Tag: Obligations

Foster Care Nightmares

Last month, a foster mother’s foster son #1 moved across the country to be with his aunt. This is the way foster care is supposed to work. She also has a foster daughter who is age 6 and has two brothers in another foster home. The foster home once had all 3 kids but kicked the girl out after a few days. She had been told that the girl’s brothers couldn’t come and be with their sister until the other foster son #1 reunified, even though the woman is approved to house 4 children.

Once he reunified, she started pushing super hard to get the girl’s brothers brought there, so that the siblings could be back together, something the county seems against, despite court orders.

They had an overnight visit with the girl’s brothers on 9.24.22. At the same time that was going on, she got a call from foster son #1’s aunt, saying she wants to send him back to them after only having him for one month. Understandably, the foster mother is at a loss to understand the whole situation. Of course, she had told the aunt he would always have a home there and that the aunt doesn’t have to make that decision so quickly. Yet, the mother worried about his safety, if the aunt was that desperate to have him moved.

Her perspective is that she does have obligations to ALL 4 children. She wonders if the Dept of Child and Family Services will cooperate with all of these needs. She doesn’t want foster son #1 to have to move to yet another foster family and she is still committed to reunifying the other 3 siblings under one roof. She doesn’t want to have to choose which kids get more trauma heaped onto their lives ? She says – It’s so effed up how people discard children like they’re nothing.

Story Updated – The aunt called and demanded that foster son #1 be removed from her home immediately. So, the social worker flew out to get him. The foster mother doesn’t know what happened or even if the aunt is interested in maintaining any kind of relationship with him now that he’s back with her. Of course, this is heartbreaking all around. The foster mother is working with an attorney and he seems to agree with her that the brothers should be placed with their sister. But the social worker is definitely against it. so, this is still an unfolding story.

Your Trauma Is Not Mine

Came across this interesting discussion between two adoptees –

I am having to confront my own biological son about this very thing – how people dismiss your adoptee voice by telling you – you need healing. It is almost useless because he does not understand being adopted or that he is the first person in my life I am biologically related to. He keeps telling me to lose my EGO, when he has no idea I barely have one….He is on some spiritual trip about losing one’s EGO, which I was on in my 20’s and 30’s as I searched for my own biological mom at a time when adoption records were closed. I was on the street and reading and exploring every religion I could find to help me find her. I was channeling her through my art without knowing it and after finding her had a telepathic connection with her. I am, for once, fighting back at his total ignorance but worry I may lose him because he does not want to understand my traumas. He thinks his are worse than mine and that is just not true. I never thought this would happen to me. How in the world can he give me a choice like change or he will abandon me. I don’t get it…..

Here was the response from another adoptee –

I am sorry you are in strife with your son. The only thought I have around that is this….as his parent he has no obligation to understand your traumas, nor would he have the context to understand them. I would go a little more grey rock with him and try to take the emotionality out of it. Sometimes we just have to be a container for our kid’s emotions, even when they don’t feel good or seem to be directed at us. I try to look at it his way…when I was in my teens and 20s and had literally no idea what was up and what was down….what do I wish my parents had done for me? My adoptive mom got into push and pull with me and it was no good at all. My kids are all teens now and I need people that aren’t ME and therefore not in the experiencing of the thing to remind me ALL THE TIME about this. So I hope my unsolicited advice doesn’t offend ❤️. Just speaking from one adoptee mom to another.