Conversation with Carl

Well, I got to talk to him.

There is nothing terrible, just the blues. He has a history of falling into melancholy and then feeling like he has to make a dramatic change in his life (like move) because he can't be happy where he is.

He seems to be able to recognize the pattern and was willing to talk about the need to address the depression itself.

He likes his job, is making more money than he ever has, likes where he lives, and yet everything feels empty.

He'll be okay, or at least he has the resources to be.

He is 24 now. He has had five years of living independently to struggle with the whole growing up thing.

In any case it was good to talk to him.

Carl Lives

I was getting really worried about Carl -- especially when his birthday came and went and he did not call. You can usually count on kids to contact you (for no particular reason) a week or two before their birthday. You know, just to say hi, and make sure that you have their address.

Saturday on the way back from the play we debated what could be going on. If he hadn't called to ensure a birthday present, then it must be bad. We shared our version of How Bad Might It Be, and Would He Call If It Was [insert horrible thing here]. We had a pretty short list: broke, fired, homeless, and illness.

But that night he sent an email! Sunday morning I read this:

I appreciate the birthday greetings, to be honest though it was not a very happy birthday at all. I don't have the time to spell it all out here, so would you do me the favor of calling me at my home ###-###-####. I would have called but I'm without a phone and have been relying upon the house phone.

I guess we can rule out homeless and any illness that would make typing impossible.

We called seven times (really, I counted) on Sunday and three times today. We just get the answering machine. I sent him an email telling him that he had to email me back with a time when he would be home.

So I'm glad he is alive and all...but it would be nice to know what the heck is going on.

So tired

Sorry...there isn't much in this post other than a bit of a whine.

Lordy, yesterday was a rollercoaster. Tension in the morning, relief at hearing from him and from Guy, good time with the fam in the evening.

And now...

I miss my cat. I want to find her and hold her. She always let me hold her when I felt sad.

I miss Frankie.

I want Carl to call. I want to know he is okay. I don't know how to find him, and right now I have such a need to know all that all my kids are okay.

I want to fast-track the grieving process.

I want to feel better and get caught up on my work.

I want to believe Frankie is going to be okay, but I really don't know that he ever will. I believe he is where he needs to be, but I have no illusions.

I want to feel better.

Kid Round-Up

I haven't heard from Carl in a couple of months. I'm officially teetering between annoyed and worried. I know it is not unlike him to drop off the radar for a while. Still, if you see him, tell him to call home.

Evan is doing very well at school. He is enormously busy and happy. He calls regularly, and stops by to get his mail. He is a college freshman.

David stopped by for a few hours today. We chatted and had our usual marathon of cards. I think I mentioned that he is the only one who will play cards with me. He told me that he and his roommate are planning on going to one of the state universities (not the one near here that Evan is going to) next year, so he will have to finish off his GED pretty soon. I'll believe it when I see it, but it is the first time he has been the one to bring up finishing his education and it is a positive step.

David by the way is completely supports the idea that I would upgrade Frankie's mp3 player to one that will play Netlibrary books. His sympathies are completely with Frankie. David knows what it is like to come into this house owning little to nothing and see all the electronics the boys have collected over the past decade. David also knows that most of the stuff was purchased with money given to them by relatives for birthday and Christmas -- except for the things that were bought by Grandpa during his summer visits of course. There are only a few things which they can claim to have "worked" for by saving allowance.

We'll see. I have a fair collection of audiobooks that he can listen to on the iPod several of which I purchased for the boys to listen to while traveling during the summer. Frankie is interested in listening to Eragon and The Eldest, both of which I have. so I think I will wait and see if he continues to enjoy the books and then make a decision.

Conversations about a Turnip

I had more email exchanges with the state worker that resulted in me sending an email to several people from the local agency in which I said, "What the hell?" (Or "What the Hot Place?" if we are still speaking Dootleese.)

I got a call back from the family developer, who was the only one I emailed who was in the office and I got to rant away for a bit. Anyway, I have my sense of humor back.

I got to tell the developer how upset I was that I found out about the TPR the day that Frankie moved in and that it was upsetting to me to have learned then because I like him and want him to stay (initially I think she was worried that the placement was shaky).

The family developer is pretty horrified at the state's worker cavalier attitude to Frankie being in court at the TPR hearing. Kids testifying against their parents is a BIG FRICATIVE DEAL, and not to be taken lightly. If it were to be necessary they would expect a great deal of preparation to be given to Frankie in advance. The state worker saying that is consistent with other things that this worker had said to them. She (developer) is not very impressed with this particular turnip.

The developer agrees that whatever happens at the TPR hearing will NOT be "great!" Either Frankie is made a legal orphan and stays with me, or he is reunited with his mom and I have to say goodbye. No matter what happens, someone will be sad.

She also does not know what The Turnip was thinking since these things don't always get settled on the date and time that they are initially scheduled. It could be complicated, and it could take multiple court dates.

The thing The Turnip said that made me lose it was to tell me that he was just now working on Frankie's alternative care plan and were Hubby and I interested in taking legal guardianship of Frankie, or even adopting him?

I imploded because being in my agency IS the "alternative care plan" or is supposed to be.

I was right about that, or at least I was right that the agency went into this with the same expectations. I did learn, by the by, that the agency is planning on moving in the direction of working with families who do permanent foster care, legal guardianship and even adoption of difficult teens. In the future I may be asked if I am interested in guardianship or adoption. It won't be thrown at me in a casual way though.

That it was the family developer who talked to me was probably a very good thing. She had not realized how complex the question would be for us families. She hadn't (yet) thought that one of my concerns would be, "Will Carl, David and Evan think that I don't love them as much if enter into a legal relationship with Frankie and not them?"

