Thinking about commenting....

I do most of my blog reading on Bloglines which, as Baggage (http://baggagethatgoeswithmine.typepad.com/) points out, means that you don't actually SEE all of the blog. You don't see when people make design changes, or notice when they add to their blogroll. Commenting requires a few extra clicks, so you (or some of us any) do a little less of that too.

What tend to miss is reading the comments. I'll realize that I am missing out on a big part of what is happening on someone's blog because I am not reading what people are saying in the comments. So if I have the time, I will go and check it out.

Some days I think I would love it if more people commented on my blog. Some of the blogs I read seem to get a dozen comments for every post. Someone writes about what they wore and people line up to say how interesting that is. (Okay...if I was ever going to get a comment based upon being snarky, that would be it. It's hyperbole folks).

On the other hand, sometimes I read a blog where comments are a regular thing and I feel sorry for the blogger. Poor Baggage has been dealing fairly gracefully with people who are debating her sex life and child-rearing decisions. So I think, I'm lucky. I don't get a lot of comments, but those that I do get are nearly all supportive and kind.

So it makes me think, why do we blog? Why do we open ourselves up for comments? Why in the world would ANYone want to lay out their lives for public inspection and comment? Why do that to ourselves?

Of course we do it for different reasons. In my own case I do it because sometimes venting here works better than venting almost everywhere else. I feel better.

I do it because it has helped to put me in touch with a peer group I could not have found any other way. I have made friends with a couple of foster parents, but we don't have much in common -- aside from the kids we parent. They are an interesting bunch. Most are deeply religious and yet surprisingly accepting. All are much more aware and concerned about social justice issues than most other folks.

But they are different from me. They don't THINK about everything so very much. They don't analyze all the time. Writing the blog has put me in touch with some people who do, and that has made me less alone.

And why do I comment? Well, to be totally honest, in the beginning I commented a fair amount because it brought attention to my blog. Turns out that there is little that will increase hits as much as saying, "I am parenting a recovering codeine addict" in a comment on some popular blog.

Later I started leaving comments because I had come to genuinely care about some people. Even when I did not have much to say I wanted to let them know that I was reading and thinking about them.

Sometimes I leave comments because I am a big fat know-it-all who thinks her wisdom is priceless and that the whole world would be a better place if everyone just did it her way.

I don't really know why I am writing this particular entry. Just pondering...

Venting...

Other foster parents on some other blogs are having some serious issues. Kids' futures are undecided. Kids are being arrested. I have had my share of drama, but right now there are no big things.

I guess I feel a little guiltily, complaining about the small stuff, but I am plumb out of drama or wisdom. So I will vent about the little stuff.

Example One:
We were having dinner with my father and he asked what an iPod is. We explained and then I added something that was supposed to be amusing, "A few years ago we were having terrible trouble with the internet at work. It was moving at a crawl. It turned out that it was because so many people who had nothing to do with the school were downloading music that our students were posting!"

Evan said in a very teacherly voice, "That's called peer-to-peer sharing."

Me, "I know. I just found it amazing that it could cause so much havoc with our internet access."

Evan, "YEAH. That is what I was telling you. It is peer-to-peer sharing. That's what Napster was about. I mean you heard about it right? It is not just at your work. People all over the world are doing that."

Me, sighing, "Yes I know. I was just commenting about the effects on the campus."

Evan, "I keep trying to tell you. It is not just your campus. It is everywhere."

On this particular occasion I got angry, "I KNOW. For Pete's sake, why do you have to argue with me every time I say anything?"

I apologized for that later. He was not arguing with me. He really was trying to participate in a conversation. He just was not listening. He also felt, of course, that I was not listening to him.

Example Two:
Two evenings ago I finally got my MP3 player (yes, the one one Evan insisted was the best) and was struggling to set it up. Things kept going wrong and I would make noises of frustration. Every time I did Evan would sigh and say, "What's wrong now?"

Now this happened several times. It played out in all the ways that I think it could:

Round One:
Me, "I am having trouble with....."
Evan, getting up and taking my lap top away from me, "Here. I will fix it."
Me, "You know. I did not ask for help."
Evan, "You need my help." Evan would struggle to figure out what was going on, ask me questions about what I had done, and figure out what had to be done. Of course since he had to go over everything I had already tried it took longer than if I had just done it myself.

Round Two:
Same as round one except I tease him about assuming that because I am having trouble he has to fix it. I consider pointing out that this is pretty extreme codependent behavior, but I know that will make him angry and I don't.

Rounds Three through Five:
Evan, "What's wrong now?"
Me, "Nothing."
Evan, "Come on. What's wrong?"
Me, "Nothing. I am just frustrated."
Evan, "You should let me help you."
Me, "I can figure this out myself."
Evan, "You know. Sooner or later you are going to have to admit that I know more about technology than you do."

Round Six:
Me, "Okay. I can't get the computer to recognize the player. I have tried changing USB ports and restarting the program and the whole computer. I think there is something wrong with the USB ports. I tried running a diagnostic and updating the drivers, but I can't figure out how to do it. Do you want to try to help?"
Evan smiles in a way that seems condescending, takes the computer away and fiddles with it. "Have you named registered the player?"
"yes"
"Did you name the player?"
"Yes."
"You should reboot."
"Did that."
"Well try it again. If that doesn't work then maybe there is just something wrong with the USB port. You might need to take it to your IT department."

AARRGGG!!!!

(By the way...I finally set up my MP3 player using another computer and will be taking my laptop to work to ask IT to check out the USB ports.)

I have two observations which may or may not be wise:

1. Relationships with foster kids are remarkably like relationships with in-laws. Of course that should not be surprising. They are both instant parent/child relationships with no history, no shared communication or problem-solving techniques.

