A thought experiment

Another rescued draft. Originally written 1/4/07

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What if heterosexuals were not easy to identify?

Imagine if everyone was closeted. A man and a woman live next door to me and there are children there too, but I am too polite to assume anything. What they do, or don't do, in their bed(s) is none of my business. Everyone is a little vague about their private lives; people talk a little about their "partner" but they are careful not to let any pronouns slip. We all somehow manage to live this way. People from far away tells us that our lives seems strange, but we tell them that we are not sure we like the way they live in their country. People's private lives are their own business.

Got it?

Now there are a lot of things we could do with this imaginary country, but today I want to do just one thing. Let's be researchers wanting to know more about heterosexuals. What are they like? How do they live? What issues do they face?

The problem is, of course, that we have to FIND them first. It possible that they are all around us, but it is not like they wear signs on their foreheads.

It is clear that we have to go where the heterosexuals go. Where, we ask each other do heterosexuals congregate? Someone suggests Home Depot and we all laugh, but agree that is a stereotype. We need to find a place where heterosexuals are comfortable "flaunting" their sexuality. Some place where you can tell. We need a place that is defined by heterosexual activity.

Ah...so where do heterosexuals go to meet other heterosexuals? We pack up and head off to singles bars and any other place that is intended to meet the needs of heterosexuals as heterosexuals. We go to places where heterosexuals get their sexual needs met, because those are the only places where we are confident that we will find heterosexuals.

Of course, what we find is a more than a little disturbing. They seemed very concerned about sex, for instance. They don't seem to have complete lives. We find a few couples, but most people seem to be alone looking perhaps for a long-term partner, or maybe just for a sex partner. They don't seem to be very successful in relationships. Very few of the people we interview have been in a steady relationship for more than five years.

What sad, lonely, desperate lives they lead.

And so we ask ourselves, "Are these really the people we want teaching and raising children?"

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Okay, so I'm not certain that is what it would really look like, but I am sure of one thing. The more closeted a group of people are forced to be, the more difficult it will be to get an accurate understanding of how diverse they are. What we probably won't see are the people who are at home, trying to keep up with the laundry and helping the kids with their homework.

And if we forget that, if we forget the factors that affected how we choose our sample to begin with, we will come to some very wrong conclusions.

Coming out and being out...parental fears

As I don't have any foster kids in the house, I have given myself a challenge. Every day that I don't have something else to write about I will attempt to finish a draft post that I started, saved, and never got back to.

Here is one from May 28, 2006. It was part of the series of posts on coming out.

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We live our lives entwined in a web. If you are my mother or my child, what you do affects my life.

If you are my parent or my child and you are gay and out or gay and closeted, you affect my life in ways I may not like and do not know how to deal with.

When Carl moved in he was out to only a few friends. Most kids at school did not know. His previous foster parents knew and we had just learned. He did not want us to tell any of our friends or even the younger boys.

What a nightmare.

We took him weekly to a youth group for gay kids in a town 25 miles away on Sunday afternoons. I am a terrible liar and found it very difficult to figure out what exactly to tell my friends about why I was busy every Sunday. It was even more difficult with Andrew who knew I was taking him to a youth group. He kept asking what was so special about this group and I could not give him an answer.

One day my best friend was at the house when Carl left with a girl friend to watch movies at her house "because it was quiet there." My friend asked, "Are her parents home?" "No." "Do you think that's wise?"

I stopped calling my mother altogether. At the point my kids sexuality is not something that I think about all the time, but there in the beginning it was on my mind a lot. I had to make up things to tell my mother.

So we went to PFLAG meetings, which was really helpful except that Carl did not want us to tell the younger boys or even the babysitter where we were going.

That was what made me call the counselor he was seeing (the counselor was also gay) and say, "We have GOT to have a family session." The counselor made Carl understand that we needed to be able to tell our friends and family too.

Once we were all out though, the situation reversed itself. Now the degree to which the kids were out affected me.

Oh I know, it is not supposed to. I am not supposed to care. But it does.

The first "crisis" for us was when Carl decided to wear make-up to school. As I think I have mentioned before, it was not good make-up. It wasn't even good Goth make-up. It really seemed designed to announce to people that he was gay. In retrospect, I get it. I think he was telling people that he was out and he wasn't afraid of them. He stopped after a couple of weeks.

Still, it made me, Hubby and his social worker all have to face our own fears. We all had our own ideas of how out it was safe for Carl to be. There was some line, different for each of us, which of course WE did not mind if he crossed, but which we thought it was unsafe for him to cross. When a gay college student was assaulted I went more than a little crazy.

The student came to me to talk. He just felt safest with me. He had no idea that I was parenting a gay son. He had no idea that his story was making me terrified.

All parents of gay kids have to deal with these sorts of fears. I have seen GAY parents of gay kids struggle with these fears. We all want our kids to be safe.

And then there is HIV. Parent who call PFLAG never said "HIV" or "AIDS." They almost always say, "I'm afraid he will get sick."

I fear this. I think about it fairly often. Every time I take in yet another gay youth I am increasing the chances that I will one day have a son with HIV. The disease is entirely preventable. My boys all assure me they only have safe sex, but my boys are liars. They are not only having safe sex. They take risks.

And so that is a fear that sits at the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach. I go months without thinking about it. I lecture the boys. I buy them condoms. I remind myself that there is nothing I can do to control it. I remind myself that it is possible that they will stay healthy; that they will be lucky. But the fear never really goes away. It sits, and I tell it to shut up.

When Carl moved in I thought I was completely okay with him being gay. I expected to deal with awkwardness and the prejudices of others. I had no idea how much of my journey would be about fear.