Oh well.

I got to vent with the developer and now I feel much better.

And I'm not going to email The Turnip any more if I don't have to.

Frankie's Mom

Email from me to social worker: "Do you know if Frankie's mom was given our phone number? It is still okay with me, although maybe (with Frankie's permission) we should give her his cell phone number."

Email from social worker to me 30 minutes later: "I just gave 'Emily' both of Frankie's numbers. How is he doing in school?"

--

And so why do I feel like crying? It occurs to me that I might be angry that the social worker gave Frankie's cell phone number without asking his permission, but I know that he would have agreed without hesitation. I cannot work up anger over that.

I know that I wish I had said that I would rather she had not given the house number, if it wasn't too late. I'm afraid. Not that she will do something mean or dangerous. I am just afraid of dealing with her. I had fantasy that she would only have Frankie's number. She would only talk to him and she would never be quite real for me. If she upset him, I could change Frankie's cell number. I would have the power of drawing a curtain around us.

But I have been assured, and I do believe the assurance, that she is no danger to him or to us. The worst things she may do is promise to visit or call and then not show up. I don't want to measure how bad that would be to Frankie, but it is clear that it is not something that is dangerous to me.

I read Dawn's article about meeting Jessica, and like Baggage today, I am jealous of their relationship. I want to be chosen by my children's mothers.

Sometimes I think it is ethically easier for those of use who care for children from foster care. We can tell ourselves that the children are better off. The children we love were once physically abused, neglected, abandoned. They were traumatized. Now they are safe and nurtured. Surely we foster parents are angels of mercy.

But talk to Frankie and ask him what was the worst day of his life, and he will tell you it was the day when the police, the people from the government he had been taught to fear, came and bodily took him from his father. He will tell you about how he struggled and fought, about how many people it took to carry him off, about how his father cursed and cried and struggled with even more police officers.

And if you ask him if he wasn't better off afterwards, he will look at you like you are crazy. He went to live with people he did not know. People who told him he was safe and then told him he was a pervert when he shared that he really wanted to be a girl. He was forbidden to be alone with other children. He was forced to attend school. He was sent to a high-security group home.

He was angry and afraid and with every expression of that anger he went some place with tighter security.

If you ask, he will say that he likes our house. He likes that he can eat when he wants, that we purchase rye bread that no one likes but him. He likes that we accept that he wants to be a girl. And he is increasingly frustrated and confused by all the people who say they support him and then tell him that he can't see a doctor to get hormonal treatment.

And if you ask about his parents, he will tell you about all the marvelous things his father taught him. He will smile about how frustrating it can be to live with someone who, it must be confessed, was crazy, but it was a whole lot more fun than the places the governtment put him. Yes, his father hit him sometimes, but he was not as mean and controlling as the people at the institution.

And his mother? He is proud of his mother. He will tell you of her accomplishments, though he will acknowledge that it was difficult to move around so much. And do you want to see pictures of his sisters? He doesn't have recent ones, not good ones, but do you want to see them? He misses his sisters.

And me? I am not the heroine of his story. I'm the best thing to happen to him since he was kidnapped.

No, there is no ethical high ground in foster care. Whether it was the first family or the state or both who traumatized these children, we are privileged to parent these kids only because someone else hurt them.

But for me it was easier with the others. The decisions that resulted in Carl, David, and Evan being separated from their mothers had been made, and not by me. Perhaps they were unjust. Perhaps they were the best decisions that could be made given the injustices of the world. But in any case they were in the past. I was presented with a child who had no home to go to. Would I open mine?

But things with Frankie are so much more difficult.

And I did not sign up for this. I never tell anyone, including myself, that they should not talk about how difficult it is because "after all, they signed up for it." Signing up for it doesn't mean ... well it doesn't mean much of anything.

But not signing up for it ... I find myself thinking it. Wanting to tell people.

I did not sign up for this!

I did not ask for a child who might be taken away and given to his real, natural, true mother. I can believe with my whole heart that if his mother can parent him then she should. I can believe that it is best for him.

But I cannot want it.

I cannot love this child and hope he leaves.

I cannot.

I am afraid of his mother. I am afraid of how she will speak to me. Is there any chance that she will see me as a benevolent figure who offered security to her child while she fought to get him back? Or will she see me as part of the forces who work to separate her from the child she gave birth to, sang to sleep at night, whose accomplishments she celebrated and over whose agonies she wept?

I believe that if she is able to parent, she should. I believe that Frankie will be better off reunited with a mother who never stopped loving him, who fought the state to get him back. I can believe that the right thing was for me to have just a few months to show him possibilities that are waiting for him.

I believe Emily should know where her son is. She should be able to call him on the phone.

And I gave permission for her to have our phone number.

And now she has it.

And I want to cry.

Straight Mom, Queer Kids

Yesterday I read a post about seeking diversity at Peter's Cross Station. I left a comment there saying I was going to write my own post about it, but it got all jumbled up with how I feel about being a foster parent and about the feelings I am having particularly about Frankie's mom. But I want to try again, because sometimes when I read something written by a white parent of a non-white child I think, "Wow. Change a few of the nouns, and I could have written that."

Anyway, I gave up on it yesterday, because I could not keep focused. I'm going to try to write about what it means, to me, to be a heterosexual married woman rearing queer kids, about having chosen to parent queer kids, and that seems carries meaning and obligation.

It means educating myself about what it means to be gay or trans in this world, and yet holding back and knowing that I cannot figure out what it means to be Carl, or David, or Evan or Frankie in this world. But it is not just that. I cannot sit at home and read books and try to understand. It is not intellectual work, or not only.

