The long view

Facebook Memories is now reminding me, every day, of my time with the kids two years ago. And looking at it has forced me to come to a couple realizations.

1. Things were bad from the start. I've been wondering for quite some time now whether medication caused him to get worse -- now I see he had the same behaviors prior to the medication, which did seem to reduce his anxiety (but nothing else).

2. Now that I look back at it from this remove, it sure looks like "Jacob" was actually suicidal.

From the start, he was:

opening the car door at high speed and taking off his seat belt (which I thought then was an act of defiance, and which I stopped by using child locks and then stopped thinking about because it stopped happening)

going to high areas and contemplating jumping (a stone wall at the eye doctor's, a cliff on a school trip, his second story bedroom window)

running into traffic

This started before he was on any medication.

Add that to the reports we got about how he'd repeatedly jumped into a pond after running away from home before entering foster care, and had to be rescued and possibly resuscitated (reports were confused on this) by neighbors, and you have to wonder if all his behavior was intended to be self-punishing.

This is the sort of realization that could have really helped his counselors, if I'd had it two years ago.

Ah well. He's home now, and I just have to keep hoping he's going to be OK.

Second anniversary

I'm thinking a lot about the kids today.

This last weekend, two years ago, they came to live with us.

My "Facebook Memories" is full of stories about them...lighthearted stories, happy stories.

They are back with their mom now, which I think is really good. I've thought about it a lot - abuse vs. foster care - and I've decided neglect is not as bad as foster care.

I know that sounds harsh. But the children's bond with their mother -- as with all children -- was so strong. The separation was devastating. And while they endured very, very bad things in their home, none of them were direct actions of their mom. It was her inaction, likely partly her exhaustion from caring for three special-needs kids while also having special needs of her own.

Foster care is just not working for kids. If you look at the statistics, foster kids do worse than even children who drop out of school and teen mothers. The outcomes just aren't great.

They are more likely to go to jail. They are less likely to ever get a high school diploma. They are less likely to get a job. They are more likely to live their life on welfare. They are less likely to be in a stable relationship. They are more likely to abuse drugs.

They are just not succeeding at life as much as every other kid.

Now, that doesn't mean kids facing physical or sexual abuse should be returned to their abusers. But most kids in the system are there because of neglect. There aren't any statistics (that I can find) comparing foster kids to neglected kids who grow up with a parent. So I can't say for sure that going home is good.

But I can say, for sure, that growing up in the foster care system is NOT good for kids. And I can say their mom loves them, and she was trying really, really hard.

So I'm really, really hoping that those beautiful, creative children are going to be okay.

I just wish I could be a resource for them. I wish she would reach out to me! She needs help. She can't raise three special needs kids alone. But she pushes away all help, and having her kids taken away for a year definitely didn't help with that. She doesn't trust anybody now.

I would love to see them again.

CPS visit (yes, after all this time!)

CPS knocked on our door.

For someone who worked in the system, meeting traumatized children who had been ripped away from their homes by CPS, this was a rather scary experience.

After all, we aren't foster parents any more. We're the parents of a 14-month-old girl, and our first thought was that CPS was coming for her.

It was terrifying. We tried to play it cool, but inside we were shaking.

The guy seemed confused. He was looking for foster parents, and we said we weren't anymore. He told us he was here with an allegation regarding "another foster child, not her," pointed to our daughter. I wanted to snatch her up and say, "Oh no, she's not a foster child!" (Subtext: so you can't take her!)

Except, of course, they can. Did we as a society really intend to give that power to the government?

Of course we had nothing to fear. The allegation regarded Sophia, from "about a year ago." (They last lived here 16 months ago.)

The allegation was that my wife took a photo of Sophia naked, in Sophia's bedroom. And she hadn't, so that was that. The investigator said he was puzzled to be here at all - even if we had taken a photo, he said, "parents take naked pictures of their children all the time."

We told him we were sure foster parents couldn't do that. He shrugged and said, "There's no allegation of misconduct, no sexual abuse or anything. Just the photo."

This led us to make some calls. Our foster agency didn't call us back, but I'm not a reporter for nothing. I found out the children are no longer with our foster agency. So they've been moved again. My heart breaks for them.

