What makes a parent?

I've written a lot so far about what we can't do as foster parents. It all adds up to one thing: foster parenting is not "real" parenting.

I can't give schools, summer camps or anyone else permission for anything -- not even sunscreen, for pete's sake. Forget about permission for field trips, watching a "PG" rated movie ("Frozen," in school) or attending the "good touch, bad touch" program (also at school).

I can't make any medical decisions -- not even to make a doctor's appointment. In an emergency, I can drive to the ER, but only if I call my agency first. It took a bit of explaining for the agency to understand that if we were going to be driving the children to their doctors' appointments, we should be able to set the time and day, so that we could make sure we were available. Nonetheless, I have three times gotten in trouble for setting a doctor's appointment (but the other eight times, it was OK...so go figure).

We cannot chose a doctor, call a doctor for advice on a medical problem or talk to anyone else about the children. Not even for non-medical issues. We are to not speak to our friends about ANYTHING regarding the children. (This is part of our agency's theory that "no one needs to even know you're a foster parent," which is isolating and extremely strange.)

If we choose to do something with the children, such as teaching them how to ride a bike, read a book, etc., the bio mom may complain, and we can be ordered to not do it. We had to ask permission before starting swim lessons and before buying Jacob a bike.

We cannot cut their hair without permission, and if we style their hair in a way the bio mom does not like, she can complain and we can be ordered to stop doing it. I am not kidding. Ditto for how we dress the children. Apparently, short-shorts that say "sexy" on the butt are OK for a 4-year-old, since that's what the bio mom buys for her, but letting her wear play clothes on the playground with a small stain at the very edge of one pocket of her shorts is The End Of The World. The bio mom's mother reported us to CPS for that.

We cannot travel anywhere with the children -- not even day trips. We cannot sleep anywhere but in our own house. That means: no camping trips, no sleepovers, no going to the great children's museum, the zoo, the water park, etc.

And our parenting decisions are constantly being scrutinized and questioned. Although three different medical professionals have separately, unknown to each other, decided Jacob has a serious mental illness, the only support DSS and our agency have offered is to suggest that surely there's something about the way we work with him that is causing his breakdowns. The bio mom treated us to an hour-long diatribe about how our house must be "chaotic" (although her kids are the only people there, other than us, and the only time their schedule is interrupted is when SHE insists on it), and we must be overwhelming Jacob by, for example, reading him a book about violins and then pointing out a violin when we see it during an event. (This was literally her example.) Yet we are not the ones who lost custody of the children.

DSS and our agency sat through that diatribe without ever saying a word in our defense. They implied afterward that they think she's crazy, but words of praise to us? None. The doctors, meanwhile, have all said we're doing a wonderful job and that other foster parents would have given up by now. Which is nice to hear, but when we want to get him the counseling they recommend, they say -- not til the bio mom signs paperwork allowing it. So until then, we just try to keep him from hurting himself or anyone else, and hope for the best. Powerless. When any REAL parent would be running to a counselor.

In what way ARE we parents, then? We're the ones who hold them when they cry, who reassure them when they're scared, who stay up with them at night and get up with them in the morning. We're the ones who help them with the day's difficulties and cheer on their victories. We're the ones who stay up late trying to figure out why they're behaving a certain way and what we can do better to help them.

We're the ones making up games to help Jacob learn letters and sounds, getting him to school on time, communicating with teachers, packing healthy snacks he loves, working with him to help him love school. Yet on graduation day, the birth family took his graduation certificate before we even got a chance to see it.

Sometimes it feels like we get all the hard parts of being a parent, and none of the fun parts.