Boyfriends and boy friends

Sometimes I think that there is only one real difference in parenting GLBT kids and straight kids. There are lots of issues that you have to cope with with GLBT kids. Some of those are societal, some have to do with whatever the kids have internalized about who, what, and how they should be, and of course there is the on-going internal growth.

But there is at least one thing, maybe only one thing, that seems to be objectively different with at least gay boys: the pool of people from whom they find their friends and their lovers is the same group.

If you are raising a kid, let's say a boy, who you believe is straight, it is easy to make rules like: only boys may spend the night; and if a girl is visiting you must leave your door cracked. Though it may be incorrect, it doesn't seem wildly outrageous to assume that any visitor of the opposite sex is a possible temptation. It is a rule which seems reasonable to most people. And it does not inconvenience most youth horribly, because most of their friends with whom they might want to talk privately, are of the same sex. They are welcome to close their door all they want.

The thing is, once my boys start being out and being involved with the youth group for GLBT kids, they start making more friends and many of those friends are also gay boys.

It took a while for me to figure out what I wanted to do about that. I wanted to be fair. I wanted a way to sort out friends from "friends with privileges" and lovers. It turns out that there was no way that I could do that. It wasn't just that I can't tell the difference; it is that they are not always sure either.

The boys have had relationships in which they seem to genuinely move from just friends and something else. I used to joke that Carl's pattern in making friends seemed to be to go on a date, make-out and then break-up. It was almost as though he needed to test to see if there was any boyfriend potential there before he could relax and just be friends. I know that straight people have cross-gender friends and that sometimes friends become lovers, or the other way around, but not nearly so much. And the difference does not seem to be one of degree, but of what is typical.

If a straight girl told me about some boy she wanted over, "We dated and were all hot and heavy for a while, but then we decided to just be friends" I would reply, "Right. You can't shut your door when he is over." When Carl told me that, I was inclined to believe him.

I gave up on it. I finally just told the boys, "If you have a boy over, keep your door open."

They were suprisingly okay with it.

Thinking about the next kid and the blog

Monday evening we had dinner out with Evan's social worker. It was very nice.

I did ask her about the possibility of another kid. She is on the in-take committee so she will let us know and said she is definitely putting feelers out.

I told her that it really was important to us to get someone a younger than Andrew, that we would like to go as young as possible, and so we want to clarify our "profile." We told her that we want to be a resource for kids who need to a safe place while they figure out their sexuality or for who have gender non-compliant behavior that other families are having trouble dealing with.

Evan thinks that that is a mistake. He thinks we are "too intense" for anyone who is not out. He talked about our involvement in PFLAG for instance.

Brian asked if she could find us someone between the ages of 8 and 10. She told him that they rarely take kids that young these days. Most of them are at least 14 and the average is 16. Brian thinks we should just adopt a 9 year old.

But I like working with my agency. I am afraid to "go it alone." I want the services and support they provide to the kids.

Evan, by the by, scared the heebee geebees out of me by telling the social worker that I had put a photograph of him in the scarf I made him up on my blog. You know -- the blog that no one in my ordinary life, especially the social workers, knows exists? I went off line for a little while to review posts and look for ways to be more confidential. I kept thinking, "But the boys are all 18. I have their permission."

I finally told Evan what I was worried about and he kept saying, "She won't look. I barely mentioned it. Besides, she won't want to get you in trouble. She won't take away you main source of support."

I hope he is right. I think I am in ethically safe waters, but agencies can have their own very strict legalistic standards. I mean, I just found out that HQ won't release a photo of Carl and his mother to me without Carl's written consent. So much for my surprise Christmas present for him. (He lost his nice enlarged framed photo and I was going to replace it.) The agency's rules about confidentiality do not always make sense and they are uncompromising about following them. I can imagine the social worker seeing the blog and deciding not to mention it, but I can't imagine HQ being reasonable about anything.

So I went off-line to think and panic. I considered starting another blog that contains only general thoughts about foster care and no stories that include the kids, and I still might do that. (Once I have a foster kid in the house that is under 18 that will pretty much happen anyway).

Anyway, I worry too much and I hope this is one of those cases.

The "ick" factor

I've been emailing one of you about what some of us call the "ick" factor.

You know, when people say something to indicate that their real problem with homosexuality is that it is icky. Sometimes you can just see them shudder a little.

I have a way of responding. I want to share. It's fun.

I tell them that I understand. There are lots of things that we find disturbing to think about. But finding something disturbing to think about has nothing to do with whether it is moral. Here's the proof:

Imagine that I am about to make you watch one of two videos. One is gay p*rn. The other is a home video of your parents having s*x. Which do you pick?

Evan thinks about the next kid

For the past few months, Evan has asking me to reassure him that I will not get a new kid right away. He has wanted me to tell him that we will take a break. His feeling has been that if a new kid moves in right away that will make him feel that our house is something akin to a factory, and he is just one more widget.

I have told him that we will take the next kid when the next kid comes. We have always said it was about the right kid, not the right time. I have also told him that we have asked for breaks in the past because the last few months with kids were tiring and we needed a break. If we did take a kid right away that would be an indication that he was easier on us. (Also an indication that all my therapy paid off, but I don't tell him that.) That did not make a difference to him. He still wanted for us to take a couple of months off.

I understand why he has felt that way, but it doesn't change anything. We will not turn away a kid who is a good fit for our family because Evan prefers for us to have a respectful period of mourning first. But it does not really matter. We typically have a couple of months between placements, and the social workers have told me that there is no one currently in or applying to the program who fits our profile.

