another pat-on-the-back post
January 19, 2012I need this, because sleep isn’t happening and because I have too much of a tendency to self-criticize, so bear with me as I’m awkward about saying nice things about myself. Both Val and Alex are having more than their usual sleep disruptions as they get closer to reunification, and that means I’m up a lot a lot a lot during the night, so this is also to remind me that things get better and what I’m doing is worthwhile and not just exhausting.
First, I’ll skirt the issue by saying that Lee has been fantastic lately and I think that our relationship is getting to be in really great shape. The tension that was there between us has faded to a reliable comfort. Having the week while Val and Alex were with their family and we were home as just a family of three made a huge difference, I think. I still don’t leave her with all three kids while they’re all awake, but doing extra work myself to keep her from getting too stressed seems to be working without completely destroying me. (The sleep thing is brutal, but I only have to get through one more night of it before I can sleep! And that makes it doable.) She also impressed me by putting barrettes on some of Mara’s twists before they left for school the other day, the first time she’s ever done that. Often she’s unhappy with how Mara’s hair looks but I can’t intervene since I’m on my way to work/school dropoff by the time she wakes Mara and so Lee has just been ignoring it. This is a big step too. And I don’t mean any of this to sound dismissive. There are things that are hard for her because of emotional blocks or whatever and so getting over them is huge.
Our worker came over for our annual homestudy update and her regular monthly visit. She was very complimentary about how we’ve done with this foster placement, though she knows about the hard parts and how close we got to disruption. She thinks that the case wouldn’t be at reunification if I hadn’t worked so hard to create a united front with the parents, which helped us connect with them so that advocating for the kids meant advocating for what was best for the whole family but also because they trusted us and got more than the minimum level of contact and were able to use that as an inspiration to do what they needed to do. I still really look at this as just having done my job, but going to our local support group has made it abundantly clear that lots of other foster parents disagree and our worker certainly thinks we’re exemplary in this regard. (Oh, and things also got done mostly because Lee would get fed up and send a strongly worded email to the family’s worker, sometimes copying her supervisor. I wasn’t always happy about this, but it was certainly effective.)
I told her that my goal long-term is to be one of the experienced parents who teaches the various classes required for licensing. She countered with something even better that I can do now, some sort of committee on best practices. Some caseworkers, foster parents, and biological parents (I’m assuming whose kids are no longer in care, but I don’t know all the details) meet to talk about what can be done to improve foster parent-bio parent relationships. I think that could be a great fit for me and I’m very excited about the opportunities.
Oh, and she looked into the sibling group I’d asked about, two older (tween and teen) kids available for adoption. There are no red flags, but there might be some benefits to keeping them in their home city. There’s just something about one of them that made me feel like I had to ask, even though we’re not ready for more kids yet and even though Lee is really going to have to prove a lot to me before we ever are ready again (and maybe vice versa) but I’m glad I got my answer and I’m glad we’ll get a few more answers from their worker. And there’s also a local girl who’s going to need an adoptive home but will spend the rest of the school year with her current foster family. I wasn’t immediately thrilled by some of the description, but I think that’s because I really, really want older kids, not early grade school. Still, our worker thinks we could be a good fit for cultural and other reasons and we’re not ruling anything out.
One part of me would love to keep fostering but just do it in a very mindful way, only taking placement of children who really meet the criteria for what we think we can handle best. But I’m also terrified, because it puts a lot of pressure on me to be the more primary parent when my job is not always flexible. Well, I’m hesitant because of that. I’m terrified because if we did this again and Lee’s response was as negative as hers initially was, I don’t know how long I could keep running everything. For way too long, I was effectively being a single parent plus dealing with tantrums and seemingly unrelenting hostility from Lee, not to mention all the extras that come along with being a foster parent regardless. With the imbalance we’re dealing with now, it’s doable and would be more doable with older kids who were more independent and definitely if I could sleep through the night more often. I know there are no guarantees, though, and I really don’t want us to get in over our heads. But I like that the agency staff and the kids’ parents think I’m a good foster parent. Even I think I’ve been one. And so if I can use that to do something positive for other kids in care even if I don’t get to foster again, that’s going to be better than nothing.
*sigh* I am so sorry to say this…not to pressure you or anything…but, I do hope you continue to foster…I know it ain’t easy, kids need good, experienced foster carers.
I’m of the mind that if you take a break from fostering that you will be back; you have it in your blood! So do what you need to do to take care of yourself and your relationship with Lee and know that (sadly) there will always be a need when you come back. No guilt! And no guilt, too, in saying no to anything but older kids because you know best what makes sense for you and your family!! I’m excited about the committee, too. When will you know more?
Older kids are hard because we’d have to know enough about a kid coming into our home to be able to guess whether we’d run up against one of Mara’s known triggers. It’s all complicated. I do know that we’ll be going out of birth order unless we’re ever asked to take custody of a new baby sibling of Mara’s, so that at least isn’t a concern for us like it is for a lot of foster/adoptive parents.
My personal opinion is that Mara will need quite a while to process the other two leaving. While I agree with the fact that you are meant to foster, in my humble opinion (stop smirking!) you should enjoy Mara and your family of three for quite a while until she’s old enough to better process that foster kids are temporary. Don’t smack me for this in Orlando girl… love ya
But I won’t be in Orlando this year! That’s a really good point, and definitely one I’m thinking about. The real reason I’m pushing to keep things moving along is that Lee has a milestone birthday this year and I’m really afraid she’ll use it to decide she’s too old for more kids, so I’m trying to keep the idea on her radar. That probably sounds stupid.
Mara has never gotten to live with “siblings” who don’t leave after a few months. I do think that having Val and Alex leave is going to be hard on her, but I also wonder what she thinks about permanence since she’s never had any.
I have a HUGE backlog of stuff to read so I hope you’ll excuse me for being so late to comment on this. Firstly I enjoyed reading about all the good stuff and that you’ve been recognised for the fantastic job you’ve done. It’s well deserved in my opinion.
Secondly I think it’s worth mentioning something about how hard you had to work given Lee’s responses to the kids coming to stay. It’s my view that the kind of “sole parenting within a relationship” that you describe is actually much more challenging than actual sole parenting, because a) you’re having to expend energy to nurture your partner/your relationship, as well as doing all the parenting. When you’re a sole parent, you can spend any leftover emotional or physical energy on yourself. And b) because when you’re in a couple you have an expectation that at least some of the burden will be shared. When you’re a sole parent you obviously don’t, so you don’t have that resentment or whatever that comes with being left “holding the baby” so to speak.
Extensive (but anecdotal) conversations with hundreds of other SMCs confirms that many feel like I do; that relationships are hard work that make the job of parenting harder in many cases. Sometimes being a sole parent is tough, but mostly, it’s a lot easier than also parenting an adult partner who is unable or unwilling to make an adult contribution (for what may be perfectly legitimate reasons). I hope it’s clear that I say this without any judgement about Lee’s situation, about which I know nothing.
So well done you, on every count!