writer • youth minister • cultural nomad

Lily Dodge spends her days reading, writing and wording and trying to convince young people to do the same. Real stuff at www.lilydodge.com

[lilydodge]

How are you doing with fostering in the time of a global pandemic?

Short answer: poorly!

This pandemic means everything is being done on “hard mode.” Parenting, working, sleeping, pet care, mood regulation, it’s all that much harder.

For fostering in specific, the biggest issue is that my youth can’t access any of his therapeutic supports in person. All kids and teenagers are struggling with the move to online school, and youth with trauma are especially sensitive. It is difficult for youth to connect to things like academic support and therapy over the phone or video conference. It’s just too easy for them to not answer the phone or close the computer. All the in-person rapport that’s required to treat trauma is missing.

Youth are also not able to see their families for visits. It is very painful when the narrative is that “everyone is stuck at home with their families” and a youth isn’t at home and isn’t with their family. Phone and video visits are happening, but not all family members are able to connect that way, and of course it’s not the same. There can also be differences of opinion between foster parents and family of origin regarding the level of quarantine precautions to take, which causes tension and puts youth in the middle of a difficult situation.

Boredom, isolation, and lack of structure are bad for all minds. But when a youth is dealing with trauma symptoms, they’re even worse. Youth are really struggling to stay on a sleep schedule, stick to their meds, and regulate their moods and bodies. Self esteem falls when there isn’t anything constructive to do, and kids are missing sports, school, music lessons, etc. Being cooped up with foster parents can exacerbate existing tensions and put everyone at risk for escalated moods and behavior.

I’ve been doing my best to support the youth who currently lives with me. We are watching our favorite TV shows together, doing art together, and playing video games together. I have also done my best to support technological connections with family. But it is not easy, and we have regressed a LOT in terms of our therapeutic work together. All of us are living in the bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy, and that sucks. Hopefully this ends sooner than later, and no irreversible damage is done during this difficult period.

[lilydodge]

What can social workers do to make your life easier?

The biggest thing social workers can do to make my life easier is to keep their information accurate and organized. When a youth is in foster care, there is so much to keep track of. It can take way too long to chase down important information, and when social workers are acting on wrong information, it makes everything take so much longer.

I’ve had youth move into my home and I didn’t know their last name for three days. They also didn’t come with their medication. I didn't even know they took medication until they asked me for their meds at bedtime. (The poor child was very triggered by realizing that the adult now in charge of caring for them had no clue about their medications.) No one could provide me contact information for any previous foster parents, so I couldn’t get any information about the youth’s needs, preferences, triggers, etc. Then, when this child left my home, I put together a bunch of information about the youth’s medical history, favorite foods, the therapist he’d been working with, family contacts, etc. but I couldn’t find any way for the system to take that information from me and provide it to the new placement. It was madness.

I’ve also had very serious delays in treatment because the social worker neglected to let the county attorney know something was happening. I’ve had to pay out of pocket for medical care because no one could figure out who to contact about a youth’s insurance. I frequently get phone calls from people asking about youth who are no longer in my care, or asking for family members of youth who have never had my phone number.

I used to work in tech, and we had things called “launch timelines.” Before a product change launched, there was a big interactive spreadsheet with sections for each thing that needed to be done: Did the legal and privacy team sign off on it? Were the help articles written and ready to publish? Had the code been quality tested? Someone kept track of whether all those things were done. And if something launched and it turned out there was a problem with privacy concerns, there was a clear record of who signed off, or who neglected to get sign-off. I fully recognize that social work is not tech, and not every problem has a “Silicon Valley” style solution, but I think something like this needs to be developed, implemented, and mandated for the child welfare system.

I understand that social workers often have new cases joining their caseload all the time, and that they are overloaded with cases at all times. I understand that each case is complex and there is a lot to manage for a youth in care. However, I have had experiences where social workers did not know things like: the age of the child, which family members the child had visitation with, what medications the child was on, where the child was currently living, and pretty basic things like that. This information should follow the youth in a standardized way, and social workers should read and digest that as part of their jobs.

There are things that seem like they absolutely be standardized, but aren’t. When things happen like a change in placement, there isn’t a standardized “checklist” of which people should be informed, what paperwork needs to be filed, etc. It’s very easy for things to “fall through the cracks” in the child welfare bureaucracy. Nothing is centralized or standardized, and there isn’t much accountability when something gets missed that really should have been done.

Information organization seems to be a pretty major issue in general with the child welfare system. Everything seems to be done in a very ad-hoc way. If it doesn’t occur to a specific individual that they ought to contact a youth’s attorney, or if someone doesn’t remember to transfer a youth’s prescription, it all gets very challenging. And then there isn’t much of a system in place to resolve these issues, so it takes a bunch more ad-hoc efforts to chase down solutions.

It can also be very hard to get information like “who is the right person to call about insurance changes,” or “what is the right court paperwork to file for changes to family visitation.” Again, it seems to be a system made up mostly of individuals who are making it up as they go along. You just have to get lucky and hope that you get through to the right person at the right time. 

I genuinely don’t know whether this is an issue of systems and technology, or whether it’s a resourcing issue, or that there’s too much turnover, or what. But it’s been a consistent problem for me. I’m lucky that I’m a very organized person and I do a good job keeping documents and records for my youth, but I’m only one person and I often find myself plugging gaps in the system that really shouldn’t be there in the first place. I spend a lot of time, as the foster parent, juggling phone trees and spreadsheets that I have made to keep track of who I’m trying to contact and what I’m trying to find out or get done.

I understand that this is a huge institutional problem that an individual social worker can’t exactly solve. But my answer to this question would be: social workers can make my life easier by keeping clear, organized documents around things like family contacts, medication and insurance, and educational history. Advocate for standardized, comprehensive processes for things like placement transfer, letting teams know about court dates, and visitation changes. Then, advocate for accountability when people don’t follow those procedures. 

[lilydodge]

when pro-choice rhetoric & foster care collide

Since reproductive rights are in the news again, I'm seeing a lot of things implying that these anti-choicers should put their money where their mouths are and foster/adopt children, or using the fact that the foster care system is overwhelmed as an argument for safe and accessible abortion. Some examples:

While this makes a tidy point fit for a Facebook-able macro, it is really not great rhetoric, from the perspective of a foster parent.

Reason one: Evangelical Christianity's influence is already a problem in the world of foster care and adoption. Advocating for those who support draconian anti-choice laws to raise foster youth is unfair to those youth.

Foster care and adoption are huge issues in the Evangelical church, and they have been for a while. Initially, it was focused on international adoption; recently there has been a massive push toward domestic adoption and foster care. “Practicing Christians” are twice as likely to be involved in foster parenting and adoption. Here’s a New York Times article on the phenomenon, and one from The New Republic, and another from Mother Jones.

Most recently, consider the Evangelical-backed Trump administration’s policies that created an influx of children separated from their parents at the border into the foster care system - it’s no accident that the Evangelical church is one of the biggest groups active in the American foster and adoptive system.

While it’s great that there’s a group of people in America focused on helping youth in care, you could do a lot better than the Evangelical church.

