Situation Critical: Situation Normal
It seems we have quite a handful with this particular little gaggle of humanity. Everything is all up in the air legally, it seems our placement is because they couldn't find anything more appropriate (especially on short notice) and we have no idea if any of the three new ones will be with us a week from now."Jenny" has been acting out a bit...lots of dead people pinching her and so forth. It was actually interesting the other night; I went in to calm her because she was beginning to cry herself to sleep and I knew I hadn't given her as much attention since the new kids came. I simply sat with her and hugged her for a few minutes. Suddenly she sits up and looks at me, and I could see that she was debating whether to tell me that there really were no dead people. She didn't...but that's okay. She knows and she knows I know, I think. We understand each other well most of the time. Probably because emotionally we're pretty much contemporaries.
The other three, which shall still go without names until at least next week, have been really good. The social services system, not so much. They now have The Wife driving them over an hour each way every day to bring them to their old school because the social workers didn't want them to miss too much school or to enroll in the local school for one week. That's fine, but both my Mom and I told her we would have told them where to stick it. She seems pretty sanguine about the whole thing, though, so whatever I guess.
If those three stay, my job is going to be very challenging, I think. The 14 and 16 year old girls are both very pretty, and while they're pleasant to have around that means there will be little male dirtbags sniffing around in record time after they move in.
That's alright, though. I'm up to it. If I could stay up late several times trying to bust "Josie", I guess I can do the same for these two.
I will get one of them someday. I already busted one of them for contacting her dad when she wasn't supposed to.
A hint for any dumb foster kids that might be reading this: if your foster dad is a software engineer, don't think that you can do anything on his computer without him knowing. He's a tech-savvy and kid-savvy person, and he cares about you. He'll know.
And thinking of "Josie", I owe her a letter. I suspect I'm the only one that's written her letters since she's been in the residential care facility, and she made it pretty clear the last time she was visiting that it meant a lot to her. Since she has me wrapped around her little finger, I guess I'd better get cracking so I don't let her down. She's had a lot of people let her down. I'd just as soon not join that particular parade.
posted by Dan @ 6:22 PM
2 Comments:
Quote:" I will get one of them someday. I already busted one of them for contacting her dad when she wasn't supposed to."
Maybe I am reading this wrong, but it sounds like pure personally motivated evil reading it just now. I feel for these kids, and for the parents they were more than likely ripped away from for some mundane dysfunction that we all have inside. Don't get me wrong, the real abusers should rot in the basement of ****, but most of the foster kids and the parents-removed we have now known have so many trumped-up charges told to YOU by the social workers, I would probably think the same exact things you do of their "dads" and all. It is so sad and shameful in America. I still cry MYSELF to sleep over it, and there's no one to come hold me.
"Maybe I am reading this wrong..."
Yes, you are. Our job is to follow the rules. If we don't, we lose our license. We have to work within the guidelines we're given by the system.
"the parents they were more than likely ripped away from for some mundane dysfunction that we all have inside."
You mean the ones that got too drunk to wrap their Christmas presents a year or two ago, so they had to wrap them themselves? How about the parent we're working with that can't be bothered to stay home and visit with her child on the rare occasions her child gets to visit? Maybe the one that didn't get her child medical help when she was hit by a car, and it resulted in a brain injury that child will have to live with for the rest of her life? I have no problem with dysfunctions most of us have inside. I have them too. It's when people let them out, and take them out on the kids, that I start to object.
"most of the foster kids and the parents-removed we have now known have so many trumped-up charges told to YOU by the social workers, I would probably think the same exact things you do of their "dads" and all."
I make any judgements--positive or negative--until I either meet the parents or see records of proven fact. The incidents I speak about are real. If they're hearsay I usually disclose who said it (usually the child). I've had social workers screw things up enough times now to know to take what they say with a grain (or a shaker) of salt.
"It is so sad and shameful in America. I still cry MYSELF to sleep over it, and there's no one to come hold me."
Maybe you need a good foster parent.
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