The other day I told Evan that I thought it would be cool if they did come up with a kid for us to meet before he left. I would like for him to be able to meet the new kid and I would like for the new kid to be able to meet him.

Evan likes that idea. Last night he asked if I was going to do that. Was I going to get a kid soon so that he could meet him?

I'm having trouble getting Evan to believe that I really don't have any control over this process. It is not the case that there are always several out GLBT kids needing a home. I cannot go to some web page or file and look up local queer kids and pick one out. Several things have to happen, and not all of them are things I want to hope for.

I have to hope that I am not needed, that all the GLBT kids, regardless of how "out" they are, find acceptance where they already live.

Of course Evan knows that there are, that there must be, a dozen or more gay kids in the system who are not safe where they are. They are out there, we just have to go get one of them.

So I guess they do still need us

The trip was long. More than three total hours in planes; five hours waiting in airports; another three hours driving in cars; only two hours in the hotel spent awake; and one hour, forty-five minutes in the training.

I realized a couple hours before we were supposed to leave for the airport that Andrew is seventeen and therefore now needs a government-issued ID in order to fly. Driving to the driver's licensce bureau on the way to the airport (which of course is not on the way to the airport) was not on the list of things that I had planned. Still we got it all done.

I had a good conversation with the social worker. We talked about what range of kids we were interested in taking. We talked about our commitment to gay kids, and were willing to consider others because, "They have had some really great kids come into the program recently." We talked about how things were a little better than they were six years ago, and that it might be a while before there is another gay kid who is not being accepted by his/her family. I thought about that idea for a while. What if we aren't needed? Well, of course, foster parents will be needed, but what if there is no longer a need for people who are dedicated to gay kids? Maybe the world is becoming more accepting and kids can come out wherever they are and no one will care.

The training session was pretty good. This time there were more experienced foster parents who had been fostering for decades and whose birth kids were teenagers or adults with kids of their own. A couple of them had been fostering children themselves.

Andrew is the only kid who was on the panel all three times. The social worker had used her contacts to come up with a local pair teens living with their grandmother who has been fostering, I think, since before they lived there. At one point the grandmother volunteered that the teens did really well with all sorts of kids, "Except for the really promiscuous or gay ones."

I turned to the teens and said, "Why is it hard for you to live with gay kids?"

The 18-year-old boy, whom up to this point I really liked, said, "Because I wouldn't share a room with him!"

It hurt my heart. It also made clear that it is still a good idea for us to wait for the next gay kid who needs us.

We are just not there yet

I had a bad day yesterday.

I've had an undercurrent of sad because Evan is moving away. Oh I can be cheerful and happy, but I know it is there. I know it is there because when something worth getting upset about comes along I take full advantage of it.

So when Hubby called and said that autoshop* said that fixing my car would cost about $100 more than an on-line car value estimator says I could expect to get for it as a trade-in from a local dealer, I was bummed. I had the distinct pleasure of knowing that we would not have to go into debt because I have not been paid yet for driving Miss E to school, and if I put all the money that they owe me so far I will have most of it. So I walked around telling myself that I was supposed to feel grown-up and pleased that I could afford to pay this bill without affecting our monthly budget at all, and not pout because I had planned on buying new clothes for me and taking Evan out for a nice graduation dinner (with family) and still having money left over for savings.

So I was feeling whiny and irritated at myself for feeling that way. I was not feeling strong.

And then the newspaper called. A reporter wants to do a local story about the evil anti-gay marriage amendment (although she did not call it that). She really wants to interview a local gay or lesbian couple. Can I find one who is willing to have their photo and name in the paper? Well I can try.

An hour later I shut myself in my bedroom and cried. Four times I was told, "We're really out. All of our friends and everyone we work with knows, but I/my partner can't be out to every single parent of her students/customers/parents of our child's friends. We really want to help, but this is a small town and we live and work here and we just don't think we can take that risk."

And they are right. I thought about about calling the reporter and telling her that Hubby and I would do it. Okay, so we are not a gay couple, but we are PFLAG parents, and we can put a face on the issue. I don't have anything to worry about, college students don't read the local paper (and I am out on campus anyway). Hubby probably doesn't have anything to worry about. He is a special education teacher in high demand. How do I feel though about my sons going to school and having kids they don't know saying, "So, I saw your parents in the paper yesterday. Are the f*g or the f*g's brother?"

Like I said, I cried.

It's not safe enough for people to explain that it is unsafe.


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*I really trust my local autoshop. On more than one occassion they have told me that they fixed my problem by reattaching or tightening something and there would be no charge. And yesterday was not the first time they said something to the effect of, "How long are you going to keep this car? Because it is not safe to drive at all unless you do X, but if you are going to get rid of it in the next year anyway, you could not do Y."

Carl's Story 13: Homophobia in high school

Carl got less teasing by far after coming out. When you are out and someone says, "Are you gay or something?" in a teasing sort of voice it is good to be able to say, "yes." For most people it takes the wind out of their sails.

For most people.

There were a couple of boys though who said things, under the breath sort of things. One was in Carl's Spanish class. He sat behind Carl and quietly said things like, "God hates f*gs" and "All gays should be shot."

It took a couple of weeks for Carl to tell me. The next day I was in the principal's office. She was outraged. She promised that she would talk to the kid right away and that any time anyone said anything to Carl he was to come straight into her office and she would deal with it. No one was going to bother any of her kids.

