Yesterday, shortly after returning home from Mass, we headed north an hour's drive to visit with "middle daughter," and her family. It was a gorgeous day, clear sky, high temperature predicted to get up near 70°. It had been several weeks since we've seen them, so we took advantage of the situation and enjoyed a wonderful, long visit with "middle" and her fam. The sun was setting as we headed for home, so it's all their fault that I missed a day of posting during lent! 😜
The "hour north daughter" (and her husband) are the ones who decided to "foster-to-adopt," through JFS (the government's program called Job and Family Services). Need I say anything more than, it's run by the government…? Ahhh, yes, I can see that you understand. It's an agency that is terribly understaffed, and poorly run, by overworked/underpaid social workers. It runs slower than molasses just out of the freezer. But we did get some good news about our "grandchildren." Apparently, when the social worker comes, one of the 5 year old boys runs around yelling, "I want to be adopted, I want to be adopted!" Over and over (and probably very loudly! His big brother was adopted several years ago, and he wants in on that, badly! Because of that, the caseworker moved the three younger siblings to "the top of her list," to speed up the process. That means sometime this summer, hopefully. JFS is also bleeding judges and magistrates like crazy, mostly through retirement (and not too many judges clambering to fill those vacancies).
My daughter and s-i-l have been in this process for over five years now, with all the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th chances for birth mom and dad (of the three youngest foster children) to get their life back on track for the sake of the kids, while children were being exposed to drug use, physical abuse, and suffering through "failure to thrive." I do not judge the birth mom and dad. They were both raised on abuse by their own parents having serious psychological issues themselves. Their entire lives have been woven by broken and unreliable people. I continue to pray for them regularly. In the meantime, my daughter and s-i-l have dealt with all the behavioral issues of the children, suffering frequent angry outbursts and regular "meltdowns" brought on by their children's exposure to the abusive and neglectful environment they were living in. They've also put up with very rude old ladies saying mean things after Mass. I wrangled with one such lady, wiped her out using her own logic. It was a good win! But my amazing daughter and s-i-l have always been up for the challenge. They are both very calm and chill, and exceedingly compassionate. They have done so well with all four of their children, and, once they are adopted, generous funds will be provided from JFS to get counseling and any other kind of intervention that the kids need to help them thrive! (It's really too bad that the process gets so drawn out, and counseling and other services need to be delayed, but that's just the way it goes. In the meantime, these children have been with foster parents who have supported them emotionally, and done their own research to help them navigate the difficulties they have experienced from the deficit they suffered from birth parent's brokenness and behavior. I am actually signed up to attend a fostering/adoption conference this weekend, to help me learn how to be a better Mimi for these kids. My husband and I often get reprimanded, because we lean more to the "strict disciplinarian" type of parents. We would do time-outs and take away privileges quite frequently with our kids, or sometimes just put our foot down and say, "NO, you can't act that way!" But, you can't go that route with children who have suffered abuse. Hubby and I have learned to chill out around the foster kids, and let "foster mom and dad" do their job. Even if it does mean watching kids dance to The Nutcracker ballet in the living room, while only wearing underpants! 🤣
I still have a lot to learn. It's just out of my scope of understanding to be able deal with what these children have suffered through, and the fear and behavioral issues it can ignite in a young child's brain. One of the sessions that I signed up for at the upcoming conference is called, connecting before correcting. That sounds like a perfect session for me!
And don't get me wrong, we love our foster grandchildren, and they love us, but it's been a whole new world for my husband and I, dealing with kids who generally don't listen and respond like "normal" children. We often have the two younger girls come and spend a couple of nights with us, and it all goes fine, unless the extremely sensitive one gets her feelings hurt. Once she is triggered by a slight reaction, or a "No honey, don't do that, you might get hurt." She shakes and cries for ten minutes, while we try our best soothing tactics to help her through it. It's quite challenging. Even for my husband and I who had foster children ourselves, about 17 years ago. Our foster children were happy-go-lucky little kids, who we came very close to adopting, until grandma and grandpa intervened to help birth mom. The following year, birth grandma called me to asked if we would take the kids back, and adopt them, because birth mom was on the lam again. They could not handle caring for the children anymore. I was heartbroken, because, at the time, I was going through some very debilitating side effects of chemotherapy, from my breast cancer treatments, and I could barely function.
For years, I wondered what that had been all about, why God called us to foster, but we didn't get to adopt "our little boy," (and his big sister). But, I recalled that Jen was the daughter who was most excited and supportive about us being foster parents, and many years later, here she is, choosing the family life option of foster-to-adopt, so maybe that was why God called us to foster parenting, so that He could plant a seed in our daughter's heart for her future life. It makes me feel better, to think that our time as foster parents was not just a stressful and disappointing waste of time, but, instead, part of God's plan all along. And God's plan, His will for our lives, is always the best road to follow (even when we don't understand, and even when there's suffering involved). Thank you God, for putting up with me all these years, as I stumbled and mumbled through my life, questioning your omnipotence. And thank you for the gift of our foster grandchildren, to brighten our lives and bring us to a higher level ofbcompassion and patience. We're never to old to learn new things!
Our foster children:
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