I will never forget the day my home was fully certified and ready to accept a foster child/children. I got the call a little before 9 that they had finished everything, I was fully approved, and my home would be put into the system as active. I was sitting on my porch drinking coffee and freaking out so much on the inside. It wasn't even 10 minutes later that my phone rang and up popped the DHS hotline number. I took a deep breath and answered. The lady on the other end began to tell me about a teenage girl that needed a home. My heart broke as I heard her story. She had a child of her own that was placed elsewhere in foster care, her boyfriend was in and out of jail, and she would often run away when he was released each time. I listened, but I knew that this young lady was not supposed to be placed in my home. As a single foster parent, I already knew some of my limitations and I knew this didn't feel right. I told the woman on the line that I couldn't accept the placement. I cried when I hung up because even though I knew this placement wasn't right for me, my heart had already been broken a little by foster care. I let that feeling of "not enough" creep back into my mind and wondered if everything I was doing was actually a big mistake. I still think about her from time to time. She would be an adult now and I wonder how she is. I wonder if she was able to be a mother to her baby or if the cycle of foster care continues in her family. I never even knew her name.
So much of what I've observed in my years of teaching and fostering is that it's so hard to break away from generational poverty, neglect, abuse, or drug addiction. It's an ugly truth you come face to face with. It's the ugly truth these children live through.
I've learned a lot about how luck was on my side. I was lucky that even though we would have been considered poor, I had two present parents that worked really hard to make ends meet. I never knew what it meant to open a completely empty fridge. I never got slapped around by an abusive parent. And never once in my life did I face a situation where the only people in the world willing and able to care for me were complete strangers.
My children come from trauma. 8yrs, 8months, 15months. All stories different. All stories I'll never know all the pieces to. So what can I do? Sure I can love them. That's not enough. I have to continue to work on me. I work on me so I am able to hold them. I continue to learn about the longterm effects of trauma and how it rears its ugly head in tantrums, control, withdrawal, demanding attention, fear....this list could really go on and on. I just want being "in the system" to stop piling trauma on top of trauma.
I'm tired. I'm sad. It's hard. And the solution actually seems very simple to me. I want to take care of the people I love. I want the simplicity of knowing my kids are mine and that I won't wake up one day and that any piece of that has been taken from us. The whole process is exhausting. Addiction, incarceration, rehab, reunification, visitation, termination, court dates, attorneys, home visits... Just when I thought everything was falling into place, that we were so very close to an end, I find myself again knowing there are too many players in this game.
But here we are and I'm proud of us. I'm proud that we've become a family, one, two, three times now. I'm proud of the determination we've all shown to keep moving forward together. But I'm also tired...very tired.