I was pleased. I told her that I had brochures from PFLAG and the GLBT youth group. Could I leave them? She said "No. If those people want to get to the kids they will have to find another way." The second it was out of her mouth you knew she wished she had not said it. She tried to say something about not allowing any materials from any groups. I sighed and did not ask her about the boy scouts. I was there to make Carl's world safer and this woman was going to help me on that.

Carl did go to her and she was never slow about responding. When two boys called him a name and threw an empty pop can in his general direction at the end of their senior year she told them that if they so much as looked sideways at him again they would have their diplommas mailed home and they would NOT be welcome in the ceremony.

When Carl was considering going to the prom with a boy (he didn't) I called to tell her that he was thinking about it and that I wanted her to know in advance so that she could do whatever she felt she needed to to make certain that it was a safe experience for him. She thanked me for giving her some advance notice.

But there was one thing that I did nothing about. I wish I had. I wish I had because Carl wanted me to.

In Spanish class all the kids had to write and give a speech. The boy who had been muttering the awful things in the beginning of the year, stood up and gave his entire speech on "Why God Hates Homosexuals."

The Spanish teacher said nothing.

It was a horrible experience for Carl, having to sit there and listen to that. He wanted to protest, to walk out. He wanted the teacher to stop it. He wanted me to do something.

I was upset.

I did nothing.

Why? There are no good reasons. I was not confident that the principal would do anything. I did not want to have a debate about freedom of speech the difference between harassment and free expression.

I knew at the time I should go to the school again, but I didn't.

I still wish I had.

Part 14

So there!

Evan had a conversation last week with the director of the foster care agency for which I work. Most of what Evan reported was distressing to me, so much so that I forgot to tell you all about the other part.

Evan is very committed to the family remaining committed to GLBT kids. He has asked me confirm several times that we wouldn't take anyone else. I tell him that we are in fact committed to being available for gay kids, but that if there is no one needing us when he moves out we might consider taking a temporary kid who was not gay. A few months ago I think I told him that as Andrew really wanted for any future kids to be younger than he, we might broaden our restriction just a little. There might be kids who are not self-identified as gay but could still benefit be being in a gay-supportive home. That was not enough for Evan though.

Well, Thursday he reported that he got assurance from the director that we would never be given any non-gay kids. "He said he agreed that it would be a waste of a good resource and he said he could promise me, because he has to sign off on every placement."

Evan was very pleased with himself -- having successfully gone over my head and all.

Lifeguards on Duty

Bacchus of Family of Choice mentioned this blog. I love it when people mention my blog. I feel all warm and fuzzy. (Of course I am waiting for the day when I get mentioned on some conservative site and the hate mail starts coming).

ANYway, since I have been talking about taking the blog private I have been getting emails from regular readers (that is SO cool). Several are gay men.

Now this may be hard for me to explain well, but I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that there are gay men who read this blog.

See, I hope to help my boys to grow up to be responsible, caring, healthy gay men (well...not my straight boys...you know what I mean). Having some around to keep an eye on things and give me perspective when I need it makes me feel better.

It's like you have been trying hiking through unknown territory and doing okay, but often being uncertain, and then suddenly find out that there are people who know the land who have been keeping an eye on you. Or maybe it is like swimming nervously in the ocean and then suddenly seeing the sign, "Lifeguards on duty."

I don't want to make my readers nervous, make them feel like they are responsible for me, but I want you to know that I am really, really glad you are all there.

It reminds of a story...

When Carl moved into our home at the beginning of summer. He had been out to only a few friends and when he went back to school he decided to come out. He bought and wore make-up. The social worker thought it was absolutely inappropriate and must be stopped. She thought he was would provoke hostility. Hubby thought it would provoke ridicule. I was a new foster parent, and had never been a parent to a teen and was really uncertain. I wrote a long email to the leader of the youth group for GLBT kids (who happens to be a gay man). It went on and on, but ended with, "I keep wondering if we are blowing this out of proportion. Would it be better just to ignore it?"

His response was, "Yes."

There were so many times when he gave me this sort of calm, reassuring feedback. "Don't worry about this. It's normal." A couple of times he did warn me that a kid was acting out in ways that worried him, and more than once he clued me in to the fact that I was being conned. He is not a parent, but I am a much better parent because of him.

When I started the blog I wanted a place to pour out all the things that I think and worry about and I believed I thought I could be helpful to others.

I had no idea how much support I would receive.

Thank you all.

Conversations with the worker

I talked to Evan's worker the other day. She has accepted the position of family developer. She would like to "keep" Evan as he is so close to moving into transition anyway, but she knows and I knows that if he has any crisis that requires time, she will have to hand him over.

I am not happy about her being the family developer. I am actually more than a little annoyed at the agency right now. The family developer is the person who teaches the classes, arranges on-going training, reminds me (again and again) to send in copies of my car and home insurance, notes from the doctor, take TB tests, and visits me every six months to make certain I have changed the batteries in the smoke detectors and haven't done any renovation on the house that I did not tell her about.

The problem though is that it seems to be a revolving door position. The person in the position when I started was there for two or three years, I believe. In the three or four years since there have been (let me count...) six developers. Each one seems to move out faster than the one before. If you are a regularly leader you know that I like Evan's worker and also think she is very young and inexperienced. She is good and shows the potential to be great, but she is young and inexperienced.

Shouldn't the developer be some tough older worker who has been through the trenches and knows what it takes to survive? Someone whose idealism has turned into tough, unrelenting realism?

The school for which I work just hired someone to coordinate accommodations for disabled students. She came to a faculty meeting the other day and said that when students hand us letters telling us what they MAY need, we are to smile and say that we will sit down with them and work out the details, no matter what we think. "Then you can call me if you want. I've been doing this for 20 years and have big, strong shoulders. You can rip me a new one if you want. I can take it." THAT's the sort of person I want to be the family developer.

