I'm coming to the realization that I am
jaded and
cynical when it comes to adopting older children and the whole foster care religion.
Now don't get me wrong - I understand the necessity for the 'system' and for the children to be cared for. I understand the 'calling' that many have for foster care. I applaud and bless that - really I do.
There is, however, something
systemically wrong with the entire process. From the ways and reasons they remove children from their homes of origin to the ways they choose and place children in one of many other homes down to the day that child packs their worldly possessions and walks out the door - dissatisfied.
I believe that nearly everyone involved in the entire process begins with sincerity and a true heart to help these children that don't deserve the hand that life has dealt them. .....but somewhere along the way - many get cynical and don't even realize it.
Here is a personal, yet all too typical scenario:- Birthparents are addicted to crack and alcohol. They have two children.
- Father loses job because of addictions.
- Mother gets another, quite lucrative job - she sells her body.
- Father gets another, quite lucrative job - he sells illegal drugs.
- They continue in their addictions, and fight and abuse one another and their children.
- Father goes to prison, leaving two children and a pregnant, addicted wife.
- Mother gives birth to my daughter, while addicted to crack.
- Mother sells illegal drugs while father is incarcerated.
- Father gets out of prison and goes back to his family and they are happy - for about a week.
- Father becomes addicted, once again, to meth and alcohol
- They become pregnant, once again, with another one of my daughters.
- They live in Florida and San Diego and places in between. Looking for and/or running away from something.
- They now have four mouths to feed besides their own. Of course they are on public assistance - but it's not enough to feed their children AND their addictions. They choose to feed their addictions.
- Four children are removed from the home after several years of abuse and neglect.
- They are put in three different foster homes, keeping the little girls together. The youngest is one and a half, her older sister is three.
- The foster vatican works hard to reunite these precious children with their family of origin. After all, isn't it best to be with your 'real' family?
- The children are happily reunited with their now highly dysfunctional family after a brief stint away.
- The birthparents are off drugs and even got 'saved' just so they could get back with their kids, not to mention the welfare check that comes with them.
- Within two weeks, the birthparents are back on drugs. Who would have guessed? (do you hear the cynical coming in here?)
- The family has a new job to supplement their welfare check. Their new occupation is begging. You see, if they put the whole family out there, hold and sign and look real sad, people will feel sorry for them and give them money to feed these hungry children.... (don't you know that anyone who would stand their child out to beg with them will not be feeding their children, but their own addictions?!) This, by the way, is another form of abuse.
Another fallout from this is that the girls have 'getting others to feel sorry for me' down to a fine science. - While the mother is out selling her body and the father is in a drugged stupor in a home strewn with broken glass and animal feces, the two tiny girls, now 2 and 4 are climbing on a roof down an alley. Someone spots them and calls CPS.
- Once again, the children are taken. This time they go to a group receiving home while waiting for a foster home. They are separated from their other siblings and are quite frightened.
- They get placed in a foster home.
- The birthparents 'clean up' just long enough to get their welfare check...er, I mean children back. This happens...ad nauseum.
- The family is back together momentarily, until the tiny girls are found wandering around the streets without supervision or shoes, in their underwear and are hungry and confused.
- They are removed once again. They have experienced neglect and abuse and the 'system' keeps trying to reunite them with the very ones who have perpetrated these evils upon them. These birthparents have exposed them to drugs, drug addicts and sexual predators.
- Now, all four children are in foster care. The oldest goes back to the family because she is old enough to choose. And we all know that victims choose to go back with their perpetrators, especially when they are children. She lives with this abuse and neglect and a sense of responsibility, until she is old enough to move in with her own addicted and abusive boyfriend and have neglected and abused children of her own. I'm not being cynical here, that is exactly what happened.
- The oldest son goes back and forth, and does the foster care dance as well. His story is every bit as heartbreaking and intense.
- The two youngest girls, my girls, are placed, long term, in a decent foster home. Albeit, the foster mother is a professional at this religion, but I do believe she is as good as it gets and very sincerely wants to help.
- They live there for almost five years. There are many visitations with the birthparents, who continue to pretend they are trying to clean up their lives. They rip the girls hearts out with each visit and leave them bleeding.
- Meanwhile, the girls' physical needs are being taken care of and the system thinks their emotional needs are as well. But of course, a bottom-of-the-barrel counselor cannot fill that hole. She only seems to make it worse.
- Their foster mother adopts their two foster sisters of their same ages, and the girls are hopeful and sure that she will adopt them as well. She will not. She knows that she cannot deal with the needs they have. So she prays for a home for them. ...and they continue to hope that she will want them too.
- The foster gods are telling my girls (before they were my girls) that there are people lined up wanting to adopt them (they really told them this....) They tell them all kinds of lies under the guise of building their self-esteem.
- We hear about these girls from a friend, feel 'the calling' and start down the path that will lead us to the foster circus. We are asked to do all kinds of tricks for them. Stupid things like lock up all of the sharp items in the house; have a 6 foot fence around th
e pool rather than the 5 foot one we already have. Install door alarms so if one of them goes out to play with some of the critters on our acre, it will sound and we will need to run after them! After all, that mud puddle outside could drown our 7 and 9 year old girls. You get the picture. They were trying to tie the hands of the ONE family that truly wanted them. (We finally told Child Protective Services to take a hike and call us if they wanted us to adopt the girls. They did call a few weeks later and let us adopt them.) The foster system leaves a lot of pertinent details out of the 'telling' and lies about certain things so they are sure to get these girls a home. - The girls come to our home with so much crap, I finally had to call the foster mother and ask her to stop bringing stuff over! I was throwing it out the back door as quickly and she was bringing it in the front door. What I discovered was that the foster system (at least in San Diego County) tries to fill the holes with 'stuff'. The children want love and stability and they get 'stuff' - This, overall, was the reason my girls did not take care of or value ANY THING, and eventually, us.
- Eleven very tumultuous years later, both girls, unable to attach, have left the only family that truly loved them and cared for them as they deserved. Since they did not learn to appropriately attach, they had no idea how to detach in a healthy way... and they left. We will stay in touch with them as they allow it, but there is little else we can do.
This was long and certainly not thorough, but it shows a factual path that just one foster story takes. I wish I could rewrite the story the way it SHOULD have been written.... but I can't.
