foster/adoption parenting

holding my breath... by qwrrty on flickr

Parenting isn’t easy — biological or otherwise. If you want easy, buy a goldfish; they’re disposable and you can always get another one. And don’t kid yourself that home-made kids are any easier than foster or adopted kids, or that because they’re home-made they won’t have issues and problems. We all have issues and problems. Nobody makes it out of childhood and into adulthood without any scars, bumps, or bruises.

Since reading this entry at Mary Anne Mohanraj’s Ongoing Erratic Diary and this one (note, there is strong language here, but very good points as well) at Harriet J’s Fugivitus, and the news item that spurred both discussions, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but I haven’t been sure how to address it. A similar discussion came up recently on the AOK (Adopting Older Kids) mailing list, so I thought I would start there.

Everybody has misconceptions about foster-adoption. That all foster kids are damaged goods. That all adoptive parents are saints. That all social workers are liars. The list goes on, and it covers the entire spectrum. The one that bothers me the most is that all foster kids are bad, that they cause nothing but problems, and that once they pass a certain age the damage is irreversible. If you want to push my buttons, just bring these stereotypes up. Depending on the situation, I will either hop up on my soap box, get frothing-at-the-mouth mad, or write you off and find the quickest way possible to leave the conversation.

I don’t like to admit that I’ve done the latter, but I have. I’d like to say that I just calmly advocate for foster kids and try to spread knowledge and dispel stereotypes. Most of the time, I do. But there are two kinds of people in my world: those who “get it” and those who don’t. As long as I think someone “gets it” I’ll keep advocating. So far, I’ve only ever written off one person. I’m afraid that I expect to meet more people who don’t get it though. Most of the time however, even when I get angry about a foster/adoption stereotype or misconception, I’m able to calm down enough to revert back to advocating from my soapbox.

I had my own misconceptions about foster/adoption myself. I read every book in our county library about adoption, foster parenting, and adopting older kids. There are people in the library whose only job is to pick up stacks of books ordered on inter-library loan and deliver them to other libraries around the county. I single-handedly kept those people busy for the better part of the year before our home study was approved. (I am not exaggerating when I say I read every book in our county library.) I thought all of that reading would prepare me for parenthood. Wrong! Nothing can prepare you for parenthood. No amount of anecdotes, babysitting, or library crawling can ever prepare you for parenthood. Respite care comes close, but at the end of the day/weekend/week/whatever, you can still give those kids back and go back to “normal” life.

And that’s the difference between foster parenting and parenting a home-made kid. And that’s the problem. If things don’t work out with a foster kid, they can just be sent back or sent to another family or group home, right? If things don’t work out with your home-made kid, you can’t. (Yes, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions, both good and bad.) When a home-made kid starts bullying other kids at school, stealing, lying, doing drugs, getting involved in gangs, or whatnot, his parents will move heaven and earth to get them back on the right path. They will go to bed crying every night, wracking their brains on how to help their kid, they will pray,talk to their friends, and do whatever it takes. When things get tough, they tough it out. But when things get tough with a foster kid, it’s the assumption — and the norm — that they can just be removed and sent to another home.

There are cases where foster (and even post-adoptive) parents wrack their brains and their hearts and their homes, move heaven and earth to help their kids, and realize in the end that the only way they can get their children the services they need is to disrupt the adoption or have the kids moved to another home or a group home. But the difference is that they did move heaven and earth. They didn’t give up as soon as things got tough.

As much as it sounds like it, I am not suggesting that the decision to disrupt is easy, or that any foster parent looks at their foster children as disposable. Only the coldest person could take a child into their home and not have their heart wrenched out of their chest when they realize that they can’t provide this child with the parenting or services that he or she needs. That is why it is vitally important to know what your limits are ahead of time.

Our social worker was overjoyed to learn that we were willing to take on “hard cases” but we have our limits too. There are many children who have been referred to us, who broke my heart because I had to say, “No, I don’t think I’m capable of parenting this child.” But my philosophy is that I’d much rather say “No” in the beginning, when I see red flags that I believe are beyond my limits, than to get in over my head and be faced with the question of whether or not to disrupt.

Our philosophy is that once a child walks through our front door to stay — he or she is here to stay No Matter What. So I try to mitigate our risks by limiting the things that might come up in “No Matter What” scenarios. I can never predict the future, but by saying No to some children, I reduce the risks. The worst thing I think I could do would be to take a child into my home only to realize later that I overestimated my ability to be the parent he or she needs and have to disrupt or have the child removed to yet another home.

My husband and I have felt drawn to adopting older children since before we were married. In my year-long library crawl, each book I read and each ‘horror’ story I heard only pushed me closer and closer to the feeling that this is what we needed to do. The cincher for me was our instructor for the course we took as part of our adoption home study requirements. The instructor at the end told us a heart breaking story of her very troubled son who ended up killing himself. With tears in her eyes, she told us that if she had to do it all over again, knowing what would happen, and knowing that NOTHING she could do would change the outcome, she would do it all over again. In a heartbeat. Because it’s worth it.

Raising our daughters isn’t always easy. There has been pain, and struggles, and many tearful days and nights. But there has also been joy. Watching our eldest grow and transform from the child she was when she came home to the young woman she’s becoming now — there’s nothing more rewarding in this world. Watching, and helping, our youngest overcome some of her challenges has been amazing. There are many moments of laughter and closeness. Some days just slide by with nothing terribly good or terribly bad happening and life is just life. Some days are rocky, some days we’re all on cloud nine. It’s never easy — but it’s always worth it. I wouldn’t trade our kids for anything.