Answers, part 3

SocialWrkr24/7 asked:

I'd like to know WHY you've decided to be a foster parent. Especially - why you've decided to do it as a single person. And, if I haven't already gotten too personal... what the steps were in preparing yourself (living space, finances, telling family/friends etc) for actually doing it!



This is going to be a fun question to answer because there are so many parts, and I like to talk about myself. (Speaking of which, I find it SO HARD not to talk to my real life friends about having this blog. I almost spilled the beans this morning, but was very proud of myself for holding my tongue.)



1. Why I decided to be a foster parent.



When I was in college, one of the community service organizations I was in had a weekly volunteer day at Faith House (yes, I'm giving away the city in which I went to college). I didn't start going until second semester senior year but as soon as I did, I was just in love with the kids. If you poke around their website, you'll see that it is a FIFTY-FOUR bed facility. And while the organization does foster parent training, there are kids who live at Faith House more or less indefinitely because there aren't foster homes for them.



Well, this just broke my heart. How could there not be homes for these adorable kids (who, I should add, were very well-behaved, at least while I was there--though they did get yelled at by staff when they tried to play with my hair...which I enjoyed them doing but was apparently against the rules)? Ever since then, my One Defined Goal has been to be a foster parent.



2. Why do it while single?



Okay, confession time. The last guy I dated was six years ago. Really. So it's not like being a foster parent is going to negatively impact my vibrant dating life. And if I waited until I had a partner, who's to say that the partner would be interested in fostering? No, better to do it now. It can only have a positive impact on my personal life. I will be forced to adapt to a life where I'm not the center of my attention and where I have to communicate well--traits that will help in a dating relationship. And maybe fostering will attract someone, who knows?



There was a while when I didn't think I was going to be able to foster until I had a partner because I didn't see how I was going to be able to afford a two-bedroom home on a single income. Housing prices are high where I live, and with my income, I would qualify for only a $xx mortgage. (No, silly, not a two-digit number.) Two-bedroom condos where I live go for about 2 times $xx. But friends with a two-bedroom apartment in a super-affordable building were moving, so I snatched it up from them. I don't have the feeling of accomplishment that I think I would have if I were a homeowner, but ultimately I'm saving a lot of money over if I owned the same amount of space.

3. How I prepared.

Since this has been my goal for more than ten years now, I've been doing a lot of preparing. For a while, I was imposing steps for myself--I have to make a budget. I have to eat vegetables with dinner every day. I have to wash the dishes every day.--to prove to myself that I'm responsible enough to take care of a kid. But once the two-bedroom apartment was a reality, all those went out the window.

Partially, this is possible only because I have a financial cushion and I am unintentionally quite frugal. (By that I mean that I happen to spend less than I make usually, because I don't eat out much and I don't go to movies and I'm too cheap to do more expensive activities.) I'm very lucky in that respect.

Living space I think I've answered already.

My friends I basically told when they each said something to the effect of "wow, a 2 bedroom apartment! Are you going to have a roommate?" The word has spread (of course, there has been plenty of time for it to spread!) as my friends tell other people.

I was most nervous about telling my parents. I thought they would accuse me of having not thought through it, that I hadn't thought of all of the logistical implications of single parenting and of parenting foster kids in particular. I thought they would bring up my cousin, who was adopted as an older child (he's much older than me, so I don't know how old "older" was in his case) and isn't really part of the family anymore. So after they had made comments about "their bedroom" in my new apartment, I screwed up my courage to talk to them. They live only an hour from me, so I went to their house and when we sat down to dinner, I told them that the second bedroom wasn't for them, it was for a foster child. Their reaction was much different than I expected. The first thing my mom said was "oh good, we'll have another kid here for Thanksgiving."

So there you have it. Anything else you want to know? :-)

Answers, part 2

Thorn asked: "I am curious how you and your agency are preparing to handle whatever Shabbat observance you keep. I mean, if they have a placement late Friday night, do they just not call you? How you plan to connect those two parts of your life is very interesting to me."

There are two parts to this question. One, how will the agency handle it. Two, how will I handle it.

The agency won't do anything special because of my Shabbat observance. If they call with a placement, I just won't answer the phone. If they try to schedule visits with the kiddo's family on Saturday, we'll see if it can be closer to my home (not AT my home!) or on another day of the week. Or if the social worker can take Kiddo to the visit.

How I handle it is obviously a more complex issue. I will say, first, that I will not be forcing any kiddo in my home to refrain from the things that I refrain from on Shabbat (turning lights on and off, using the phone, watching TV, using the computer, drawing), though some limits might be necessary out of practicality--e.g. if the kid is three and doesn't know how to turn the TV on, or the like, then she won't be watching TV on Shabbat. So while I will try to make sure that visits aren't on Shabbat, the kiddo will be more than welcome (circumstances permitting) to talk to family on the phone.

