A post from Brian...
So, here's the deal. Julie has been bugging me for about...three months to write a blog post. My bad. I have written 1 (maybe 2) posts since she came up with the idea for both of us to share this blog. We all know how this turned out. It's a lot like when a kid says they want a puppy and will take care of it every single day for ever and ever and ever. :)
Julie writes all the time because it's a truly cathartic way for her to synthesize her feelings and get it out. For me, writing about all of these complex feelings about foster parenting highlights the pain, cements the tragedy, and forces me to commit to transparency. I don't always love being transparent about how much being a foster parent affects me because there aren't always times when I am able to reserve a piece of emotion during the week to revisit the pain when a friend asks about it.
So, here's an update about what being a foster dad is about. I have always loved being around kids and helping teach them how to love life, take risks, and build a curiosity that allows them to appreciate the smaller, amazing fingerprints of God and His creation. But, being a dad is an incredibly powerful, spiritual experience for me that is 1,000x what I was able to experience as an educator in the last 8 years of my life. I love being able to teach our Little Lady how to play lacrosse for the first time. I love creating a cowgirl Xbox avator with her and teaching her how to have healthy fun while playing Xbox Kinect (motion-sensor) fitness games games. I love seeing her face when we take her to a new or fancy restaurant. I love hearing her squeal when we take her somewhere special. I love reading her a Bible story every night. I love helping her practice conversations she can have with her friends so she can stand up for herself and demand respect from her peers at school or summer daycare. I love letting her choose what I cook for dinner. I love watching her and Julie act super girly. I love going on bike rides with her on the green belt. I love listening to her sing "It's a Hard Knock Life" from Annie. I love playing guitar for her while she sings (off-key) to her favorite songs. I love being a dad, and more than anything, I love being the dad that she never had before she came to live with us. I love that she now knows what the new bar is for who she should marry. I love that she knows there are guys like me out there, and my hope is that she never settles for anything less when she's older.
But, those of you that spend time with Julie and I already know how much fun we have with our Little Lady, how amazing it is to see her grow her horizons and experience new things that would never have been possible in her previous life. So, here's a more transparent update about what being a foster dad is all about:
It is freaking hard.
If I was the stereotypical foster parent on TV (or perhaps from your past experiences), I would say that being a foster parent is hard mostly because of all the constant documentation required for foster children: the four-page document the doctor or dentist is always required to fill out at each visit, the daily notes of the child's progress, the date/method/attendance of your monthly home fire drill, the academic portfolio (including tests and report cards), the list of all consequences (including date, description of incident, and length of consequence), request to the judge and/or CPS for every night you will not be staying in your home due to going out of town, the list of current dog vaccinations, proof that your vehicle is currently insured and up to date on inspection, and a running record of every single over-the-counter and prescription medicine administration given to the child (including dosage, name of medicine, and the chemical name of the active ingredient). Or, maybe the stereotypical foster parent would say that the most difficult part is the constant rearranging of your family's schedule to allow for tons of people to visit the child, especially right before a court date: her CPS case worker, our foster agency case worker, her attorney ad litem, her CASA advocate, parent visitation, etc...assuming those people don't change at least once). Or maybe, it's the smaller stuff like having to explain to a foster child why they can't play on trampolines when all their friends get to, or why we can invite her friend to our house for a sleepover but aren't allowed to let her stay at her friend's house for even a second without us being there, or why they can't go to the public restroom in the restaurant without one of us escorting her...even though it's only 20 feet away. Or, maybe a stereotypical parent would say the most difficult part of being a foster parent is trying to figure out how the heck to navigate the State's Medicare system (which is what the foster health care insurance is through in Texas).