2. Evan is more difficult in these ways just because he has not been bounced around the system so much. He lived with his mother from birth until middle school, then a few years in a home that he reports was run like a military school, then home again. He went to the teen shelter home at 17 and moved in with us three months before his 18th birthday. The other kids have lived in so many different homes that they are junior-anthropologists. They know that rules differ. They observe; they ask; they figure everything out.

Either that or they just try to be over-bearing and create the rules themselves.

my visit with my counselor

So yesterday I also saw the counselor. I talked about my weekend with my father. I talked about the memories it brought up of my childhood. I cried. It was mostly a good session in my on-going therapy to deal with the results of growing up with an alcoholic father.

But I came home so tired. I was just emotionally wore out all last evening (I feel better this morning).

But I am wondering. On a scale of one to ten, just how horrible is it that after spending an hour talking about your alcoholic father you spend all evening thinking, "G-d, I could use a drink"?

I ate chocolate instead.

Survival mechanisms

All of the foster kids have had some very basic personality traits which have been distressing to me. They were hard to live with. In just about every case I could see how this trait was a strategy that helped them to survive their childhoods. It was annoying to me and, I thought, destructive to healthy adult relationships, but it made perfect sense that they were they way they were.

Carl lies. He lies about everything, all the time. (Actually since I only have access to reports about his life and not his life itself I can no longer know to what degree what he tells me is true). It makes sense. His mother had emphasema. She could not normally leave the house and she could not help with problems. She wanted to hear that everything was fine, better than fine. School was great. His friends were great. Everything about his life was wonderful and promising and there was nothing that she needed to worry about.

When Carl answered a question he seemed to be tuned into what he thought the person he was talking to wanted to hear more firmly than he was tuned into reality. In other words, where I have to decide not to tell the truth, he had to decide not to say whatever would please the person he was with. The first thing that would come out of his mouth was what he thought you wanted to hear.

David forms very superficial emotional attachments that last only as long as he is getting what he wants (he would say "needs" but he does not recognize any distinction between those two). If one person will not fill his needs, he looks for somone else. The adults in David's life abused and abandoned him. He saved himself and his brothers by finding people who would give them what they needed. Cutting himself off from hurtful people and moving to someone else may have literally saved his life when he was small.

The thing is, neither Carl nor David recognized these traits in themselves. I wanted so much to help them to see these patterns, recognize that while they were survival techniques that were creative and smart and important when they were children, they were not going to serve them well in adulthood. These ways of dealing with the world were preventing them from having fulfilling adult relationships.

I had to accept though that I could not help them to see this. The very best I could do was to give them a picture of a different way of relating to people. They could see in the way Hubby and I treated each other that there was another way. Hopefully it would not be the only alternative picture. Maybe that picture would be a resource. Maybe someday they would want to be different, relate to people differently, and maybe the picture they got from us would help them to do that. Someday.

But something is happening with Evan that has not happened with the other kids. Evan is noticing one of his own childhood adaptive behaviors. He told me that he has been talking with his counselor about it. He asked me what I thought.

We had a wonderful conversation yesterday in the car. I told him the ways in which I thought it was something he needed as a child. He agreed. He wants to rid himself of it, but he is not certain that it can be done. I told him that one of the reasons I was going to see the counselor was to work on some of my childhood survival mechanisms that were not serving me well now. He laughed a little when he told me that he wasn't sure it was better to know about it, since he wasn't sure he could change it.

It was one of those fantastic parenting moments that you cannot allow yourself to hope for. The conversation was the sort of thing it would be so easy to imagine that you would get to have as a foster parent. "Once they trust me, we will be able to talk about their childhood and how it affected them. I will be able to help them, just a little, to over come the pain and heal the hurt. Because of my influence they will be healthier and live happier lives."

I'm not saying that we don't help them heal, but it does not usually feel like it. Mostly it feels trying to convince a tree that has grown twisted in the wind to uncurl and stand straight. Daily life is sometimes good and ordinary and sometimes exhausting and frustrating. If the youth develop any insights into their own pain, their own lives, it happens very slowly. If you look closely you can notice that the child, like the glacier, has moved, but you almost never SEE it moving.

You almost never get to sit on the freeway, stuck in slow moving traffic and listen while a kid says, "I realize I do X in my relationships with people. I don't think I want to keep doing that. Do you think it is possible to change that sort of thing about yourself?"

Best traffic jam ever.

Blogger not saving

So Blogger has been unwilling to save my drafts. "Save" seems to mean "Erase forever." This has been a real problem for me as I often write something in a burst of energy and then polish it later.

Is anyone else having this problem?

I know I can write in my word processor and then copy and paste when it is finished, but for some reason that seems more awkward. It is easy to forget about things in the blogging folder. It is not part of my regular pattern.

That is not the only reason I have not been updating as much as usual, but it is one of them. I'm frustrated.

And I am going to post this, right now. I will work on an interesting (well, at least interesting to me) post in my word processor and get back to you soon.

Coerced Justice

My ever diplomatic hubby said quietly to Grandpa after dinner, "Would you please take the older boys shopping and get them something? It does not need to be nearly as extravagant as what you bought for Brian."

Grandpa said, "Oh. Sure."

Hubby then pulled Andrew aside and gave him a price range (less than half of what Brian's gift cost).

Hubby then pulled Evan aside and said, "I know you want cash to buy memory for your computer. Just get whatever Andrew gets and we will exchange it."

So Grandpa left and he and the boys came back later and everybody's happy, including me.

Some part of me thinks it must have been wrong to do that; but it feels so right.

Boundaries

My father is taking the boys out to a movie. I am enjoying a couple of hours alone.

Evan tried to tease me into going. It's the last day that my father. He even told me I was ungrateful.

We had a short conversation. I did point out that he had very little interest in seeing his mother. (Don't worry. I was nice about it.) I told him that it wasn't about not being grateful; it was about boundaries to protect ourselves. I have spent as much time with my father this time around as I want to.