Because the Evangelical church is big on families and family building, there tends to be an excessive focus on adoption from foster care, an attitude I’ve already discussed the problems with at length. There’s also a very gross missionary mindset to it - “rescuing” youth by bringing them into Evangelical families. That, combined with the fact that Evangelical culture is pretty homogenous and positions itself as the “correct” way to live and believe, leads to erasure of the family of origin and a lot of pressure on the youth to assimilate to the foster family’s beliefs and culture. 

Parenting attitudes in Evangelical culture also run counter to therapeutic parenting best practices, with a lot of focus on the parents as authoritarian heads of the household and emphasis on obedience and discipline that frequently crosses the line into abuse. Evangelical parents are already getting what they believe to be infallible, “Biblical” advice about how to raise children, which makes it harder for trauma-informed training to break through. Even for biological children without existing trauma, Evangelical parenting norms are not healthy. 

Couple this with the fact that, at least in America, anti-choice attitudes don't always, but tend to, correlate with other ideologies that are not healthy for foster and adopted kids. Certain political and cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and poverty are associated with pro-life ideas and the Evangelical church - and all of these run counter to the health and well being of foster youth raised by parents who subscribe to those values. Encouraging the people behind these laws to get more involved in foster care and adoption, even just to make a point, is not a solution to anything.

Reason two: Youth in care and families of origin are people, not an argumentative cudgel. Using words like "unwanted" or treating foster care as the flip side of abortion is damaging. 

More youth in foster care is not the logical outcome of fewer abortions. When we talk like this, we imply that the life of a child in foster care was the result of an abortion that should have happened. The reality is a lot more complicated, and it’s an unfair simplification to imply that a foster care placement is the “opposite” of an abortion, or that abortion and foster care are an “either/or” situation.

Here’s something to consider: A lot of youth in care are very triggered by their birthdays and feel that their birthdays are not worth celebrating. These youth believe that they were unwanted, a mistake, that there is nothing positive about their birth. Keep in mind how a youth in care or a former foster youth might read an argument that wraps their existence up with abortion rights.

Consider also the perspective of mothers and families of origin. A lot of youth in care were "wanted pregnancies," but other circumstances led to their removal into foster care. Imagine the pain and trauma of untreated mental illness, addiction, poverty, or an abusive partner - then compound that with the loss of a child. We have to be careful not to erase the incredible trauma and loss that a parent endures when their child is removed, and we must not assume that their love and desire for that child was anything less than that of a parent who is not struggling with poverty, abuse, their own trauma, or addiction.

What, exactly, is the narrative these memes above construct? By implying that a parent’s choice was between an abortion or a child removed from their care, we make a far-too-broad claim about that person’s fitness to raise a child, and we assume that a child taken into foster care would, or should, not have been born had their parents had access to abortion care. I don’t think anyone really intends to make that point, but it is the logical conclusion of this rhetoric, and we ought to carefully consider what we’re really saying.

Fortunately, the actual dialogue around this issue is much more nuanced; but the nuance gets lost in image macros and two-sentence tweets. Most of the people posting rhetoric like this are incredible people who are fighting for reproductive rights in honorable and powerful ways. This is just a trope I see in online postings that I think needs to be interrogated and handled more delicately. This isn't meant to be a "call out" post but rather a "let's think about this with more clarity and nuance, and make sure we're saying what we mean and meaning what we say."

Pro-choice activists often speak about the need to support mothers and families - to support EVERYONE'S choices. We need to remember that while we fight for people's rights to choose NOT to have a baby, many people - especially families of color, poor families, and disabled parents - have been robbed of the right TO have a baby, either by forced sterilization or aggressive removal policies.

[lilydodge]

How long do most placements last?

This is part of a series for Foster Care Awareness Month, where I answer questions submitted via facebook or tumblr about my work as a therapeutic foster parent. Ask your own question here!

This is super impossible to answer, since “foster care” is such a huge umbrella. It could be that the youth were only with a foster family for the weekend, because that’s how long it took mom to get out of jail and find a new place to stay. It could be four years, while the case makes its way through court and various family members are considered for placement.

According to foster care statistics from 2016, of the estimated 250,248 children who exited foster care during FY 2016, the median amount of time spent in care was 13.9 months. The following are the lengths of time in care:

10 percent in care less than 1 month 

35 percent in care for 1 to 11 months 

28 percent in care for 12 to 23 months 

15 percent in care for 24 to 35 months 

9 percent in care for 3 to 4 years 

4 percent in care for 5 or more years

And you can see more statistics on youth’s ages, time in foster care, etc. from 2017 here.

For therapeutic parenting, placement length is different - most therapeutic placements last 6-18 months.

[lilydodge]

What should a potential foster parent think about while deciding whether to become a foster parent?

This is part of a series for Foster Care Awareness Month, where I answer questions submitted via facebook or tumblr about my work as a therapeutic foster parent. Ask your own question here!

There are three key questions, I think:

How informed am I? How open am I to becoming more informed?

A foster parent should be trauma-informed and very willing to learn more about parenting youth with trauma and youth from different cultural backgrounds.

You should have an understanding racial issues and class issues, as well as mental health, addiction, institutional violence, and intergenerational cycles. You’ll need tools to help you engage respectfully with cultures and communities that have different needs, norms, and expectations from you.

You must be ready to have your assumptions challenged. You can’t go in thinking that because you were once a child, or because you were parented, that you know what you’re doing. This education process can be uncomfortable and difficult and humbling. But if you’re not able and willing to do it, you have no business fostering.

How healthy am I?

When you’re working with foster youth, you need to be able to manage your emotions, your triggers, and your reactions. In the face of a youth’s behavior, you need to be able to stay calm and keep your eyes on the big picture. You need to be more responsive than reactive. You need to know your own patterns and triggers. You need to act in the child’s best interests, not on your impulses or desires. You need to know how to rest and recharge in a healthy, productive way.

We’re all going to make mistakes as parents, and foster parents don’t have to be perfect, enlightened beings who never raise their voice or get annoyed - but you have to be able to manage yourself really well and apologize when you do make a mistake.

How supported am I? Do I have the resources for this?

Foster parenting is very doable, but it’s not easy. Is your work schedule flexible? Is your boss on board? Would you be able to take time off? Is your job performance steady enough that you could afford some “off” weeks?

Are your finances able to take some surprise hits? Are you able to outsource anything (home cleaning, grocery delivery)? Fostering is tough; money makes everything easier.

Do you have expensive things in your home that you would be unwilling to put at risk? How can you set your space up to best facilitate a youth being safe, welcome, and happy in your home? How flexible is your lifestyle? Do you have a hobby, religious practice, or something else that you're committed to maintaining?

How comfortable are you with paperwork, phone tag, and bureaucratic navigation? Will you be able to identify resources for your youth and jump through all the hoops to apply and manage them? Do you have the time, organization, patience, car, and gas money to take the youth to school, court, family visits, and therapy appointments? 

Do you have a support system of friends or family members who are interested in becoming trauma informed and ready and able to support you and your youth? Are they willing to get fingerprinted? Stay overnight with the youth? Attend some trainings? Is your social life one that will allow you to continue having adult companionship with new limitations?

I don’t mean to make foster parenting sound impossible here. You don’t need to be an Ultra Organized Super Parent with infinite resources, an encyclopedic knowledge of parenting theories, and the patience of twelve saints. But you do need to be clear-eyed about your needs, strengths, and limitations!

[lilydodge]

How is therapeutic parenting different from regular parenting?