Someone is going to interview Sophia at DSS, and then the investigator will come back. I wanted, urgently, to say to him, "Does she remember us??"

But that door is closed.

Update from one heartbreaking year ago

It's been a year now since the last time we talked to Sophia and got an update on the kids.
Jacob lasted just six weeks at the new foster parent's house. Then he was sent to a psychiatric facility for a month. At the end of that month, the doctors were still not sure what to do - they had not stabilized him, had not fully diagnosed what was going on, and had not developed an outpatient therapy. It sounded like he'd be kept a bit longer.
The foster parent said she would "try" having him back in her house one more time if the foster agency wanted it. We later heard from the foster agency that he was back, but it was only half a sentence and I'm not sure if I am interpreting it correctly.
Anyway. Our last call - a year ago.
We had the baby with us, and we had just driven through Albany's Lights In The Park display. The baby was hungry so we pulled over in a parking lot so I could nurse. We decided to call the foster parent for an update (returning a call from her) while I nursed.
It was 8 p.m., so we figured Sophia would be in bed and the foster parent would thus be free to talk. But no - Sophia was not in bed, and was clamoring at the door while the foster parent tried to talk to us. I asked if we could talk to Sophia, since (as we had feared) no visits had been allowed. The foster parent hesitated. Then she handed over the phone.
We got to talk to her!!!
But it was heartbreaking.
It had been less than 10 weeks. But Sophia didn't remember us very well. She couldn't remember the songs, only that she'd liked them. She couldn't really remember much about us. Her voice was happy, but tentative.
She had moved on.
After that call, I realized it was over.
There would be no visits.
We would never see them again.
And so I forced myself to stop calling during the school day to get updates. I've never called again.
But I drive past the road to their house every single day, to and from work. And so I think about them every day.
I especially think about Jacob. Is he OK?
I've broached with my wife the idea of adopting Sophia several times. But - she's moved on, she doesn't remember us any more, and we should move on.
But a part of me still feels like I've abandoned a little girl somewhere, and I need to go swoop her up into my arms.

Another view

A friend took me out to lunch today. She wanted to tell me about how she'd found her foster-son from years ago on Facebook. He's 16 now. He still has the toy box she and her husband gave him when he was a boy.

He's eager to chat with her, and when she invited me to lunch she was ecstatic to have found him.

But by the time we got around to actually meeting for lunch, two weeks later, she'd actually talked with him.

"He's so...violent," she said in despair. "I tried, I told him, that's not how we raised you."

But he's living with his father, and the lessons of home are hard to break even if the child doesn't go back.

We talked, for the first time, about Jacob and about - let's call him D.

D. got kicked out of so many schools, she told me. So many. She can't remember how often she had to leave work to rush off and get him because he was out of control, hitting teachers and other kids.

It sounded a lot like Jacob, but worse. She had D. longer. For years. She tried all that time to fight for him to get help, and no one would let her get him anything - not counseling, not medicine, nothing.

By the time he was returned to his family, she said, a part of her hoped he would go.

"I didn't want him to go back to THEM," she said. "But I was just being terrorized. So there was some relief."

I told her a little bit about Jacob, and she told me she wouldn't blame us for "anything you decided to do."

Especially not with the baby coming. How could we keep the baby safe, she asked.

But I could not bring myself to say the words, "We sent him away."

It is still just too awful.

As I listened to her despair about trying to help D. now, whom she still loves, trying to guide him through Facebook conversations, I had to confess I hoped Jacob would contact me some day.

I hope he will forgive me.

How should we say no?

It's been almost a month since we packed up the kids, broke the rules to tell them what was happening, and managed on our own to create a smooth transition for them. I have grieved them almost every day since then. Our foster agency hasn't contacted us at all -- though the kids' new foster mom has twice given us updates on the kids. Because foster parents are decent people, unlike the people who run the system.

And then, today, our agency called.

Were they calling to see how we were doing?

To arrange a visit to help the kids avoid attachment disorders by knowing we're still around, still caring about them?

To do, perhaps, an after-care survey so they could improve their services, as many actual for-profit companies do?

Nope.

They were calling with a new placement.

