My Final Discourse On Foster Care: Another Long One

Welp folks, it's spill your guts time again on the ol' blog.  An unfortunate few of my Facebook friends knew this was coming. They've had the privilege of receiving some mini-diatribes as comments to their posted articles about foster care.  So, I am going to do this now and I'm not going to do it again....

My Final Discourse On Foster Care

First and foremost I want to say that the plight of the foster child is heart wrenching. They were born into terrible situations...through no fault of their own.  But they have had so much neglect, violence, or abuse in their lives that the state feels like it is in their best interest to break a sacred bond and allow the child to live with another family. It goes against natural and spiritual laws for a child to be removed from his or her mother and it's a sad and serious matter. Usually there have been a plethora of services offered to help the family stay intact. In general, the state does not take the removal of children lightly. I do not wish for this post to be disparaging in any way to these kids.  They are the victims of circumstances that they had zero control over and placed in a system that they have zero control in. This is not about the kids. My issue is with the experience we had as foster parents and the way we were treated by the system and by the church.

Have you ever seen an Army commercial?  Be all you can be.  Army of One.  Heartwarming images of smiling young men and women working as a team flash across the screen. But, in the back of our minds, we know what soldiers really do.  They get deployed to Afghanistan...sent to Iraq...separated from their families. Even if they don't get sent, they live with the tension that any day they could be thrust into the battle.

Recruitment for foster parents is just as misleading. We hear statistics that tug on our heart strings, "Hundreds of thousands of kids are in the system right now"..."Thousands of teens age out of the system every year"..."If every Christian family took in a child, there would be no children waiting for homes." We hear rhetoric from our faith communities, "It's the job of the church to care for the orphan"..."If we were doing our job as believers there wouldn't be a need for a foster care system"..."God adopted you, shouldn't you consider adopting a child in need."

But the reality is that our experience with foster parenting felt like a battle.  The caseworker sold us the idea of the kids like a used car dealer sells a Ford Taurus. She said they were great kids, minimized their issues, glossed over their reason for being in care, gave us hope that this would be a short placement, and completely left out VERY important details in their case. We were so enchanted with the idea that we were going to use the weapon of love to help fix something that is broken in our world...we took the kids.

In our experience love looked like strict rules, door alarms, assigned seating, explaining to a child that they had to stop using tears as a form of manipulation, mopping up pee every single day for 8 months, teaching kids about the sacredness of their bodies, problem solving, problem solving, problem solving, coming up with creative ways to teach basic social norms and teaching them over and over and over and over again, enduring screams of "I hate you! I want my mom!", and never giving any slack because if we relaxed the rules or expectations even a little, the kids saw it as weakness or instability and began to act out. That was how we were able to love the kids we had...and it sure as hell didn't line up with the recruitment messages.

And while we were in this battle, our friends, family, and faith community all but abandoned us. Friends didn't want to deal with the drama that ensued when we brought our family over. Constant correction isn't a pleasant thing to witness and most certainly isn't most people's idea of a good time. Our family wasn't there for us because they felt like we put ourselves into this situation and their advice was just to quit. If the kids went away, the drama would go away.  That brings us to the church.  We had a select handful of people who intentionally invested in our lives and for that we are deeply thankful.  However, most of the time people didn't want to hear anything negative that would soil their golden ideal of what it was like to "care for the orphan".  They put their fingers in their ears and sang "lalalalalalala".  People would bring us meals...but most of the time they handed it off and the door and bolted out of there as fast as they could...no investment, just feeding.

So, for most of the time we were foster parents we were enduring emotional, spiritual, and physical assault.  And we were doing it mostly alone...as the stay at home mom...I was mostly doing it alone. But, I BELIEVED in the cause. I blew through several stop signs that told me that this placement was all wrong for our family because I didn't want to add trauma to these children's lives. I BELIEVED that I was helping to make a difference in a child's life and make God's name known through doing so. Then, after months and months of scraping the bottom of my emotional, spiritual, and physical barrel, the placement came to a crashing end.

Have you ever been part of an exercise where you write down ten values...then you have to let go of two...then two more...and so on until you are at a point where you are asked to choose only one key value?  Choosing to end our placement was like that.  I had to, very literally, decide between two values that I held very, very dear...glorifying God by caring for the orphan or protecting my own biological children.  Behaviors that were unsafe began to show up with frequency and vigor. I just had an overwhelming bad feeling about where these behaviors were headed.  We asked for the kids to be moved.  Not a week later a big bad unsafe situation came to light and I knew that we'd made a right decision.  The kids were removed unceremoniously from our home.

Having to choose between two gut level, heart level, soul level values is excruciatingly painful. My therapist says I have a trauma response to the topic of foster care. Having been a foster parent is my 9-11. The experience has left me with wounds so deep, I will never be the same again.   I'm not the same person I was and am now on a much different path than I would have been otherwise.

Not everyone's experience with fostering is bad...or this bad...but it's been a painful experience for a lot of people.  The statistic is that 50-60% of foster parents quit after their first placement.  When I heard that statistic in training, I was a giant judgey-judgerson.  But those people who quit...most of them are good people...people who love kids...people who love Jesus...and people who discovered that foster care was not just "too hard" it was the most emotionally and spiritually expensive thing they've ever done...and they are hurting.