But once again I remember that I do not run the world. I hope she does well in her job, but mostly I just hope that she stays.

Oh...I also asked her if anyone was disturbed that the multiple boyfriends in the house thing went as far as it did. Was anyone disappointed with me? Her response was, "Oh no...not at all." She then went on to tell me the responses of the out-going family developer (she's staying in the agency, just working a different job), her supervisor, and the very nice director of the division (who happens to be gay). Every one of them were very impressed with how calmly I handled it; how I did not get upset and let things escalate.

That was good to know, but what was less good was realizing that this issue was not just discussed in "peer review". It apparently went "all the way up." Yep. The whole division talked about it.

Sigh.

Of course I told you all, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Thinking about the next kid

I went and looked at the photo-listings for my state.

I do that sometimes. I look at the teenagers and notice a couple of faces that were there when I looked last, usually months ago. I wonder how many of them will find adoptive homes and how many will end up in permanent foster care. The eleven-year-olds have a chance. Odds are not good for the older teens.

I had been thinking about our "next kid" as though he (it could be a she, but that is less likely) does not quite exist yet. Possibly as early as November, but maybe much later, we will get a phone call. "There's a kid we want you to meet, would you like to come down and look at the file?" For me that is where the story starts. I had been wondering who that teenager will be.

Suddenly I realized the obvious, that young person already exists. He or she is living in a home right now that is not going to last. It is possible, but unlikely, that he is living with birth family. It is much more likely that he is living in a foster home, or a pre-adoptive home that is not working out, or is in the teen shelter. Right now, today, the child who will be next in my home is living some place that is not working.

It is a troubling thought; one I could easily get obsessed by. Why is the home not working? Is it because the adults are homophobic? Or is there some other reason?

It is easier to think about the next part of the story. The youth's social worker will know the he or she is queer. They will consider putting the youth on the photo listings. The youth, being at least 12, may refuse to go through that again. Or they may try it, be trying it right now, and nothing comes of it. The social worker will sit down and talk to the youth about the private permanency foster care program. She (almost all the social workers are women) will explain that if she can get the youth in, he will have the best transitional services available in the state when he is ready to emancipate. He will consider it and agree. His social worker will warn him that it is a long process and that there is a waiting list. The social worker will warn him that it can take a long time from applying to being placed. She may tell him that many foster families join the program with their kids, just because those families want to keep the kids. But then again, if she is telling a kid that, then that kid is probably not my kid.

But maybe in his paper work it will say that he (or she) is queer. The file will be presented along with many others to the committee who picks kids for the waiting list. Someone will notice and say, "Did you say that young man/woman is gay? Let me see the file. We may be able to get him into a family very quickly."

All the social workers will think that that is wonderful. They will think that the youth is so lucky.

They will tell the youth about us.

The youth will not feel lucky, nor should he. If anything he will feel resentful that the social workers think he should be grateful that there is a family that won't treat him like garbage. He will be tired. He will have moved before. He will have heard the promises before. He will agree to hear more about us, but he will not be enthusiastic or grateful.

They will tell him a little about us: how many kids we have had before; how we have had three gay boys all of whom emancipated from our house and still like us; how we have two bioboys; that we go to an open and affirming church, but do not try to push the kids to share our religious beliefs; that we are educators.

And after the youth has heard all there is to know about us he will say, "They live where? Oh no. I said I wanted to stay in The City. You aren't going to make me move out there are you?"

conference and Evan's birthday

The conference session was good. There were two social workers (one whose parents fostered for most of her life...are still fostering), me, Andrew, and another sweet girl (14 years) whose parents started fostering about a year ago. It was really good we had her along, as the social worker's parents work for the same agency I do and so also do long-term, one-kid-at-time fostering. The other girl's family is in it to adopt and do some respite care, but mostly have littles. Right now they have a 9 month old that they are "planning, not hoping" to keep.

Only about 10 people came our training session. Apparently only about a dozen went to the alternative session (how to make a lifebook), so there must have been another 30 or 40 participants who were just taking the morning off. Foster parents are such late night partiers, you know. Even though the session was small, it was good. There were a couple of foster parents who were worried about their biokids and I think we gave them information that was helpful. One person there was actually starting a Children Who Foster support group and getting our information to him was really good. Besides, we were all happy to "practice" on a small group. The next conference is close to home and in a much more heavily populated area. We should have more people then.

I am looking forward to the close to home part. We left the house at 6:40 so that we could get to The City in time to buy Andrew disgusting fast food breakfast (a rare treat) and meet everyone else. At 7:30 we all piled into one van and were off to the conference. We arrived at 9:30, which gave us time to look around a bit before the session. We were back on the road after a fast lunch and back to The City. Andrew and I got part way out of town when he realized he had left something in the van, so back around we went. Fortunately one of the social workers was still there waiting for the girl's parents to pick her up.

I'm not exactly sure what time we got home, I just know that when I woke up it was 4:45pm.

Evan demanded that I look at his bedroom, which he had spent the day cleaning. "It looks like a gay man's room, almost, doesn't it?" It hardly looks like one of the Queer Guys lives there, but it is remarkably tidy. He found his original set of house keys, the keys he borrowed from Andrew a few months ago, and the key that we normally keep hidden outside.

