Foster What?

Kids. I foster kids. Not cats. Or dogs. (And no, it's not the same thing)

[fosterwhat]

I watched The Crash documentary with a weird sense of déjà vu. Couldn’t figure out why it felt so familiar.

Then I realized how much the conversations with the defendant and her parents feel like a foster care administrative review panel. That’s when all the parties come together (birth parents, foster parents, child welfare, community volunteers) to supposedly be a set of third party eyes on the case and make recommendations.

One party asking reasonable questions while the other party makes excuse after excuse, never takes responsibility (even when faced with proof), parties and lives their life after causing irreparable harm because nothing is ever their fault.

Anyway, if you watch The Crash you’ll get a small sense of what I deal with every 6 months.

[fosterwhat]

I turned Baby Henry’s car seat forward facing today (we maxed out rear facing). He’ll be four soon which is honestly unbelievable to me. I’m sad I missed so many of his baby months, and frustrated that only happened because DCFS returned him to a dangerous situation. That’s time we can never get back. That’s time that compounded trauma unnecessarily. If DCFS had done their job and pulled police reports before reunification, no one in their right mind would have reunified. I support safe and thoughtful reunification. I can even understand “they meet bare minimum” reunification. This was none of those. It was throwing a toddler into a lion’s den. No one followed state policy. There was no safety, there was only danger.

[fosterwhat]

They actually scheduled TPR.

It will probably take 2+ years

And other relatives are coming out of the woodwork

But at least it was scheduled?

[fosterwhat]

Court was canceled

[fosterwhat]

We have court next week.

I mean, provided no one is sick or has a legal conflict or decides eh, no thanks.

We are 18 months into this case. Baby Henry’s second time in foster care. Goal is still technically adoption but goals mean next to nothing in my state.

We are far off from the federal recommendations, but what else is new. Except apparently New Judge is a stickler for policy. So I’m wondering if she will ask DCFS to move forward with TPR.

Of course, New DCFS attorney and New Social Worker may delay things yet again.

It would helpful if they put someone in the room who has been on this case for longer than 90 seconds.

[fosterwhat]

It’s likely that Baby Henry’s mom is going to have another baby soon and I don’t quite know how to process that information.

Part of me feels distant from Baby Henry. I care about him a lot, I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, I know I am committed to him staying here however long he needs. But there’s more of a distance than with my other kids.

Maybe it’s because there is so much uncertainty and I’m much more hardened by foster care now. So the desperation and relief of the early years of fostering have been replaced by resignation? Maybe that’s maturity or maybe it’s disillusionment.

Baby Henry has already reunified once, which failed badly. He’s been in my home for 18 months this time, but he could still reunify. If a safe reunification was possible, I truly think I’d be okay with that. I’d be sad, but not devastated. That makes me wonder…

But parents do love their kids differently. I know people like to say they love all their kids equally, but research has repeatedly shown that’s not actually true. You can love all your kids, but you can’t love them all identically, simply by virtue of the fact that they’re not the same person.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, maybe the fact that a newborn is likely joining this drama makes the reality of forever more likely? But I also believe nothing.

And, my god, what happens if that baby is removed? What happens if she stays?

I don’t want to go through a painful TPR or fight over Baby Henry. I’d love to jump ahead to the end. I can deal with whatever that end may be, whether it’s adoption or reunification, I’m just tired of the sit and wait.

[fosterwhat]

“Mommy, one day we will have a baby girl and she can share my room, and then there will be four kids and that’s okay because four is a good number and we can hold hands in rows. Also, two boys and two girls is really good and right now there is only one girl…me! Also, that baby over there is very cute and maybe we just take her.”

Greta showing a tremendous mix of maturity and magical thinking. This is almost eight.

[fosterwhat]

I’ve been watching Children of the Underground on Hulu. It’s about Faye Yager and the network that was used to hide mothers and their children who had accused fathers of s*xual abuse. I didn’t know much about this period of American history and it’s a fascinating watch.

I was aware of Satanic Panic already, which aligns with the time period and is mentioned in one episode of the documentary, but not the reality of what else was going on in family courts at the time. Or that there was an entire network that smuggled women and children through safe houses across the United States.

Did her organization go off the rails? In part, absolutely. But my response to the documentary is definitely different than it would have been before I started fostering. I have seen the system and courts fail so many children. Should children be smuggled across the country? Ideally no. Would her system have been better run by trained child psychologists? Yep. But when the family courts haven’t improved much since the 1980s, it’s truly disillusioning.

As a side note, the documentary makes a great point about how parental alienation syndrome isn’t scientifically proven and shouldn’t be used to blindly make custody decisions. Yet, guess who was accused of that on the stand during an endless TPR trial.