This is part of a series for Foster Care Awareness Month, where I answer questions submitted via facebook or tumblr about my work as a therapeutic foster parent. Ask your own question here!

It’s easiest for me to use narrative examples in explanations like this, but I don’t tell stories about my youth online, so all of these are hypotheticals based on my experiences and training. 

Therapeutic parenting is different in a few key ways. One is that it has therapeutic goals - a youth that you’re parenting may have specific behaviors, trauma symptoms, or thought patterns that you’re actively trying to work on.

For instance, say you have a 15 year old young woman who is really struggling with self esteem and feeling like she has something to contribute to the world. Therapeutic parenting might include things like:

Subscribing to a meal kit service and cooking with her every evening, slowly building up her sense of confidence and agency in the kitchen. Providing lots of accurate and appropriate praise as you eat together so she experiences you enjoying the food she made.

Reaching out to her school to identify clubs she might be interested in joining, and working with school staff to come up with a healthy and supportive way to encourage and welcome her to participate. 

Working with her on a list of “Things I Am Proud Of.” Keeping an eye out for opportunities to add to that list, and to help her refer back to that list in times of struggle. Developing language and coping skills with her around self-image, anxiety, and shame. 

Throughout this process, the therapeutic parent will be tracking what’s going on, often documenting it in an official way. They’ll be figuring out what works and what doesn’t work - maybe she absolutely HATED staying after school for the lit mag club, but after she helped you clean the kitchen, she was beaming when you pointed out the next day how pleasant and nice to use it was. You’ll share these strategies with whatever other therapeutic professionals you’re working with, and advocate for them to be used at school as well. 

Because of these clearly stated behavioral, emotional, and relational goals, therapeutic parenting is a lot more big-picture focused. In-the-moment choices about discipline, consequences, and parental responses often look very different from “standard parenting.”

You have to keep in mind the overall goals, and whether your choices in the moment support the overall goals. 

For example, say you have a 10 year old boy who struggles with lying. Typically, kids with trauma who tell lies are doing it out of knee-jerk self-preservation and fear. So punishing the lies doesn’t “teach them better,” it just deepens that sense of “adults are not safe” and encourages the behavior. 

Say you’re heading out and you ask him if he has his jacket in his backpack. He says yes. You get there, and he’s cold. He didn’t bring his jacket. Standard parenting might suggest that you scold the youth: you told me it was in your backpack! We’ve talked about telling lies!

But in this case, his “lie” was because, in the moment, he was being asked something by a parent figure, which sends his traumatized brain into fight-or-flight mode. His brain said “I’m supposed to do something, so the safest thing to do is just say yes, I did it.” It’s not thinking toward future consequences; brains are not good at that. He may not have even processed that I was asking about his jacket’s location - he may have just heard me ask something and said “yes” out of a self-preservation instinct. 

So if I want the behavior to actually stop long-term, I need to challenge that fear response by being entirely safe. He told me the truth - that he didn’t have his jacket - so I respond by speaking softly and gently, thanking him for letting me know, and problem-solving with him about whether we need to go back home or whether there’s another jacket in the car, etc.

Of course this isn’t a long-term solution; lying as a behavior can be maddening, and at some point he’ll need to learn how to process and follow instructions, manage his own belongings, etc. But kids don’t learn through fear, shame, and scolding. 

What I’d do about the backpack-jacket situation going forward, as a therapeutic parent, is to not give him another opportunity to lie. Because therapeutic parenting is about meeting the youth where they are, and not demanding anything else. 

I now know that being asked to make sure he has his jacket isn’t working for this kid. So from now on, I just grab his jacket on the way out the door. He has enough to worry about, and it’s not worth the potential power struggle of trying to make him do it on his own. Could another 10 year old be asked to bring his jacket? Probably. It’s a developmentally appropriate expectation in general, but not for this child. 

So I’d just bring the jacket. Slowly, as we work on “listening” and other behaviors, maybe I’d ask him to bring his jacket, then go to his bedroom and watch or help him put it in his backpack. Then, ask him to bring it, and check his backpack once we get into the car. Each of these small moments will be a battle I’ve decided to pick, and he may be aggressive, defiant, frustrated, or annoyed. But my end goal is “he is able to manage his own belongings and respond to reasonable reminders,” so I work toward that goal.

Keeping those goals in mind is so crucial. Because in the moment, it’s so hard to lose sight of them. Suddenly, your goal becomes short-term: “Get him to admit that he lied and apologize,” or your goal becomes unrelated to their emotional wellbeing: “Get him to respect me as the parent.” Acting in pursuit of those goals often runs counter to the other goals, so you’ve got to keep the big-picture goals in mind.

Often, my therapeutic parenting looks like “rewarding the behavior.” But it’s all about understanding that behavior is communication. If my youth has had a destructive, raging tantrum, that's because they are too overwhelmed by their trauma symptoms and Big Feelings. They are feeling ashamed, unsafe, afraid, angry, confused, anxious, etc. And so if I want the behavior to resolve, I have to address the feelings underneath it.

After a tantrum or other violent incident, my first goal is to let the youth know that they are safe, and it’s okay. That I still love them no matter what their behavior is. I often help them clean up, or clean it up for them. I wrap them in a cuddly blanket (usually a weighted blanket), give them a comfort food for a snack, and put on their favorite TV show. If they’re okay with my physical touch, I’ll hug or hold or snuggle them. 

This does not, contrary to popular parenting wisdom, teach the youth that “If I throw a tantrum and break Lily’s things, she will reward me with ice cream, TV, and fun time. Therefore, I will continue to break Lily’s things.” Instead, it teaches the youth that “I am safe, I am loved, I am capable of calming down, my Big Feelings do not make me worthless and they do not run my life.” The behaviors are coming from somewhere - you have to be willing to get behind the behaviors and be creative.

We do often have “natural consequences” - whatever the youth broke, they have to repair, or pay to replace, or it just doesn’t get replaced. After they’ve calmed down, we talk about what happened, how it made us feel, and what wasn’t okay. I offer suggestions for managing the same feelings, and we work on coping skills - like smashing approved things in the “angry box,” or punching a pillow, or just asking me for “ice cream and cuddles” to calm down instead of going through the whole escalation first.

This often looks like choosing your battles - and they may be very different battles than a “regular” parent chooses. Therapeutic parenting requires you to really understand what rules and boundaries you’re setting, and why, and what you’re willing to do to enforce them. If a kid gets so angry around food and dinnertime that they keep stabbing forks into your wooden dining table, maybe just get plastic silverware for the time being, or get a cheap Goodwill table, so you don’t have to worry about managing that behavior. The more breaks you give your youth, the more breaks you give yourself. The fewer battles you pick, the more energy you have to pick the really important ones. Karyn Purvis talks about “filling the yes tank” - saying “yes” as often as possible, unless you really have a good reason not to.

All of this requires you to be trained and trauma informed. Therapeutic parenting is not “common sense,” it’s not “just do what your parents did,” it’s not even “how I raised my biological kids who came out fine. Therapeutic parenting requires an understanding of how trauma impacts the brain and body, and using evidence-based, goal-oriented strategies to respond to the youth’s needs. There’s a lot of creativity and flexibility and improvisation, but it has to be driven by a background awareness of what you’re trying to do, and why, and how. 

