Then 6 years and 10 children later and I am merely a babysitter. I have held babies who cried endlessely withdrawing from drugs. Trying countless variations of formula to soothe reflux, all at our expense, calling specialist, after specialist after specialist trying to determine various issues and cures and diagnoses. Driving countless miles back and forth to Children's hospital for appointment, after appointment to get answers. Fighting with and for therapists to help these children we "babysit" to find answers and gain progress. I spent a small fortune on bottles for a baby with a cleft palate because medicaid wouldn't pay and she needed them to eat. I did therapy after therapy appointment and then continued those therapies at home over and over. I have read and re-read and studied about drug withdrawal, occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy and the list goes on. I have called countless experts to learn more about this particular condition or that particular issue. I have gone to more appointments than I can count and begged my way into doctors that wouldn't take MY children, excuse me, the children I babysit. I have stayed up countless hours rocking a baby shaking from night terrors or drug withdrawal or who knows what. I have worn a baby on and off for 6 years. I have slept in chairs, in hospital beds with babies on my chest. I have held children as they screamed and raged at unseen terrors they have lived through. I have done this all KNOWING that this child will more than likely return to someone other than me. I watched a 22 month old go from a 9 month development to a 2 year development in less than 4 months because I worked with him daily. I refused to give up on him. Babysitter? I can't stomach it. I understand why we were called that. I understand and yet I cannot take the cruelty and hurt it inflicted. "They" say this to make sure we, as foster parents realize we are temporary. I already get that. Just because I don't always like it does NOT mean I don't get it. I was not naive when I signed up for this. I knew that. I knew the pain could be intense, has been intense, but worth every heartache. Having a state employee who has never had children and certainly has never been a foster parent, but IS influential in all of the state of Texas dismiss me as simply a babysitter is just too much.
I was taking PRIDE training to be able to assist other PRIDE trainers and give the foster parent prospective. I went through this training with one of our Buckner home developers as well as another foster mom. We were floored. Truly, not much was learned after that. We were put in our place and nothing we could say would change her mind. She was taught this is what we were and she was going to be sure we knew we were nothing more. Needed, but nothing more.
Here is the definition of "FOSTER"
Here are 2 definitions of
BABYSITTER
At the same time and in the same breath she preached all about a "team effort". Over and over she mentioned this and yet I do not feel like she ever considered the "babysitter" a part of that team. How can it be complete? Can there be problems? Certainly. Does this change the picture or definition of a team? Are the problems always the "Babysitter" part of the team? How could anyone make such a gross generalization?
My life has been turned upside down. I have lost friends, sleep, nicer cars, furniture, peace, more friends and lots of fun times with my husband and friends. I have missed more anniversary's that I care to tell you because respite was not available and asking for it causes me to be more stressed than doing without it. I have put other children on a back burner to the one who needs the most. I have cried more for what I couldn't do and what was done wrong that I care to admit. I have had my heart broken more than I could imagine and now I have been dismissed. I respect her position, but knowing she trains people all over the state is more than I can stomach. I am not sure that this is not my last rodeo. My precious 11 year old is transitioning home and we are considering closing. For now it will be just going inactive, but I am not sure I can recover the loss I feel and the dismissal I feel in my gut.
I know she was wrong, but I also know she will not admit it since she would not listen as my precious friend defended what we do. It's not about her. It's not about the children. Oh goodness, foster care is not about the children if you are so naive to think so....unless you are a foster parent. We get it. We get it in the heartache of it all. The state as a whole does not. I do not mean the caseworker who is fighting hard for a child, or the judge trying to weed through the legalities of it all. I mean the term "the state". There are so many hard working CPS workers entrenched in the battle and applaud them. I just cannot applaud this woman and her influence and her lack of knowledge and understanding of what we really do. How we have altered our lives. I am sad for her. She has no idea.
Where do we go from here? I am not sure. It is a fallen world. I will NOT give up fighting for these children and their chances for healing and a future and for love, but for now my focus is different. My job is to fight for the families who love them and fight I will, to educate them and build support for them and to walk with them. Will I tell this person how I feel? Maybe. I owe her that. I owe my fellow warriors out there who are more than mere babysitters, but mighty warriors in the trenches who will fight with honor and dignity and everything they have and then hand the precious child back over to a caseworker as the heart breaks and she walks inside, answering the call for yet another heartbreak in the making.
Foster parents, you are not merely babysitters, you are warriors and I KNOW what you are doing and what you are worth.
Please note that this is rough in it's infancy stage, but I have vowed to post it anyway to force my hand at correcting it. Please do not hesitate to give your opinion. Unlike this person, I am willing to be wrong, I often am. My pain is still raw and my anger is bubbling, but not bubbling over. I want to share the love of Christ and yet I want to scream too. Share your thoughts with me and help me to heal.
8 comments:
This should get published in the training information for cps workers. I know their job must be tough and that they have to emotionally disconnect in order to do what they do but there are children involved it's not just a job they are making decisions for real live children. I think they forget their position and don't take it as seriously as they should. I'm speaking from being very raw myself. These recent wounds are very deep. Thank you for putting into words the aches of our hearts.
