Bubba: Mom, today I saw you!

Me: You did?

Bubba: Today I saw you! I saw you and I saw Mom. It was one two five six seven eight nine moms.

Me: You saw two moms?

Bubba: Yeah! I see two moms! I have two moms. One two five seven Moms. I wanna ride on a firetruck.

Me: Wow.

Bubba: You funny Mommy. You Mom and I see you talk to my Mom. One Two Mom. One Two One Two.

Snowbaby: I two Mommy?

Bubba: TWO FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT MOMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYY

Snowbaby: (pointing at me) You Mommy.

Snowbaby: (pointing at herself) My Mommy.

Snowbaby: Two MOMMY.

Me: Yes, I am Mom and you have a Mom too.

Snowbaby: Two Mommy! YAY! YAY! (grabbing my hair and pulling me to her and kissing my cheek)

How can you consider yourself as ANYTHING!

Well, I mean, I have to consider myself as SOMETHING, don’t I? I actually consider myself to be a lot of things…Caucasian, a female, short, incredibly attractive…

Don’t you know most of all the kids in foster care are there illegally!!!!

Actually, no, I didn’t know that.

 By the case wrecker telling lies!!!

About what? About when my respite check will get here? Actually, it did get here! So that wasn’t a lie. And actually, a caseworker can’t put kids in foster care. I’m sure they do tell lies though. Like when I say, “Mr. Caseworker, do you like this new pair of hot pink kitten heels I bought?” and he says, “Oh yeah! They look great with your pedicure” and really he is thinking, “What the hell is a kitten heel?”

How can you be so blind!

You are probably right. No child in the United States is ever abused or neglected. You know, except for me. And my brother and sister and all the kids who live in my house and well…I guess we are the only ones. What a coincidence.

To confuse the children by having them call you MOMMY???

Oh shoot! Didn’t you read the comment thread? You should always read the comment thread before commenting. Just to recap: I don’t have them call me anything. They can call me whatever the heck they feel like, as long as it isn’t asshole or Fred or something.

Did God give you the child???

I don’t remember God giving me the child, no. Of course, I don’t believe in God. But hey, if he wants to give me a child, that would be cool. He can consider this an open invitation. There’s always room for one more kid here.

If you are accepting monay to support this child then you are GREEDY not a caring person!!!!

I know, right? Because the state gives me so much money! I mean, I only take care of these kids 24 hours a day. But hey, I’m greedy! Like when we went to Build a Bear this weekend? I did it because I was GREEDY and I was hoping that if I bought the kids some really overpriced teddy bears then I could use the state’s money to buy an Auntie Anne’s pretzel with sweet mustard and a cherry coke since I was already in the mall. And guess what? I DID. And then I didn’t even drink all the coke. Isn’t that GREEDY? And uncaring????

You are NO better than a baby stealer!

Actually, I don’t have any babies, stolen or otherwise. It would be more accurate to say “You are NO better than a toddler, preschooler, preteen, and teenage stealer!” Or maybe “thief?” I think “thief” has a nice ring to it, huh?

 May you seek God for forgivness before it is to lte !

Well, like I said, not a big God believer. And really, if there is a God and he wants to send me to hell for being a foster parent…….well, me and that God probably wouldn’t get along too well anyway. I guess I will just have to spend all eternity in hell with all the other foster parents, lying case workers, and the baby stealers/thiefs/robbers. Maybe they will have pretzels and cherry coke there. That would be sweet.

When you take foster parent training, you are told over and over that you are a part of a team that is working to help reunify the children with their “natural” parents.

Which sounds very good, but if you do a little bit of reading online, you’ll quickly discover that there are definitely foster parents who play the part of the team member helping to reunify, while not really feeling that sentiment themselves. You can read foster parent support groups where foster parents nervously await the results of a TPR hearing, and cheer when a parent’s rights are taken away.

It comes down to the question..can you support reunification but still not want the kids to go “home”?

I think so.

I will state honestly, if Bubba and Snowbaby go to live with their mother, I will be absolutely devastated. Heartbroken. I love these kids so much.

As Yondalla said at one point, I can’t love them and then hope that they leave. I can’t wish and hope that my little girl, who comes up to me maybe 15 or 20 times a day and asks me to hold her, will go away so I’ll never see her again. I can’t wish and hope that my little boy, who likes to tell strangers that I’m HIS MOMMY, will go away so I’ll never see him again.

But I can do what I can to support reunification. I make sure they get to their visits. I make sure that I give them a minute when we are leaving so that they can hug their Mom and I always make sure they say bye to her, instead of running out the door. I thank her for the presents she brings, even if they are dirty and smelly. I give her school pictures and drawings that they make. I never speak badly about her, except maybe late at night in whispers to Geo.

I don’t have to like her. I don’t have to think she is a good person or think that she should be raising these kids.