Initially I thought it meant striving to form friendships with people in the GLBT community for the sake of my kids. I thought I needed to have these relationships so that I could get advice I needed and so that my children would have positive role models. So I put myself in places where I could meet people who could give me that advice and become those role models. For the most part it worked, and I have never sensed that the people I approached honestly resented that motivation.

But something happened along the way. First, some of the people I made attempts to get to know became friends. People that I simply enjoyed being with.

And the more fully I thought of myself as a mother to Carl, David, Evan, and now Frankie, the more my sense of my relationship to the GLBT community changed. In some ways it is just that I feel relaxed where once I would have felt awkward. And usually I have felt accepted. Not always of course. There have been times when I assumed that I would be welcomed and found myself wanting to justify my right to sit at the table.

But it is more than that. Where once I would have been an advocate for gay rights, now I am passionate on behalf of my children. Once I might have said that civil unions were not an adequate substitute for marriage, but perhaps was a compromise that should be accepted. Now I hear myself saying, "If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck and turns into an egg when you cross state lines, it isn't a duck. It is a decoy to confuse and pacify us."

And I mean us. We are talking about my children, their potential spouses, and my hoped-for grandchildren.

Parenting children from a community other than my own has meant for me not that I need to diversify my world, so that my children will feel safer here. It has meant for me that I have to claim a space in their world. I have to walk where I do not fully belong. I have to learn to say, with Abigail Garner, "We are not allies. We're family."

As I said in the beginning, this post did not become what I expect it to become.

You see, it is something of a motivational speech for myself.

It is not enough to buy Frankie dresses and let him present as a girl at home. It is not enough to have a transwoman friend to invite into my home to answer his questions.

Committing to parenting him means more than that. It means taking a deep breath and walking with him into the Transexual Support Group meeting.

Because he wants me to.

Portrait of Frankie

So after a couple of weeks here, I thought I would try to give a complete description of this odd and endearing child.

He talks non-stop if you let him. If you sit and give him your undivided attention he will tend to stay on the same topic and go on and on...the story of his dream...his theory of how to solve all the world's problems (which involves everyone being required to consume a minimum of goods)...whatever. He easily becomes fixated on something and can become so consumed that he literally talks of nothing else for days (e.g. WOW). Having seen him one day when he forgot his morning pills, there is no doubt in my mind that he is NOT one of the kids who has been misdiagnosed with ADHD.

He has a difficult time being quiet even when engaged. He makes noises, narrates what he is doing, annouces anything that he thinks is interesting, stupid, or exciting. He does not notice when he has driven everyone from the room because they just can't listen any more.

There seems to be a complete absence of the "love me--I'll punish you if you love me" dynamic. He likes me. Though he does not have Down's, it is only in Down's people that I have seen this sort of innocent affection. He is very endearing. Just about everybody responds to him they way they might to a puppy. There is, so far as I can tell, nothing manipulative about it. He just likes us.

He does not seem to get personal space at all. He is not a touchy kid and tends not to invade space, but if he needs something and you are in the way, he reaches for it. If this involves stepping on your toes or leaning against you while wrapping his arm around you, he does. He just doesn't seem to recognize that you are there, somehow.

He tends not to notice if he is getting on someone's nerves, or pick up on other social cues. On the other hand, he does not get offended or hurt if you tell him something like "I need to be alone for ten minutes." He will likely say, "Okay" and then come back in ten minutes.

He is not uptight about routine, accepts change in schedules well, laughs appropriately at jokes, makes a few jokes of his own, and does not have a phenomenal memory or any other sort of "savant" skill that we have noticed (just in case any of this was adding up to Asperger's for anyone.)

He has a low tolerance for frustration and will cry -- really cry with lots of tears -- when it gets to be too much. Neither Hubby nor I find him especially difficult to de-escalate, although it can take a while.

He seems very much the little boy. He just got his allowance and he wanted to spend it on toy guns, a subscription to WOW and candy. Even though he has been talking about wanting to be a girl, and I do not disbelieve him, he seems to me to be a little boy. It is not like Carl who was sixteen and enjoyed letting himself be a kid again. Frankie seems like a little boy 24/7.

He tends to slur his words, has difficulty remembering how to pronounce words once he has it in his head that they should be pronounced differently. He does not read well, although he tries to fake it. He has made some "dyslexic" type mistakes. For instance while reading the WOW manual he wanted to know what a "morlock" was. Andrew told him that was a "warlock."

He has difficulty calculating time, although he is getting better. He is allowed 90 minutes of electronic time (video/computer/TV) on school days and he is highly motivated to figure it out. Still, he will often ask me how long he has played if he started at 3:45 and ended at 4:24. (That sort of calculation is not one that I can always make quickly myself). He makes simple mistakes when deciding how to spend his allowance. He tends to think that if you have 40 dollars and spend it on something that costs 22 dollars, you should still be able to buy something in the 20-dollar range. It is unclear though how much of that is just excitement and not stopping to think.

He is normally compliant with requests to do chores, which is to say that he is willing to do them and prone to forget. He is disorganized, looses possessions within seconds, and tends to forget about anything that is not in his sight.

He speaks positively about his parents. He does say that his transition plans would freak them out, but usually when he talks about them it is to pass on something interesting that they taught him. His memory seems to be jumbled.

He is extremely excited about the prospect that he may get to take hormones and have surgery and be an action-figure-playing, toy-gun-loving girl.

Adoption Question

Several of you asked what would happen if Frankie wanted to be adopted.


There's not a precise answer. In agreeing to enter this program, Frankie has agreed not to have his profile made available for adoption. That is not a legal contract, of course. Frankie could change his mind.