This ran long, so I’ll wrap it up here - if you have more questions about specific aspects of therapeutic parenting, please let me know!

[lilydodge]

What are some good/bad portrayals of foster care in movies or tv?

This is part of a series for Foster Care Awareness Month, where I answer questions submitted via facebook or tumblr about my work as a therapeutic foster parent. Ask your own question here!

It’s honestly hard to come up with “good examples” - it’s really common to see foster care and adoption, as well as related issues like CPS and child abuse, used as punchlines. I wince now when a TV show has a one-liner about a character “having their kids taken away” that’s mocking or punches down - and it’s more common than you’d think. We’re coming around to realizing that certain types of humor, like racist and sexist humor, isn’t okay - but vulnerable youth are still not recognized as a marginalized group to be taken seriously. (For example, The Office and Silicon Valley both use a character’s traumatic childhood, including references to foster care, as a running gag.)

One good example I’ve seen is the movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Not because it’s “realistic” - it glosses over a lot of the bureaucratic reality of the foster care system - but it’s not a documentary, so that’s not a criticism. At its heart, it captures some really powerful truths about foster care. The fact that youth are often placed with foster parents who don’t entirely understand their complex needs; the fact that all foster youth are individuals who need and deserve to be understood and loved for who they are; the way that youth in care can be quite “old” and quite “young” for their age simultaneously; the fact that bonds between youth and adults are critically important but often don’t look like we expect. 

There are two moments in that film that really ring true to my experiences with foster care. Early in the movie, the social worker is telling the potential foster parents about Ricky, the young teen in foster care. She calls him “a real bad egg,” and lists some of his “behaviors.” While she’s talking, her voice is overlaid with video of the actual “behaviors.” She says “loitering,” and he’s just standing outside. She says “kicking stuff,” and he’s absentmindedly kicking at garbage on the street. Things like that. You can actually see this bit in the trailer. And this is SO TRUE. Youth in care are so pathologized and criminalized, their behavior is judged through a very negative lens, and they’re often blamed, shamed, punished, or even arrested for behavior that was understandable, provoked, necessary for survival, or just something minor that another youth would be supported through. 

Later in the movie, Ricky spouts off some very insightful “psycho-babble” in response to another character, despite the fact that he’s never displayed much interest or skills in therapeutic dialogue. These youth are often shuttled through lots of treatment programs, interventions, and even institutions, and they learn the lingo incredibly well. They’re very familiar with the ins and outs of the family law system, they will identify “maladaptive coping mechanisms” in the same deadpan they point out a poster for a movie they want to see, and they can tell you which juvenile facilities in the area serve the best pizza. Their experience leads to a sort of precociousness about the entire world of trauma treatment and foster care. 

It’s not technically about foster care, but I’d like to plug an honorable mention for Steven Universe, which does a great job depicting non-traditional families and parent/child relationships that don’t involve the parent living with or raising the child. Conflicts arise between the people raising Steven and his dad, and we see that everyone wants the best for Steven and is just working out their own issues. We also see Steven missing his mom without this changing or challenging his love for the people who are raising him, and we see Steven worrying about presenting his non-traditional family to a more traditional family. It also has an amazing portrayal of anxiety and mindfulness (Here Comes A Thought), and of the multifaceted impacts of trauma (in particular, Lapis’s storyline, as well as Pearl’s). 

Two shows that stand out in my mind as being terrible in this regard are Brooklyn-99 and Superstore. Now, I love Brooklyn-99, and in fact have watched it with one of my youth, who really relates to the main character - it deals with father/son trauma and complex families really well -  and he responds incredibly well to the show’s warmth and humanity. It’s been an amazing way for us to bond, and I consider the show a good tool in my “therapeutic parent” toolbox. But whenever it veers into this territory specifically, it fails. 

Brooklyn-99 does a lot of great work when talking about race, gender, gun violence, and other issues - but it whiffs every single time foster care, adoption, or child abuse is mentioned. The show makes light of child sexual abuse (mostly in veiled references to a boy scout camp leader or something like that), and a prison storyline made numerous jokes about a child predator. Charles Boyle adopts internationally, and the episode that centers around his son’s family of origin is a cringe-inducing 22 minutes of Problematic International Adoption Tropes. (Modern Family doesn’t do great with this as well, but its jokes are typically more ‘tone deaf’ than ‘offensive.’)

In Superstore, one of the main characters, Glenn, is an evangelical Christian who fosters, and the show addresses that in multiple episodes. Terribly. At one point, Glenn expresses interest in adopting an infant, referring to his foster youth as being like “dinged up” used cars. Another episode makes light of the fact that some of his foster youth are in jail, and also includes an example of “attachment therapy” where Glenn publicly shames the child, ignores him, and snaps at him. I was frankly amazed that there was someone out there who managed to know enough about “attachment therapy” to include it in an episode about foster youth, but not enough to try and represent it appropriately.

Those are the ones that come to mind right now. I haven’t seen Shazam, which I know centers on foster youth, but one of my youth did see it, and he enjoyed it. I also know that This Is Us and Parenthood tackle foster parenting, but I don’t tend to watch that sort of TV. I didn’t see Instant Family because one of the foster parenting groups I’m in was helping former foster youth organize a boycott of the movie. And very few foster parents who I respect like the movie The Blind Side. 

[lilydodge]

What defines a successful foster placement?

This is part of a series for Foster Care Awareness Month, where I answer questions submitted via facebook or tumblr about my work as a therapeutic foster parent. Ask your own question here!

There is no one answer to this question, and probably different people would answer it differently. I would say that a successful foster placement does most, if not all, of the following things:

1.) Does not contribute further to the youth’s and family’s traumas. The removal of a youth is traumatic, period. There is nothing the foster family can do to change the fact that their very presence in the youth’s and family’s world is part of a greater trauma. But they can keep from exacerbating the issue by not doing things to deepen the trauma. 

2.) Contributes to the healing process of the youth and family. My first point is pretty sad to have to write out, since “don’t further harm the child and family” should not be a high bar to clear, and it shouldn’t need writing out, but it does. An even more successful foster placement will go further than “do no harm” and will actively help the youth and family gain allies, build trust, and develop skills.

3.) Takes the youth’s well-being as the utmost goal. It is almost always better for a youth to have some continuing connection with their family of origin. Is it a pain in the ass to drive them for an hour every Tuesday and Thursday to see their sibling? Is it uncomfortable to try and coordinate with family members who may have different cultural backgrounds or communication styles than you? Too bad! A successful foster placement means the youth gets what they need to thrive, and that often means placing the foster parent’s comfort, desires, or preferences on the back burner. 

I’d say that ultimately, a successful foster placement is one that solves more problems than it creates, and leaves everyone in a better place than they were when the placement started. The lowest standard, again, is “a child is more safe than they were before.” But there are way more markers of success. Perhaps the family of origin has a new advocate or is connected to new supportive resources, and is now better able to parent the youth. Perhaps the youth has a healing experience of unconditional acceptance and love despite challenging behaviors. Perhaps the youth gains a new connection with a loving adult role model. A foster placement can’t, and shouldn’t be expected to, solve every problem that a youth or family has. But it can be part of a longer process oriented toward healing. 

[lilydodge]

May is Foster Care Awareness Month!