But I can respect their relationship with her and I can show her respect by not speaking badly about her to other people and especially not to the kids.

In some ways, as the scale starts to slowly tip closer to TPR and a tiny bit further away from reunification, I feel more compassion towards her. If I would feel devastated if they went away and never came back, I have to imagine she would have some of the same feelings.

No changes to the case at this time.

Next hearing will be a permanency hearing, which has to take place around/before the one year mark of being in care. They will review whether the case goal of reunification is still appropriate and to review how the children are doing. This will take place about two months from now.

Just to give you some idea of how this case is going…there is another case that is following the same court schedule as us. At court date #2, Mom got visits extended to two supervised per week. At court date #3, she got visits extended to two supervised and one four hour unsupervised per week. Today, she got visits extended to weekend unsupervised visits, and a counselor was assigned to work with both the mother and children to help prepare them from the transition from foster care to living with their Mom again.

Bubba and Snowbaby still receive one hour of supervised visitation each week.

They have been in foster care for eight months.

Christine said:

I was just going to bring up the issue of child support payments.
  Perhaps if the government won’t be responsible for supporting the parents
we should charge the bio parents child support payments.

*obviously, this is not a serious suggestion.  Just frustrated that one
set of children is worthy of receiving financial support while another
group is not.

Actually, some (many? all? I couldn’t find anything that specified) states DO require parents to pay child support to the state while their kids are in foster care. Here’s a link from Colorado’s site.

Foster parents: what is the policy in your state? Do bioparents have to pay child support when their children are placed in care?

Of course, this money is not paid to the foster parents. (Man, that would be awkward) But I guess it goes into the “pot” of money that is used to support out of home care.

I do know that failure to pay the required child support while your children are in care is looked upon quite poorly. Judges figure that if a parent can not pay this fee while all other expenses for their children are taken care of, then they are not going to be able to support their child if they are returned. I know that exceptions can be made, but if the bioparents are paying for things like cell phones and vacations, but not paying child support, then it will definitely be taken into consideration.

Foster Parents and Money

GirlSpeaks is a former foster child. While I obviously think it is awful how she was treated, I don’t think the answer is limiting or cutting out payments to foster parents. Foster care payments should help good foster parents take on more children and make more accomodations without ruining their financial status. The answer to the problems GirlSpeaks brings forth is more accountability. I don’t see how I could get away with the things she wrote about in her post. My kids see the social worker once a week at least, and they SWs are in the house twice a month. We don’t get reimbursed for presents or school supplies. Our monthly “payments” are expected to be used for everything the kids need. The one exception is clothing. Kids get about $200 a year for clothing (on average..teens are little more, little kids are little less.)

I will say that if foster parent payments were cut out, I would not be a foster parent. I could not. I don’t make nearly enough money and I wouldn’t be able to, with the kids I have. Snowbaby can’t go to daycare, and the number of appointments, meetings, court appearances are practically a full time job on its own. I don’t do it for the money, but the money allows me to do it. Five kids are expensive.

An Unpopular View

Process is a social worker. She specifically references my recent struggles with my lack of payments in her post.

Two responses to the post made by Process.

Unpopular View, Indeed by Yondalla

Most Certainly an Unpopular View by FosterAbba

Mary sent a link to an article that had some interesting points..

First, they talk to someone in the state of Missouri:

Celesta Hartgraves, of Missouri’s Children’s Division, said the state is aware of the sacrifices parents such as Foster make. But Hartgraves said she’s not aware of the state’s rate hurting recruitment.

“I’ve never heard a person say that the reason they chose not to be a foster parent is money,” she said.
Well, duh. If foster parents go around saying ANYTHING about money, they get a speech like the one I got. To not count on the money. To not rely on it. To not expect it. You know how many times I’ve heard people make a comment about “foster parents doing it for the money?”

Look, you can look at foster parenting two ways. Should people do foster care for the money? No, that should not be your only motivation. Obviously you are going to need to provide a loving home for children who need it and if you just look at little Suzy as an income source, then that isn’t a healthy situation.

But foster parents are told that they are an important part of a professional team. We have to take continuing education. We have to take courses, be fingerprinted, etc. We have to attend meetings and court and therapy and fill out form after form and transport to visits. If we are part of the professional team, then why are we not given compensation just like the social workers, the guardian ad litem, the parent educators? Why are we given reimbursement for expenses-reimbursement that doesn’t come close to covering what we really spend on the kids-but never compensated for the work we do?

The answer is: because foster parents care. We do foster care because we want children and are looking to adopt, or we want to help kids, or we think that is what God wants us to do or a myriad of other reasons.

It is part of the culture of foster parenting that doing foster care is no different than doing charity work. You don’t expect to be paid if you go to a soup kitchen and dish out dinner.