I don't wish (necessarily) to discourage people who desire to become foster parents. But, I think there would be a whole lot less collateral damage to kids and to families if we walked into this ministry with open eyes.  It's not just a little challenging or inconvenient, anyone who accuses you of giving up because it's too hard is putting you on a guilt trip.  Foster care is hard as hell and if you are willing to walk in that truth and to own that, knowing that it could cost you more than you agreed to pay...then go forth and serve my friend.  If, like me, your deepest desire is to serve your community for the sake of Jesus, find a different way to do that. Caring for the orphan through foster parenting is a calling...it's not meant for every ear in the congregation.  Please don't let any sentimental, emotionally wrought, Bible thumping, propaganda convince you to do something that God has not asked of you.

A Really Nice Day

We are now at the beginning of the third week of summer.  I was so excited for school to be done so we could start our laid back, fun, easy summer. Unfortunately, like many things we build up in our head, it hasn't been the blissful season that I envisioned.

The first few weeks were pretty rough.  We had to readjust to being together all of the time.  Even three weeks in Little Brother still wakes up and asks me "where am I going today?"...wondering if it's an at-home day, a preschool day, or a Nana day. But, we're starting to get into a rhythm...and that's a good thing.

On Mondays we are getting together with my sister, her best friend (who has been part of our family for 15 years) and their preschool kiddos.  Yesterday we took them to a local children's spot for some art, ecology, and lunch. Nothing really spectacular happened...but it was a really nice day.

I've been very forthcoming in sharing that motherhood has been rough for me.  For most of my children's lives I have struggled with irritability, depression, disengagement, frustration, and stress. While I still have moments that are characterized by these attributes, in the last year I have become more relaxed, joyful, and engaged when it comes to my sons.

Yesterday they were well behaved, fun, and great listeners. I truly just loved watching them play and have fun with their cousins.  Now, I realize that you just have to be thankful for a tantrum/drama free day...but honestly I wonder if we don't feed off of each other's attitudes.  If I am tranquil and content, they seem to be less likely to get crazy.  If I am agitated and barking commands through gritted teeth, it seems to ramp them up.

When I came home and recounted the day to my husband, I just had an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the gift of appreciating my children.  I am dead serious when I say that this change in attitude toward my babies can only be the work of Jesus in my life.  I don't mean that in a creepy, church lady, televangelist way. But, I honestly believe that Jesus uses the stuff of life to shape our hearts...the great stuff and the gross stuff.

The path that life has led me down has been rocky.  I've stumbled, tripped, lost my way, and sat down to cry in despair.  I believe most people have a similar story (that's why I blog...we're all in this together).  The difference in my life is that I have a God that walks with me, pulls me up, redirects me, and let's me spend some time resting on glorious green hills.  Yesterday, I got to sit on a hill and enjoy the view of my sweet kiddos.  It was a really nice day and I appreciated it.

High Ideals

Lately I've been struggling with my faith...particularly with regard to my church and their expectations of what the gospel centered life should look like.  My church teaches that absolute selflessness is the ultimate way to follow God and that if I am not pouring my whole self out for the sake of others (sacrificing), then God is not being fully glorified.  I've written on this topic before (here and here), because I really wrestle with the disconnect between what church culture is advocating and what has been my life experience.

One of my personal dysfunctions is that I actually want to live up to expectations.  If the pastor says I should do something...I want to be ALL IN...I want to throw my whole self into service and be the very best sacrificer I can be.  But, because I struggle with perfectionism, knowing how pitifully short I fall of that ideal causes me great shame and pain. The standard of perfect selflessness and constant sacrifice and  is too high for me.  I'll never reach it. In my (recent) past I've allowed the absolute impossibility of meeting this ideal to cripple my ability to live my life. My human frailty is a constant source of humiliation.

Here's the thing though, sometimes I think the church adds rules and standards where they shouldn't. Teachers and preachers often take what is meaningful or beneficial for them and make it into a mandate. Also, I think that some spiritual leaders merely posit ideals and don't fully understand that that are some of us whose brains turn those ideals into requirements for faith. In the past I have been greatly influenced to make life decisions based on what words came out of a trusted spiritual teacher's mouth. I'm older and wiser now and I've been knocked on my ass a time or two. While I wouldn't say I am jaded or cynical about church, I would say that I am more discerning and skeptical of what I am being taught on Sundays.

While some of us are asked to live spiritually grand lives of poverty, abnegation, and intense suffering, a great many more of us are asked to be sacrificial and selfless in the mundane and boring rhythm of an average life.   Every day there are opportunities to give my time, money, and energy to other people. Many times I "sacrifice" without even stopping to consider it.  I think that, all too often, I forget that life is lived in the moments. My life can be characterized by selflessness and sacrifice...it doesn't take a giant, gut wrenching, painful undertaking.  I get to choose to love God in the choice I am making RIGHT NOW. I can chose to be selfish/self centered or to be patient, humble, or peaceful in THIS MOMENT.  For me, those are easier choices to make than to decide which social justice cause to unabashedly dedicate myself to. I want to actively love God and others.  In those seconds where I get to make a snap decision, I hope that desire radiates from each interaction I have with the people in my sphere of existence.

The point where the gospel comes into all of this is that...I can't even live in the moment perfectly.  I will sometimes choose selfishness.  I will often choose laziness.  I will flounder, fail, and fall revoltingly short of the life I desire to live.  That's humanity folks.  God knows that.  He offers a perfect substitution to permanently cover all of the nasty, sickening, selfish choices I have made/am making/will make.  I can rest in that and know that no matter what lofty edicts are spouted at me from a pulpit by another human being...if I am in Christ, I am perfect.