So I’m answering questions solicited from my friends on facebook, as well as questions submitted here, about my experience as a therapeutic foster parent! Ask away!

[lilydodge]

How common is it for kids in foster care to be adopted? Is that many foster parents’ goal?

This is part of a series for Foster Care Awareness Month, where I answer questions submitted via facebook or tumblr about my work as a therapeutic foster parent. Ask your own question here!

When I did my training, they told us that for about 50% of youth, reunification with family was the goal. According to the National Council for Adoption:

For 58% of the children in care, [the] case plan goal is to reunify them with their biological parents or place them in the care of a relative. But for 26% of cases, parental rights have been terminated for one reason or another and the end goal is for the child to be adopted by a new family.

(The other 16% will probably age out of foster care.) So to answer your first question, it’s not uncommon.

To answer your second question: yes, it is many foster parents’ goal. But it really shouldn’t be. Here is a great blog post about how “foster to adopt” is a warped concept. I’ve personally witnessed some tragic fallout from this type of foster care. Problems with “foster-to-adopt” can include:

A situation where a family only wants to foster very young, very healthy babies, and so older foster youth, or foster youth with physical or emotional needs who need homes do not get the resources they need and deserve. This also causes younger siblings to be separated from older siblings because the family is only interested in infants and not willing to consider adopting an older child. 

A situation where a family is “looking for the right child to join their family,” and so they request the removal of a child from their home after any behavioral challenge or conflict. 

A situation where the foster/adoptive family wants to pretend that the child was “always” theirs and attempts to erase or downplay the child’s cultural and biological history. In these cases, the family may downplay or ignore cultural markers from the community of origin (including changing the child’s name), refuse to provide the youth with appropriate cultural and familial information, provide a warped narrative about the family of origin, and resist connections with safe members of the family of origin. This is incredibly damaging for youth.

A situation where a foster family sees the family of origin as their adversary rather than their partner, and pushes aggressively for adoption using various levers of privilege. If a family fosters an infant, and then the parents spend a year working hard to regain custody, the child is by then a year old, and the foster family may then claim that “this is the only family the child has ever known” and hire lawyers and therapeutic professionals to argue their case. Typically, foster families have more resources to allow them to navigate the family law system, and if adoption was always their goal, they end up working against re-unification no matter what. 

It is sometimes the case that youth cannot return safely to their families of origin, and I’m not claiming that reunification should be the goal in 100% of cases. However, our system does a terrible job of giving foster and “foster-to-adopt” parents the benefit of the doubt while making it very difficult for families of origin to get what they need. Foster parents are provided stipends from the government, and plenty of other services, to help care for foster youth - but the family of origin is not provided the same resources! 

Poverty is often equated with abuse or neglect, and it can be easy to argue that “the child is better off” with a wealthier foster family who can provide certain resources than with a parent whose housing or income isn’t stable. But our legal system should not be in the business of choosing parents or reassigning children based on privilege. Simply being poor is not a crime, and we should not punish poor families by removing their children permanently. Poverty is not abuse. Abuse is abuse.

Severing a parent’s legal and societal ties to a child is incredibly serious and should be reserved for cases where the parent is deeply unsafe and unfit to care for the child. It should be done with care, recognizing the incredible string of tragedies and traumas that created such a heartbreaking situation, where a child and parent are permanently separated. It should never be a goal from the start or something to be hoped or worked for - it should be a worst-case, last-option scenario.

[lilydodge]

the trauma epidemic & the crisis at the border: what you can - no, NEED - to do

Immediate places to donate/volunteer

RAICES

Border Angels

Texas Civil Rights Project

South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project

Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Services

The Young Center

The Florence Project

Our country is currently in the business of traumatizing children and families at an alarming rate. What can we as individuals do about it?

GET TRAUMA INFORMED.

People often say that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail - but after 2 years of training, studying, and living this reality, I’m pretty confident in saying that addressing trauma can go far toward addressing a whole host of other problems that we often see as discrete.

Some facts about trauma

First: we need to take trauma seriously. Trauma is an experience outside the scope of normal brain development. Too often, we dismiss survivors by saying that what they experienced was not that bad, or that other people have it worse, or that “bad stuff happens to everyone.”

At the same time, trauma is everywhere. I must confess that when I first entered this world, I would hear stories and think they must be outliers. Sure, stuff like that happened, but incredibly rarely. How many people are really living through some kind of Lifetime movie hellhole as kids? The answer is far too many. So while trauma is “not normal” based on healthy brain development, it is all too normal based on our existing culture. It’s not just the handful of people writing memoirs about lurid abuse or on the news being rescued from torture - it’s people you know. Lots of homes, childhoods, and adults hide incredibly damaging trauma.

So when I say “trauma” in this piece, please know that I mean both intense experiences of fear, pain, humiliation, etc. that do lasting damage AND very common experiences that many people - more than you might guess, if you’re not one of them - endure.

Second: trauma changes the brain. Trauma does lasting neurological damage and can impact someone’s functioning long after the trauma takes place. And this impact is incredibly wide-ranging. Just a sampling of things trauma can leads to: difficulty in relationships, trouble focusing in school, substance abuse, trouble sleeping, disordered eating, low self-esteem, poor impulse control, depression, dissociation, identity disturbance.

Specific discussions of childhood trauma relevant to this crisis:

Nazis separated me from my parents as a child - it caused permanent damage

A pediatric doctor on the trauma caused by this administration’s policies

The toxic stressed caused by family separation

Kids can suffer permanent damage from border separations

Third: Trauma begets trauma. The symptoms of trauma put individuals with trauma at risk for more trauma.

Consider the young man who is sexually abused as a child. The trauma sets his brain into fight-or-flight mode so constantly that he simply cannot focus in school. His shame at not knowing what’s going on around him in the classroom causes him to act out. He gets in trouble at school, which stacks onto the previous trauma, making him feel that no adults and no situations are ever safe. He acts out because he feels ashamed and afraid, and the consequences are that he is made to feel more ashamed and more afraid, so the problem is never solved. He ends up in a classroom with other students who act out, and frequent violent behavior from his classmates stacks more trauma. He drops out of school. Police approach him for loitering, and since he is so triggered by aggressive authoritarian figures and never learned healthy impulse control, he lashes out and is violently arrested and charged with assaulting an officer. Another trauma. He ends up incarcerated, which is an environment seemingly designed to do nothing but deepen existing traumas and cause more trauma.

Consider the young woman who is raised by a mother with untreated mental illness and her own traula. Her mother is distant and neglectful. When she as a young child cries for her mother, no comfort comes. Sometimes mom is playful and attentive; sometimes she is entirely absent. Adults are unstable and frightening. Her brain learns early on that she’s on her own and that others cannot be trusted. As a young woman, she acts “manipulative” and “codependent” - survival mechanisms learned by her trauma. Adults at school and in her family shame and scold her for this, and she has volatile relationships with peers and adults. She seeks sexual attention from older men, since this seems like a way to gain security and a stable relationship. Some of these men are abusive - more trauma. She gets pregnant at a young age. Because of her trauma behaviors and fear of abandonment, she and the child’s father fight loudly and sometimes violently. This traumatizes the child, who becomes whiny and “difficult”. She, never having learned how to parent in a healthy way, grows distant from the child. And the cycle continues.