I think the conversation was a good thing. I hope anyway. I think it affirmed for him that it is okay for him to be in charge of how much he wants to see his mother. That someone is our parent does not mean that we cannot maintain the boundaries we need to be healthy and sane.

Besides, I didn't want to see this movie.

So we decided to talk to him about it...

In retrospect I don't know why we did, but we did.

I told him that the guitar was a very generous gift. He said he was happy to buy it. I told him though that I wanted him to know that the older boys were trying really, really hard not to be jealous. Hubby added, "...but it does bother them."

Grandpa chuckled and said, "Well, just tell them that Brian has a really great Grandpa."

Oh no I will not. What a hurtful thing to even think about telling them. "Brian is the one with the generous Grandpa...the two of you, well you're SOL."

He went on to talk about the guitar and how he thought that Brian would probably get a lot of good use out of it.

Hubby and I left the conversation there. I don't know if we said too little or too much or just enough. In any case it brings back that bad taste in my mouth, an echo of all the pain of childhood.

At four:
"Dad my foot hurts."
"Well hop on the other one and crow like a rooster."

At 12:
Me crying, asking if we could please not talk about whether I was too fat, or too moody, or too...
"You are too sensitive. Stop crying."

At 14:
"Dad, every time I see you I end up crying. I just can't do this anymore. It hurts so much I think about just not visiting."
"If that's the way you feel, then don't come."

At 15:
"You know, we haven't spoken for a year. I was thinking that maybe we should."
"Why?"
"Um...because you're my father."
Later, at the park, before I can say anything, "I want you to know I forgive you. It hurt; it hurt so much when you walked out on me; when you said you didn't want to see me anymore, but I forgive you."
"You told me to go."
"I gave you a choice!"
"You said 'If that's the way you feel, don't come.'"
"That's right! I said IF."

So who knows. Maybe he will decide to hand the big boys money. Maybe he will just leave. He certainly won't say, "Boys, I know it is hard not to feel jealous when I bought something like that for Brian, but I want you to know, if there is every something that's really important to you that you need a little help with, you can ask me."

He will certainly not understand how he hurts everyone by playing favorites like this.

I think if it were just Brian and Andrew I would not be this upset. Earlier in the summer I did ask my father if he would pay for an expensive calculator that Andrew needed for a class. It is not as cool or as expensive as the electric bass, but Andrew knows that if he ever wants something in particular he can ask and Grandpa will probably come through.

Evan, who knows about the calculator, does not have that knowledge. This incident says to him, "You are not a real member of the family."

Dealing with the jealousy

This awkwardness with my father has me thinking a lot about generosity with kids.

Once you have more than one kid doing something spontaneous and special becomes awkward or impossible.

Shortly after Carl moved out I decided that Brian and Andrew really needed carrying cases for their gameboys, games, and cords. I took them to a store and told them to pick one out. There were surprised and grateful. I do not normally buy them things unless it is their birthday or Christmas. They know that everything else they must buy with their allowance. Only I really wanted them to have the cases in order to contain the mess.

I knew at the time that if Carl had still been living with us I would not have been able to do it. Carl did not need a case. He would have felt badly that I was getting something for Andrew and Brian and would have thought that I should buy something for him of comparable value. But then the boys would have been jealous that Carl got to pick something out and there would be other things that they would want more than these cases that cost about the same. Why couldn't they just pick out what they wanted?

I remember when I was a kid my mother bought my sister an inexpensive plastic ball at the grocery store. I pouted.

How many times do I not do something spontaneous and generous for one kid because it would make the other ones feel badly? (Brian at seven got this. He said that his friend was lucky because he was an only child and his mother bought him stuff all the time. "But you can't do that because if you did the other kids would say, 'What do I get. What do I get.'" He was very thoughtful when he said this, like he was working out a puzzle. He continued, "But I think it is better to have brothers."

Hubby says we should mention it to Grandpa; and I guess we will. On one hand I do want my kids to be able to rejoice in the others' good fortune without overwhelming jealousy...but Grandpa buying one a $300 present and not offering anything at all to the others is a little much. Especially for Evan. Grandpa does not have to spend anything like the same amount of money on the older boys, but it would make everyone feel better (including Brian who is happy but also embarrassed and awkward around the other two) if he did SOMEthing.

Clearly it is bothering me too. It is just a whole childhood of bad memories.

At least he is not mean, just oblivious.

Father in town

My father does not intend to be mean, he is just oblivious.

He and Brian had a deal a year ago. Brian was going to save money and the Grandpa was going to pay half for an electric bass. Well, Brian did not save. Grandpa showed back up and Brian started talking about trying to sell most of his things. I suggested that he ask Grandpa to rent him a bass for a couple of months so that he could take lessons and figure out how much he wanted it.

They went to the music store where they were told that it would be so expensive to rent it that they might as well just buy it. So Grandpa did. Brian came home with his brand, new shiny electric bass and amp.

So Andrew and Evan are trying to be grown up and not jealous. Andrew is doing it pretty well -- after all he has years of practice at dealing with my father. And well, he knows that he has got things from Grandpa when Brian did not.

Evan though is trying REALLY hard, which is to say that it is bothering him.

I am seriously thinking of telling my father that the older boys are feeling left out. I know he will respond by saying, "Well...what do they want?"

He does not intend to be mean. He is just oblivious.

I'm torn though.

Codependency strikes again

So my counselor told me that the codependence therapy would make me feel worse before it made me feel better. Cheerily, I said, "That's okay."

Today my father comes for a visit. I used to get anxious about them, then I got over it and didn't. Today, suddenly, I feel bad and anxious. I don't want to see him. I don't want him to come.

I'll be okay. I think I am as much surprised at being anxious as I am anxious (does that make sense?).

I don't expect anything bad to happen. In the past couple of years he has turned into an old man who needs to go back to his hotel (yes he stays in a hotel) to take naps. He takes us out to dinner; likes for the kids to go to the hotel and swim in the indoor pool while he sits in a chair; and usually buys the boys presents.

