Placement Call

I got another foster care placement call this week.  Somehow saying no was easier this time than last.  Again, she didn't fit within the confines of my "ideal" child mold.  An 11 year-old girl needing a transitory home between her current foster/adoptive family and going home to her biological mother.  Even before speaking to the social worker in further detail, I had a feeling about the motives for the move.  The girl wanted a home where she did not have an attachment to the caregiver so she could reestablish loyalties to her own mother.  So rather than the role of teacher/therapist as I'd hoped, or parent or attachment figure as it would be with the two young children, I would be expected to be in yet another role, more of a friend, at a minimum of an arms length away, nonetheless.

My thoughts were taken back to my own 11 year-old self and remembering how hard my life was even as a child that had not experienced much trauma at that time in my life.  Remembering how volatile my relationship with my mom was even without having a bunch of other foster mothers in the picture too.  Take my feelings of not having my mother as there for me as I would have liked and magnify it by 100 for me to even imagine what this child might be going through.

I had to admit to the social worker that I was a bit triggered.  What happened to the girl that when my parents got divorced at that age wanted to reach out and help others going through similar experiences? When did I become so afraid of pubescent girls?  Probably, just in having been one and knowing how awful I was and not wanting to have to deal with one of me.

Part of me wonders if it might have been good for me.  If I might have been able to work through some of my fears and my own mommy issues.  Another part of me wonders if I'm really not as ready as I thought I was for this and I'll just keep turning down the kids one after another.  But I have to hold on to the hope that the right kid will come along, that there will be a child that I am my most stable self with and that I will still have my own personal growth in that strength, stability, and vulnerability.

What do you think?  Did I make the right decision?  What are your experiences parenting or being 11 year-old girls?  How have your mommy issues effected your decision to be a foster parent?  How does the relationship you have/had with your mother effect your parenting skills?