Fourth: trauma can be healed, but it takes time and effort. None of what I described above is a life sentence. It does not make people unable to function, or impossible to have a healthy relationship. But it does not heal on its own. It takes therapeutic expertise and an environment that can re-teach the brain how to feel safe.

Right now, there are not enough institutions and individuals that are trauma-informed. Schools, rehab centers, jails, prisons, courts, libraries, churches, hospitals, families - we all need to get our act together and work to understand, treat, and prevent trauma. Because I truly believe that trauma is at the root of most of our social ills, from failing schools to addiction epidemics to police brutality. And if we can get all hands on deck to prevent and treat trauma, we can stop the cycle for an entire generation.

ACTIONABLE STEPS YOU CAN TAKE:

Take trauma seriously. If you joke about “triggers” or “daddy issues;” if you think people need to “just get over it” or “be less sensitive;” if you don’t believe survivors, you are part of the problem. If you “refuse to accept excuses” when someone’s behavior is difficult or troubling, because they are struggling to control feelings or impulses due to trauma, you are part of the problem.

Get informed. Read The Body Keeps The Score, The Connected Child, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, and anything else you can get your hands on about how trauma works and how it can be addressed. Lots of trauma survivors keep blogs where you can read about their daily struggles and what helps and doesn’t.

Work on your own trauma. You can make sure the cycle ends with you. If you have the resources, see a trauma-informed therapist. Check out workbooks, online communities, and any other resources that can help.

Vote in people who take this seriously. Police violence, prison abuses, under-funded social programs - these all contribute to the epidemic of trauma we’re facing. Trauma is a political issue. Vote.

Be a village parent. If your cousin is spanking their kids, say something. If your spouse teases your son for crying, put a stop to it. If you’re not teaching your children healthy ways of handling their emotions and relationships, start doing that. Now. If you don’t know how, learn. Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn is a great place to start.

Advocate and educate. Do you have kids? Is their school or daycare trauma-informed? Advocate for a classroom management and discipline solution that is trauma informed. Is your workplace trauma-informed? Your church? Your local library? Set up panels and workshops in your community where people can learn about trauma. If one book particularly helped you, order extra copies and hand them out.

Get your boots on the ground. The world needs more trauma-informed people who put their skills into action. Volunteer with young people who are at-risk. Become a classroom teacher. Or a foster parent. Or a lawyer. Go into jails, group homes, shelters, rehabs.

Get. Your. Boots. On. The. Ground.

I’m dead serious about this. The constant cycle of trauma in our world is an absolute crisis. A crisis that is calling out to us to upend our careers, our homes, and our lives. A woman fleeing a domestic violence situation needs somewhere to stay where the people around her are trauma-informed and can help her heal instead of stacking the trauma. A man with an addiction problem that’s numbing years of untreated trauma needs a trauma-informed recovery environment. A 6 year old with violent symptoms of abuse needs a trauma-informed foster family, not a situation where adults attempt to control and discipline him out of the behaviors. Can you provide any of those? Can you support people who are trying to provide those?

The world needs more trauma-informed, therapeutic environments. Learn how to provide one, then do it. Open your home. Open your life. Open your budget. Open your career. It will be messy and difficult and inconvenient. Do it anyway.

Ask yourself: what’s really stopping me from using my time and skills to heal cycles of trauma? And how can I get around that obstacle? Self-work? Therapy? Training and workshops? Changing how you spend your free time? Budgeting? A career change? This is critical. Find a way to get involved.

This is true regardless, but since we as a nation are now causing this sort of trauma to thousands more children at an alarming rate, it’s more pressing than ever. Counseling services, therapeutic families, and other programs intended to help kids with trauma are already under-funded and over-taxed. While it’s critical to stop traumatizing kids at the border ASAP, the fact remains that at the time of this writing, we already have over 2,000 children who are going to grow up needing trauma-informed schools, communities, churches, doctors, families, police, teachers and courts. This problem is only growing and it’s critical that we all start working to shrink it. Now. 

[lilydodge]

What to say to foster parents

My last post was things NOT to say to foster parents; here’s a more upbeat one. 

They’re an amazing kid! My kiddo is amazing. Hilarious, sweet, creative, brilliant, and charming. It’s easy to focus on the challenges, but foster kids and foster parents alike need heaps of praise. Bring it on.

I see progress in [specific situation].  We get caught in the daily grind, and an external perspective can be so helpful. Point out little victories that we may have missed. Share examples of positives you’ve witnessed. Help us practice joy, presence, and mindfulness. 

What do you need from Target? What do you need from the grocery store? What do you need done around the house? When do you need a babysitter? Just “what do you need” isn’t enough. It can be hard to reach out and ask for help with specifics - it feels like you’re making demands, and that’s a gross feeling with friends. Even to people who’ve said “just let me know what you need” or “I’m here for you.” Be as specific as possible. Come over and help clean the kitchen. Bring over a gallon of milk. Take that art to the store to get framed (and other nearly impossible-with-challenging-kids errands). What do we call you? Don’t assume that we’ll go by “mom” or “dad” with our foster kid, or that it’s appropriate to use our first name. Every kid is different, comes from a different cultural background, and has different needs. Checking in about the language we use is really helpful!

Here is $20! I’m mostly kidding with this one, but man, kids are expensive! Having some extra cash around for when they accidentally-on-purpose trash their school sweatshirt, when the school needs field trip money, when their treatment team suggests a new supplement, when therapy runs over time and costs extra...it adds up! If you’re able, send some $ by way of a foster family you know.

What candidates/policies do you support? Foster care is an intensely political issue. Everything from school leadership to prison reform to healthcare to drug laws to immigration policy impacts foster families. Get educated & active in your area and use your vote to stand up for these kids and families who need far more support and resources. How can I look into fostering? One thing that has amazed me is just how...easy this all has been. Don’t get me wrong - it’s full of challenges! - but they’re all manageable. I did this with no parenting experience, no live-in partner, no property ownership, in my mid-20s. And it works! For some people, fostering isn’t a wise or healthy option, and that’s fine. But I think it’s more of a doable possibility than people realize!

[lilydodge]

What NOT to say to foster parents

so I’ve decided to compile a non-exhaustive list of things NOT to say to foster parents! these are all things people have said to me; I didn’t make any up to extend this post.

What happened to them/Why are they in foster care? Bad stuff. Bad stuff happened. If a kid is in foster care, it’s because bad stuff happened. The details are not your business. 

Were they born addicted to drugs? For some reason, people ask me this all the time. Too much media coverage about this particular issue, I suppose. This is not your business.

Are you going to adopt them?/You should adopt them! This is not your business and is usually a very sensitive and painful subject for both the foster parent and the child.

Sometimes I wish I could give my kids away!/Do you want to take my kids? We get it, kids are annoying and difficult sometimes. Parental commiseration is necessary. But don’t joke about the serious pain and grief that comes with kids losing their families and families losing their kids.

They look just like you/you could really be related! I suspect people say this as a sort of compliment, but it risks sending the message that genetic ties are what really make a family. It’s just sort of icky.

Where/how did you get them? I’m happy to answer questions about the foster care system and process; but let’s not phrase it as if there’s a ‘kid store’ I went to and picked one up.

They are so lucky to have you! No, no they are not. A kid is with me because they are in foster care. A kid is in foster care because bad stuff happened. Placement with me only comes after serious trauma and loss. I am the last, worst option.

