The Circle Game

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

It has been over eight months since I've last posted.  I've thought about writing from time to time, but other than a bit of news I received late last summer, there hasn't been much to say with respect to the subject matter of this blog.

The news?  Given Danielle's story, it's not terribly surprising, though it was disappointing just the same.  I had learned that Danielle was pregnant and expecting her first child.  While that tidbit in and of itself was bad enough, the story got worse.  Although Danielle was living with the baby daddy, it turned out he was married to, and not divorced from, someone else.  He and his wife have at least one child that has significant medical problems and disabilities.

I think the situation is very, very sad, and quite concerning.  The photos I've seen of this fellow on social media lead me to believe that he has strong gang ties, which can only lead to a bad end for him and Danielle.  I'm not terribly surprised about this either, since I remember she once told me she was attracted to "bad boys."

The day Danielle turned 18, she withdrew from school.  The very next day, she traveled to another state so that she could be reunited with biological half-brother #2  That didn't work out, and she ended up moving back to our state to stay with half-brother #1.  Predictably, there were problems.  Finally, she ended up in another country, living with her maternal aunt.  There was strife there as well, so she ended up moving in with her baby daddy.

I briefly saw Danielle for lunch, with my folks, one afternoon in October.  She was visibly pregnant, due in January, and planned to stay here in the United States with half-brother #1 until she had her baby.  She didn't have much to say for herself.  She talked about how difficult it was to cook, given that she didn't really know how.  I couldn't resist gently teasing her, because FosterEema and I had tried to teach her, but as with everything, she had refused our guidance.

I didn't say as much as I wanted to say.  I held my tongue because Danielle is 20, and she's long past the age where I have any influence over her lifestyle choices.  Even if our relationship was good, I doubt she would want to hear my thoughts on her situation, which would have boiled down to, "finish your education, get a job, and make a quality plan for your child's life."

Lunch was awkward.  I gave Danielle a hug when we parted, and she patted my back in an odd way.  It felt like a hug from a stranger I had once known, but whatever connection we had once shared was gone.  I wished Danielle well, and told her to stay out of trouble.  That advice, I think, came far too late to be of any use.

Even if it had come on time, I am sure it would have been dismissed.

Shortly after our lunch date, I learned via the grapevine that Danielle had gotten into some sort of dispute with half-brother #1 and had left.  She visited FosterEema for a few days, who put her on a train.  I assume, but don't know for certain, that she left the country.  As for what exactly happened, I don't know.  Her social media account has been inactive for nearly two months.

The other day, just over a week after the event, I heard via the grapevine that Danielle had given birth to a low-birthweight baby boy.  Other than the baby's gender and weight, I have no details.  Given his size, I can only assume that his future, just like his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother before him, will not be easy.

The cycle repeats.

Can Foster/Adoptive Parents Ever be Fully Prepared?

In response to Guilty for not Loving a Troubled Child, see wrote:

I think the main problem is that you did not know what you were getting into when you adopted a child who went through all kinds of Trauma and abuse. The second problem is that you had no proper counselling [sic] by your side to help you bond with a traumatised child. And so the bonding did not happen.

I think the truth is, no foster or adoptive parent will know what he or she is getting into until they have already signed their name on the dotted line.  While I think that our county did an okay, but not stellar, job in offering training classes and teaching us what to expect, there's a big difference between knowing about something academically, and actually living it.

When I got my first parrot, I spent a lot of time reading about avian care.  I studied behavior, diet, and basic first aid.  I learned about blood feathers, the signs of illness, and how to properly keep a cage clean.  When I finally brought my bird home, I knew everything I could know from a book about the fundamentals of caring for my new friend.  However, there was nothing on paper that could describe what it was like to cuddle with a creature that looked like an alien life form, or the absolute fear one experiences when rushing a feathered companion to the vet.  You have to live it to understand it.

I think the same was true for our experience as foster and adoptive parents.  While they can teach you all sorts of things in training classes, they can't fully explain the emotional impact of what it is like to be investigated by Child Welfare Services because your kid levied false allegations against you.  They can't convey how hard it is to be up half the night (and then have to go to work the next morning) because your child was raging.  They can't describe what it is like to live with a child whose behavior makes you feel like you are being eaten alive by minnows.  While no one bite hurts all that much, it's the accumulation of them that wears you out, drags you down, and makes you despair.

Our one mistake, I think, was in not recognizing that the foster care system really is as bad as many people describe.  When FosterEema and I started our foster parenting journey, we read many blogs that had a lot of really negative and scary things to say.  FosterEema chalked it up to something she called "Internet Amplification Syndrome," or the fact that unhappy people tend to blog like crazy, while happy folks just shut up and live their lives.

We didn't fully understand that yes, the foster care system really is as bad as people say, and yes, some of the behaviors that foster and adoptive kids exhibit really are as crazy, dangerous, and maddening as people describe.  We couldn't believe that the system was so profoundly broken, but it turned out to be true.

See is correct in saying that we didn't receive the appropriate counseling along the way.  That is absolutely true.  We recognized, based on the reasons Danielle had been taken into foster care, that she needed counseling.  She did not receive qualified and experienced help.  Worse, we found out much later (from an inside source who later separated from the county) that the counseling Danielle did receive was more of a fishing expedition to find out whether we, the detestable queers, were doing anything inappropriate.