He could call his social worker and say he had. His social worker would point out the statistical chances of any fifteen-year-old boy being adopted, much less one who had spent a couple of years in treatment centers, but if Frankie insisted, a profile would be made and his name would be put into the hat, so to speak. And the chances that anyone would adopt him would be tiny.

If I wanted to adopt him, I would be reminded about why Frankie chose to go into a program that did not include adoption, about how he is still attached emotionally to his mother, about how much psycho-social work he has to do and that upping the emotional ante, especially in his case, could be damaging.

But I won't pursue that. I've successfully performed an "adoption of the heart" with the other boys. They are still part of my life. When I have considered adopting one or the other of them I always end up in this circle: it would be wrong to adopt Evan as his relationship with his mother is very much intact; would he feel bad if I adopted Carl and David and not him? And do I want to adopt David? I love him, and he has issues of dependence. Would adoption mean to him that he could expect us to support him financially? Carl is the one who most accepted me as his mother (which had a lot to do with his mother's death), and so is the one for whom adoption feels the most appropriate, but even if Evan was not bothered by other boys being adopted and not him, David definitely would be.

And if I adopt any of them, especially if I adopt some and not all, what expectations will that create for those who come into our home?

Some foster parents want to adopt their children because they find the state more of a hindrance than a help. For me it is the opposite. My agency provides services and support to me and my kids that I could never afford. They have decided that the best counselor for Frankie is one who does not accept the state-funded medical card. So they are going to pay him privately. It is a 60 mile round trip for me, and they will reimburse me for every mile at whatever the government set rate is (something like 40 cents a mile). On those weeks when things are crazy for me and I really can't get him there, they will arrange for transportation. When Evan revealed his addiction they sent him to a small, expensive, private program hundreds of miles away, because that was the best one for him. They paid for Hubby and I to go visit him -- air fare, hotel, car rental, and meals. When living with a recovering addict was triggering my issues, the agency paid a private therapist to see me once a week for 8 months.

For me, the advantages of staying within my system greatly outweigh any disadvantages.

I do have this fantasy though about adopting all the boys (and girls if there are any) who want to be adopted when we decide we really are done doing care. Of course, Carl will be 30, or 50, but still, it would be cool to adopt the slew of them as adults in one fell swoop, huh?

Frankie and Hubby

I am so pleased to report that Frankie is connecting to Hubby, perhaps even more than he is to me.

Carl, David and Evan all connected to me and took quite while before they felt comfortable asking Hubby for things. I still remember Evan asking me to ask Hubby to give him a ride (or something). I kept telling him that he should ask; Hubby was nice, nicer than I am. Evan responded "Pleeeeease? Won't you ask him for me?"

Now of course Evan has figured it out. Hubby is more patient and more likely to give you rides or buy you a soft drink while you are doing errands (not that Evan needs rides anymore). David still doesn't interact with him much. When he visits he divides his time between me and the boys. He'll hang with them for a while, but mostly he will be with me in the kitchen helping with meals, or playing cards at the table.

Frankie however seems to be just as comfortable with Hubby as he is with me, maybe even more so. I'm encouraging it every way I can. For instance, I had Hubby give Frankie his first allowance and suggested that Hubby give it to him when he could take Frankie shopping. He did and they spent a couple of hours together. I've been encouraging Hubby to ask Frankie to join him on errands or help him with projects. You know, all that father/son bonding thing.

The other boys had had more consistent relationships with their mothers and had suffered physical abuse at the hands of men (to different degrees). Maybe that is why it is different. As burdened as his father was with his medical condition, I think he provided Frankie with more consistent emotional care than he received elsewhere. But whatever the reason, it's a good thing.

I think it is healthy, and it is a relief. Frankie is spending a lot of time playing with Brian and talking with Hubby. I'm still in the mix of course, but I don't have the feeling I have had before of a new kid attached to me like a baby monkey, or monitoring me like a warden in a high security prison.

And if Frankie is gay (or bi, or trans, or even straight with no respect for gender expectations) imagine how wonderful it would be to feel accepted by a father-figure while you go through that process. There are a lot of fantastic fathers in the world, but my unscientific study indicates that most mothers come around more quickly than most fathers. Many of the dads of queer children (youth and adults) learn to accept. A larger percentage of the mothers learn to celebrate.

I hope what I am seeing in the relationships around me continue. Brian and Frankie are getting along as peers, each tolerating the other's oddness. Evan is being the perfect big brother; Frankie is showing signs of developing a case of hero-worship there. And Frankie is reaching out to Hubby who is responding with quiet acceptance.

As Dan would say, "I love my life."

Frankie's Poems

Frankie just read me some poems. Actually he said they were songs and so he read them with a sort of tuneless melody.

They are dark. Filled with pain and thoughts of death. I know some of it is typical teenage stuff. I read that the reports from the people at the center who thought that he wrote some of it, and the disturbing illustrations that went with them, in order to keep a distance between him and his peers.

Still, there is such pain in them. And his reading of them was so casual -- like any other child showing me a series of pictures he had made. "This one is a house. This is a monkey in a tree. That's me killing. That is me dead."

Carl would write bad dark poetry and he would give it to me. It did not grab in the same way. I guess because he wanted it to grab me. He would smile when he gave it to me, and ask me if I thought it was good. I responded to it as a teacher. "Well, there is a lot of pain here, Carl, but that is all there is. It sounds a little self-pitying. I think that if you let more complexity of emotion in it would be better."

But Frankie's are so raw. Tossed down to me casually. "Here. Look at my pain. Which one is your favorite?"

I asked him if he still felt so sad. He said no, that the best part of the poems was that he now felt so much better. But he does not want to talk about it. He tossed me these pieces of his soul, asked me to choose my favorite, and then went to play video games.