Evan's birthday is later this week, but with our messed up schedules, I decided that it was really better if we celebrated this weekend. Evan, it turns out, is working today, so last night was the night. I usually just cook something special for the kids' birthdays, but yesterday was just too exhausted. So we went to Red Robin's. It was his kind of place. The USC football game was playing on TV's in all the corners, and even in TV's set in the floor at the entrance. "No way! Cool!" They made a big fuss over him -- balloons on the table, staff standing around him singing. Brian asked how they knew it was his birthday. We laughed. The three birthday presents (one of them over three feet long) was a pretty good clue.

He had been afraid we forgot, or did not care. For about two weeks Evan has been saying things like "I can't believe that I'm almost 19, can you?" or "Wow. Do you realize my birthday is only X days away?" I've responded to all these with a "hmmmm." Meanwhile of course I had his birthday present (the big one) in my bedroom closet. I ordered it a few weeks ago. Hubby and I have a cool sort of lap desk that can only be ordered from a particular catalogue and Evan keeps using them. So I got him one. He liked it very much. On my suggestion, Hubby took the boys to an office store to buy Evan appropriate gifts for someone excited for college. Brian picked out a fancy three-in-one pen/pencil/pda stylus. Andrew got a neato, zip-up calendar/portfolio thing.

Evan really liked the combo pen and the lap desk, but was really impressed with the portfolio calendar. It was so grown up and professional looking. It really was much, much more fancy that a student going to technical college needs. But Evan liked it, and was surprised that he liked it. "I must be growing up if I am getting so excited about things like that, huh?"

So the day was a big success. The conference went okay, and Evan was delighted that we remembered him.

Dealing with ... stuff (update)

Warning: this another post about teenage sex. Except I actually think I can communicate my confused thoughts and feelings if I pretend it is not about teenagers at all.

Pretend your mother who has been divorced for a year or so was coming to live with you for a few months. She is going through what can only be described as a promiscuous stage of her development. You think that this is unseemly for a person her age and hope that she will grow out of it. On the other hand you don't think it is your place to tell her that she is behaving poorly. It really isn't any of your business.

But she is living with you. You have younger children in the house and she has agreed that having sexual partners in and out of the house while they are there would be confusing for them. She completely understands and assures you that she will not have sex in the house unless she has the house to herself.

Okay...you think, that was an awkward conversation, but I'm glad we had it. It's weird, but it is good.

Being a school teacher you have been home all summer, but finally you are going back to school. You casualy mention that you guess tomorrow you ought to spend some time in your office preparing for classes.

Your mom is pleased and an hour later is on the phone, pausing to find out if you are coming home for lunch. When are you going to leave in the morning? Are you sure? You will definitely be gone from 9:00am until 12:30pm? You say yes, because it is the truth, although even at the time you know why your mother is so pleased.

Mom is excited about her new sexual freedom. She also values honesty and though she does not want to tell you much about her partners and certianly does not want you to meet them, she feels a need to be perfectly honest about what she is planning on doing while you are in your office the next day.

Msybe you know that your mother was taught to hate herself and that in some ways you really do think it is healthy that she can talk about her sex life and stop feeling the shame that was instilled in her. You think that this experimental stage she is going through is normal In some moods you are really pleased that you have the sort of relationship with you mother in which you can talk about sex. In some ways it feels really healthy.

On the other hand, you realize that if you had forgot a book you really could not go home to get it. You also realize that you know nothing about who she is inviting over to your house. Is this the boyfriend from last spring who moved away and came back? Is this someone she met on-line and is meeting in person for the first time? Surely not that, you think, but maybe. Probably it is one of the people she was so very pleased to run into the day before when you were in The City. But you don't know. There could be an axe murderer in your house.

What do you do? Do you decide it was a bad idea to agree that it would be okay for her to have her boyfriend over when you are not in the house? Do you insist that she first has to introduce you to her boyfriends? Even though you don't think you can tell if they are axe murders by meeting them.

Of course, you think, life would be so much easier if she was like all the other mothers and just hid her sex life from her daughter.

And what if it were not your mother, but a young man two weeks shy of his 19th birthday?

And would you tell the social worker, who you know is going to be more freaked out than you are?

****
I have made some decisions, BTW. I am definitely going to talk to him about how well he knows the people he in inviting into the house. That much at least is clear.

Are we an LGBT family?

I did some exploring at Blogging Baby and ended up at Mombian who has a delightful long list of blogs of GLBT families.

I'm not on it. Now I'm not on a lot of blog rolls. Though I love attention, and love finding myself on a blog roll, I don't take my absence personally. And I am not this time either.

I just looked at this list and thought, "If Mombian knew about my blog, and thought it was fantastic, and wanted to put a link on her site to it, would it belong here?"

I've been thinking about this for a while.

If two people of different races get romantically involved, they are an interracial couple. If two people who share the same racial/ethnic heritage adopt children from a different heritage, they are an interracial family.

See...I have no name for the type of family we are.

We are a PFLAG family of course. I'm a PFLAG Mom, married to a PFLAG Dad, mother of two PFLAG Brothers. We all have the buttons to prove it.

Would we be a PFLAG family if we hadn't joined PFLAG?

Why, you may ask, do I want a label? I want a label for the the same reason we want any word: there is a distinct sort of thing that exists that seems to deserve a name.

We are a fostering family (aka foster family). Becoming a foster family changed us. It did not just change us as an individuals, it changed who we are as a family. Because we are a fostering family, my bioboys pause before answering questions like, "How many brothers do you have?" The boundary between who is part of the family and who is not is fluid. Being a foster family means that we have members of our family who are members of other families that we are not related to.

And that we have become parents to gay boys has changed us too.

