I’m sure it’s this way with traditional parenting, but one thing I have noticed is that with foster parenting, it’s easy to become even more fearful of accidents or missteps. Little Girl took a spill yesterday that left a scratch below her eye. Little Guy had a scratch on his arm from the playground last week. Which one did I stress more over? Little Girl, of course, because she is our foster child, and Little Guy is our adopted child. Adopted child = no more incident reports, or social workers raising an eyebrow. No visits where the kid shows up with a mark on them, causing bio parents to make accusations.

Little Girl has entered quite a rough-and-tumble toddler phase. We joke that she’s going to grow up to be a cage fighter, but honestly….I’m not sure how much of that is a joke and how much of that is actually truth. There’s comedy in the fact that she is fearless enough to hurl her tiny body at my husband when they are playing tag, and the fact that she’s a climber lets us know that she’s learning independence, but with all that, of course, comes bumps and bruises. It’s natural. Should we be fearful of reporting this to our agency when it happens? They tell us no, but of course, in the back of your mind, it’s always there: they’ll think I wasn’t supervising well enough / they’ll think I’m negligent / they’ll think, they’ll think, they’ll think……

In reality, they DO “think” because they, too, have to cover themselves and investigate when necessary. Chances are, and my logical side understands this, isolated incidents are a bigger worry for us as the parents than them as the agency, but you can’t help but to feel like you FAILED somehow. For me, I think I feel the need to be such a role model parent, that I take it personally when an accident happens.

The same goes for negative behaviors that kids develop while in your care. Our son came to us as a quiet, passive two-year-old and as he got more comfortable with us and with his routine, began to show out in a big way: yell, scream, kick walls during punishments…. It was difficult to grasp that WE weren’t causing this, and only after some discussions with other parents and a knowledge-filled child therapist was I able to understand that my husband and I weren’t doing wrong by him and that these behaviors weren’t a result of our bad parenting, and that we should instead help him through this transition and behavior experimentation by enforcing different coping mechanisms. A perfect parent would never get frustrated and glide through this phase, but guess what? None of us are perfect parents. I can think of a handful of times at LEAST where I responded with a short fuse, frustration, or a harsh criticism during these moments, and promptly felt like crap afterwards. At the end of the day, does that make me unfit to parent my son? No, it makes me human. We have to forgive ourselves for our parenting mistakes sometimes. Did I tell his therapist about these missteps of mine? No. Of course not. I couldn’t admit that I was anything other than the perfect foster parent for him. Looking back, I wish I would have spoken up. I’m sure I’d have learned a whole lot more had I done so.

I don’t have answers for the overall fear that occurs when having to report life’s little accidents to our respective agencies, but I’d love to hear how others have dealt with the guilt that comes with it.

Now and again, I find little blurbs that I have written and tucked away in journals and notebooks, or little notes saved on my desktop, written when a mood or a memory struck me. Whenever I find them and re-read them, I can remember the exact moment of what happened, what was taking place, and my desperation to either get through it, survive it, or remember it forever. This morning, I found this little blurb, written during a particularly tough morning at work, a few days after our first little was reunited with her mother:

My heart is changed. It’s learned the stress and ache that can come from loving someone so much without reciprocation. I never knew what one-sided love was like – I was born into a loving family and my husband loves me as I love him. The fierceness that drives the level of love that you have for these kids who don’t know you, and therefore don’t love you right off the bat is such a wild experience. You have to earn their trust and help form that love without expectation that you’ll ever feel any benefit in return, and look for small milestones instead. The moment when she let me bathe her without crying. The night when his arms wrapped around my neck for the first time. Watching them gain their footing and feel secure enough in our home to explore it for the first time and get into things like toddlers do. It’s those things that tell me that love is there, and my heart has learned to downright bask in it. I’ve tried to train my heart time and time again to remind myself that these are not my children, but it rarely listens. Instead, it has said, “For today, she is.” Except now, today she isn’t. None of my senses comprehend this. My ears are listening for her babble in the monitor, my eyes are looking for her in her crib, my nose is craving the smell of shampoo on her hair after her bath, and my arms want to wrap around her for one of her one-second hugs before she busied herself onto her next activity. My heart knows how much she loved us though, because of how much she trusted us to allow her to progress into the wild, happy, curious kid that she is. That will have to be good enough.

