Who does the difficult work?

If you are a foster parent, or have adopted from foster care, probably someone has told you that they could never do what you do. Sometimes I get annoyed with hearing that. Sometimes I wonder if it is an excuse not to seriously consider doing care. It is impossible, to extraoridinary, an ordinary person can't imagine doing it. Only sometimes though, because I know how hard it can be. It can be done by ordinary mortals, but it requires dedication and willingness to learn new skills.

If you talk to other foster parents, no matter what sort of care you do, you are likely to hear that the kind of care you do is the really hard sort. I mean you folks out there who will take little ones, well, my hat's off to you. Babies? Lordy, I cannot imagine having a baby or toddler in the house again. Been there, done that, got the poop stains on the t-shirt and have moved on, thank you very much.

And large families? No way. I take kids one at a time. So maybe over time they are beginning to add up, but they don't all live here. I wonder if after Brian leaves we could do a sibling group, but three is the max. Even that I don't know if we could do. Well, we could, but it certainly feels daunting. And the ragers! I mean, I can deal with kids who have anger, but throwing furniture, slamming fists into floors and walls, destroying property -- no, I can't imagine doing that.

Again, what is beginning to feel like my mantra runs through my head, "At least not while Brian is at home." The truth though is that those kids are out while Roland is at home too. And since I plan on keeping Roland around until long after we are too old to do care, someone else is going to have to take the raging kids and the hyperactive kids. Roland has always been clear: he teaches those kids at school. He has a reputation for being great with them, but he cannot come home to them.

No, we need kids who are calm.

I take the easy ones.

I don't know how the rest of you do it.