There's nothing to be anxious about really.

Round 2

So I decided to buy the MP3 player that Evan has been going on about.

This morning I said to Hubby in the dining room, "I think the earbuds that come with the machine aren't going to be comfortable, do you know anything about earbuds?"

Evan, from the living room, says loudly, "There is nothing wrong with the earbuds that come with the machine!"

I respond, "I just have not had good luck with earbuds. I think my ears are too small or something."

Evan, "Well, the ones that come with the xxx are good."

Me, "May I try yours on?"

He gets them. I have a little difficulty. He tells me that I have to put the correct one in the correct ear. "How can I tell?"

"The one for the right ear has an R on it."

"All I see on both of them are two half circles."

"Well the marks have mostly rubbed off."

"So which one is the right one?"

"THE ONE WITH THE R ON IT."

"Which one is that?" (This said with a deep breath, slowly and calmly.)

"THIS ONE" he holds it within inches of my eye.

I put them in, or try. I take them out and say, "No. They just feel too uncomfortable. I will have to try something else."

He walks off saying loudly and sarcastically, "Well I guess you are just special. Geez, can't ever use..."

A little while later I get out the computer and start to look up ear phones. Again I ask my husband if he knows anything about small ear phones. He starts to answer and Evan says loudly, "X company makes things that last forever. Their stuff is always good."

"Okay. I will look those up."

"GAWD. You are so...I don't know what the word is...needy? No that is not right."

Me grinning (while thinking he is looking for "obsessive" or "anal") say, "No 'needy' is not the right word."

"When will you be done with all of this? I mean we have been doing this for a week!"

"No. I have been doing this for a week."

"You can't say that I have not been helping."

"Only because you have been jumping in."

"You've asked me for help!"

"I don't think I have."

"You asked me if you could try on my earbuds."

"Well, yes. I did. But I don't recall asking for anything else. You have been offering assistance, but I haven't been asking."

"Oh don't try to make this about me. This is about you. You know it."

"The decision is about me. You are right that I have been spending a lot of time debating every single thing, but your participation has been completely optional."

"You asked!"

"No. You've been jumping in."

"Well, then I will leave you alone." This said in a very hurt and angry voice. He turns back to his computer with that "If you don't want to talk to me then I won't talk to you" attitude.

I am torn between wanting to comfort him, slap him, and leaving him alone to deal with the emotions himself.

I choose to leave him alone and blog out my frustrations.

Up side: I kept my cool and only spoke in calm friendly tones the whole time. Although he probably would have coped better with me yelling.

__

Just now he got up from pouting on his computer and I said, "Should we leave at 1:00 to get your clothes?" He said "yes" in a relaxed voice. I guess we both manage to move on fairly quickly, although I would not be surprised if his MySpace site quickly has a rant about his psychotic aunt.

Asked to help train

Andrew and I have been asked to help do a session at a series of foster parent conferences on fostering children. It is not yet precisely clear how it will be focused.

I have done a lot of research on my own, and the social worker gave me some materials that have been used in multiple session trainings for fostering children. There were some things about the trainings that I really liked and some that I did not like at all. No that's is not fair...some things were left out.

The Good:
1. Lots of emphasis on teaching children how the system works, who are all of the people involved, and, most importantly, why kids are in foster care to begin with. My research indicates that that last lessoon is likely to have to be repeated a lot for kids under 10, and maybe older.

It is surprising, or maybe it is not, that foster parents do not explain why kids are in foster care. Partly it is because of the need to keep information about any specific child confidential, but also we are reluctant for our children to know how bad things can be.

2. Information about how to maintain confidentiality (e.g. saying to friends, "____ is staying with our family for a awhile because her parents need to deal with some problems, but I can't tell you about those problems.")

3. Information about how to be helpful to foster kids. This included a session asking kids to imagine how they would feel if they were suddenly taken away from their parents, and then listing all the emotions that kids might be feeling. It included some listening skills, how to be supportive of visits to birth family, understanding that kids can come back acting out because they miss their parents. There was also discussion about the kids life books and adding pages to them about yourself.

So not easy stuff, but good. Fostering children can suffer a lot of anxiety, but it is reassuring to know that children who can give accurate answers to question like, "why are kids in foster care" have less anxiety than those who cannot. We want to save our children from the ugly truth, but they fill in the blanks with uglier fantasies (children being given away because they were bad). The training seemed to be geared to helping fostering children understand and feel like they were part of the team.

What was left out was this: taking care of yourself. There was not enough about it being okay to want time alone, or have your parents to yourself for a while, or who in the system you can call if things are stressful, or what to do when they fostered child is raging and your parents are dealing with them.

Of course what Andrew and I will be participating in will be a seminar for the parents, and it will only be a couple of hours long. So we will be in the position of trying to communicate the importance of fostering children understanding.

Now how to deal with this:
Children do best when they have a clear understanding of how people fit into the family or don't fit. In other words, children in families who only do respite care or temporary care do fairly well. They understand that foster children are visitors who are to be treated like members of the family even though they are not members of the family. And they do well when there is a commitment of permanency and can accept that this child really is a new brother or sister (although if they don't get along that does make it harder). The point is that the kids who have the clearest answer to "how do the foster children fit into your family?" are the ones who have the fewest problems with it.

Then of course there is how to deal with sibling rivalry. None of the foster parent trainings discuss it. Whenever you go to a session on how to deal with any sort of behavioral issue, there always seems to be the assumption that this is the only child you have.

But you don't. But this post is long enough. I think I will save that for another.

I hate it when he is right..

Well, not always. Just when he has been annoying.

I enjoy audiobooks. After lugging a pile of CD's and a CD player on the airplanes I am beginning to seriously consider purchasing an MP3 player.

I mentioned this. I mentioned that I was going to do some research and figure out which was the best. (I would like to point out that I did not, at any time, ask any member of the household for their opinion.)