Why TPR?

There is a TPR hearing for Frankie's mother in December.

I don't know why they are doing it. I know reasons why she cannot be expected to provide him with a safe and stable home, and that she has three daughters in her custody. Frankie was removed from his father's custody. His rights were terminated some time ago.

But I don't understand why they are pursuing this with his mother.

It is not a requirement for entry into the program for which I work. Kids only get into this program if reunification is no longer being considered, but that does not necessarily mean termination of parental rights have to be done.

She has not seen him very much over the past five years, although she apparently has made more contact recently. She is not considered dangerous to him, except in the way that neglect is dangerous.

So I don't get it.

From my perspective it does not make a difference. I am not planning on adopting him, and I am planning on staying connected to him indefinitely. I expect to be part of his life. Like Carl, David, and Evan, he may come home for holidays, to recover from an illness, to live during vacations at school. He may call me to ask how to cook salmon, or come over to sew curtains. I offer that to him regardless of his relationship to his parents.

I don't think it is a good thing for Frankie. I don't see why making him a legal orphan is a good thing. Will it be a good thing if she doesn't fight it, for him to know that his mother let the state legally sever their relationship? Will it be a good thing for him to hear that the state has decided that the mother who is caring for his sisters is not fit to care for him?

What will it do to his relationship with his sisters?

I can't see how it will encourage healthy contact and visitation.

I asked the social worker and he did not know; he actually seemed a bit surprised by the question.

I suspect there isn't a reason. It is just what they do.

But I wish they wouldn't.

She is his mom. She was only 16 when he was born. She has made good decisions and bad decisions. I agree that she cannot provide him with the stability he needs. But she is still his mother.

How is anything made better by making him a legal orphan?

Developmental Age

I hope that I am not seeming worried about Frankie's child-like behaviors. Well, I was a bit concerned about the time-telling thing, and I appreciate everyone reassuring me on that score.

I am not generally worried about Frankie, concerned that we find the right educational environment for him, not but generally worried.

Frankie is a sweet kid. I am used to teenagers who are street-smart, tough, and parentified. You know, sixteen going on thirty. These kids are younger than they want to admit, but they put up a good front. Their attitude says, "I'll accept a limited amount of parenting from you because it's the price of living here, but I don't really need it."

Carl, when he first moved in, seemed to be a cross between a 16-year-old and a younger child. He had 16-year-old friends and an "I'm too old for a parent" attitude. He also enjoyed playing with Andrew, who was then 11. There was a difference though. Carl seemed like a 16-year-old who was periodically "going back" and enjoying some of the things that he missed.

Frankie however seems like ... well, like a perfectly normal 10-year-old boy. I walked by his room on my way to mine and heard him playing with his Lego creations making those machine noises kids make when they play with toy vehicles and robots. He is so unself-consciously excited about what he has taught his Furby to do. He doesn't seem like a 15-year-old playing 10-year-old games. He just seems 10.

I want to go out and buy him the big box of crayons. I bet he never got the big box -- especially with all the crayons new and pointy.

It makes sense that he would be about age 10 in some ways. Though his life was far from perfect prior to that age, that was when it became truly bizarre. Once it stopped being too strange for words, he was into care and then group homes. So he missed being age 10.

But that is okay. It is fun having a little boy in the house again. I expect he will go through the developmental stages more quickly. In other words, in a year I expect he will be closer to 15 than to 11, but I don't know. In any case, the whole point of being here is to let him be himself.

I also wonder if being a little kid is protecting him from dealing with the issues that his pubescence forces on him. That though is okay too. One of my favorite therapists told me once that denial is a good thing: it keeps us from feeling or thinking about things we are not ready to feel or think about.

Frankie will grow up when he is ready and feels safe enough to do it.

In the meantime I might just go buy that box of crayons.

Reflections on Frankie

So he's gone, for now, and I had a good night's sleep.

I don't know if I can describe how I'm feeling. I'm looking forward to this, but it is same feeling that people who have been striving to be parents would feel. It is not the joyous anticipation that I'm going to be a mommy, or even that I will be a mommy again.

I think about how deeply I love all the boys, and how proud I am of how the older boys have done. Carl, David, and Evan all in different ways have come so far and are doing so very well. I want to point to them and say, "Hey! Those are my kids! Look how wonderful they are!"

I expect I will feel that way about Frankie, but I don't feel that way now. If they were to call me and say that he changed his mind about living here and wasn't ready to leave the group home I would be disappointed, but accepting. I would tell them to let him know that if he changes his mind they should give us a call. Then I would move on, wondering every now and then what happened to him, hoping that whatever it was was a good thing, but not feeling a great deal of angst.

Right now I feel more like one would right before doing a very difficult project. I feel up to the job. I know I shall be writing posts venting frustration, but I don't know what the topics of those posts will be. I expect to also write posts of pride and affection, and eventually love. Right now I am more curious, and a bit anxious. And protective.

He should move in in just over a week. Perhaps I will ask for the address of the center and send him a short letter or card.

Next: Frankie's quilt

Questions to ask about teens

Someone emailed me and asked about what questions you should ask about teens before agreeing to take them as foster placments. I thought it would be a good post, and hopefully others will add whatever I forgot in the comments.

1. History in care: how long have they been in care, or in and out of care? How many placements have they had? Why did their placements disrupt?

2. Do they have a history of making allegations of abuse?

--This is a sad reality. Abuse sometimes happens. David called his social worker to report abuse two different times, and he was right to do so. On the other hand the fact that Miss E had reported nearly every foster parent she had had was one of the reasons we would not accept her. I spoke with Miss E about her experiences. She believes what she reports, and she even describes actual events. Her take on those events though shows some pretty distorted thinking (e.g. one piece of evidence that Mandy was emotionally manipulative was that she told the girls that she loved them).