Our agency homefinder started the message by cheerfully saying that she knows I'm about to give birth, and this placement might be more than what I want to take on at this time, but...do I want to take three kids?

Now I have to decide how to say no. There are just so many choices.

There's the simple version: Sorry, we have no rooms, my mother-in-law is moving in and we have a baby on the way. (Or, alternatively but still true: Sorry, I have no energy, I am 9 months pregnant.)

Then there's the contemptuous: After everything you did to us, to actively stop us from ever getting help and then making our good-bye with the kids as horrible as possible (until, admittedly, we broke the rules to avoid it), you DARE to...

Or maybe I should go the long way and explain why we are putting our license on hiatus for the foreseeable future. This should start with something like, "We do deeply believe in the needs of the children and we want to be there for them. We just don't want to work with you ever again."

Choices, choices. We had intended to write a formal resignation letter, but my wife is still pretty angry (OK, so am I) and so we have mostly been writing hate letters in our heads, waiting for time to smooth out the rough edges so we can write something professional. I feel strongly that no matter how terrible the experience, it's how we handle it that's important - and therefore, we should be professional and calm, even if they weren't.

But honestly, between getting ready for the baby and moving in my mother-in-law, we've been pretty busy. So I haven't done it. And now push has come to shove, and it's time to talk. I'll let you know how I do.

What now?

So, what can be done about the system we encountered?

The first unexpected problem that I think should be addressed is probably the most controversial: bio parents' rights.

I am all too familiar with the cases in which parents lose their children for ridiculous reasons. And I certainly understand that people's rights should be protected.

But.

If you're going to put children into another parent's hands, you have to give that parent the authority to care for the child. From little things, like sunscreen, to big things -- like medical care.

If a doctor makes a diagnosis and prescribes medication, counseling, running around the block, whatever -- the foster parent should be able to implement that therapy.

I'd be willing to compromise on measures that I found annoying but understandable. Yes, it seems reasonable to have the children keep their pediatrician or other regular doctors they were seeing prior to entering foster care.

But it does not seem reasonable to let the bio parents select other doctors for the child -- particularly when it can lead, as it did for us, to choosing doctors far from everybody just to make it more annoying for us.

Similarly, the foster parent should have the authority to make dental appointments, eye appointments and so on. Letting a bio parent veto those appointments -- for many months -- strikes me as a form of abuse.


Now, in our case we hit a tricky problem: a child with a probable mental health diagnosis. But long before that happened, the bio mom was using her rights to stop eye appointments, counseling, and anything else she could mess with, for reasons that appeared to be frivolous. In general, I think I could sum up her attitude as: Don't do anything, because I'm going to get my kids back soon, and then *I* will do it.

Except that most bio parents don't get their kids back.

And those that do, get them back 15 months later, on average.

Now, DSS has the authority to over-rule the bio parents, and one could argue that's enough.

Except we saw all too clearly that DSS is over-worked (and maybe burnt out and maybe incompetent). At the very end, our DSS caseworker expressed surprise to hear that ANYTHING was going on with Jacob...even though she had been included on every email, had been called on every crisis, knew about the doctor appointments and problems therein, and had spoken with us on many occasions about Jacob's behavior.

Did she forget? Does she have too many children to care about one small case?

She visited the kids a total of twice in the six months they were in our care, even though the law says she must visit monthly. Our family specialist got to us almost once a month -- we saw the FSP four times. But by the rules of our agency, she was supposed to visit weekly.

24 weeks. 4 visits.

This certainly indicates how busy they are, and I don't think it's reasonable to require them to be involved in every nitty-gritty detail of scheduling a medical appointment.

Perhaps the bigger question is: why aren't foster parents trusted with these rights? Why would the system trust bio parents, but not foster parents -- who have, after all, gone through months of training, rigorous background checks and inspections?

I suppose the system respects bio parents so much that legislators focus on them, not the foster parents. I'm not suggesting rights be taken away from bio parents, so much as I'm saying foster parents can't properly parent with both hands tied behind their backs. They need the ability to seek medical help for the children in their care.

I intend to make an issue of this, but I'm hoping I can make it a lot clearer than I've done here.