They get to do things with you that they wouldn’t otherwise - what an amazing opportunity! Foster care is not a summer exchange program. Being able to go to Disneyland is not better than being with your family. A savior complex feels good to indulge, but it’s not healthy for either party.

I do something similar - I rescue/foster/adopt/volunteer with animals! Rescuing, fostering, and adopting animals that need homes is an awesome thing to do, but it’s insulting and disrespectful to compare it to foster care. These kids are not shelter dogs being “rescued,” and they need their humanity, trauma symptoms, and connections to first families to be honored in all their complexities. Please, definitely show me your rescue cat, or tell me about your foster puppies! But don’t talk like it’s the same thing.

You should try [whatever thing you’re selling/your homeopath swears by]! It takes months of meetings and paperwork to get medication or supplements approved, and we do that with thoughtfulness and intentionality. This is a tricky one, because I find some recommendations really helpful. If you’re a trauma survivor or you work with kids with similar struggles, by all means, suggest a book, or a therapeutic intervention to look into. But don’t try and push whatever capsule or bracelet you swear will "fix” my kid. Cure-alls minimize the issues my child and I are facing, and you are not an expert.

[lilydodge]

2017 by ABCs: K-N

K is for Kindness. I was shown immense kindness in 2017, to the degree that I tear up when I think about the magnitude of what I have been blessed with. The people in my life showed up for me in incredible ways this year. I got help with the move - hauling garbage, building IKEA furniture, affording furnishing. I got help late at night when Kiddo was escalating and I needed support. I got stuff from my Amazon wishlist. I got infinite patience when I dropped out of touch, let myself get into a snappy mood, or was otherwise not my best self. I got groceries delivered and papers printed and electric guitars donated and hours on hours of tech support for Kiddo’s computer and game consoles. I cannot speak loudly or powerfully enough about the love and generosity I’ve been shown this year.

L is for Loyalty. It’s not something I’ve thought much about for most of my life - I’ve never been part of a group or organization that explicitly elevates loyalty. Commitment, sure; community, sure - but loyalty as a specific concept, with all its connotations and contexts, hasn’t really felt relevant. It sure does now. The word itself has been showing up more in my life toward the end of this year and I’m realizing that I’m now ready to think about it in my own life. I’ve been awed at the loyalty I’ve been shown by the people in my life who stick with me and show up no matter what. I now have a child and an organization to be loyal to, not to mention my people. As Janet from The Good Place put it, I’ve initiated a ride or die protocol.

M is for Mental Health. 2017 was the year I truly turned a new corner with my mental health. On the one hand, this is incredible - I am healthier than I’ve ever been, which is so joyful and liberating and just so, so good. On the other hand, when illness shrinks, it leaves a lot of uncomfortable space. Now that “managing” is no longer my core priority, what is? Fighting to make it from “sick” to “well” provided a lot of structure and meaning that I actually missed once I got what I was fighting for all along, and it was a gross, ungrateful feeling to realize that! I had to change how I related to my core identity and my sense of my future. And then there’s the “plateau” you hit after lots of steady improvement, which can be frustrating and confusing. I’m walking new terrain, but it’s a place I worked hard to get to, so the challenges that come with unfamiliarity are something I’m trying to embrace rather than resent.

N is for Nature. In a year when I felt like many pieces of my life were falling into place, the one area I still feel unbalanced in is access to the outdoors. I have frequent dreams about the hot springs my family spent summers at, and I desperately miss it. The few camping and hiking trips of 2017 stand out as major highlights, but I really wish that I’d had even more opportunities to spend time on rocks, in water, and under the sun. It’s even tougher to make things happen with a kiddo on board, but one goal I have for 2018 is to find more time and make more space for nature.

[lilydodge]

2017 by ABCs: F-J

F is for Fostering! It was the primary focus of my life in 2017, even though I wasn’t placed with my first kid until late September. I moved to a new apartment and set it up for me and my future foster kiddo. I re-oriented my work and social life to make fostering a priority. I took classes, read books, attended meet-ups, and joined online forums. And now I get to apply all that knowledge, plus a ton of on-the-fly creativity, to this incredible project.

G is for Gchat (also known as Google Hangouts). It’s been my primary choice of messaging app since 2012, when I was a teacher. It’s become obvious to me over the past year or so that my continued intimacy with people I no longer live near is directly correlated to their willingness to use Google Hangouts over texting, Facebook Messenger, or other apps. This scares and bothers me, partly because there are people I’m no longer close to who I miss desperately and wonder whether things would be different if I’d realized this sooner, and partly because I don’t like seeing private technology companies have such an influence on this very personal, very human aspect of my life. At the same time, the friendships I have maintained - and forged - over Google Hangouts continue to be life-sustaining.

H is for Here on Purpose. Every summer I take my youth group kids on a service project through a really cool program called SSP. It’s usually a highlight of my year, but this year was pretty rough, for a number of reasons. I realized on the second or third day that my mindset had gotten twisted - I was thinking and acting as if SSP was something happening to me; something I had to endure. It wasn’t! It was a choice I had made, an action I was taking. I wasn’t there by accident. My mantra for that week became: I am here on purpose. That’s been something I remind myself constantly these days. This thing right in front of me, whatever it is, is part of my life, something I want to actively engage in rather than try to numb or wait out.

I is for Improv. I love anything that requires quick, creative, on-the-spot thinking. In high school speech & debate, my main competitive event was impromptu speaking. I started the year deep in a D&D game with an entire universe I was spinning up from scratch, including a magic system with its own set of rules. And I ended the year deep in the project of therapeutic parenting, which takes the philosophy of “yes, and” to a whole new level and keeps me on my toes, always engaged, never bored.

J is for Jewelry and Jackets. I switched to a “capsule wardrobe” around the end of 2016 and it has been a huge positive in 2017. I invested in a bunch of well-fitting t-shirts with designs I like, and a drawer’s worth of well-fitting jeans, and got rid of everything else. Everything is simpler - from shopping to laundry to getting dressed in the morning. And it’s given me a new appreciation for jewelry and jackets, the two parts of my wardrobe I get to play around with.

[lilydodge]

2017 by ABCs: A-E

Instead of sending out a holiday-season letter - because those take money and time I don’t have right now (see letter E) - I’ve decided to put together an overview of my past year in 26 letter-based installments. In the interest of not having an epically long blog post, I’ll post 4 or 5 letters at a time.

A is for Activism. The first month of 2017 saw me on a train ride into the city for the Women’s March. I struggled a lot this past year with wanting to do more and wanting to just curl up and hide. I did my best. I loved on the people in my life, I spoke up for inclusivity at work, I donated where I could. But I wanted to do more. I considered dropping out of my current life path and moving to Oakland to join the movement on the ground and do hands-on, direct-action, community work. Eventually I decided that the best way for me to serve the present and the future is to divert my resources toward raising and healing the next generation.

B is for Breaking Bread. When I moved, my weekly tradition of cooking house dinner for my friends moved as well. I missed the gigantic kitchen, with endless counter space and a gas stovetop, but I liked having my own space in which to host. Praxis House Dinner has become the fulcrum on which my week turns and a weekly institution among a small group of people, which makes me feel really proud and satisfied.