--How your agency deals with this issue can affect how you will respond. Allegations of abuse must be investigated, that is the law. They may also be required to remove children from your home while it is going on. But some agencies and social workers will be kind and understanding and actually try to support you emotionally while you go through the process.


3. Are they sexually active?

--Expect them to say "yes." You need to know if they are responsible about birth control, have age appropriate partners and have sex in appropriate places.


4. How do they deal with conflict and their own anger?

-- Don't accept "fine" for an answer, and don't expect that they are going to be able to deal with this well. You do want to know though whether they are sulkers (Carl, sometimes), or do they say nothing but simply decide you are somehow the bad one and prepare just to move on (David, Faye, Miss E), or do they scream at you using words you don't even use (Ann, many of the respite girls). Or do they actually tell you that they are angry and give you a chance to talk about it (Evan and to an extent Carl). Some of course get physically violent or destructive.

-- They are going to get angry. Kids in foster care, of all ages, have a lot of anger. If they start to feel really safe in your house, if they begin to believe that you will not throw them away if they are naughty, then they are very likely to start bringing out that anger. Yep folks, if you develop a good relationship with them you will get rewarded by being introduced to their demons. Your skills are important here, as is the sensitivity of the other children. Are you a good de-escalator? Can you respond to someone who is yelling and carrying on by getting a glass of water and watching and waiting for them to run out of steam? Let insults fly by and react no more to "you f*cking c*nt" than you would if s/he called you a chair?


5. Attachment patterns

-- There is a difference between someone who is a very private person who tends not to let people close and someone who has reactive attachment disorder. RAD means that when they feel themselves getting close, internal panic alarms go off and they do everything they can to destroy your relationship. Ann has RAD. David just doesn't seem to genuinely attach. It can feel like he does, but whatever sort of attachment he has seems be something he can turn off as soon as he is not getting what he wants. He has little to no sympathy or even understanding of the feelings of others. David I can parent. I can accept and understand that what feels superficial to me is what is possible for him.


6. Negative or difficult behaviors

-- Okay, all kids get into trouble. What does this kid do? Does she break curfew or sneak out at night? Cut school? Shoplift? Periodically get drunk or do drugs? Does he have friends who are getting into trouble? Does the child hoard food or eat compulsively? It is entirely possible that the kid they are asking you to take really doesn't do anything worse than leave dirty dishes all over the house. It is also possible that you can deal with other behaviors. You do want to know what you will have to deal with.


7. What sort of discipline do they respond well to? I take a non-punative approach and it has worked very well for my kids. With some kids there is something they care about (e.g. access to the telephone or their music) that you can use as a reward or a consequence. Some kids have no "currency."


8. School, work, and organizations

-- Do they have a history of cutting? Do they have decent grades? (C's are good, especially for a kid who has had to move a lot). If they have had the opportunity, are they involved in anything? All these are good signs.


9. If you have children in the house all ready you want to ask if they have any history with kids like yours and what that history is.


If you have been caring for teens for a while you will learn what you can handle and what you can't. There are a lot of things on this list that I can deal with. I've learned to let a lot go. There are other things that I find I cannot deal well with at all.


If a kid has done something somewhere else, they will probably do it at your house. Even if you house is quieter than everyone elses, or you are a fantastic foster parent, they will still do what they do. The question is not just what do they do, but what can you deal with? And what can the other children in your household deal with?

Sometimes though the behaviors they exhibited before really were responses to conditions which will be different at your house. David cut school so much the year before he came to us he failed every class. He did not feel safe as a gay kid at his previous school. After we spoke with the administration, he did feel safe at ours. He went to every class that first year. That changed at the end, but there were reasons for that too. (For the beginning of the end, go here.)

I hope that helps, and like I said, I hope those of you who have taken teens will add the questions you have learned to ask. FosterAbba, Lionmom, Dan -- I'm counting on you. All others are of course very welcome to add their thoughts.

Not Father's Day

We don't celebrate Father's Day or Mother's Day when we have kids here on respite, and we seem always to have kids here on one day or the other.

Oh the boys will quietly tell their father Happy Father's Day and if Hubby wants to go out to a movie or anything, they'll go. I'll cook one of the things that I know he likes for dinner, and he will know why.

But it is all very ... stealthy.

I always figure these days are pretty much "foster child hell days." A day in which we celebrate all that they don't have. For kids here on respite it is especially painful but even for my most secure permanent-placement kids, it is bitter-sweet at best. On Father's Day they look at Hubby and wonder what if they had had a father like that.

What if their father helped them with the homework and did not get shot by other gang members, or imprisoned for attacking their mothers, or simply disappeared? What is when their mothers brought new men into their lives it was someone quiet who liked kids and respected their boundaries and did not molest or beat them, sell their belongings, and say such horrible things?

No, these days are for them days of "what if's", of watching everyone else celebrate what they should have had but did not.

When all the kids in the house have been here for a long time, we celebrate, but still keep it low key. Carl, David, Evan participate to the degree they wish. They usually tell Hubby "Happy Father's Day" and if there is going to be any eating out they certainly want in on it. However, if they prefer to spend the day at the movies with friends, they know they will be allowed.

So in our house it will be a day much like any other day. It's not Father's Day here.

Just a day, like any other day, except one in which Hubby gets some stealthy extra attention.

The Risks of Being a Fostering Child

So I left you off with my doing deep breathing exercises in front of an angry Brian.

I really was upset. I stayed calm, but I hardly behaved like the perfect mommy. I tried to get him to talk about how upset he was about the weekend, but he wanted to focus on how he had been trying to tell me and I hadn't listened. The conversation was civil, but not the comforting that he needed.