We later came to find out our friends Jack and Jill had their adoptions delayed because of their relationship with us.  Apparently, some sick people in the county assumed there must be something wrong with our friends because they were willing to build a friendship with people like us.

While I don't want to blame discriminatory practices for everything, I certainly think that played a role in our family not receiving the services we needed.

After the whole thing was said and done, we ran our story by a civil rights attorney.  She told us that we definitely had a case, and if we'd sued for discrimination, we'd likely win.  However, she warned, we'd probably spend the next ten years in court, and it would cost a lot of money.  We opted not to sue, because we couldn't imagine spending more time in another lengthy legal battle.  The year we spent fighting for Danielle was enough.

Still, I have to ask the question if better counseling services would have made much of a difference.  Danielle would still be Danielle.  I don't think a better professional in our lives would have stopped her from hitting us, from raging, or from making false allegations.  While it might have done more to help us feel better about the situation, I am sure it still would have sucked.

Would it have changed my feelings toward Danielle?  Probably not.  I can't imagine, under any circumstances having a warm and squishy heart for someone who calls me names, breaks my things, and punches me.  In any other world, those behaviors are unquestionably abusive; I am not the type of person to feel good about someone who mistreats me.

Does that mean I never cared about Danielle?  No.  I cared plenty.  I still care.  I also realize that she is over the age of 18 now, and she's going to do whatever it is she's going to do.  Am I happy that she quit school, hasn't finished, and doesn't have a job?  No.  Can I do anything about it?  Nope.

I rarely hear from Danielle, except for an occasional one-liner through social media.  FosterEema hears from her from time to time, but usually it comes in the form of requests for money or favors.  The latest is that one of her biological relatives has demanded FosterEema take off a whole day from work to get some paperwork from the juvenile court.  FosterEema has already completed this errand once before and provided said documenation, so this time she's leaving it up to Danielle to figure it out.

I frequently have to remind myself of the following phrase: not my circus, not my monkeys.

The question is, can foster/adoptive parents ever be fully prepared for the life that lies ahead?  I'm not sure that it is possible.  While you can attend trainings, read blogs, and hear stories directly from friends or family who are already in the trenches, it's not possible to know what it's like until you have been there.

Was Your Heart in it?

In response to The Prodigal Daughter Didn't Return, Ina wrote:

"...it was almost as if FosterEema and I had never been a couple, and Danielle was never our child."

This is really striking. Is it because your heart was never in it, the adoption I mean?

Was my heart in the adoption?  The answer to the question isn't so simple.

By the time we were ready to sign adoption papers, our family had been put through the wringer.  We had spent a year fighting with the Department of Social Services both in and out of court.  We'd spent huge amounts of my father's money fighting a protracted legal battle, and endless hours of our time taking parenting classes to prove that we were fit.

At the end of that year, it was pretty obvious to us, our attorney, and the judge that the county's reasoning for objecting to the adoption was based on purely on discrimination.  Our county has a reputation for treating same-sex couples poorly, and we were not the first to have been put through the wringer in this way.

By the time we were asked to sign adoption papers, I was physically and mentally exhausted.  By the time we sat down with our eighth social worker in two years, Danielle's behavior was starting to become violent.  She'd slapped and hit me.  I was having second thoughts.

It wasn't that I wanted to pitch Danielle out of the house.  I didn't want her removed.  I didn't want her to be placed somewhere else.  Still, I wasn't sure I wanted to adopt a child who was physically abusing me.  I worried her behavior was going to become substantially worse, and I wanted to make sure the proper resources were in place for her.  I thought it would be better if she remained in foster care, permanently placed with us.

Unfortunately, that wasn't an option.  The county had issued an ultimatum: adopt the kid or we'll move her elsewhere.  When we agreed, our social worker Nasty Number Seven was completely against it.  We weren't your average, run-of-the-mill, heterosexual couple.  When Danielle started to act out and we asked for help, Number Seven used it as an excuse to issue a removal order, which created the year-long fight.

I didn't want to fight the removal.  I figured it was a custody battle that we didn't have much chance of winning.  However, the decision wasn't mine alone to make.  FosterEema wanted to fight, and my parents wanted to fight.  Even my sister, who was historically very unsupportive of my relationship, agreed.  So, fight we did.  It was pure luck that we were able to find an experienced and skilled attorney at the right time, and that my father had the cash to pay for his services.

In the end, I fought for Danielle, not because I wanted to fight.  I fought for Danielle because I genuinely believed that she would be better off with us than the alternative.  She was a difficult kid with many issues.  When we were in court, one of the concerns raised wasn't about our fitness as parents -- there was question as to whether Danielle was adoptable.  The judge not only had to rule in our favor, but he also had to rule in hers as well.  The question was, if we weren't willing or able to adopt Danielle, would there be other families waiting to take her?

Our attorney told us that the question of her adoptability wasn't a slam-dunk, considering her myriad challenges.

The night before we were to sign our adoption papers, I expressed my misgivings to FosterEema.  She told me that if I failed to sign, our relationship was going to change.  I took that to mean that she would leave me, which I didn't want.  She desperately wanted to be a mother.  Honestly, I didn't want to be anyone's biological or adoptive parent, but I also wanted to keep my relationship with my partner.

I felt backed into a corner.  The next morning, when Number Eight came with her pile of papers, my hand hesitated.  Despite my profound misgivings and the knowledge I was making the wrong decision for me, I signed.  Why?  Because I knew it was the right decision for Danielle.  Also, my relationship with my partner was more important to me than arguing over the adoption of a child that I knew wouldn't stay past her 18th birthday.