I have learned to accept that it was enough.

I’m a self-admitted control freak. I have routines and when they get thrown off….if I come home and the dog has gotten into the trash, or if I forget to thaw the chicken for dinner….it can send me right into a rather grumpy orbit. It’s the perfect trait to have if you’re a foster parent, if you ask me, because foster life is certainly NEVER going to throw off your routines. It’s not like living in a state of flux is your new normal or anything.

 Note: Hi, I'm Sarah and I can get rather sarcastic sometimes. I should probably highlight my sarcasm in a different color or a cynical-looking font to note my intentions, but if you're wondering if something is sarcastic or not, with me, it probably is. 

But really, learning how to adapt has been something I have struggled with since the beginning of this journey (and for the past 34 years of my life, recognizing that the first year I didn’t have much control over anything, right down to my bladder). Whenever a new child has joined our home, and as their plans change over time, I’ve had to adjust everything. I live off of schedules, so that means that transportation schedules, morning dressing routine schedules, laundry schedules, sleep schedules, social worker visit and bio parent visit schedules, all of that changes, and then comes the stress from trying to develop new routines and keep up with them. Each time, my husband has had to remind me: “You’ve GOT this.”

But….what happens when you DON’T “got this?” What happens when things start to change in one of your kiddos lives that you worry about or someone else makes a decision for the child you are caring for that you disagree with? I’m going to be completely honest here: it happens a lot. It happens, and when it does, it’s a quick reminder that you are NOT in control, no matter how hard you want to fight it. To be fair, we were warned of this in our MAPPS classes. Our instructors tried their best to prepare us for it while using their professional language all at the same time but what they couldn’t tell us, and what I can tell you is this: sometimes, you’ll feel like you’re standing in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve, screaming to be heard. It’s just the nature of the situation, folks. It can be frustrating beyond belief, and you will try to rationalize with yourself: “But I know ________ better than anyone, I know what’s best for him!” “I’ve had ________ for the majority of her life, how could they (the elusive “they”…..more on that later) decide this without my input?!” Easy. “They” will decide what needs to be done because of laws that exist, and because it’s their job to be as neutral as possible and try to first and foremost reunify a family (“they” is an all-encompassing group of those who work for the agency you are with who have to follow these laws and guidelines because, well, they are laws and guidelines).

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I ever want to sabotage reunification for any of our kids. I also can’t assume that I’m a child and family expert. But I’m a parent. Biological parent or foster parent, we have a natural inclination to want to protect our kids and prevent any trauma, or any more trauma for these kids, from harming them. This is where I struggle; this is when it becomes out of my control. Having to throw your hands in the air and say ‘I tried my best’ is something I’ve had to learn to do, and I’m here to tell you: I still hate it every time. I hate the idea of there being nothing left that I can do, but as the foster parent, it’s not your job to “do” more than love the kid as your own, keep them safe and teach them what you can while they are with you. We DON’T know what’s best for these kids. We CAN’T predict the future.

Sometimes, it’s going to feel like everything is moving too fast, and that’s because we find our comfort levels in the stagnant times. Foster families are going to change. We’re meant to change. We’re meant to ebb and flow and be there for whoever needs us. Is it frustrating? Absolutely. I’m feeling it today. It’ll hit you out of nowhere sometimes, or it’ll smack you in the face when a decision is made that you don’t agree with. I guess, at the end of the day, remind yourself of this: your kiddo needs you. And so do “they.” It just won’t always be easy, but then again…..what matters of the heart are?