He brought it up again last night, brave soul that he is. We talked about it for a while and we did work things out. There were tears, hugs and reconciliation. His claim that he had been trying to tell me turns out not to be without justification. My inability to understand the significance behind the words he was using is completely understandable.

But that is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk why that weekend was so upsetting to him.

Brian was still seven when we left. I may have said he he was eight, but that was wrong. He was still seven.

When we started care we, like most foster parents, did not explain foster care to our kids. We gave them the information that we thought they needed and then they filled in the details. So what we told them went something like this, "Carl's mom died a couple of years ago and nobody knows where his dad is. So Carl is in a special program that finds families for him to live with. We could join that program and he could live with us."

The boys were excited. They slowly learned more about the reasons why kids were in care, but it wasn't because I was ever careful about giving them complete and accurate information. Brian in the beginning was only five and I did not want to tell him the truth. That was a mistake. I told him, "There are all sorts of reasons why sometimes parents can't take care of their kids." That was another mistake.

I did reassure him that he was ours forever and that he would never go to foster care, but I think that assurance did not fill up the space of his anxiety. It did not because I did not understand that he was really worried. He needed more assurance than I was giving him. And I had no idea how many stories the respite kids, and Carl to be fair, were telling him.

When we went on that trip, Brian was afraid we weren't going to come back. Of course we told him that we were, but he knew that sometimes parents didn't.

That's important. He was a fostering child. We had done respite care of multiple kids. He had been told stories about abandonment that I did not know he had been told. He knew for an actual fact that sometimes parents left their children. He had met and spoken to children who had been left, and some of those children enjoyed telling horror stories to frighten privileged little brats. I know from my research that most fostering children his age believe that kids are left in foster care because they were naughty.

So now it makes sense. I understand why our leaving him that weekend, with a woman he knew and trusted, but who had a boyfriend (now her husband) whom he did not know well, was frightening to him. Though we said we were coming back, he was not certain that was true. He was afraid that he was being abandoned like all the foster kids he knew had been abandoned.

So I wonder what I might have done differently had I understood. I cannot imagine not going on the trip. The agency was paying for everything. It was a foster parent conference, but it was in Las Vegas. We would spend the days in long, emotionally exhausting seminars, but we would have other times when we could eat out at adult restaurants and tour the sights. We needed that time. I always understood the trip to be partly a bribe to get us to continue to do care after Carl left. It worked.

I know I said all the right words to Brian before we left, but I don't know that I said them carefully enough. I did not occur to me that he might not believe me when I said we would be back in four days.

No matter what, I cannot imagine a past in which we did not take Carl. I cannot imagine him not being part of our lives, part of Brian's life. Brian adores Carl. I might not have done any respite care though. I might have protected Brian from all the stories he heard. I might have waited until he was old enough that I was willing to tell him the truth about why these kids were in care.

At whatever age we started doing respite care, I would have spoke more carefully about the reasons kids go into care. The same of course would have applied to taking David. David was an abandoned child (whom we did not meet until more than a year after we went on that trip). I should have had conversations with Brian and Andrew about abandonment, about why it happens and why it wasn't going to happen to them.

But it could be that nothing would have worked. It might have been that Brian was just at a stage where he was afraid of monsters under his bed and parents abandoning him. It might be that there was nothing that I could have done except not go on the trip, and I know that even if I should not have gone on that trip, I would have. I can't imagine anything anyone might have said that would convince me that Brian would carry around pain from it for fiive years. I would have gone.

Last summer I helped do a training on children who foster. The lesson we tried to communicate then is certainly something I wish someone had told me:

Explain everything to your kids; even the ugly parts. If you don't want them to know those things, don't do care. If you don't tell them the foster kids will, or their imaginations will create something far worse.

Re-licensing, possibilities, and budget blasters

We had our yearly re-licensing visit. The licensing worker asked us if there was any way the organization could be improved. I pointed out that she was the sixth licensing worker to visit us in seven years, so ... um ... that was a problem.

We had a nice visit. When she asked about what I like about the agency and talking to you all informed that. I told her how much I appreciated that the agency paid for anything the kids really needed, that I knew people who couldn't afford to do foster care because of all the things they had to purchase. When Evan moved in and had no clothes I went out and spent $350 and told them I still would need to buy a coat. They reimbursed me and congratulated me on my frugality. Heck when we first started we needed to build a freaking wall and they paid for the materials. (We got volunteer labor from church and had to pay an electrician).

Anyway, she asked us if we were open for a placement and exactly when. I told her that if there was someone right for our family I did not want for them to not introduce us because Evan was here. Evan would not be disturbed by our meeting someone and he was moving out August 24th. She asked, "but where would he sleep?"

That caught me a bit by surprise. In the past whenever we met someone they were living someplace where they could stay while we were all getting to know each other. It took six weeks with Carl, although that was mostly about us getting licensed. David and Evan we each met at the beginning of the summer and moved in the day after we came back from Maine. They each spent quite a bit of time here prior to our trip (about 21 days each, I think) and were not officially in the program until they officially moved in. So, I tend to assume that we are always at least a month away from someone actually moving in, although I know that is not how the rest of the world works.

She went on to say that there are quite a few kids emancipating from the program right now and so there are a corresponding high number of intakes. If they needed a bed quickly, could we provide one? We said we could, that we could kick Brian out of his bedroom and make him bunk with Andrew, like we were doing for respite. (We explained that typically we pay the kids a nominal rent for their bedrooms).

We would of course rather not have that many kids in the home at one time, but we have been waiting six months for the right youth to come along. I don't want to miss him or her.