Why did I know Danielle would leave?  She'd told us so, many times.  Both directly and indirectly, she let us know that while she did care about us on some level, her heart and her soul were always with her biological family.  She had a longing for them that transcended everything else.  I knew that whatever happened, she would be with us temporarily.

I made a decision that was the best I could make, given a list of less-than-optimal choices.  Danielle, I think, would have been happier if she had been allowed to remain in our home as a permanent foster child.  She wouldn't have had to struggle with divided loyalties.  We could have parented her, to the best of our abilities, knowing that she was always going to be someone else's child.

Older child adoptions don't magically erase years of abuse or bad parenting.  Kids grow up in crazy environments, loving their biological parents, because it is what children do.  They mature with a very warped sense of normal, because the feelings a child has for her mother are incredibly strong.  With rare exceptions, no matter how dreadful the home environment, children want to return to it.  While I think that everyone in our case cared about each other, it wasn't and could never be the same as Danielle's feelings for her biological family.  Would it have been different if she were our biological child?  Probably.  Would it have been different if she had been adopted at a much younger age?  Possibly.  It's hard to know.

It wasn't her fault.  It wasn't our fault.  It wasn't anyone's fault.  Danielle's heart was with her biological family.  As for me, while I absolutely wanted the best for her, it was hard to feel "in love" with her.  It was difficult because I knew she would never feel that way about me.  It was difficult because she was often physically and emotionally abusive.

Love is a complicated thing.  It is both feeling and action.  While I think I demonstrated my love for Danielle on a daily basis by fighting for her, by advocating for her, and by trying to teach and guide her, I don't think that I felt "the joy of being a parent" that many people describe.  Parenting Danielle was difficult and challenging far more often than it was easy or fun.  While I think she benefitted from the adoption, I know did not.  I suffered for it.  FosterEema suffered for it.  In the end, our marriage suffered for it.

I signed Danielle's adoption papers because I thought that it would be measurably better for her.  Bouncing around from foster home to foster home doesn't do any child good.  Her half-sister lived through that experience, and she was incredibly angry and unhappy because of it.  She was often furious at Danielle because she wanted to be adopted but never found a family.  "I would have killed for the opportunity Danielle is throwing away," she would say.

In many areas of life, there aren't clear-cut answers.  While there are some decisions that are easy to make, like taking job x over job y, there are other choices that aren't so painless.  Danielle's case wasn't black and white.

Would Danielle's adoption have been more successful if she'd been placed with a different family?  Perhaps.  The truth was, there wasn't a "perfect" family waiting in the wings for her.  The only options available to her, and to us, were imperfect.  We did the best we could.

During her last visit, Danielle said that she was grateful we had adopted her and that we had fought for her.  She said no one in her biological family had ever done that.  What we did meant something.

Did we make the right decision?  I think so, even though it cost us so much.  In the end, I think FosterEema and I paid a very heavy price for that choice.  While I think Danielle was better off for us fostering and adopting her, I think it was a very bad choice for us adults.

This morning, I went in to the clinic for my annual physical exam.  All of the staff that knows me commented on how much happier and healthier I seem.  I explained that it had been nearly 2 1/2 years since FosterEema asked me for a divorce, and almost 18 months since she and Danielle had moved out.  While I didn't ask for the divorce and I didn't want it, I am much happier for it.

It is a relief to live in a home where there aren't daily arguments and insults being hurled in my direction.  I feel like a huge burden has been lifted, knowing that I'm not at risk of being beaten, or having my property destroyed, by a child who lives with me.

So was my heart in it?  I don't think that the question can be answered with a simple yes or no.  In the end, I tried to do what I thought was the right thing.  It turned out not to be, in many ways.

When I was speaking to my nurse practitioner today, she commented that my ex and I had really been put through the wringer.  "This is a case of no good deed going unpunished, isn't it?" she asked.

In many ways, I think she was right, though I didn't adopt Danielle as my good deed for the day.  I adopted her because I thought it was the right thing.  It just turned out not to be.

The Prodigal Daughter Didn't Return

Danielle's visit turned out to be substantially different than what I expected.  She came to town a week early, interfering with plans for me and my sweetheart to leave town to visit his mother.  We had to change plans at the last minute so we'd be in town and available to attend Danielle's birthday party.

Despite all her talk about moving back, by the time her birthday rolled around, her plans had changed.  She planned to go back across the border after her visit, but promised to sign up for Job Corps on her way home.  She'd stay with her biological family until she could enroll, and then she'd get on with her life.

The plan sounded really great.  It's a shame she didn't follow through.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Danielle has always talked a great talk, but rarely followed through on achieving goals or doing things that required much in the way of dedication or effort on her part.  As far as I know, she's still living with her biological aunt where she's not going to school and doesn't have a job.

For the most part, her visit was pleasant.  I guess I got something of a quasi-apology for her past behavior.  She admitted she had been a "difficult child" and had regrets.  I can only guess what she meant by that, because she didn't elaborate.

It sounds like her life with her biological family has been less than wonderful.  Danielle reported that a family member had been stealing her clothing and selling it for drug money.  Another family member is seriously ill, leaving Danielle in charge of childcare.  While I guess she is being useful, I worry that she's not developing the skills that will lead her to success later in life.  That disappoints me.

Still, I am relieved that she decided not to move back to town.

