Another Placement

Since last summer I have had a few possible placements that I either turned down or did not end up working out.  This last call was for a 10 year-old girl who was in immediate need of a new foster home.  They were thinking that she would need to stay with me for about a year before they would be able to find a permanent adoptive home.  The decision making process has gotten a bit easier, I took about a day to think about, realizing that I don't want to commit to staying in Chicago for another year.  I'm ready to move on, to explore new places.  Part of the reason I knew I didn't want to be an adoptive parent is because I don't want that kind of lifetime commitment at this point in my life.  There is still so much for me to explore in life outside of parenthood.

They called back within the week.  They had obtained placement for the girl, but they won't be able to take her until the middle of March.  They asked that I take her for just 3-4 weeks.  It's been about a week and a half now that she has been living with me.  I'm not sure what all the factors are, but it feels a bit easier this second time around than the first.  Perhaps, part of it is me just being a little more prepared, more aware of what to expect.  But I think another piece of it is on her end of things.  Her case worker is more attentive.  It is during the school year and she is still attending the same school where she has connections.  And she's a girl.  All this time I'd been thinking boys would be easier.  But she's so much more vocal and willing to talk about things.  Her moods are more straight forward and predictable.

As much as single parenthood totally changes my life, there are parts of it that I'm liking.  When I was doing my internship in a residential treatment facility, I felt like what I really wanted was to be those kids' parent rather than their therapist.  This second placement is validating that desire.  It's so much more natural being the parent rather than the contrived therapist role.  We do things on her time naturally rather than it being forced into a weekly hour long session.  Within the first week, her stuff was already coming up in her play with me while as a therapist it would have probably taken several weeks for it to surface.

When I'd had the last placement, I'd felt jealous of the respite worker, but really the role of foster parent is just so much more valuable.  The foster parent sees the child daily, experiences real life, the ins and outs of daily experiences.  Granted I still felt a little jealous this past weekend.  My foster daughter spent the weekend with her new family.  I have to spend the week with her, do the hard stuff, enforce bedtime and struggle through homework.  But then she gets to do the fun stuff over the weekend and I become the bad guy.

I suppose that was very similar to my own experiences after my parents divorced.  I loved going with my dad on the weekend but the day to day with my mom were a struggle.  This whole parenthood thing makes me reflect and have more respect for my own parents.  Parenthood is a sacrifice that I'm not sure why so many people make.  Maybe I've just been single so long that I've grown accustomed to my freedom.  As a parent, 18 years of your life are dedicated to those other beings.  You do things for them and your world is centered around them, taking them from one activity to the next, watching their television shows, their music, doing things that are interesting for them.  Perhaps that's one of the reasons my father has had such difficulty finding himself after we were grown.  After those 18 years, it's over and it leaves behind a gap in your life.  The young adult really has no concept of the sacrifices you made all those years and you have to reestablish new interests to fill the gap.  Perhaps the rewards are worth it.

Instant Motherhood

I took a respite care placement.  My first attempt at being a foster mother.  I feel alienated.  It's like here... and a kid gets dropped off at my doorstep, and I suddenly become the sole responsible person.  I have yet to speak to his actual caseworker.  The most responsive person in the organization has informed me that she will be on vacation for the duration of the placement.  I suppose it's no different really than coming home with a new baby, I mean actually, he requires a lot less care.  But this kid has had nearly 10 years of life, 10 years of other people in his life, and suddenly he is depending on a total stranger to meet all his needs.  To balance all her stuff in addition to managing his stuff when previously she couldn't even figure herself out.

Granted I haven't been completely deserted, though it certainly feels that way.  His mentor came and took him for 4 hours today.  But then there's this jealousy, like she gets to take him, do fun things with him, and actually gets paid for it (granted not much, but she still earns some money).  That used to be my role.  I used to provide psychosocial rehabilitation (basically means take a kid out into the community and spend some time with them).  I used to be the nanny (run the household for a few hours, but then leave and get paid).  But motherhood doesn't pay financially.  Sure, as a foster parent I will get a small stipend.  But really, I doubt I'll even break even with the amount I've spend on food and activities.

It's not like regular motherhood either where you can post all your kids pictures on Facebook and share their stories over the phone with your friends.  The foster care world is this secret world where I discreetly post a blog reaching out to the cyber community (which isn't following me since I haven't posted in nearly a year) for some kind of support in this time where I suddenly became a mom overnight.

I suppose that most of all, it's just really saddening.  He made a couple calls the first night, met with his therapist the day after, and his mentor took him today.  But really it just feels like he and I, and it feels a little lonely and like a whole lot of responsibility.