I also go to synagogue regularly (well, more recently I have been sleeping through synagogue regularly, but that's not my ideal), especially on Saturday mornings. I plan to continue doing this when I have a kiddo, but again, it will depend on the kid. If the kid can sit quietly with a book and toys for a half hour, we'll try going to services late, taking a run around break, coming back for the end. If the kid can't sit quietly at all, I'll get a babysitter one or two weeks a month and skip services the other times. (For those who don't know, Jewish services--at least on the more traditional side of the spectrum--are very conducive to coming late. I've not been to church since a few high school choral performances but I think that church is more formal in that respect. In contrast, it's not at all unusual for people to trickle in throughout a Shabbat morning service.)

Emergencies always take precedence over Shabbat observance, so if a kiddo is raging or doing something else that I need support to deal with, I will use the phone to get help.

I'm not sure off the top of my head what other Shabbat issues there will be. One smaller issue is classmates' birthday parties or other play dates. These could be a problem. But this implicates another issue, which is school, so in the interests of not going on too much about school, I'll leave this question for another day.

Thanks for the question!

What was that about being bored?

No, I don't actually have any real news on the licensing front. But I did just have a good conversation with the Chief of Staff at the Agency. She thanked me for sticking with the process all this time (we're at a year now, officially--yesterday was the anniversary of my first training class) and said she would look into whether there are other issues with the people who been involved in my long, drawn-out drama.

She also told me that someone else who works for my local government went through the process lickety split. Hmmm...

I got some more good questions, so another post coming soon.

Student Grievance Procedures

Okay, using the blog for work purposes. Me and my over-familiarity with researching state laws aren't so good with finding things on a local level. No, that's not really true. It's that there are too many local levels and I get a little overwhelmed.

I am trying to write a grievance procedure for students in my Big City's public schools. I'm actually not sure that there's anything wrong with the current procedure, but am looking for models of procedures to compare it to. Does your school system have a good policy for kids who have complaints? Does it distinguish well/clearly from the appeals procedure for disciplinary actions?

If you have a model I can look at, please email me at FrumFosterMom at gmail dot com. I assure you that I will then promptly forget where you live.

Thanks!

Answers, part 1

Mama Drama-Times Two asked, in response to my plea for questions, why I'm using a private agency instead of my state's Big Social Service Agency.

An interesting question, because I didn't realize that I had given the impression that I'm using a private agency. I know only how things work here, and am nervous that any details I give will be used by someone with more experience to say "aha! You gave away where you live!" So if, for example, I were to respond to say, "well, actually, I am using my state's Big Social Service Agency, and that in fact is the only option for someone who lives where I live who wants to be a foster parent," would that give it away?

Because that is the true answer. Please, pretty please with a cherry on top, if that does give away my secret location, let me know.

More answer(s) later. Keep the questions coming!

Am I boring you yet?

I've been blogging here since April. In that time, I've complained about my agency repeatedly, asked for a little advice, and not written anything about kiddos because I still don't have one. I'd like to keep my readers, and not bore you to tears...

But when the most exciting event of the day relating to foster care is finding a copy of How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (this evening's success--that, along with finally remember which days of the week the library is open late), it doesn't make for exciting blogging.

So to be completely unoriginal--do you have any questions you're dying to ask me? Maybe you have questions about Judaism, or about why I'm putting up with my agency's remarkable ineptitude, or ... I'll do my best to answer.

Parenting Magazine FAIL

Back when I was having my window issue (see how I'm optimistically assuming my window issue is over? this is what gets me in trouble), I ordered some window-stoppers from a catalog online. When I was finishing the check-out process, I discovered that I got a bonus magazine subscription with my order. Woohoo! There were only two options, and I chose the one that looked like it would be more relevant when I finally get a kiddo.

I got the first issue the other day, and read it through last night. The first thing I noticed was the very cute white girl on the cover. Of course, if there is going to be only one kid on the cover, that kid has to be some race, excluding all others, and if there is a group of kids on the cover, and there are four of them in a rainbow of colors, it looks intentionally diverse, which doesn't help either. I get that. But every picture, with the possible exception of an ad or two, was of a cute white kid. Every one.

But that's not actually what got to me the most.

No, what got to me was the ad for the Corn Refiners Association (or something to that effect). High fructose corn syrup didn't make you obese; going back for thirds is what made you obese.

What is a parenting magazine doing accepting advertising from a lobbying group whose product HARMS CHILDREN. No, I am not going to go and do the research to find the reports that prove this. Yes, that is lazy and intellectually dishonest. But we all know that we should at least be trying to instill good nutritional habits in our kids. And high fructose corn syrup just doesn't fit in that equation.

I'm glad I'm not paying for the magazine.