LT, of I was a foster kid, honored me this week by giving my blog an award called "The Versatile Blogger." She said the nicest things about me. After having been chosen by another blogger to win this same award, LT was required to tell 7 things about herself that her readers wouldn't know and choose 5 worthy blogs to award.
If you know LT and her blog, you know that you don't turn down an award from LT. It would be like turning down an award from your favorite professor. It is a great privilege to be acknowledged by LT as being one of the good guys in the world of mental health and parenting. So I accepted the award, got a huge bump in my stats thanks to her link to me and agreed to the terms of the award. She's also inspired me to write more often as I have so much to say, though these days more about mental health than foster parenting now that CD has been with us for so long and we on our road to adopting her. Honestly, I don't really feel much like a "foster parent" anymore. I am just a parent waiting for the law to recognize CD as my daughter, my forever daughter.
So 7 things about me:
1. For a variety of reasons that are best left for an analyst's couch, I didn't think that I would be a good mother and felt enormously anxious and guilty when J was born. I believed that he deserved better than what I could ever be to him. It wasn't until he was 2 and a half that I felt confident in my parenting. The proof was in the pudding as they say. J was turning out to be an extraordinary child. It was only then that I was ready to even think of having another child.
2. When I was engaged my husband (now of 16 years) I told him that I had a medical disorder that often comes with infertility challenges. He responded that he was not marrying me for my child bearing abilities. The conversation evolved into talking about how we could adopt and how wonderful it could be to give a family to a child that needs one.
3. Before getting pregnant with Z I scoured the internet for information about adoption and fell in love with a picture of a child from Eastern Europe. I chickened out, never pursued it seriously with my husband and knew we couldn't afford to adopt in that route anyway. I knew nothing about foster care/adoptions at the time.
4. The first time I thought about wanting to be a foster parent was in 2004. I developed a deep connection to a 14 year-old boy, K, who was detained at the youth house where I was working. Both of his parents were incarcerated and he was living on the streets. His grandmother, his legal guardian, didn't look for him or even report him missing. I petitioned the judge to send K to a treatment program rather than prison. I still keep a letter that K wrote me from the residential program to which he went after leaving the youth house.
5. Having grown up in a religious family but ultimately losing my faith, I find myself struggling with making meaning out of life and finding a purpose in life. Ultimately, I think this is why I am a psychologist that works with kids that others have long since thrown away and why I felt that I needed to be a foster parent. I figured out what I seem to be pretty good at and threw myself into it.
6. I am haunted by a Jewish saying that basically translates into an idea that we live in an imperfect world and though one is not obligated to fix it all, one is not exempt from doing their part. I wonder how much my part is which brings me to. . .
7. I am in awe of foster and adoptive parents who are raising sibling groups and children with special needs. I am in awe of families who have already raised 3, 4, 5 bio and/or adopted children but are not done and looking to foster and adopt more. My expectation was that I would be fostering or even adopting children with some challenges and I welcomed that knowing that I have a clinical background and years of successful parenting under my belt.
CD is not a challenge any more than any healthy, happy, well adjusted toddler is a "challenge."
I am afraid that I have not done my "part" but I don't know if I will ever have the internal resources to do more as a parent than raise my three children. I am hoping that will change as my children get a little older and that CD is not the last child that I foster.
5 comments:
Congrats on CD! You are on your way to becoming her forever family. And on the award. You have a great hubby.
I believe that CD is not a "challenge" more than any other toddler because you have and are doing your part. She thrives because of you and your family. You are repairing that, maybe small but insignificant, part of the world, and as it becomes easier to do you question whether it should be more. Maybe, maybe not, but either way you are bringing about Tikkun Olam.
Congratulations!
Kathy
Congrats on the award. Very interesting post. I think our purpose on this Earth is to do our best to leave it just a little bit better than before we popped into existence. There's so much hatred, vileness, and destruction in the world, so many forces trying to leave the world in a worse state. I think we all need to do our part, big or small, to counteract that and try to change things for the better. No part is too small or too insignificant. Picking up a piece of trash to effectively lobbying for stricter clean air standards, we all play our part. Raising good children and helping those children who didn't have that advantage make the world a better place, too. I think the rest is all commentary (or a distraction).
I think we each somehow know when we're doing enough or should be striving to do more.
congrats, this blog deserved it.
i definitely agree that you need to write more. even though CD is bound for adoption, you can help lots of people understand the "process" through your eyes. even things like worker visits (yeah!)...
people are so confused about what foster care is and there is alot of negativity out there.
as for doing your part. you're good, im sure. seriously, it is not easy working with the kids you have chosen to work with and many people write them off.
in your profession, you could have chosen to have a nice office with a comfy couch and listen to rich people complain about their depression because their kids wrecked the beamer last weekend or their swimming pool has algae. i kid Dr. Val about that all the time.
as for no more foster kids... reality is that you will have 3 "youngish" children. while it sucks that another good foster home will close up shop, CD has a forever home!
read this from emerson... and sleep well..
“Success”
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
LT, I think I am going to create a poster of "Success." And if you are reading Emerson it is a sign that it is well past due that you enroll for college.
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