But, I'm not a stereotypical foster parent. Being a foster dad is hard because I know that, at any given moment, she could/might/possibly/probably leave our home at any given moment. In the State of Texas (and all other states that I know of), the state always prioritizes kinship foster care (relatives of the foster child) over really high-quality foster parents that are unrelated. I definitely get it. It's important to make sure that the child has a connection to their biological family, somehow, in the event their parents' rights get terminated. But, I personally don't even think that approach is research-based. I hope I'm wrong, so if you know it is research-based, please let me know. It would make me feel a heck of a lot better about having her stay with someone from her extended family. But if not, that's a tough pill for me to swallow because I know that, if she were to stay with us forever, she would go to college, she would always have enough to eat, she would never have to wonder if we love her, etc. If she doesn't stay with us, then all bets are off.
I get it, we signed up for this whole thing knowing that there's a chance that she would leave us to live with family. Remind me the next time I see a Purple Heart recipient to say, "Yeah, bummer. But remember, didn't you know there would be a chance you would step on an IED and lose a leg when you signed up for the Army?" Or, the next time I talk to someone who has had a miscarriage, "You knew that there was a chance that each pregnancy could statistically end in miscarriage, right?" I know it's not fair for me to compare our situation to those terrible tragedies that lots of soldiers and couples go through, but the point is that it is not normal for a foster parent to have to experience this angst of the unknown...yet every foster parent experiences it every day.
It's pretty typical for someone to tell me, "Well, I couldn't be a foster parent because I would get too attached and become devastated once the child was removed from my home."
Yeah.
Me, too.
But, what's the alternative? Not get attached and become indifferent when the child leaves the home? How messed up is this?! Is that the kind of foster parents we want? How much more damaging is it to a foster child to go through that indifference?
So, I hardly write because that feeling of impending devastation is always on my mind. Every day, I think, "Today, will I get the call to find out that she's leaving us?" I think about it when I'm shaving in front of the mirror at 6:00 a.m. I think about it when I'm at the grocery store. I think about it when she's giggling on a bike ride with me at the park. I think about on my daily 30-minute commute on the turnpike. And worse, I think about it every time my head hits the pillow. It's literally the first thing on my mind at the beginning of the day and the last thing on my mind at the end of the day. It's almost like I'm in a constant state of high alert, like a soldier walking through a sniper clearing or how you would walk through a dark alley in Deep Ellum at 1:00 a.m. for a half mile because you were too cheap to spend $10 on safe parking.
And it's exhausting. It's exhausting to be internalizing all of this while simultaneously laughing and playing Barbies & Commandos with her. It's exhausting to keep this all inside of me while in front of my friends and family or staff so I'm not the buzz kill every time I walk into the room. It's also exhausting for my friends and family when I'm transparent with them for a few moments about what's really going on in my mind and my heart.
That's why it's hard for me to write posts. If I have 30-60 minutes on my hand, I usually don't think, "Well, congrats. You have some free time. You should take some time to really think about how unnatural it feels to devote every ounce of your soul to love a child that would leave your home in a second if given the opportunity and will likely receive a court order to do so in the near future. You know all of those really private emotional and spiritual challenges that being a foster parent seems to create? You should tell the world about those private challenges." Instead, I usually usually cry at least once a week with or next to Julie about how hard it will be for my wife and me to heal if that cute seven-year-old leaves us, how hard it is to be foster parents, or about her really messed up situation.
I'm going to commit to writing on this blog more than once every three months. If nothing else, it's because I know there is a huge shortage of online foster blogs from the father's perspective. It's also because I hope that, if I can get it down on paper, maybe my heart will have a chance to heal. I need to be up front and say that, in order for this to work for me, I need to be gritty honest, more blunt, and possibly more "ugly-real" here on this blog than I would ever be in person. So, you've been warned.
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About Us:
We began our foster journey in mid-August 2013. We finished our classes in October, had our home study in early January, and we were licensed on February 7, 2014. After seven calls from CPS, we received our first placement, a 7-year-old girl (our Little Lady, or LL for short) on April 3, 2014. Thank you so much for taking the time to read about our journey through the craziness that is foster care. Most importantly, thanks for your prayers, love, and support. We hope to encourage fellow foster/adoptive parents as we document our ups and downs each day.
Key Posts:
LL...if you just stumbled upon this blog and you're freaking out because you see pictures of yourself, please START HERE.