Foster kids are treated as charity cases. If you want to be a foster parent, you have to do so at your own personal expense. You adopt your foster child and what happens? They cut the money you get. Boy, could this be why there are thousands of kids like Callie and Izzy and Bug sitting out on those photolistings?

I guarantee that the amount of reimbursement that foster parents get DOES play a role in recruitment AND it plays a role in retention.

The sad fact is that we don’t care about these kids. Let’s stick them some place until they become adults and we can be rid of them. Nevermind that they won’t have resources. Nevermind that their kids are likely to end up back in the system. Nevermind that they might end up in prison or dead.

It is disgraceful. Not only for the foster parents, but more importantly, for the kids. Kids who didn’t ask to be in this mess in the first place.

makes national news…

The GAL was talking about this article yesterday and I found the link over at FosterAbba’s..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21105021/

Read it and weep.

Seriously.

Hiya!! It’s me! Baggage!

I know you are real busy and all, but I **had** to write. I just found out that you paid me for this month!! WOW! That was SO nice of you!! I totally wasn’t expecting it. Honest! I swear! I don’t expect you to pay me anything. But you did it anyway, because you are SO THOUGHTFUL!!

I know that you were too busy to adjust my subsidy or pay me for my back pay, respite or mileage. But hey! It’s OK!! I wasn’t expecting it! Besides, what is $1500 between friends??

Matter of fact, one of the kids today asked me if we could go do up to the mall this weekend and buy some things and I was SHOCKED! I mean, honestly! The nerve of these kids!! I said, “Listen up! Stop being so ungrateful! The state has already rescued you from your miserable little lives! How can you expect them to actually PROVIDE for you now? Haven’t they done enough for you?? Sheesh! It is obvious why you are in foster care..your parents never taught you any manners! Now say “THANK YOU” to the nice social worker and stop EXPECTING things all the time!”

Anyway, thank you for all you do!! You are so great!!!

Love always, your BFF,

Baggage

P.S. OMG! I totally forgot! Thanks so much for the letter saying that I get to take mandatory CPR all day on a Saturday! How fun!! And don’t worry about not providing any arrangements for childcare! I’m sure I can find a finger-printed, background checked childcare provider for five children on Saturday with no problem!! See ya then!!!

Dealing with birthmoms, for me, is difficult.

I really wish I was in a situation like so many bloggers I read where they have a loving, caring, open relationship with the first moms of their children.

But when you do foster care, it rarely is like that. There are four bio moms in my life. I haven’t met three of them. But their presence is always there.

For Bug, she is fiercely protective of her bio mom. She will admit that her mom did a few things wrong, but she makes excuses for it. She hangs pictures of her bio mom up in her bedroom and wants to have a relationship with her because she is sure that she has changed.

Izzy still has contact with her mom, but since her placement here, she has become increasingly angry with her bio mom. Izzy has taken to calling me, “Mommy” and saying that “her real mom doesn’t do the things that Moms are supposed to.”

Callie does not refer to me as mom. We have a very close relationship, but she is careful not to cross that line. She will call me Mama Baggage or just Baggage and gets angry at her siblings when they call their foster mom, “Mom.” She fully admits that her mom did some horrible things, but she isn’t angry at her for doing them.

The little kids..I see their mom every week. Since the last team meeting, she has become hostile towards me. She has an issue with accepting responsibility for things, and blames everyone else. Her latest person to blame is me.

One thing I’m beginning to work on in my life is the idea that when I’m angry at someone, that person owns me. Every week when I leave the visit, I’m angry and upset. Every single week. The whole car ride home I’m going over what happened and why I didn’t like it. And then I can’t let it go. It ruins my whole night. I’m trying hard to go in with the attitude of “Yes, this is going to be unpleasant. I know that. So let’s do it and then it will be done, and then it will be DONE.” No more obsessing about it. No more obsessing about court dates and case plans and what does it mean that the guardian ad litem said this. I’m wasting my life worrying about what comes next and what this person said and how this situation is messed up. No day but today. No day but today.

But back to my point, if you are considering foster care or adopting from foster care, you might have this idea that children will be so damn happy to be out of their situation that they will just adore you and not need their birthparents.

Nope.

Does it sting when Izzy gets a present from her bio mom? Does it confuse me when Callie wishes she could go live with her birth mom? Does it make me a little ill when I look at the picture of Bug’s mom, displayed next to her High School Musical posters? Does it tear me up a little when Bubba asks if we are going to see his mom now? Does it break my heart a little when Snowbaby starts clapping when we pull up to DFS?

Oh yes. A thousand times yes.

But what I try to remember is that first, I am the lucky one. I get these beautiful children 167 hours a week. Some bio moms get them one hour. Some get them none. Is it there fault? Sure. I can honestly say that in all five of my kid’s cases, the system did the right thing by placing them in foster care.

But even so, my kid’s hearts are big. Just like I can love more than one kid, they can love more than one mom. And they do.