Before I had four children, I was doing pretty well financially. I was working a lot during the day. Although I had taken on the extra expense of the BDH, I was still doing good. I had finally figured out why I was having so much trouble working (ADD) and had started on some medicine.

Right after that, I got bombared with my three cuties who had nothing. Luckily with some help from you guys, and some loans and gifts from Geo and my family members, I was able to pull through.

But then I had to pay everyone back and run around like a crazy person while Bug got pulled out of school and everyone had all sorts of evaluations and visits and therapy and all this.

And suddenly I was to the point where weeks would go by without me having one chance to do ANY work. My helpers were no help. Then the two girls got hospitalized and that took up all of my sanity and my time.

And then I found out that little guys were staying through the summer, and then Callie came with absolutely nothing, and Snowbaby had surgery and I had to go pick up Callie. And it is the 22nd and I’ve put 1200 miles on my mileage form for this month so far and I’m not done. Which at $3.29 a gallon…well damn.

The point? I don’t know. Except to say that sometimes foster parents feel strange about talking about money. Which I can understand. I love these kids like they are my own, so sometimes it feels icky to talk about money. Except if they were my own, I wouldn’t be driving all this way so they could meet with their family or doing all the other things I have to do in order to ensure they get the best services they need.

I’ve read on a couple blogs lately the idea of paying foster parents a salary. As part of their salary, they would be required to attend trainings, and do things we are supposed to do anyway, like make lifebooks. That kind of thing.

I hate the way they do things now, where they hand you a child with a half-full garbage bag and wave “Goodbye!” and then say, “You won’t see any money for her until next month and oh, by the way? Could you transport her everyday to a different county so she can go to special program and we can’t pay you mileage?”

I guess my point is to advocate for yourself. Especially if you are a single parent or you work from home. If you work from home, INSIST that they provide you with the same opportunities that a parent who works outside of the home gets.

If you have a child who has issues which causes them to not be able to go to daycare, then insist that they be considered for an increased rate of pay. After all, if their issues are so severe that they can’t be in daycare, then you should be compensated for the fact that you can not work while you are dealing with these issues.

If you have adopted a child and they are not receiving an adequate subsidy, ask that it be reviewed. If you are in the process of adopting a child, don’t sign a subsidy until you are sure that it has what you are entitled to.

Because folks, I love these kid so much. I love being a foster mom. I love feeling like my life has a purpose for the first time in my whole life.

But I didn’t create these problems. And no foster parent should have to worry about whether they have enough money to pay the electric bill or whether they can afford gas to drive a child to softball because they are so busy doing what DFS asks them to do that they don’t have time to do what they need to do.

Six months ago I was afraid to use the telephone. I was afraid to stand up to a social worker or a supervisor and say, “Well, sure, I would be happy to do that for you but you are going to need to do XYZ in order for that to happen.”

This is my rant/vent of the day. There is nothing that stresses me out more than a low bank account balance and the fear that I might have to stop fostering because I can’t work too. Luckily, I think things are going to be OK very soon. I worked all morning, I finally got compensated for last month’s mileage (oh, and the subsidy Cammie messed up. Did I mentioned that?) and Bug is actually behaving today. And while I was down here working, Callie cleaned the living room without being asked.

Does this post sound whiny? It feels whiny to me. I feel whiny too because I have been fighting a cold for a week. I would like to stop being sick please. I went from a sinus infection and a UTI to getting antibiotics and getting a killer yeast infection and then once that cleared up, I caught Snowbaby’s cold.

Oh, and to answer the question about sending something for Callie. I haven’t had time to update my registry but I’m trying to. If you really wanted to send something to her, you could do it through my paypal button on the left, or send a Walmart gift card. Callie is a great girl, you guys. This weekend we went fishing and swimming in the river. I told her we were about to leave and she said, “Is it hot because I don’t have any shorts or anything I could wear. I really hate to be a bother.” And I told her that we were going to stop so she could get something. And when she found a swimsuit that was 40% off, she said that she would just make what she was wearing work because she hated for me to have to spend $20 on her. Here is a child who has nothing, who was sent with her few belongings in a TRASH BAG and she didn’t want to burden me.

It makes me cry just to type it. There are times when I get frustrated with my situation. Where I think about the days where I used to be able to spend money on myself. There are times when I look in my closet and it is practically empty because I lost so much damn weight since I became a mom of four and nothing fits. And I get a little sad because I wish I could spend 100 bucks on clothes for me but I know I can’t because one of the kids needs that 100 bucks more. (I’m sure a lot of moms go through that.) But then there are moments when I see Snowbaby open her birthday presents, or Bug show off her new softball glove, or listen to Bubba brag about his flipflops or see Callie so thrilled by her bedspread…that I know that I would sacrifice anything for those moments.

Umm…not sure how to end this or what the whole point was anyway. Going back to work now.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Foster care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.