"Would you consider a girl?"

Sigh. I know we have been over this ground before. I said that we were committed to all LGBTQ kids. Hubby said, "'L' stands for 'Lesbian'" using just enough of the fake teacher voice to be funny. Anyway, I am trying to not let myself get excited. There may be a chunk of new kids coming in this summer, and maybe one of them will be for us, but maybe not. We will see.

In other news:
Faye is doing well here. Respites are always pleasant of course. She has had a reputation for disappearing a lot, hanging with friends and not coming home. One of her best friends however lives near here and is very happy to hang at our house, so she is mostly home with us.

The puppy went to get groomed at the vet, because they are cheaper than the regular groomer. Of course they noticed that he had retained puppy teeth and said they were having trouble grooming him anyway because he was trying to bite, so they anesthetized him to groom and remove the teeth -- most expensive dog grooming trip ever.

Hubby and Brian both went to the dentist. Hubby needs a crown and Brian has two cavities. Brain also simply must have braces because even though his teeth look perfectly straight, his back teeth are crowded and crooked and this will cause grinding and pain and other horrible things.

Lordy, these critters I live with are expensive.

Responding to behavior (updated)

I read somewhere that Mark Twain said that he did not lie because his memory wasn't good enough.

I definitely get that. That was in fact why we so often caught Carl in lying. He couldn't keep straight what he had told to whom. We would know that he had lied, even if we didn't know what the truth was.

I learned not to ask, "Did you do X?" when I knew very well that he had. Now, when I know that someone has done something I just address it. Sometimes I say things like, "I want you to stop telling me you are looking for a job when you are just hanging out with a friend." Or "The bill for your text messages on my cell phone is $9, what's the best way for you to pay me?"

And sometimes that is followed up with things like not allowing them to borrow my cell phone anymore.

It can feel strange though, because it also defuses me. In dealing with it that way I am cutting off my own opportunity to rant and yell at them. I am not telling them how angry and disappointed I am that they have lied or done whatever they have done. They know though.

Now it is good that it defuses me. Not escalating, simply imposing consequences is a good thing, but it can still feel strange. It feels like there is this other part of me that wants to yell, or at least lecture, dying to get out. But I know this path is better. I am sad, but my blood pressure is staying down. He knows he got caught. He knows I disapprove. We both know I can't control him and trying to would just push us into an escalating battle.

No, there isn't a lot that I can do that is productive.

Well, except re-instate that service where no one can make a long distance call without knowing the secret code.

Why did I cancel that before? I forget.

____
Update: I put on the block. He reactivated his cell phone. Good thing I wasn't deluded about my ability to control him.

How to convince schools to keep gay kids safe

Okay, no technique works all the time, but this has worked with me.

As I have said before I live in a Very Red State (US) and I live in a very conservative town.

So much so, in fact, that Evan got fired from a local franchise of a Major Fast Food Chain because he complained about other employees using the word "f*g." It showed a lack of team spirit, apparently. I actually know a lawyer who is a member of PFLAG who said that it was entirely legal. Unless the corporation had a policy about it, there was nothing we could do. The lawyer friend was willing to look into it for Evan, but Evan did not call the lawyer back. It is possible that the reasons for Evan's firing were more complex than he told us. The point is however that it is legal in my state to fire someone for being gay or even filing an official complaint over being harassed.

For a while we had a superintendent of schools who passed out business cards with Bible versus on them.

I'm not kidding here.

And yet the local schools are committed to keeping my kids safe. Part of it could just be that we have been lucky, but part of it might be that I accidentally hit on a technique for dealing with school administrations.

When Carl was here, I did just get lucky. Well, somewhat so. The principal at the time was a woman who was very determined that no kid get bullied for any reason whatsoever. Though she would not let me leave PFLAG literature at the school, she did make it clear to Carl that no one was allowed to call him names. In the last couple of days a senior apparently decided that she no longer had any way to punish him, and started up again. The principal told the bully that if he so much as looked at Carl funny she would not allow him to walk at graduation; she would just mail his diploma home.

She left and a new principal came in, but I just assumed that the new administration would be at least as supportive. When David moved in he was nervous about going to the local high school. So I made an appointment with the dean of students and the principal. It went like this.

Me: "David is worried about anti-gay harassment and after Carl's experience I know he will be safe here. So I wanted to bring him in so that you could reassure him."

Administrators then told David all about how great they thought the school was.

Me: "Now David, I know I can't promise that no one will ever call you a name, but I know this school and they won't allow it to continue." Me to the administrators: "If someone does call him a name, which one of you should he go to?"

Surprised, they tell me that of course he can go to either one.

Me: "See David, these men are here to protect you. Even if some of the students are a$$es, the administration isn't. They will keep you safe."

Me to the administrators, sympathetically, "Listen, I know this is a conservative town and and some of the students can say horrible things." Administrators briefly look relieved but less so as I start to get animated, "and I want to give you all the ammunition you need. My husband and I are behind you 100%. If you have trouble with a kid please feel free to tell the parents that David's parents are willing to do whatever they have to do. You can tell them for me that I will have their kid arrested for assault if necessary."

The administrators look a little panicked; they tell me they are sure that will never be necessary. I calm down and agree that I should hold myself in check. I know what a good experience Carl had here and I should not worry. I trust them and I know I won't have to call the police or a lawyer to make sure my kid is safe at their school.

We smiled and shook their hands. I asked David if he felt safe here now. David assured me he did.

Later he told me that I had put the fear of G-d into the Dean of Students. "He's not for gay people, but he is really for my safety. He's scared to death that someone will call me a name and you will sue them."

I told David I had no idea why. I had never once threatened the school.