I would have the same political beliefs that I had before, but now they are not just political beliefs. I am passionate about them. When I talk about gay marriage I do not just say that I am in favor of it, I hear myself saying, "My family is just as much a family as any other. We deserve the same protections." I say this without pause because it is my family that is affected. Someday it may be my son who is told that the hospital cannot confirm or deny that man he loves and shares his life with has been admitted. Someday it may be one of my grandchildren who does not get speedy care because her father does not have the legal right to authorize it.

Whenever the GLBT community is threatened, my family is threatened.

So are we a GLBT family?

That really might not be the right label. But I know we are a different sort of family than we would have been otherwise. I just don't know what to call us.

Suggestions are welcome.

David's Story Part 60: Christmas 2005

For a long time we only saw David ocassionally. Then we saw him a little more. At Thanksgiving he called us and asked if he could spend the day with us. We said yes. He stayed with us for three whole days.

12/29/05
Mary,

Christmas was good. David came over. We picked him up on Christmas Eve and took him to the service. We took him back on the 26th.

It was like it was the first year with David. We all got along so well. He and I played the board game the kids gave me for Christmas and he beat me every time, except the first when he had not really figured out the rules. He played with Andrew and Brian and was generally delightful to be around. It was like we just stepped back in time to the way things were.

I wanted to tell him that he could come home if he wanted to go to Our Small Town High to work on his GED (they have classroom there which is dedicated to helping kids prepare for it). Theoretically he could be here for two months and get it done. I wanted to believe that if I did that it would work out.

But it wouldn't. He has not worked a job (except for occasional hours given to him by people he knows) since he moved out and has not been doing anything towards his getting the GED. He has just been living with friends and letting them support him (I have no idea how he is managing that).

I had to take a break and cry. You should have seen the panic on Hubby’s face when I told him I wanted to ask him to come home. I assured him I wasn’t going to. I told Hubby I felt like I was a really crappy foster mother. Not one of the three boys held jobs while they were here. David didn’t even graduate from high school. We are supposed to be preparing them for adulthood and we are not succeeding.

Hubby made me feel better. He pointed out that we are doing something very different. What we have given, are giving, all three boys is the knowledge of a healthy family and their ability to live in one. We bring them into contact with a part of the gay community they otherwise would not know.

It’s funny. I stop thinking about having goals related to them being gay. I mean, when one boy leaves we save the room for the next GLBT kid who needs it, but I think of that as just being so that they will have a place to go. Hubby really thinks that our role in their lives is to give them a healthy space in which they can become happier and more self-accepting. He doesn’t really care if they get jobs.

David's Story Part 61: Reflections
David's Story Part 1: The Beginning

David's Story Part 30: Fall 2004

2004-2005 should have been David's senior year, except he had failed every course his sophomore. So he was a junior. His educational plan had shifted while he lived with us. Initially we expected him to do two years while living with us and then go to Job Corps to finish high school. He decided fairly quickly that Job Corps was not for him, and started talking about staying with us for three years. We loved the idea. David's main concern was how much freedom he would have.

There were two issues: our rules and the system rules.

First the system: until he was 18 he could not spend the night anywhere unless there was an adult who had had a back ground check. There were a couple of people he could stay with: Jose, the director of the youth group for GLBT kids; and Betty a lesbian who was also the director of the church youth group. He rarely stayed at Betty's. He liked her, but she was out of the way and then of course there was her partner and their three little girls. David has always been friends with girls, but there is a limit.

Jose's house was cool. He had a giant television, a large video library, and every sort of gaming equipment around. Carl had spent the night there more than once when the youth group was doing something that would run late (like a dance).

In the fall we were working it out okay. David had a finally got a job at a local restaurant and that and school kept him in Our Small Town most of the time. Usually we took him to church with us on Sunday. K, who attended our church, would take him with her and then take her to youth group in the evening. Every now and then he would have a Saturday night off and we would confirm with Jose that he could stay there and we would drop David off on Saturday with Robert.

On Wednesday nights the youth group all met at a coffee shop. There was no program, just kids hanging out. We had a incentive plan with his study skills teacher. If he was caught up on his work she would give him a "ticket" to the Wednesday night youth group meeting. He got a ticket nearly every week. He was keeping up with his work and I had an excuse to spend a couple hours with friend of mine who had moved to The City. Everyone was happy.

David often asked what would happen when he was 18, would he be able to spend the night with other people? We said yes. He wanted to know how much freedom he would have. We kept telling him that we did not have a fixed rule. If he was going to school and working a job, I would understand that I was not going to see him very often. I joked that I would hope that he would schedule in at least one evening a week with us, but that I understood that school, work, and his social life would keep him pretty busy.

David's social life was complicated.

Robert just a bit younger than David. David the year before had suffered harassment from other boys in his very small town and his principal had suggested that if he could, he leave. (I know. If we had known him then we would have called the ACLU.) So David moved in with his aunt and did a GED. When the boys met the spring of 2004 they were both 16. David was living with me and going to high school and Robert was living with his aunt a little more than 100 miles away. In the fall Robert decided he was ready for life in The City as a grown up and he moved into an apartment with some other young men.

Robert of course struggled financially. He moved a couple of times. And there was always some drama going on. Some boy was angry at some other boy. David was either part of the drama itself or the person that everyone seemed to call.

David was fine with us, but his life outside of the family was getting more complicated and demanding more of his time and attention.

In December two things happened: David started passing blood again and Robert moved in with a 22-year-old who had had a background check.