Would love to hear other thoughts about the documentary, especially Fumblrs!

[fosterwhat]

All 3 of the kids now have special needs diagnoses. Two of them the direct result of abuse and neglect, the other due to choices made during pregnancy. But tell me again how parents have rights to their kids and should get 10+ years to get their act together.

I support reunification, I support safe family building and education, I don’t support throwing the same resources over and over for 10 years, constantly restarting the clock, and giving parents endless chances when their children have no choice but to live in their consequences.

Speaking of consequences, I’ve learned there basically are none. You can damage your child for life, break state and Federal laws, get arrested and charged over and over and over and over, and then the state dismisses because the prosecution wasn’t ready or they don’t have enough state appointed attorneys and the charges get dropped.

One parent has over forty charges in the last ten years and has never served a day in jail. Why wouldn’t you break the law if there are zero genuine repercussions?

I was a lot less jaded before I became a foster parent.

[fosterwhat]

Baby Henry (3): I’m a queen!

Greta (7): You’re a king.

Baby Henry: No! I a queen.

Greta: Boys can’t be queens.

Felix (10): Boys can be queens if they want! People can choose!

[fosterwhat]

All three children are bathed and asleep in clean pajamas in clean rooms with freshly made beds. There’s a unique comfort in knowing that they’re all right there. Clean and safe and warm. There’s so very little we can control with foster care, and so much is going wrong with the case right now. Finding peace in the little moments of perfection.

[fosterwhat]

Greta at bedtime: So, Baby Henry, let me tell you about Valentine’s Day!

Me, internally: Aww aren’t they sweet

Greta: Tomorrow morning when you wake up, you’ll get a present from Mommy! Something small. The best part is we do a treasure hunt to find it!

Me, internally: Crap

———

Hi, it’s me, the Mom who accidentally established a tradition last year by creating a Valentine’s Day treasure hunt.

It’s 1:30am and the treasure hunt is complete. It requires them running all over the house reading clues, so it should give me about 2.5 extra minutes of sleep tomorrow.

Actually, scratch that. They’ll want me to watch the treasure hunt.

Oh well. Happy Valentine’s Day!

[fosterwhat]

DCFS:

All our kids are traumatized

This is just what traumatized kids do

There’s no point in listening to therapeutic or clinical recommendations

There’s no point in pursuing a trauma eval

Didn’t you know, all our kids are lost causes no matter what?

[fosterwhat]

I continue to be disillusioned by DCFS. And every time I think I’m at the max amount of astonishment and disgust, DCFS does something else that’s even worse.

In today’s “worst”, those of you who have been following us for a longtime know that a couple of years ago threats of violence were made against the children by a biological family member. These were not idle threats. These were threats that said family member has a history of incarceration for.

These are, this-could-really-happen threats. These are threats that could cause significant harm or (likely) death if they were carried out.

In the meeting, DCFS said they were unaware of the threats. To be clear, there is a ton of documentation, physical proof, and police reports. This is all in the DCFS case files.

DCFS wanted to put all 3 children in a situation that would have given the family member direct contact.

And this is child welfare in America.

(Imagine I wasn’t on this case! What would have happened? The foster parent would be clueless. The children would be put at risk. And who is responsible for that? DCFS loves to say they are “unaware” or “didn’t know”. They love to lie)

[fosterwhat]

Baby Henry (who is now 3) has been suspended from school since last Wednesday. There have been several behavioral incidents at school. School has called meetings and DCFS has just…not shown up. Finally, school said he can’t return until DCFS meets with them.

Which, okay, except that punishes no one except me. I mean, Baby Henry wants to go to school so I guess it somewhat punishes him. But in regard to adults, it’s not like DCFS is going to step up and figure out anything. I have to figure it out. I have to provide 24:7 care. I have to miss work.

I’m exhausted. I can’t keep missing work. Tomorrow we hopefully meet with the school (ha) and provided that happens if he is not allowed to return to school DCFS has to figure out daytime childcare so I can work.

DCFS has created this problem. They returned a child to a dangerous situation that caused extensive trauma on top of existing trauma. And they keep making the child see the people who caused the trauma multiple times a week. And then they can’t understand why he’s spiraling.

[fosterwhat]

Baby Henry was suspended

This is really Felix 2.0

[fosterwhat]

Do we think that all the parents uploading images of their children to create those fake “dancing” videos understand that they are helping AI learn how to make better deepfakes? And now, specifically, better deepfakes of children? And now their child’s image is out there forever. Do we not all understand the horror of AI? Do people not realize how easy it would be for AI to pivot from innocuous fake videos of a child dancing to child SA? It’s horrifying.