Evan however, in his annoying, argumentative, aggressive way, immediately told me that there was only one player to get. Everything else in the entire world was crap. He was willing to concede that I might not have to get the most expensive model, but there is only one brand to choose from. (You know what it is. It is the player that "everyone" has).

Okay...so here's the deal:

1. I don't want to get what everyone has. I don't want to do that not because I don't like the product, but because I am hate following the crowd, being another mindless sheep buying the same thing because that's what everyone else is buying.

2. I don't like people in my life bullying me. I don't want to get whatever Evan demands is right. (On the other hand if I do and something goes wrong he will be a pain in the a$$.)

However, I am enough of a grownup to recognize both of these motivations as being childish. I put them aside and proceeded to do the research. Meanwhile Evan took every available opportunity to tell me that I was wasting my time, that he knew all about these things (he doesn't) and that I could either buy a piece of crap or I could buy what he recommended. (I am amazed at how very calm and mature I was able to be throughout this -- at least to his face.)

So this is what I need:
1. Good but not overwhelming storage space. Books are long, but I am only going to read one at time. I may have a few downloaded radio shows, and books typically come in sections that are no more than 150mb. I could probably get by with less than a gig, but I decided to go for at least that.

2. The ability to "book mark" a large file easily and reliably so that I can stop listening and then find the same place later.

3. Being able to speed up or slow down the reader would be cool, but not necessary.

It turns out that it is difficult to find reviews of MP3 players that really discuss their merits for audio books. Bookmarking is not a feature that is mentioned in the specs and reviewers rarely discuss it. So I have been digging around, and this is what I learned:

It appears that the player that unless my library joins an on-line audio library, the player that will do what I want, and be less expensive if I take advantage of an offer with a provider of audiobooks, is the player that Evan has been pushing.

Bad words.

He is going to be insufferable.

Of course he would have been insufferable either way.

Unconditional commitment

I followed a link on Cindy's blog to You Gotta Believe. It is a site dedicated to finding (advocating for) permanence for teens. Reading it has left me with a lot of jumbled thoughts about permanence. I've been wanting to address some of them, but everything comes out, well, jumbled.

In this post I am going to try to stick to what it means to make an unconditional commitment to a youth.

In an article on the site called Uncondtional Commitment"" the author, Pat O'Brian says:

Unconditional commitment means that we treat any child’s behavior with the exact same commitment we would treat a biological child’s behavior who might commit the very same act. If a bio-child commits a crime in the community, that bio-child might go to jail. But that child does not lose his parents because he makes a mistake. If a bio-child becomes mentally ill that bio-child might have to be hospitalized on a long-term basis. But that child does not lose his parents because he has an illness that needs to be treated. If a bio-child becomes heavily involved in drugs that bio-child might have to be placed in a residential treatment therapeutic community. But that child does not lose his parents because he has the disease of addiction. But most importantly, if a bio-child has a real nasty attitude a parent develops ways to deal with it. The child does not stop being that parent’s child because of the attitude.

I like this quote, but I don't think that O'Brien would like the reason that I like it. I think it is helpful to remember that there are circumstances that would make us unwilling or unable to share our household with birth kids. Remembering that really helped me feel less stressed when I first starting doing care.

I never worked for the state. Except when I do respite care, my placments are supposed to be permanent. I am not adopting them, but I am committing to trying to form a life-long relationship with the youth. I was afraid that I would fail because the youth would do things that I could not live with. It was a relief when I realized that making an commitment to a relationship did not mean commiting to allowing someone to live with me if they behaved in unacceptable ways.

O'Brien is clearly aware that the foster care system is not set up to support permanent commitments. I happen to work in a permanent placement program, but that is rare. (0'Brien is not committed to permanent foster care. He pushes for adoption or legal guardianship for all kids. I imagine he would agree that sometimes permanent foster care is appropriate.)

O'Brien does seem to have unreaistic expectations. Given what he says above it is clear that he understands that unconditional commitment does not mean allowing people to live with you no matter how they behave, but it would be easy to forget that when he talks about the problem of homelessness among former foster youth.

O'Brien also minimizes the problems of getting youth to ACCEPT unconditional love. There is such a thing as attachment disorder and there are kids who will reject families, no matter how much commitment, training, and support families have.

But that does not mean that he is wrong that we undervalue permanence and that the foster care system is not set up to create and support it.

Goal Writing

Evan's social worker came over to review his previous goals and construct new ones.

Old goals:
Graduate in May 2006
Apply to post high school program
Work and save money
Move into dorms in August

Yeah...well...that was before going to rehab for 60 days.

So new goals:
Graduate by December 2006
Apply to program
Work and save money
Move into dorms, or if not possible find other housing, in January 2007

So we shall see. It is the home stretch, which is a scary time for all concerned. You can just see the anxiety on his face as we talk about this. It is tough facing the adult world.

We talked about filling out the application for funding from agency's college fund. He wanted to know if we really thought it was "worth it." I mean, there were forms and he might even have to write an essay, but the pay off was worth jumping through the hoops, right? Well, let's see, they are committed to getting you through whatever post high school education or training you are accepted to without going into debt at all. So um...yeah...it's worth it.

He knows from our relationship with our other boys that we will still be here for him. We won't necessarily bail him out if he gets into trouble, but if he needs a weekend away from campus or wants to come home for Spring Break (soft laughter in the background), we are here.

I hope he makes it. The last six months before independence is so trying for the kids. I am trying not to borrow trouble, but I confess I am nervous.

We reiterated that we would not let the agency talk to us about another kid until there was no chance that his plans would fall through. There would not be another kid in the wings waiting for him to move out. Hubby said he would prefer that we not let them talk to us about new kids until after Evan was actually moved out. He likes the break we have had between placements.

Anyway, we shall see.