While Danielle stayed with FosterEema for about two weeks, I saw her only a handful of times.  Since we had to change our plans to pay my sweetie's mother a visit, we were out of town the second weekend she was here.  We didn't see her when we returned, because we came home with a very bad cold and didn't want to share the germs.

We invited Danielle and FosterEema over to have waffles as a celebratory birthday breakfast.  It was odd having the two of them in the house.  Even though this is the home we had shared for years, they both felt like strangers.  In a way, it was almost as if FosterEema and I had never been a couple, and Danielle  was never our child.

Odd feeling, that.  I give lots of credit to my sweetheart who was kind and polite to both of them, even though he has no reason to be.  He is a good man, and I'm grateful to have him in my life.

Failure or Success

I think most parents would be disappointed if their child withdrew from school on his or her 18th birthday.  Certainly that's not the future that we imagined, all those years ago, when we adopted Danielle.

Looking back, I can't remember what I had imagined for her.  Certainly when we started fostering and the extent of Danielle's problems weren't known, we had great hopes for her.  We figured she'd be able to catch up, graduate from high school, and eventually go on to college.

We hoped that we'd be able to break the generational cycle of abuse, neglect and unwanted children.

I fear we didn't make much of a difference, or at least not the difference we wanted to make.  We wanted to give her a successful life.  A high school diploma was just one step in that process.

Will she enroll in high school in her new city?  Unknown.  I don't know if I'll even hear from her.  When she arrived at her destination, we exchanged the following text messages:

Danielle: Made to XXXX
Me: Glad you are safe.  Good luck to you. :-)
Danielle: thank you

And that's the last I heard from her.

So in large measure, I feel as if we failed.  We wanted to "fix" Danielle.  We wanted to take her out of the impoverished and abusive life that she'd led for her first decade and give her something better.  We wanted to give her a leg up into the middle class.

We failed.

And yet, we did make a difference.  Granted, the difference we made was much smaller than we'd envisioned, but it was there just the same.

When Danielle came to live with us at almost 11 years old, she didn't know how to read.  She didn't know her alphabet.

I taught her to read.  I used a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  It was a great help.  Night after night we sat together and went over the lessons.  It worked.  In just over three months, Danielle went from being completely illiterate to being able to read Dr. Seuss.

That made a difference.

Wherever she goes and whatever she does in life, she will carry my gift with her.

We also managed to help her reach the age of 18 without any pregnancies.  By keeping her away from boys and insisting she receive an implantable contraceptive, we made a difference in her life.  While she's still starting out at a huge disadvantage by not having a high school diploma, at least she's not starting off even further behind by too-early motherhood.

That's something, too.

Now that Danielle has moved back with her biological family, I feel a mixture of sadness and relief.  I'm sad because we wanted so much more for Danielle.  We weren't the right family for her, and we never should have adopted her.  Given the choices available (adopt her or return her to foster care) we did what we thought was right.  We didn't get the help or resources we should have received.  We did our best, even though it wasn't good enough.

I'm sad too, because I don't believe that there was a mythical "perfect family" out there for her.  If we had given up, she would have gone back to foster care.  Just like her older biological half-sister, she would have bounced from home to home to home until she aged out.

I am also relieved.  Danielle will no longer be able to hit me or my former spouse.  She will no longer be able to damage my property or make violent threats without consequence.  I no longer have to live in fear of a child or sleep with my bedroom door locked.

Danielle's behavior didn't improve (as some suspected it would) after she and FosterEema moved out.  When I'd speak to FosterEema, she'd tell me, Danielle is Danielle.  Her pattern of disobedient, defiant, and disrespectful behavior continued.  She made threats of violence.  She began to ditch school. FosterEema (with her insurance from her new job) began seeing a counselor so she could better cope with the unbelievable stress.

In less than three months after they moved away, the situation became untenable.  Although Danielle completely believed that everything would be just perfect once I was out of the picture, she simply found a new person to combat.

I fear that it won't be long before she repeats that pattern with her birth family.

Even my extended family feels a huge sense of failure.  They all fought so very hard for Danielle.  My father paid many thousands of dollars in attorney's fees to help us fight to keep Danielle. My extended family invested their hearts and their time trying to help her, to bond with her, and to love her.

Danielle did the one thing that everyone wanted her to avoid.  She quit school.  She left without saying goodbye.

In the end, I think that Danielle was never our daughter.  Her heart, her mind and her soul always remained with her birth family.  We always knew that she would one day return to them.  We'd just hoped we'd be able to keep her long enough for her to finish high school.

While the so-called professionals love to sell the idea of a "forever family" to prospective foster and adoptive couples, I think the reality doesn't exist.  This is especially true with older child adoption where the kid knows, loves and misses his or her biological connections.

And perhaps, it is as it should be.

Danielle never should have been adopted.  We never should have been forced into the position of having to choose between adoption or sending her back to foster care.  Ideally, she should have remained in our care in a permanent fostering arrangement until her 18th birthday.  She should have received better mental health care and preparation for the day when she'd return to her family.

We did the best we could.  Danielle is out in the world and on her own.  Only time will tell whether her life will be a failure or a success.

If You Wouldn't Accept it from a Friend or Relative

More of Danielle's birth family has been trying to get in touch with us.

This time, it was an elder half-sibling who wanted us to come to a party.  This individual has moved to a nearby town and wanted to get reacquainted.

We didn't even return the phone call.