David's Story Part 1: The Beginning
David's Story Part 31: December 2004

David's Story Part 24: Reflecting on David's Decision

Rossecorp who makes me feel loved and appreciated by commenting here often (I reallly like comments) recently wrote a post about David's decision to separate from his brothers. It is also a comment about the social workers willingness to accept it.

My initial reaction was both admiration of David for being willing to do that, and anger at the world that it should make sense for him to do it. Unlike Rossecorp it never occured to me that the social workers should have fought that decision.

I don't know if anyone tried to talk him out of it. I don't know if anyone recognized the complexity of the problem and told him that they would look for a family that would really take care of his younger brothers so that he did not have to, and love him too. Certainly there was no documentation in his file of that being an issue. Just the note that they were put up separately but with notes that adoptive parents should work to keep the kids in contact with each other. I did not meet him until after his brothers had been placed in an adoptive home and David had been accepted into my agency.

Though the notation in the file was clear, if you asked David at that time what he felt about being separated he would tell you that he was relieved, that he had taken care of his brothers all his life and it felt good to just be a teenager.

I do understand Rossecorp's anger though. I remember when I first started caring for Carl and it would make me so angry when people who said things like, "He is so lucky to have found you." When Carl was giving us a little grief early on a social worker, who happens to be gay, told him, "This family is a gift from God. You know that, right? We don't have another one like them."

The problem with these comments can be seen using Rossecorps analogy. Would anyone tell a biracial child that he should be grateful that they finally found the one white foster family in the area that would treat him like a human?

Things do seem to be getting better though. Hubby was asked to represent PFLAG at a conference for state social workers a year and a half ago where they were all told that failing to be accepting and affirming of gay kids could result in losing their licenses. A friend of mine was told by a director of a private group home that contracts with the state, that he was unwelcome on the property. The director was told by the state that he had to reverse his policy on homosexual foster parents or lose all of his state contracts. Foster parents, at least at my agency, that homosexuality is on the non-discrimination policy they all have to sign.

So it is looking up, at least at the policy level.

I hope this post does not sound like I am trying to argue with anything that Rossecorp has to say. I actually agree and her post brought up all the feelings of outrage and sadness I had not felt for a long time.

I survive on hope. I lobby the legislators. I write the letters. I go to PLFAG meetings. I take every opportunity I have to educate. Sometimes I get angry and want to cry. Sometimes I do cry.

I also see more and more out gay kids. When Carl came out, he was the only one at the high school. David was cheerful, out and well-liked and other kids followed him out of the closet and into the world. Evan went to the high school and found other out kids already there, some of which had followed David out the year before.

So I see a gradual improvement for my boys, even in Our Small Town in this reddest of the red states.

David's Story Part 1: The Beginning
David's Story Part 25: David's New Counselor

David's Story Part 12: October 2003 at home

10/10
To Mary:

David had 8 teeth extracted today. I have actually been looking forward to the day. Not because of the surgery, but because I needed the quiet afternoon. So I drove him to the appointment. Oral surgeons really push you out of the office quickly. David would have benefited from spending an hour in recovery, but we drug him out to the car. His mouth was packed with gauze so he could not speak, but he was clearly anxious about something. I kept telling him that he was doing fine and that the way he was feeling was normal. It turns out that he was seeing double. It went away, so I am not going to worry about it.

Anyway, there was a mix-up and the pharmacy did not have the drugs so I had to call the doctor and then call the pharmacy and make another trip. David was distressed at the amount of blood in his mouth. I know it was normal, but at one point I found myself getting dizzy dealing with it, so I deserted him. He was doing okay though.

Finally though he is drugged and sleeping. I am settled in the living room for my quiet afternoon.

David got his braces shortly after that. I began to see to what degree he heard and saw what he wanted. I heard the orthodontist tell him he would have the braces for 2 years. He asked if it could take less time than that. The orthodontist said that it was possible, but not likely. "Could they be ready to come off in 18 or 20 months?" "I suppose, but that would be really unusual." The next day David told his social worker that his braces should come off in a year and a half!


10-25-03
To a colleague who had left the school the year before:

It was really good to hear from you too, and I am glad that your new job is working out so well for you.

Life at work is difficult…

…We do have a new kid in the house. His name is David and he is a joy. It is difficult to explain how wonderful it is to have him around. I can feel so beaten down by how miserable everyone at work is right now. If David were not there I know that my exhaustion and sadness would spread to everyone else, at least a little. Andrew especially is a thoughtful kid who tends towards melancholy anyway. You know, sometimes I think the whole family is over-intellectual. We are all capable of analyzing the joy out of anything.

But David is cheerful, not annoyingly perky, but cheerful. This kid has been through hell, and somehow manages to find ways to be happy. Every day when I get home he comes out to the kitchen while I get a glass of water or cup of tea and tells me about his day. I hear about the intrigues at the high school and at the youth group (the one for GLBT kids). I know (or would if I could remember) who is dating whom, who has cheated on whom, and who said what outrageous thing. I never was one for gossip, but he takes a great deal of joy in it.

I don’t know if I am explaining this right. I think if my life were different I would disapprove of his taking pleasure in telling me all this, but it is just what I need. Every day I get 15 to 30 minutes of happiness right when I need it most.

He is good for me and he is good for the boys. He has actually helped Andrew develop some skills for dealing with Brian. Fostering is supposed to be about us helping the kids, but right now it is the other way around. He is a gift.

From Ruby:

Beth,
I have some bad news. David’s younger brother, Dan, is coming back from the pre-adoption situation. I don't have any details yet, but the state worker wanted me David to know. Perhaps you can have David give me a call.

David's Story Part 1: The Beginning
David's Story Part 13: October 2003 at school