C is for Church. My church continues to be a major part of my life and a huge source of strength - but also a lot of struggle and confusion. 2017 was a year of me leaving the “honeymoon phase” with the church and denomination I settled on and got confirmed in a few years ago, and starting to wrestle with bigger questions and absences. I’ve had to think hard about what my church demands of me and what I demand of it, and what to do when those demands aren’t met. I’m holding on tight to Flannery O’Connor’s powerful quote: “The only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that on this we are fed. It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.”

D is for Dear Theodosia. I first heard the song when I went to see Hamilton live - I’d managed to avoid hearing any of the soundtrack until then. I was deep into my process to become a therapeutic foster parent, and it hit me harder than any piece of music that isn’t a Mountain Goats song ever has. I cried in the theatre. A lot. That song, about new parents wanting to be great to, and for, their children, became a bit of an anthem for me this year. The music of Hamilton was a lot of things for a lot of people in 2017, and I am one of those people.

E is for Exempt. 2017 was a year I gave myself permission to say no to things, to excuse myself from obligations, and to accept my limitations. I am a homebody, and it’s okay not to be up for late nights or weekly trips to the city. Even harder was letting go of my desire to head every committee and go for the gold when every opportunity presented itself - both at church and my workplace, it was a very strange, new feeling to watch things like women’s groups and anti-racist book clubs go by without my involvement. But I am working on curbing my my helium-hand syndrome and though it’s hard on my self image, it’s ultimately been a wise choice.

[lilydodge]

This is the text of the sermon I preached this morning, the 3rd Sunday of Advent - minus all of the ad-libbing I always do when I actually get up there. The readings from today can be found here.

Many of you know that I recently became a foster parent in a program called intensive therapeutic foster care. Kids in this program have very high needs, and because of this, I spent nearly a year getting in-depth training, taking classes and reading books about really cheery topics like abuse, trauma, and the child welfare system.

One theme that returns again and again, in all the books and workshops and everywhere else, is how deeply broken “the system” is. How institutional and intergenerational problems have stacked on each other for so long and in so many ways that there seem to be no solutions, that too often the “cure” is the “harm,” and that everyone participating in the system - even those trying to do right by the children and families - is complicit in perpetuating cycles of injustice.

This is not a secret, though it becomes more obvious the closer you get to the child welfare system. A number of people during my journey have asked me how I feel about being an active participant in a system that so often seems to create just as many problems as it solves. I’ve had to think hard about my answer, but I have come up with one I feel is accurate, if not totally comfortable. And the way I feel about my role in the child welfare system is very similar to the way I feel about being a Christian, especially during the Advent season.

Advent is about waiting on God - but not waiting passively, which is what it usually feels like when you’re waiting for someone else to get around to doing something they promised to do. Instead, it’s about being willing to engage in the discomfort and the uncertainty of living in a world full of complications, contradictions, and downright miseries. Today’s collection of Bible verses give us a pretty rich layering of what God asks of us during Advent, which feels to me like it could be described as “actively waiting.”

In Isaiah, the prophet speaks God’s promise to “cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations,” and today’s Psalm tells us that “Those who go out weeping, will come again with joy.” If we stop there, it sounds like today’s call is to sit back, rest in the knowledge that God will fix the brokenness of the world, and just wait it out. It’s a tempting indulgence, to paper over the pain of the present with faith in the future. Our job is to simply endure, to minimize current suffering, to shrug it off with a “it’s only temporary.”

But that isn’t what Advent calls us to do. Because today we also hear calls to action - even in the Isaiah passage, the subject changes midway through, and it is the people, not God, who are doing the repairing and the healing. Our New Testament passages ask more of us: to be sanctified, to rejoice, to test all things, and - one of my favorite images of the season - to “make straight the way of the Lord.”

This is the strange mystery of Advent - we are waiting for something that has already happened. We are eagerly anticipating a victory that has already been won. Because God has already aligned with the forces of righteousness. God has already claimed power over death and darkness. We know that, in the end, life and love and glory win. Those of us who believe in Christ know that this is the reality: that love wins. But those of us who live on earth know that while this may be a cosmic, Divine reality, it is not always our daily reality.

Our world is broken. We live surrounded by brokenness, by sin and sadness, by fear and trauma, by injustice and oppression. And it is immensely painful to be asked to participate in such a broken world. It feels easier at times to withdraw, to wrap myself up in God’s promises to come sweeping in on wings of glory and fix everything, and hide from the messiness and the complexity of the meantime.

Every day, I make painful choices - I serve my child fresh produce, knowing that his health is critical to his healing, but in doing so, I financially support agricultural corporations who exploit workers and the earth. I drive my child to school, supporting his education and spending quality time building our relationship, all the while burning fossil fuels and contributing to the destruction of our planet. In the very center is the most painful balance of all: I am raising someone else’s child, a situation in which my very presence represents a terrible injury to a family, a position so fraught and heartbreaking that I struggle every day to reconcile what I am trying to do with what I am complicit in.

And this is the paradox, the pain and the blessing of Advent. Advent calls us to recognize God’s promise of healing while also facing the wounds that makes such healing necessary. We celebrate the coming of Christ; we grieve the brokenness that he has come to redeem. The blessing is that God does not ask us to fix the world. Instead, God asks us to make straight a path for the coming of the Lord’s healing. God is here, working alongside us, present in the struggle, promising victory and life. If we make the way, God will walk down it. Today’s Thessalonians passages promises that “the one who calls us is faithful,” and will do what it takes to help us meet that call.

God does not promise that we can sit back and be rescued from the world - God promises that if we step into the mess and engage, that if we find crooked paths and work to straighten them, that if we fight for redemption and wholeness, that God will show up. Participating in the work of God is a blessing; but this requires that we also participate in the mess of the world.

This is the promise of Advent: God is coming. God is here. And we are both the recipients and the fulfilment of that promise. We do not sit back and wait for God to do something without us. God comes to us, for us, through us. For us, God is the way. For God, we are the way. God tells us: keep fighting. The victory is already ours.

We are in the center of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah as well, and being Jewish myself I of course have to draw that parallel as well. In the story of the Hanukkah miracle, the Jewish people are left - due to violence and oppression - without enough oil to keep the ner tamid, God’s eternal flame, lit for longer than a day. It would take 8 days for more oil to be pressed. But the people of the temple trusted in God. They lit the oil and held their breath for a miracle. And God showed up - as we all know, and the fire burned for 8 long days. This is what God asks of us - the terrifying faith it takes to spark a fire and set flame to something precious, to watch something burn in the hope that it will not blow out, that our spark will not be wasted, that in the burning, through the destruction, despite the scarcity and the brokenness, something even more wonderful will emerge. God asks that we light our flames and promises to keep them lit.

We are victory people, eternal flame people, resurrection people, Advent people - we are a people who can trust in the eternal and unfailing promise of a God who will always ensure that love conquers hate and freedom conquers oppression. But carrying the weight of that promise is not always easy. It forces us to look out into a world where love is still battling hate and to take our place in that struggle. Advent calls us to an active waiting - the knowledge that here, now, there is suffering; but our job is to bring a new reality into being by living it out; to trust so deeply in the promise of Christ that we contribute to its fruition; to light the oil even though we cannot see how it will last and fear the darkness when it goes; to pick up those heavy bricks and to get our hands dirty as we make straight the way of the Lord.