--
You can continue to click "new post" to read Evan's story, but if you want to peek into the future to see how some of these goals worked out you can go here:
I , II, III

We don't have a family newsletter...

...but perhaps we should.

Here's the thing about teenagers: they are in the process of separating from the family, but they want to be completely in charge of that process.

Teenagers spend less time with their families and more time with their friends. Even when they are home they are likely to spend increasing amount of time in their rooms, especially if they can get phones or computers in there.

So they miss stuff.

Yesterday Andrew and Evan were otherwise engaged. Andrew was around for the morning; he even went grocery shopping with me. Evan spent the first part of the day firmly planted in his room. Both teenagers requested rides to friends' houses mid-afternoon. Evan came home before we had dinner but went to his room saying he was not hungry. Andrew got a ride home from his friend's parents at about 10:30pm.

Brian wanted to go to the fair. He asked his dad to take him. He asked in the morning. He asked over lunch. He asked during dinner. Dad was not all that excited about it. He explained that he was not going to pay for rides and that there was not much else to do other than look at animals, quilts, and jars of jam. But Brian really wanted to go and finally Dad broke down.

They left at about 8:00.

Evan came out of his room at 8:20 and asked where everyone was. I explained. He pouted, "They didn't ask me?"

"Would you have gone?"

"No, but I would have liked to be asked."

Yeah, I get it.

It did not occur to Hubby to ask Evan. It did not occur to me to suggest that he do so. It's not the sort of thing that Evan wants to do. I think in the back of both of our minds was the thought that if Evan had wanted to go he would have asked to go.

It's a minor thing, but there are under-currents.

If it were Andrew who had been home and yet not invited he would say something to Hubby. The conversation would go something like this:

"Why didn't you take me?"
"I didn't think you would want to go."
"Well I did." or "I would have wanted the chance."
"Well sorry, but if you had come out of your room at any point during the day you would have known about it and you could have asked to go."

Andrew might be angry or annoyed, but that would be it. This sort of thing actually has happened to Andrew a couple of times this summer. Some thing happens that he never heard about because he was not around any of the two dozen times we talked about it and nobody realized that.

Evan though did not and will not talk to Hubby about it at all. Evan is again spending the day in his room on his phone. He is almost certainly thinking, "I'm not really part of this family. If Andrew were home they would have invited him. They don't really want me to be part of things."

And then I will sit and wonder how codependent to go on this situation. Should I tell Hubby that Evan was hurt? (Actually I did do that. Hubby responded the way I expected, "Evan never wants to do anything with us. I just took Brian because he was asking.") Do I sit down and talk to Evan and explain? Do I address the anxiety that I expect he feels even though he does not express it?

Or do I decide that it is not really that big of a deal and just let it go?

Probably the latter, but of course I will write a whole blog post about it first.

Settling back in

So I am still a little jet-lagged and pouting about having to be home in the heat, but I am better than yesterday.

Mostly things with Evan are so good it makes me nervous. He passed the two summer school classes (A in PE and B in Government). He has a job, and was happy to take the drug screening test yesterday. He claims that he has a 90% in the on-line health class.

I am beginning to have visions of sugar plums -- well, at least of a kid who stays off drugs and finishes high school.

Wouldn't it be love-e-ly?

Evan even saved me from feeling like things were too good to be true. I got called into the end of his counseling session yesterday. Seems Evan recounted having had a wonderful evening with his boyfriend. They cooked something delicious, stayed in the house, and enjoyed some really good red wine that went just perfectly with the food.

Um...wine?

It's almost funny; casually mentioning to his rehab counselor that he drank alcohol while we were out of town.

Evan was briefly afraid that it was going to be the end of the world, or at least the end of his being in this program. I had reminded him on the way out to the counselor that his placement date is August 16. In just a couple more weeks he will officially have been in the program for 12 months, meaning that he will qualify for the post high school education and training money. So Evan had images of getting kicked out of the permanency program and out of my house just before that date, all because he had a glass of wine while we were gone. (I actually suspect that he drank more than that.)

I reassured him, told him it was very naughty, and not to do it again. The counselor will have to tell his social worker who will probably have the same response that I did. Maybe it is the heat, but I just can't get worked up about it.

I don't wanna be home

We were so exhausted when we got home. By the time we got here it was 1:00am in Maine. That the clocks on the wall claimed it was earlier had no effect on my exhaustion at all. I colapsed into bed and managed to sleep for six hours. I am now awake and still wore out.

Coming home means returning to responsibility and heat. I am feeling unreasonable and cranky about everything. Of course I am tired: very, very tired.

He cleaned up the house: it is no worse than when we left. Things are mostly picked up. I think the carpet was vaccuumed. At some point in the last few days dirt in the kitchen was swept into a corner.

He did not eat very much of the food that I bought, which really is okay. I am fine with him living off of cereal and fast food. He is a teenage boy afterall.

He tries to reassure me about the house. He tells me that when he had friends over he locked my bedroom door and kept them out of the lower level, or at least kept them from getting into anything, and he cleaned up when the toilet over-flowed. The bathmat is in the dryer now.

He is not very good at the reassurance thing.

He does not want to tell me how many people he had over. You know, just some people. The house is fine.

Like I said, not great on the reassurance thing.

He got a job though. It is not the job he expected, but it is close. He will be working at one of the local grocery stores full time: 7am-4pm. Today he has to go get his pre-employment drug test. Convenient that.

Today we have appointments, and the grocery shopping has to be done (Evan bought us a half gallon of milk so we could have breakfast. He said he would have bought more, but it is hard to carry it in his backpack on his bike.)

Maybe I can go back to sleep. I am still SO exhausted. I don't want to be nice and responsible and grown up. I want to be lazy and watch the tide come in.

I have to stop writing. I don't even want to listen to this whining.

Back to bed.

Travel log

Posted from hotel, early 7/26/06...we will be home at midnight and maybe I will be able to get on-line again tomorrow. We will see.