The other half-sibling, the one we had to make a hard call about, has left us a number of messages by way of voicemail, text and social media site.

We haven't returned any of those messages either.

After FosterEema and I talked it over between ourselves and with our therapist, we decided to cut these folks out of our lives.

Although we both recognize the importance of birth family contact, we also realize that there is an even greater need for family safety.  We've come to the sad conclusion that the majority of Danielle's birth family members have criminal records, use or sell drugs, and/or are involved in gangs.  We don't need this in our life, and Danielle doesn't either.

If she wants to contact these people after she's 18, that's her business and her right.  But now, when it's clear these people are not law-abiding citizens.  We don't want them around.

The basic premise is that we wouldn't allow these people around us if they were friends or our own blood relatives.  If we wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior from friends or family, why should Danielle's birth family receive special dispensation?

The truth is, they shouldn't.

So we did not tell Danielle this time around when her half-sibling tried to get in contact.

Sometimes, You Have to Make the Hard Calls

I haven't been posting lately, largely because there hasn't been much to report.  The medication cocktail of an anti-depressant, combined with an atypical anti-psychotic, has brought Danielle's rages to an absolute halt.  She hasn't had any violent outbursts in several months.

The medications are a godsend.  I'm just sorry that we weren't able to get anyone to listen to us three years ago, when the severe problems started.  If someone had listened, I wonder how things might have been different.

I would be lying if I said things were perfect with respect to Danielle, but she's doing much, much better.  We still have our problems, and we are all looking forward to her 18th birthday, which is now less than 15 months away.  Her plans are to reunite with her birth family, just as soon as it is legally possible.  Still, day-to-day life around here is a lot more manageable and pleasant.

Our biggest struggle at this point is trying to balance contact with Danielle's birth family.  Our challenge, and it's really hard to call it that because things are so much better than they were, has to do with visitation.  At the end of May, we noticed a birth family member was selling prescription drugs on a social media site.

We were rather upset by the development, not only because the activity is blatantly illegal and just plain stupid, but because another family member indicated approval of the sales.  It has become an uncomfortable situation, because one of those family members happens to be geographically closest, and now wants to resume visits with Danielle.

Given that this individual doesn't own a car, until now we've been primarily responsible for providing this person transportation to and from visits.  Now that we've discovered the illicit activity, we have no desire to have this relative in our home, in our car, or around our family.  I don't want a drug dealer, no matter how small, in my life.  I figure I have enough troubles without finding myself having to worry about whether or not someone has a pocket full of drugs if we get pulled over for having a tail light out.

I'm not without sympathy for this individual.  This person has been calling, texting and sending us many messages through social media asking for a visit.  We've largely ignored the requests, not knowing exactly what to say.  When we finally decided upon our response, we texted back and explained our position.  It's clear this relative is very sad.

What I struggle with most is the justification we heard for the behavior.  Apparently, this person "didn't know" that selling someone's prescription medication was illegal.  Although I recognize that this person isn't the brightest bulb in the proverbial box, I don't see how anyone could be so unenlightened as to not know that drug dealing is against the law.

I am sympathetic, but I don't want this person in our life.  Sometimes, you have to make the hard calls.

First World Problems with Birth Family

Small issues with Danielle's birth family keep coming up, though I do have to admit that these are really first world problems more than anything else.

Still, they are annoying.

When we met with Danielle's birth family, they invited us to attend a milestone event for one of Danielle's cousins.  We weren't sure we wanted to attend for a number of reasons, though Danielle very much wanted to go.

In light of our discovery that one of Danielle's birth family members is offering prescription drugs for sale, and that this person would be at the festivities, we decided not to go.  Danielle was understandably disappointed, but as it turned out, we wouldn't have been able to attend anyway.  FosterEema has a conflicting appointment.

As this situation unfolded, we also observed that another family member voiced her approval of the aforementioned drug dealing.

In a nutshell, it has become clear that these are not people with whom we want to associate.

My current problem is that one of the above relatives has started to send me regular messages via a social media site.  Whenever she is online, it seems she wants to chat.  I'm trying to remain positive and believe that she's simply trying to be friendly, but in all honesty, it makes me very uncomfortable. 

The problem is made worse by the fact that she seems to only send me messages when I'm on the phone with a client or otherwise engaged in work.

I know, first world problems.

These problems put a sharp focus on the underlying flaw of the foster care system, and it reminds me very much of a story we were told about a girl who had been in care for most of her childhood.  She was about to turn 18, and the social workers were trying to put together some sort of plan for her.  In the end, our county bought her a bus ticket and sent her back to her birth family.

This was the birth family who had abused her sufficiently that she wasn't safe living with them.

If a family isn't safe when a child is 15, 16, or 17, how does the family suddenly become safe when the child turns 18?  I'm not sure I see much difference between an older teen and an 18-year-old, other than a difference in their legal status. It makes me ask, if these kids so desperately want to return home, should they have been taken from their families in the first place?

It's an uncomfortable question to ask.

Danielle continues to make it clear that she wants to go live with her birth family after her 18th birthday.  She's already told us that she wants to live with a relative who she claimed abused her.  When we asked Danielle about this plan, her remark was, "Well, I've already forgiven her."

The abuse Danielle described was not insignificant, yet she wants to return to that life.

I find it extremely confusing and sad.

Birth Family Contact Never Gets Any Easier

Contact with birth family members just seems to be fraught with problems.

