Other People's Kids

Self Doubt

Since we started out on the road to fostering, I've found myself growing more and more acutely aware of children. Children in the neighborhood, children on television, coworkers' kids who sometimes show up in the office, and so on.

I've also become far more acutely aware of how people treat their kids. It never ceases to amaze me when I see parents who are lucky enough to have their own child, or two, or however many, and they consistently treat these children with the same attitude I might have toward my car. It's a good car, sure, but it's nothing special, and I don't really have to think about it much unless it's acting up. People who treat their kids like that just have no idea how lucky they are, and I wish it was my place to slap them across the face just to make them wake up and understand that in 15 or 20 years, they'll sorely wish to have these days back.

Thinking about all this, I also have a lot of doubts about my ability to help kids that have gotten off the right track. I've never had kids. Who am I to give direction to someone else's child? Why should I even be interested in trying? I don't know the answers to these questions yet, and I'm 100% positive they will be hurled at me (along with some really juicy invectives) by angry parents who have had their children removed from the home and are looking for someone to vent on. The foster parents always make an appealing target.

But I know I do have some ability. Today a neighbor lady came over to visit with her child and their dog. She's a nice enough lady...I've only met her once or twice before, though The Wife sees her regularly lately for coffee and visiting. I was sitting in the living room and the little boy, perhaps 5 or 6, came in and asked me if it was okay to play with the dogs. I decided this was a chance to see if I could still relate to someone his age, so I told him sure, that would be okay, just be careful of the new puppy since he gets overexcited sometimes.

I then told him he should be careful with Tasha, as she is friendly but much older and can't play as hard. He went through a litany of questions about whether the dogs' bones were real bones or fake, how we got those dogs, and a bunch of others. We went outside, and while playing he found a screw in the grass left over from when we installed raingutters and brought it to me. I thanked him and told him to bring me any others he found, as they wouldn't be good for someone to step on.

Back inside, he noticed my computer game (Civilization II), so I had to explain that this was about growing a country and fighting wars and making peace and so forth. Back into the other room (he moves at amazing speed) and he sees some decorative perfume bottles, which he pronounced "magic potion bottles". I agreed, and told him they were The Wife's, and he'd better be careful with them because she's a magical lady. "Really?" "Yes. That's why I married her. She's the most magical lady I know." He paused and thought about that. Then a big grin, as if to say "I don't know if you're having me on or not, but she's pretty neat and I like her, so she could be magical!" Then back outside, where he tried unsuccessfully to teach the puppy to fetch, and so on.

He was such a little man, and behaved wonderfully. His parents should be congratulated. But today's experience was a reaffirmation to me that if you treat a child just like a small person, without talking down to them or condescending to them, they tend to rise to the challenge (within their natural limits, of course) and can be very entertaining company. I'd spend an afternoon with that little boy far sooner than I'd spend the same afternoon with many software engineers or middle managers I've worked with.

That's all pretty easy with a child from a good home who doesn't have any critical issues he's fighting. I really hope I can keep the same unjaded, naive attitude toward these things when I'm faced with my 20th kid that's been sexually abused, neglected, beaten or whatever and is acting out horribly. That's the real grinding task for a foster parent...to be able to treat the 50th kid the same way you treated the first one that walked in your door, with no preconceptions and an open heart and mind after 5 kids in a row have violated your trust every way they could think of.

I just don't know if I have the kind of stamina for this that Mom and Dad had. I also don't know if I have the stomach for sending a kid back into an environment where I feel positive he or she will be abused again. I don't know how cops do it. How do you not just pull out your service revolver and pop a cap into the back of some guy's head when you catch him in the act of sodomizing a little boy or girl? How do you not punch some smirking lawyer in the yap when he knowingly convinces a judge to order a child sent back into a home where the mom is a drunk, the dad is a drug dealer and the older brother routinely abuses the child in ways that make a pimp cringe? What's legal is most certainly not always what is right. They often have little to do with each other.

But I'm not truly worried about my temper getting the best of me...at least not like I used to be. It's a small chance I would be put in most of the graphic, immediate situations cops would have to deal with. I'll be able to keep myself from doing anything really foolish, I'm pretty sure of that now. I guess what I'm not so sure about is my ability to keep knowledge of that sort of thing from staining my soul too deeply. For a guy in his late 30s, I've got a pretty idealistic outlook in general, and I don't want to lose that. I know many people who are very worldly, and cynical, and oh-so-sophisticated...but not one of them is genuinely happy.

Many people believe that the opposite of happy is sad or angry. I believe the opposite of happy is cynical. To me, cynicism is actually an acknowledgement of hopelessness, fatalism and maybe even nihilism. I don't indulge in those very much...yet. And I don't want them to overtake me.

Will I make it? Do I dare try? I guess I do. I'm in the game now. God be with me.

posted by Dan @ 7:35 PM