July 12, 2006 6:00am

I am sitting wide awake in my hotel room while the boys sleep on. The card over on the table promised a free wireless connection, but it seems that the card lied. Perhaps it exists in the lobby or some work room somewhere. I did not read it carefully. So I instead sit here and type in Word. It is jus as well, I suppose. I said I was going, put up the pretty picture. I can just post a travel log when I get back. I will try not to let it get too big.

The flights were horrible. Well, the flights themselves were fine; it was just the silliest itinerary ever. We left the house at 5:30 am, boarded our first plane at 7:15am, and arrived at the hotel 13 hours later, exhausted.

A funny thing happened on the way to the rental car counter – we realized that we did not have our rental car reservation information. Hubby stayed to get the bags while I walked over and went to every counter (6) and said, “This is a bit awkward, I left my reservation information at home. Can you check to see if I have a reservation here?” Everyone was very nice as they told me that they had no record of any reservation. Slowly I had to accept the awful truth: I had forgot to actually make the reservation. Hubby showed up and I had to tell him. How bad could it be he asked? Well…NASCAR is in town, so pretty bad.

Four of the places had no cars to rent at all. One had a single car left, but we would have to bring it back in three days. The nice people at Avis though came through for us. They had a car. They actually had two full-sized cars in the garage, one was reserved, but we could take the other. We could actually take our pick of the two.

The two cars turned out to be an actual full size car and an SUV which had apparently been temporarily reclassified. I, practical woman that I am, investigated the car and pronounced it good. Hubby agreed while looking lovingly at the SUV. It occurred to me that we will never buy one and we are unlikely ever to be offered the chance to rent one at this price, and he had been ever so nice about the reservation thing (which really was my job) and so I said, “You really want the SUV, don’t you?” He grinned and I yelled at the kids, “Okay, everyone out of the car.” I told the boys, “This is officially making up for the other thing.” Brian said, “What other thing?” Good boy.

It’s big and squishy and holds the boys and their luggage easily. The radio automatically turns itself up as you go onto the freeway and then back down as you slow down on the ramp. As long as you never have to negotiate your way out of a parking garage, or get into a tight parking space, it’s great. And I know that the SUV (which I am beginning to think deserve a name) feels comfortable in the hotel parking lot, filled as it is with the vehicles of good ol’ boys and girls come to town to watch the fast cars make left turns.

We went out to dinner at Friendly’s which is a summer tradition. The food itself is comparable to any national-chain diner, which is to say, not all that great. It is however a totally kid friendly place. When the boys were little, this was the point. It is a sit down, be waited on, kind of place, and if you didn’t want to hear me trying to keep my exhausted kids from crying by distracting them with silly songs and endless games of 20 questions, then you should have gone to a grown-up restaurant. Besides, there is the ice cream. Friendly’s started out as an ice cream place. Later they decided to serve some sandwiches. Eventually they replaced the picnic tables with heated and air conditioned dining rooms complete with padded vinyl-covered seats. I, as always, ordered my Monster Mash Sundae from the kids’ menu. I know I could make one for myself at home if I liked, but I don’t. It is a vacation treat. One scoop high quality chocolate-chip mint ice cream; hot fudge sauce poured around it so that it goes down into the bowl where you can’t see it; two candy-coated chocolates for the eyes; a cherry for the nose; a chocolate peanut butter cup broken in half for the ears; and whip cream hair. It is yummy and really just the right amount of decadence. I don’t need to get the two and three scoop sundaes off the adult menu.

We called Evan from the restaurant. He had gone out to the Chinese restaurant with a friend, and brought dinner home. He spoke patiently until he thought maybe I was settling in for a conversation and then he asked if I could call him back later. He was in the middle of something: not something, just something. I said sure. For a while Evan was nervous about being left alone; then we had our little talk about public locker rooms and acceptable behavior at home while we are away, and then he started acting like he was going to Disneyland. I suppose actually Disneyland is going to him.

Today we have a 6 hour drive, a piece of cake after the 7 hours and 45 minutes we spent in airplanes yesterday (I’m not counting layover or car transportation time; that’s actual in-the-air, sitting-next-to-strangers; air-lines-don’t serve-food-so-your-eating-packed-junk, leg-numbing, air time. This time I get a big squishy seat, and can stop for a Monster Mash Sundae almost any time I please.

_____________

7/13/06 8:30am

The drive was nice. We stopped at Friendly’s for an ice cream break in the afternoon. Hubby just had coffee, Andrew ordered an ice cream float (“but just 2 scoops of ice cream, not three, please”) and Brian got two scoops of cookies and cream ice cream topped with crumbled cookies and Reese’s Pieces. (Yuck). I, of course, ordered the Monster Mash. The server smiled and said, “You mean the one from the children’s menu?” “Yep. I want the face.”

______________

7/14/06

I always forget the feathers

I was tired. I fell asleep on the sofa. I woke up a couple of hours later and stumbled into bed with Hubby. Sigh.

Midnight and I am awake. My eyes are burning. The feathers! Why do I always forget the feather pillows? I rinsed my eyes with bottled water, took an antihistamine and waited. I tried lying down on the sofa only to remember that the pillows of it too are stuffed with pillows. Finally I slept in the bunk room with Brian.

This morning Hubby took all the feather pillows up to the attic and brought down the “children’s pillows” that MiMi (She doesn’t like “Grandma”) has in storage.

I will be fine.


July 16, 2006
The boys have left with the father to go fishing, and I am missing my connection to the Internet for the first time since I got here. It is cool and foggy. I can see the ocean, but just barely, and I cannot see the islands at all. It is peaceful.

I finally, and for the first time ever, rid the entire living space of all feathers. I always replaced the bedroom pillows (typically after trying to fall asleep on them and getting symptomatic), but this year I asked permission to replace the pretty sofa cushions with an odd assortment throw pillows. It looks horrible, but for the first time ever I am completely symptom free.