Recently, we received word that some of Danielle's family members were in town.  Since she hadn't seen any of these people since before she was taken into foster care, we decided to allow a visit.

Everybody seemed very nice.  We felt like there was an enormous contrast between what social workers had told us about these people, what Danielle herself had said, and the way they behaved.  I spent several days afterward struggling to reconcile those differences in my mind.

In the end, I couldn't reconcile them.  How does one reconcile nice, polite, and smiling faces with the deeds these people were alleged to have perpetrated?

One can't.

And then, to make things even more complicated, we noticed that one of Danielle's family members was offering prescription drugs up for sale on a social media site.

Birth family contact just never gets any easier.

No Contact, for Now

After meeting with Danielle's therapist and discussing our concerns about additional birth family contact, we've decided that we are not going to allow it, at least for now.

It possible that Danielle may resent us if she later learns that we denied her access to her birth family.  It is also true that if we allow it now, she will act out, and possibly even explode.

So we are faced with a difficult choice. We must decide whether we want to deal with ugliness and resentment now, or whether we want to deal with ugliness and resentment later.

After carefully weighing our options with the therapist, we have decided to choose ugliness and resentment later.

Granted, we are already seeing immense levels of verbal abuse, arguing, refusals and threats of physical violence these days.  The verbal abuse and arguing is constant.  Even when we walk out of the room, or simply ignore her, Danielle will carry on endlessly.  She will shout insults through the house, even after we've walked away and focused on something else.  She refuses to participate in family activities, whether they be meals, chores, or whatever, on an almost-daily basis.  She threatens violence several times a week.

Even our therapist could barely hide her frustration when Danielle insisted on arguing over trivia during our most recent session.

So the truth is, even though things are already terrible, we have no incentive to want to make things worse than they already are.

A reader pointed out in a private note to me that if members of my family were substance abusers or involved with criminal activity, I would be expected to block those people from my child's life.  If I didn't, authorities would look at me askance and accuse me of failing to protect my child.  Yet, somehow in the adoption world, visits from similarly-affected biological family members should be automatically permitted. 

If I wouldn't let one of my family members, a friend, or a stranger be with my kid if I knew they were substance abusers or involved in criminal activity, then why on G-d's green earth should I allow contact from this group of biological family members?

Sure, we can debate for days and days about a child's need for contact with her family of origin, but at the end of the day, we have to consider the immediate effect of those letters, visits, and phone calls.

In the short-term, I don't see anything good coming from it.

So for now, no contact.

Even if Danielle's missing family members didn't have the problems of substance abuse and criminal activity, I'm not sure that she's really in an emotional space to deal with something this large right now.  At the moment, her temper flares at the slightest provocation.  Over the past ten days, much of what has upset her has seemed pretty minor, trivial, and senseless.

Here are just a few examples:

• She had a temper tantrum over the timing of her doctor's appointment, even though we didn't have much in the way of control over the schedule.  
• She became furious that I didn't agree with her fashion sense.  
• On a recent trip to the grocery store, she got angry because she believed some girls on the street were staring at her.  Strangely, the teen girls were standing on the corner waiting for the traffic light to change, while Danielle and FosterEema were driving by in the car. "Why are those bitches staring at me?" she demanded.

If Danielle can't handle people passing by on the street, minor disagreements over trivia, or just the regular inconveniences of life, I don't think she's ready to handle something as important as having contact with people she hasn't heard from in more than a year. If she isn't capable of making it though a single day without some sort of angry outburst, she is not in a position of emotional stability or maturity to handling something like this right now.

One of my commenters suggested that we might want to ask Danielle whether or not she's ready for such a reunion.

At least for now, I think this is a bad idea for two reasons.  First, as I've already said above, I don't think Danielle  has the emotional regulation to deal with this right now.  Second, I am not sure that she is capable of making decisions that serve in her own best interest.  It seems right now that she's focused on doing things that are completely contrary to her own interests, in the hopes of waging some sort of war against us.  She's behaved unsafely in the car, and she's acted out, which she knew in advance would cost her things like her MP3 player or visits with friends.  She's gone out of her way to irritate us and everyone around her, only to be surprised when her victims don't want to give her the things that she wants.

The therapist put it rather succinctly in our most recent session.  "You aren't doing much to argue your cause," she told Danielle.

Sure, Danielle is arguing everything.  She's just not doing it a way that makes anyone willing to concede to her demands.

Given all of this, it seems only prudent that we say no to additional birth family contact, at least for right now.

Is Birth Family Contact in Danielle's Best Interest?

After more than a year of zero contact, with the exception of one letter that arrived a couple of weeks ago, some members of Danielle's birth family want to have contact with her again.  According to a half-sibling who has spoken to them, they want to give Danielle a scolding for "messing up."

Apparently, the half-sibling has been sharing some of our conversations with the rest of the birth family.

I'm of two minds on this.  On the one hand, if Danielle hears from yet another source that her behavior is unacceptable, maybe she'll change it up.  On the other hand, it seems that any contact from her birth family tends to make her behavior substantially worse.

Honestly, I'm not sure that yet another lecture about her behavior will do any good.  Plenty of people have talked to her about it.  We've talked to her, our extended family members have talked to her.  Teachers, therapists, school psychologists, social workers, behavioral aids, her half-sibling and her friends have all talked to her.

I think we are beyond the point that talking will fix anything.

