Monday, May 19, 2008

Why Us?

Someone expressed some curiosity about why Gary was placed with us. The complete answer includes more of his history than I am willing to tell you, but most of it is pretty prosaic.

  • Gary was referred to the permanency program because he needs a place to live until he is grown up. He is exactly the sort of kid the program serves: adoption and reunification have both been ruled out.
  • Gary expressed a preference for a family with one or two brothers about his own age, and no other kids.
  • He wanted to live in the town where I live, or maybe the next one over.
  • They asked us because we fit the description.
  • We said yes.

We said yes because we had been waiting for a gay kid for a very long time and none seem to be needing us, and because once I heard he had never lived in a foster home I got excited at the idea of caring for a kid who hadn't been bounced around a lot.

Sort of boring, huh?

4 comments:

  1. I am just catching up with your blog after many months of not reading. Out of curiousity can you please explain what waiting for a gay kid refers too?

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  2. "Waiting for a gay kid" means just that.

    We did not know that Carl was gay when we asked his social worker if we could be his parents. When we became foster parents we first thought it would just be for him. Afterwards we realized how few homes there were where people really nurtured the GLBT kids, and we decided to reserve our place for GLBT kids.

    We've been waiting for a long time for a GLBT kid to need us, but we have not got any referals. When they asked us about Gary we decided it was time to be available for more kids.

    And that's really it.

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  3. Boring in a wonderful, perfect fit sort of way.

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  4. Sounds like Gary is fitting right in- I love that is he is excited about the quilt- :)

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Comments will be open for a little while, then I will be shutting them off. The blog will stay, but I do not want either to moderate comments or leave the blog available to spammers.