MIL was surprised that I was had trouble in the bed. She put down the non-feather pillows for me. I pointed out that she had put the feather-pillows on top of them. “Those are so you can prop up in bed to read.” The is a certain logic to it I suppose: non-feather pillows to treat my allergy; feather pillows for reading.

I tried to call Evan when I went to the grocery store the other day. I drove slowly along the side of the road while Brian stared at my phone until we found a hot spot. I was able to get through to him, but he apparently could not hear me.

I will try again tomorrow when we go off for our annual seafood lunch.


7/19/06
I tried to call Evan again during our mid-vacation trip to civilization for groceries and lunch. He did not answer. Of course I did not try until we were leaving (partly to accommodate the time difference). Though I had been able to speak to the in-laws on the cell phone earlier, suddenly I was unable to get a signal. We drove up to the top of a hill right next to what Hubby swears is a cell phone tower and drove around a parking lot. The cell phone would show three to five bars when we were moving at least 10 miles an hour and say “no service” as soon as we stopped. No amount of creeping back and forth would allow us to find the hot spot. We kept gave up in a fit of hysterical giggles.

But we stopped at another small town on the way back and I got through. He did not answer though. It was 1:00 in the afternoon where Evan was. “Maybe he is at work” I said to Hubby hopefully. “I doubt it. He’s probably asleep.” “Maybe he is in the shower?”

Still, it has been a week now and I have not spoken with him. I have left him a couple of messages asking him to call the cottage (he could use his cell phone or our house phone), but no calls yet. I am about to resort to running up the in-laws cottage phone bill, which they would not mind, but I have been trying to avoid.

I am getting anxious. I want to know he is okay. Of course he is probably just an 18 year old enjoying the freedom of living alone.


The Cottages:
I don’t know that I have ever said much about where we are. The blog is supposed to be about foster care and not about my life, but perhaps it would be helpful to someone to have a mental picture. We are on the northern coast of Maine: farther north by far than places like Kennebunkport, Freeport, and Portland; farther north even than Bar Harbor. We are in the “here there be dragons” territory; where Canadian and American coins come together in your change.

Many, many years ago, Hubby’s great grandfather came up here and bought a small piece of land on which he built a cottage. Over the years other family members have bought other small plots and built new cottages. When the in-laws bought this spot over 30 years ago the only people who were here were academics and crazy people. (My in-laws were among the crazies.) Who would want to be here? Of course it is beautiful, but you have to drive half an hour to get to the bad grocery store. It is 45 minutes to the nearest pharmacy; more than one hour to a bad bookstore. There are no good hiking trails. There is not even a good place to keep a sail boat. There is nothing to do but watch the tide, read books, bake cookies, and put together puzzles. The tap water is orange and there is only enough for on-and-off showers.

It is a bad place to be…do you hear me?

Clearly people do not. I blame the Internet. On our plot are two modest cottages: one for Mimi and PaPa and one for their children and grandchildren. Around us on the cape are increasing numbers of monstrosities: large houses built by people who have more money than sense or taste. Every day brown UPS trucks drive the gravel road bringing people the fruits of the civilization they left behind.

I would be willing to share the beauty with the rich, really I would, but they are pushing our property values up. The property is now literally worth 100 times what the in-laws paid for the plot thirty years ago. Every year it is the same conversation: we don’t know how many more years we will be able to afford the taxes.

It makes me want to cry. My children have grown up coming here every summer. They know their third cousins. They have a sense of family history. They know how to sit still and watch the tide come in. Last night they spent half an hour sitting and looking at the sea during a storm. It was better than any television show.

But I try to look on the bright side. With global warming the entire cape may go under the ocean anyway. Perhaps the sea will take the land before we have to sell to someone who will tear down our small cottages and replace them with some blight on the land.

7/22/06
The hurricane passed by last night. I don’t know how many miles off-shore it was, but it was not close. It did however send mighty waves crashing on the shore. I’ve seen waves as big on ordinary days in other places, but here the ocean usually just laps against the shore. The tide swells in and back out. Waves that curl and break are usually the result of a passing lobster boat. Last evening though the waves built up to six or ten foot walls, curled and crashed. We went out to the beach and stood where the rocks were high. Mostly the waves moved to the lower places on either side of us, but sometimes a wave would come directly at our perch. Those waves would break on the rocks 30 feet in front of us and send fountains of water and foam high in the air, leaving us with damp hair and salt on our tongues, for who can not laugh with delight at such a display?

I said, “It’s like the Fourth of July!”

Brian replied, “Yeah…except for you not screaming in terror.”


July 26, 2006
We did finally get a hold of Evan on the phone. All it really required was admitting defeat with the cell phones and using the land-line. He sounded fine. He has been seeing counselor, but decided it was too much trouble to go to relapse prevention group. (I gave no reaction; if counselor wants him to go then I will start taking him again). He claims he has been going to a meeting every day, which I figures means that he went to at least two in the previous three days. He told me that he was not eating much of the easy to prepare food I had bought; that he had had “friends” over a lot (I actually suspect that he has had one particular friend over a lot) and that they have been eating out or ordering in. I expected that.

Also as I expected, his “guaranteed job” has not panned out. The woman who was leaving is not leaving. The person who guaranteed him a job is recommending him to other departments who might have an opening. Yep. Welcome to the grown-up world my boy.

Yesterday was the big drive down from the cottage to Manchester. I did all the driving. Normally Hubby and I share, but he wanted to listen to a stupid comedy tape and the boys and I were caught up in an audio book. At any point I could have asked him to take a turn, but that would have meant listening to the stupid comedy…. So I drove for six hour and ended up in Manchester exhausted.

Still we are all fine. If we don’t get grounded for thunder storms (that happens once every five years or so) we will back home at midnight.

I did not want to leave Maine. Now that we have, I want to go home…NOW.