I've never contemplated blocking contact from Danielle's birth family until now.  Whenever they have come, we've allowed the poorly-timed letters, and phone calls.  We allow regular visits, even though they are inconvenient and end up happening at our expense, with a family member who lives nearby.  We even allowed a visit, when out-of-state family members showed up in town, with no advance warning, and we had conflicting plans.

Each letter, phone call and visit has caused Danielle to spiral into a new level of ugliness, disrespect, and violence towards us.

But now, I wonder if perhaps it's time to put a stop to it.

I don't feel good about contemplating this.  I don't feel right in denying her contact with her birth family.  Still, when Danielle amps up the dreadful behavior for days, weeks and sometimes even months after contact, I have to ask, is this really good for her?

I know that it's not good for us, because we deal with the fallout.  We deal with the explosions, the disrespect, and the violence for long after the birth family has satisfied their desires.

Is birth family contact in Danielle's best interest?

I don't know. 

It sure seems like it isn't.  Obviously, this is something we'll take up with our therapist as well.

Crisis Management

It seems like, for the past few weeks, we've been jumping from crisis to crisis.  Danielle has exploded at home and at school, we've been struggling with finding the right help, we had to fire our pediatrician, and we've had to deal with biological family emergencies.

Yesterday, we spent a good chunk of the day resolving some major financial drama.  A small fraudulent transaction which started on an online music retailer's site ended up sucking money out of a popular online payment service's account, which in turn slurped cash out of one of our business'  accounts.  The day ended up largely wasted while we called and e-mailed different companies.  Finally, to prevent any more money from disappearing, we closed the affected checking account.

Ugh, drama.

It wasn't a lot of money, but obviously once the fraud was discovered we had to do something to prevent it from cascading into pure chaos.  In the end, I think we'll get everything back, because we discovered and reported the problem right away.

I'm not sure why so much drama keeps heading our way, but this morning I was nearly sucked into another situation.  This time, I was tapped by an acquaintance to help with a mess she could have  completely avoided, if she'd only listened to a service provider and scheduled an appointment for a mutually convenient time.

What is it with people?  Why is it they insist on making choices that lead to completely artificial emergencies?

I want to scream out to the universe, "Look before you leap, people!"

I ended up mostly declining to involve myself in my acquaintance's drama. I had been asked to do something that I can do, but don't feel comfortable doing, during a time that conflicted with today's work schedule.  I declined, but did make a few phone calls on my friend's behalf, though it didn't result in the help she needed.  She needed to reschedule her plans, and she didn't.

Now I'm not without heart.  I felt crappy when I said "no" to Danielle's birth family member and I felt crappy when I said "no" to my acquaintance.  I am willing to help people within reasonable limits, but I also feel like it's important to maintain some healthy boundaries.

Loaning out money to near strangers, or walking out on my job on short-notice for a few hours don't seem reasonable when both of these crises could have been completely avoided with just a little bit of planning.

I know the decisions I made in both of these situations were the right ones, but I still feel kind of crummy.  The truth is, I can't be all things to all people.  Even during easy times in my life I can't say "yes" to every request that's made of me.

But now, when I feel like I am jumping from crisis to crisis within my own family, I don't have the energy to get sucked into other people's drama.  Right now, I feel like I am swimming as hard as I can to keep my own head above water, and I can tell that my life-jacket is starting to become waterlogged.

I do care about the world and other people, but when I'm drowning, I don't know how I can help anyone else.

Answer: We Don't Lend Money to Birth Family

As I'm sure you gathered from Sunday's question, we were asked to loan one of Danielle's birth family members some money.

We said no.

Even before all the comments came in giving me good reasons to support that answer, I had considered quite a few on my own:

• We had loaned this person a much smaller amount of money in the past, and it was never repaid.
• I didn't want to set up a precedent establishing us as the bank of Abba v'Eema.
• We didn't want to get sucked into what was surely going to be a bunch of early morning drama.

Even though there were plenty of good reasons for no, I have to admit to feeling pretty crappy about it.  The details we were told Sunday morning were somewhat hazy, and it sounded like this birth family member had really been stranded, and had gotten into a bad situation as a result.  As the story was told to us, the person in question was facing a pretty horrible consequence, all for a lack of planning aforethought and a relatively small (though not insignificant) number of dollars.

I felt like a real skunk.

Later Sunday night, we heard from Danielle's family member, and it seems everything turned out okay. The immediate need for the money has been deferred a few days, so this person will be able to cover the bill.  As long as the money is paid by this deadline, nothing terrible will happen.

So the situation resolved itself in a way that didn't require our wallet.  That made me happy.

Once we heard more of what lead up to the crisis, it made me even happier that we hadn't decided to proceed with the loan.  Initially, it sounded like a situation created by poor planning and being left stranded by a friend.  After hearing more details, we realized that the situation was both of those things, but was a result of a plan that shouldn't have been executed in the first place.

Now the story we've been told reminds me a lot of the things Danielle tells us.  The plot twists and turns, the details change, and we are left confused and with more questions than we had in the beginning.  It feels like the foundation of the tale is built upon the shifting sands of the Sahara Desert.  In the end, we don't know if we have the truth or not, though it probably doesn't matter.

This video clip from the movie Meet the Robinsons pretty well sums up the situation in its entirety:



Sigh.

What makes this situation feel a lot more complicated is the fact that the person involved isn't an older relative who should know better.  This person is a young adult who has gone through most, if not all, of the negative experiences Danielle has.  Unfortunately, this person was bounced through the foster care system, and has received every disadvantage that could possibly come from it.  Unlike Danielle, this relative wasn't "lucky" enough to find a "forever family."