Even as I am Canadian and things are somewhat different,, all too sadly they are also exactly the same.. I have "bookend" children currently (almost 9 and 4) also brought their 6 and 5 year old sisters home from the hospital at birth. Are they with me now? No? Can I get sibling visits? No (said sisters are also in care in the same town) Is this right? That 100% biological siblings grown up barely knowing each others names? Of course not. Will it happen again? You bet and every time it does it breaks hearts! Foster kids and foster parents know ALL about broken hearts and broken promises.. I love your article!
I wrote my comments but will need to split it into two different posts....
I happened upon your blog today while looking on Pinterest for freezer meals. We do our own version of OAMC so I'm always on the lookout for new recipes. There, in the midst of all my searching, your blog came up with your freezer meals. But it is your heart in fostering and adoption that had me reading your past posts for the last hour (time I really shouldn't have spent reading, but you know....it works that way sometimes).
I don't know where you are but I find myself wishing we lived close together because you are like my "foster soul sister." You have put into words the same things we find ourselves saying to others. Fostering is the best/worst job in the world. On any given day (really any given hour!) I can either love or hate this work. We have been doing this now for 21 years. I write that sentence and am amazed at the time already gone by in this journey. It hasn't been a continual 21 years. There have been several times when we were inactive for one reason or another but 21 years still seems like both a very long time and, conversely, like it has flown by in the crazy, semi-controlled chaos that is our life. At this point in the 21 years, we have 4 bio kids, 3 adopted, and 1 foster. They range in age from 26-4.
We, too, have felt this is what God has called us to do and we, too, have been hurt by many, many more fellow Christians than by non-Christians. Sadly, we have found them to much more often share their uninvited opinions that tend to be along the lines of "I told you so," "what were you thinking," "you asked for this," "why don't you just give them back," " at least they're not YOUR children,""I would never put my children through that," "do you realize what you're exposing your children too," etc...
Sometimes it makes me so angry I'd like to scream at them and ask them if they've actually read the Bible they so proudly carry back and forth to church each week!
Instead I have to choose to pray for them. I pray that God would open their eyes to all the pain around them and that He would help them open their hearts to just one person---man, woman, child, senior, infant, orphaned, lonely- anything. Just. One. Person. That He would allow them to be both blessed and to be a blessing to that one person and that they would be changed in the process. Because like you said in one of your posts, "you can't un-see what you've seen"
I am glad along your journey that you have been able to surround yourself with a community of support. This is truly the key to lasting in this work (outside of complete dependence on Jesus!). I love that you homeschool. We, too, do that. Sometimes we find our foster kids want to be homeschooled and our homeschooled kids want to go to public school. We just laugh and find another way to teach a "grass is always greener" lesson.
and the second half......
I so, so completely understand the hours of investment we put in to these kids-between doctors, hospitals, therapists, visits, paperwork, assessments---the list is endless. When we have bio children growing inside of us we experience morning sickness, loss of sleep, exhaustion, stretching pains and stretch marks, and then hours and hours of labor and the intense pain of childbirth-followed by even more exhaustion and loss of sleep, loss of friends (especially if you're the first ones in your friend group to have kids). And yet, in the midst of all those things, you are bonding with your child. We endure some very unpleasant things just for the privilege of having children. I feel God allows similar "unpleasantness" with the children he sends to us through foster care and adoption. I think it is a way that allows us(I'll use that phrase instead of 'forces us') to bond with them. Just think about it-we labor for hours then spend time in tremendous pain pushing that baby out of us and then all of a sudden it's out and we are laughing/crying/rejoicing over the new life God just put in our hands and the pain and discomfort of labor and delivery quickly and easily slips away into the "hard but worth it" category. The 'unpleasantness' that God allows with our foster kids is a different type of 'labor and delivery.' It pushes both us and the child well beyond our comfort zones and pushes us into scenarios where we are holding them for hours while they sleep, or tantrum, or rage. Some of these kids would never choose to allow us to hold them if they weren't desparate (or incoherent) so the forced holding ends up being the 'game-changer' in their healing. They are forced to trust you, and when you prove trustworthy, whole chunks of traumas start healing.
I can't say that I ever really enter into those 'unpleasant times' with an attitude that says, 'thank you, God. I've been waiting for just the right opportunity to go thru this incredibly awful time you've got planned for us.' However, I'd like to think that by now I can at least know it's coming, that it's necessary, and know that if stay close enough to Jesus through it, that all of us will grow closer(bond) to both Jesus and each other.
That's my 2 cents worth. I look forward to following you now that I've found you.
Thank you Tami. It is quite the journey and one that is worth all the heartache, BUT the heartaches are many. Still would. NOT. TURN. BACK.
Hoping you continue to post. I have learned so much through your blog. Thank you!
Would love to read more posts regarding your family. By the way, you look so familiar to me, did you by any chance live in PA about 15 years ago and then move out west? I probably have the wrong person, but I have been wondering.
Thank you, Pam. I do intend to post more! I have so many sitting in my files that I simply haven't gotten "happy" with yet. Oh boy..... No, I have never lived in PA. Just a simple Texas girl although I have lived other places too. Thanks again for your kind words. Comments are always encouraging.
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