Response to Sandy Hook Shooting

Along the rest of the nation I have spent the past week attempting to grapple with the horrific tragedy that plagued the community of Newtown, Connecticut a week ago.  When events like this happen our own life experiences play into how we comprehend such a senseless act and on which aspects of the tragedy we tend to focus.  For instance, a colleague's Facebook status in the days following stated that she was going to focus on the children and heros rather than the evil that walked into the school in all her conversations for the day about the event.  She is from Connecticut and, I assume, needing to honor her community and focus on its good.

First and foremost, I process these events from the lens of someone who has had first hand experience with a similar event that also made national news some 13 years ago.  Sadly, the numbers of individuals who also have this kind of first hand experience is growing exponentially as events such as this one continue to occur with some regularity.  Even so, though we may have experienced similar events each of our reactions can be quite different based on our previous life experiences and general dispositions.  For instance, I have noticed, beginning with the shooters at my own school, that I tend to find compassion, empathy, and some understanding for the killers.  I have curiosity for what leaves an individual to feel so isolated that they feel the need to take their anger out on innocent children.  Even prior to having gone through my own school shooting, I had always been attracted to the underdog, the children that were isolated from their peers. I suppose that is what led me to wanting to work in mental health and foster care, the interest in the psychology behind people's behaviors and helping out the underdog.

My role as a mental health professional also plays into how I processed the event.  I was at work when I heard the news.  As such, I put my guard up, and refused to take it in so I would not break down emotionally.  I subconsciously desensitize myself to such events and as such refused to focus on the stories of the victims as my Connecticut colleague did.  As the week went on, I was able to slowly let it in as the topic came up with patients.  One patient was visibly distressed and preoccupied and had been talking to me about being abused by his peers when he was an adolescent.  The event being at the forefront of my own mind I specifically asked him about thoughts of hurting others as had been done at the elementary school.   He too displayed confusion and disbelief over the event and could not understand how someone could do something like that either.

Several patients have come in the last few days with anxiety about the holiday coming up.  They verbalize feeling isolated and alone during the holidays.  One guy I talked to yesterday talked about compounded stressors, one of which he identified as making him have homicidal thoughts.  He stated, "That's not me, I'm a good person."  He came to the hospital for help.  These are the individuals that want help, the ones with a moral compass that don't want to have these bad thoughts.  But what about all of those people out there that are sitting at home in isolation that don't desire or don't know how to reach out for help?  How do we identify them and provide services for them in order to protect the rest of us?

As a mental health professional and a foster parent I work with individuals that have been through some pretty tough shit.  Many of the kids in the foster care system have endured unspeakable trauma at the hands of their own parents.  If anybody should have a vendetta against the world, a reason to want to shoot up a school, it should be them.  Yet, the shooters tend to be privileged, white, young men who have lived in the lap of luxury in seemingly stable home environments.  My curious side wants to autopsy all their brains and do brain scans of them playing violent video games.  What's missing for them?  Why do they lack value for human life?

Lastly, I process the event through the eyes of teacher and caregiver.  The first classroom I did practicum work in for undergrad was a first grade classroom.  I can't help but picture the many primary schools I have worked in, subbed in, volunteered in.... and imagined how it would have happened.  Would I have been willing to give my life attempting to protect my students?  What about the principal and school psychologist, they could have hidden away in the office and saved themselves?  Did they die for no reason, should they have just stayed put?  Would they support the NRA's suggestion, if there had been a firearm in a safe in the principal's office, could she have done more to stop him?

I think about how all those kids were sitting ducks in all of the classrooms.  Drawn shades, locked doors, and hiding spots in cubbies was not going to stop a man with a gun.  In addition to lock down drills, shouldn't we have evacuation plans for when the danger is in the building as well?  Those 6 kids that slipped out of the second classroom while their teacher and classmates were shot down, they just ran with nowhere to go.  What if there were some kind of safe house to run to?  

But taking in the magnitude of all those little lives that were lost is hardest for me.  Last night, I babysat the 5 year old boy that I was a primary caregiver for when he had been an infant.  It was so hard watching him play and imagining little children like him taken so tragically.  Such joy and interest in life ripped away from their parents and this world.  I imagine all the parents weeping in their child's bedroom having thought they were just sending them off to school like any other day.  Then I'm taken back full circle to having been through the aftermath myself 13 years ago; the suicides, the bomb threats, the media that follow such a senseless act of hatred.  My heart weeps for Newtown and the long road ahead!

So there you have it, my perspective of the Sandy Hook shooting as student, mental health professional, foster parent, teacher, and caregiver.  Through it all I must find trust in the general goodness of mankind.  Though it is challenging, I must not let fear get the best of me (I have not been to a movie theatre since before the shooting over the summer and have found myself scanning crowded places since last weeks shooting).  I must have hope that what I do through all of my roles makes some kind of difference and helps to prevent things like this from happening again.  How about you, which of these perspectives do you most identify with?  What draws your attention when such a senseless act of violence occurs?