Guilty Confessions of a Foster Child

One of the things I want the blog to do is help people understand something of what it means to care for traumatized children, and sometimes this goal is hampered by my very important duty to protect Frankie's privacy. I try to share my journey in taking care of him, and that often means talking about what he is like and what he is doing, but his past, that I try to keep private.

I shared here that I wondered at Frankie's attitude towards his own past -- the lack of expression of trauma. One of you said that it was probably going to be like the gender identity stuff - no hint and then BAM! Was it Cathy? I think so...or was it Innocent Observer? Whoever you are -- leave a comment and take credit for being right!

Over the past few weeks Frankie would mention something about his past in ways that were surreal. Like talking about how much fun he had during the time he and his dad were homeless.

Yesterday he mentioned something else. It was all in a stream of ADD-generated conversation. Here is the extremely edited version, "I have this feature, because this happened." "How did that happen Frankie?" "Well, xxxx, and xxxxx, but I don't do that anymore. So now I still have this feature, but it isn't as bad as acne. Do you know how to get rid of black heads? I can't make them go away and I really hate them."

And in my brain I am screaming "WTF????" What he is casually sharing is, as far as I know, not in his file. I am not sure that he even understands that it should not have happened. Is this information bubbling to the surface because he feels relaxed with us? Is he testing to see if we can hear this without freaking out? Could it be that this information for him is not more significant that that he likes pizza and hates his blackheads?

Later, after everyone else had gone to bed, and Frankie was more tired than he should have been for this conversation, I asked him if he wanted to tell me more about what he had said earlier. He did, and seemed to notice right away that though I was quiet, I disapproved of his father's part in it all. I wanted to figure out a way to say, "Frankie. That was wrong. Good parents don't do that." And I know on the scale of things that might have happened to him, this is one of the lesser ones. And Frankie wants to convince me that I am wrong.

It sounds bad, but I don't understand. It's like parents who take their children rock climbing. You might think they are exposing their children to danger, but they know what they are doing and they are safe. (Frankie did not use that example, but it works). I see his passionate defense of his father and I cannot argue with him. I cannot tell him his father is was an irresponsible parent.

"You love him very much." I say.

He nods and then the flood pours out. He wants to tell his dad how sorry he is. Everything is his fault. He just wanted attention. He wanted a TV dad, like Hubby, and a cell phone, and things. He just wanted things. So he lied and he manipulated and he got the state's attention. And his father was a good father who was poor, and who had never hurt him. He had hit him, but never hard. Frankie had bruised himself. Frankie had lied about being hungry. He did it because he thought living in a foster home would be better, but it wasn't.

And when they took him away, his father fell apart. He couldn't cope anymore without his son.

There was no end to the guilt that Frankie expressed. His stories about how he manipulated everyone, made everything up, created evidence to back up his story were too fantastical to be believed. Did he ever exaggerate? Probably. Could he have manufactured everything we read in that file? No.

And Frankie, in his innocence, did not realize that the new picture he was painting of his father, a "gentle fool" who needed his son to cope with reality and who was so easily manipulated was not one which would have made the state decide to let him stay.

We did try to convince him that the state did not make their decisions based upon his word alone. We tried to convince him that it is not a child's job to take care of his father. It all kept coming back to the same thing though. If he had never made that first complaint to his teacher. If he hadn't said he couldn't sit down because of bruises he now says he gave himself, he would never have attracted that state's attention. They would have been poor, but they would have been okay.

But he, Frankie, destroyed it all. He manipulated people -- because he wanted a TV dad and a cell phone.

At some point we realized that nothing we were going to say, and no amount of listening, was going to get him off this track. We finally suggested he go to bed. He went.

This morning he is calm -- spending his Saturday budget on WoW before the doing anything else, as usual.

Clearly Frankie is feeling safe enough to start talking. It seems equally obvious that he is bonding deeply to Hubby and feeling very guilty about it. In the beginning of the conversation, before Hubby joined us, Frankie said that Hubby was the sort of dad he had wanted. The kind that helps you with your homework and does things with you.

I wrote his counselor and social worker. Hopefully he can talk about this with the counselor. He has a lot to work out.

And I am amazed with him. I am amazed that living here could trigger this much guilt and he could respond by crying and talking about it. I would expect him to feel he didn't deserve it and act out violently or destructively in order to loose it.

He's a pretty incredible kid.