. We know it will be a long time before she will decide she can trust us and can only hope she will decide to. We worry about whether her friends are a good influence. Basically, we have typical parent of a teen problems. They’re stressful in ways toddlers are not!

The most important thing? I think she likes us. She left some of her belongings in her room at our house which means she plans to come back. Hooray! And when she ran into her cottage when we brought her back to her facility she burst into excited chatter about how she “had a blast!” Double hooray!

Teen Update

Hip hip hooray! We get to spring our potential teen from her facility for the day on Saturday! No supervisors, not a zoom with lots of other people involved, just the 4 of us hanging at our house for the day. A real chance to see if we all like each other.

This process has been painfully slow. The wheels of the county and her residential facility turn so slowly. The poor kid has so much drama going on in her life and it’s slowed down the process because she has lots of other meetings and appointments. But we are making progress, however slow it is.

I’m all a flutter. Will she like us? Will she talk? She’s super shy so I’m worried. I’ve got a million questions for her though. What does she like to eat? What are her favorite movies and tv shows? What music does she like? What does she like to do with friends? What classes is she taking in school? Which ones does she like? I’m going to have to be careful not to totally overwhelm the child with my excitement.

I know she likes drawing so I can ask her about what mediums she likes to use for art, and whether she wants to try any of the fun stuff I have in my art supplies. I figure we can rent a movie to watch during Tiny’s nap, make some cookies, and just hang and talk and maybe listen to some music.

Tiny will show off for her new audience. The dog will try to lick the poor girl to death. And with luck, it will be a pretty typical day in our house. Wish us luck!

Valentine’s Day Excursion

A dear friend of Seth’s and mine, who we actually met because she was PB&J’s therapist, offered to come play with Tiny while Seth and I went out for a (*gasp*) actual date!

It all turned out pretty classic, for us.

Seth and I went to the new Salt City Market, which we’ve been dying to try since it opened a few weeks ago. It has different ethnic food stalls including a Burmese stall, as well as Middle Eastern, soul food, Vietnamese, Thai, a cake bar, and a few others I’m forgetting. We actually tried to go with the kids the day it opened but the line was around the block and down the street a long long way so we passed.

Because we had to drop Kiddo off at her home first, we got to the Salt City Market at around 4:20, looked through the different options, and finally got in line at the Big in Burma. It turns out lots of the stalls are closed on Sundays. By the time we got to the Big in Burma counter to order, they were out of the chicken curry which we’d both wanted. I decided to get something else off their menu and Seth decided he’d try a different stall. And then it took about 25 minutes to get the food. Seth graciously waited with me.

At about 4:50 he went to get food from another stall and discovered (drumroll please) the whole place closes at 5 on Sundays aaaannd everyone else was either closed or basically out of food. Ha! So he got macaroni and cheese from the soul food place while I grabbed dessert from Pie’s the Limit.

We ate in his car, clicking our soda bottles together in a brief “cheers” before digging in. We spent our time chatting and laughing about just how classic it was that our romantic dinner was spent in the car eating out of take out containers.

The Burmese food I got was good – Kaut Swe Kyaw which is fried egg noodles and cabbage, chicken, egg, green onions, carrots, and red bell pepper. It wasn’t the amazing blend of flavors I associate with Burmese food though. It reminded me of lo mein, just really good lo mein. I can’t wait to go back and try the chicken curry because curries are the things I tend to like best in Burmese cooking.

Seth’s mac and cheese from Miss Prissy’s was outstanding.

And the raspberry brownie pie from Pie’s the Limit? Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus. I would die for more of that pie. Seriously. Perfection in a pie crust.

We picked up cat food on the way home from our romantic dinner because there’s nothing less romantic than angry cats yowling at us.

Meanwhile, Tiny was having the time of her life with our friend S. They ordered in pizza, french fries, macaroni and cheese, and Girl Scout cookies (I didn’t know I can order Girl Scout cookies from Grub Hub. For real. Dangerous realization!) When the food arrived, Tiny ran around yelling “Pizza Party!” at the top of her lungs – I have a video S sent. Tiny licked all the chocolate and peanut butter off the Tagalong cookies and threw away the actual cookie part. They “watched” Frozen II and played and ran around and Tiny used S as her personal servant/pillow and they generally had a blast.

All in all? Thanks to S, it was pretty nearly a perfect Valentine’s Day.