Now I put the words "lucky" and "forever family" in quotes, because I don't believe that kids are lucky when they are adopted.  Neither do I believe that an adopted family is necessarily a forever family, because the phrase completely discounts the existence of the birth family, and it isn't always true.  If a child is adopted and returns of her own volition to her biological family, was the adoptive family a forever family?  I'd argue not.

But I digress.  The real issue that makes this so difficult is being in the strange position of being parents to one child, but not to another.  It's very odd to be parents to one kid, who is closely related to a young adult, but having had no input into the care, custody, or control of that young adult.

So we find ourselves in the odd position of being related, yet not, to someone who we don't really know.  It's clear they could use some help, but we have no legal or emotional ties.  We don't want our child to witness this person's imploding life, but we don't feel comfortable providing financial aid or housing to someone who isn't really part of our family.

We care, but it just feels complicated.

I've of course asked myself the question, "would I help my niece, nephew or child in a similar circumstance?"  The answer is probably not, because the entire situation could have been avoided with a little planning ahead.

Maybe the real answer is that the situation needed to unfold as it did to be a lesson in natural consequences.  It certainly provides a strong lesson in, if you don't plan ahead and you don't have a solid backup plan, then bad things most certainly will happen.

I hate to watch someone fall on their face.  I also realize that it is important to have boundaries, and just because someone asks me to loan them money to get out of a jam, doesn't mean it is a good idea.

Even so, it didn't entirely stop me from feeling bad.

Question: Do You Lend Money to Your Child's Birth Family?

If you were faced with the following hypothetical situation, what would you do?

It is early in the morning.  Your telephone rings, rousing you from a deep sleep.  It is a member of your child's birth family calling.  This person has made a mistake, a really stupid error in judgment, largely due to extremely poor planning.  They are now faced with the possibility of a very unpleasant and negative consequence.  The person is frantic, hysterical, and in tears.  You are begged for what is a relatively small, but not insignificant, amount of money to make the problem go away.

What do you do?  Do you get dressed, get in your car, and buy your child's family member out of trouble?

Would it make a difference if you had loaned this person a small amount money in the past and they failed to pay you back?

Would your answer be any different if you knew that the dollar amount involved now was at least six times higher than it would have been if they had called you at the beginning of the trouble, instead of waiting until the very end of the crisis?

Overnights with Birth Family

One of Danielle's birth family members lives in town and wants Danielle to come over for an overnight visit.

On the surface, the answer seems easy.  Birth family contact is important.

But then there are complications.  The relative who is asking, from what we've gathered, seems to have some substance use/abuse issues, and has been observed hanging out with people who do. This person also doesn't have their own housing and rents a room from an adult, single, unrelated male.

Would you let your 16-year-old daughter spend the night with a birth family member who was renting a room from some guy?

I'm not really too keen about the idea of inviting Danielle's birth family, for the reasons I've described above, to spend the night at my house, either.

Bullet Point Update

I know it's been quite a while since my last post.  I celebrated my birthday recently, and opted to spend a few days visiting with family.  Then, the Thanksgiving weekend rolled by, and I just didn't manage to get to my blog.

Since my last post:

• Danielle had what could be described as some sort of emotional breakdown.  She has been having nightmares about bad things happening to her biological half-siblings and, after a particularly bad dream, she spent about a half an hour curled up on the floor in the fetal position screaming, "Make them stop!  Why won't they stop? Am I going crazy?"  FosterEema nearly called the mental health crisis line, but since Danielle wasn't actively dangerous to anyone and wasn't threatening self-harm, we waited it out.  Eventually, Danielle calmed down and went back to bed.
  
  
• Concerned about her outburst, we called the mental health professionals at her school, and they too are "very concerned" about this development.  They are trying to accelerate the process of getting her a referral for additional mental health services, but they can't give us a timeline as to when that will happen.
  
  
• We weren't able to reach our family therapist, as she has been out of town on an extended holiday.
  
  
• We got word that another one of Danielle's half-siblings has been incarcerated.  Like the first, we have few details, and don't know how long this individual will be locked up.
  
  
• We managed to get through my birthday and the Thanksgiving holiday without major incidents, though Danielle did choose to use Thanksgiving weekend to start harping about how living with her birth family was much better than living with us, and how she can't wait until she turns 18 and moves out.
  
  
• She didn't much like it when I reminded her that if she wants to move out when she's 18, she really ought to start looking for a job now, so she'll have money saved up for things like deposits, move-in costs, and furniture.
  
  
• Danielle played motion-based video games to excess and gave herself a bad case of sore muscles.  I resisted the temptation to say, "I told you so," when she complained about how much her arm hurt.
  
  
• I actually lost weight over Thanksgiving weekend, which is just unheard of in my world.  I completed Couch to 5K earlier this year, and I have been working on Bridge to 10K.  By the end of this week, I'll be up to jogging for an hour.  I guess all the extra exercise managed to burn off the damage the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and apple pie created.

How did your Thanksgiving holiday go?

Jailed

We recently received word that one of Danielle's birth siblings was convicted of a felony and sent to jail.

Given what I know about the particular family member involved, I'm not at all surprised, but the news made Danielle cry.

Oh how I wish we could cut off all contact with Danielle's birth family.  They bring no joy at all to our house.

But of course Danielle wants to see them anyway.

Sigh.