Foster What?

Then I realized how much the conversations with the defendant and her parents feel like a foster care administrative review panel. That’s when all the parties come together (birth parents, foster parents, child welfare, community volunteers) to supposedly be a set of third party eyes on the case and make recommendations.

One party asking reasonable questions while the other party makes excuse after excuse, never takes responsibility (even when faced with proof), parties and lives their life after causing irreparable harm because nothing is ever their fault.

It will probably take 2+ years

And other relatives are coming out of the woodwork

I mean, provided no one is sick or has a legal conflict or decides eh, no thanks.

We are 18 months into this case. Baby Henry’s second time in foster care. Goal is still technically adoption but goals mean next to nothing in my state.

We are far off from the federal recommendations, but what else is new. Except apparently New Judge is a stickler for policy. So I’m wondering if she will ask DCFS to move forward with TPR.

Of course, New DCFS attorney and New Social Worker may delay things yet again.

Part of me feels distant from Baby Henry. I care about him a lot, I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, I know I am committed to him staying here however long he needs. But there’s more of a distance than with my other kids.

Maybe it’s because there is so much uncertainty and I’m much more hardened by foster care now. So the desperation and relief of the early years of fostering have been replaced by resignation? Maybe that’s maturity or maybe it’s disillusionment.

Baby Henry has already reunified once, which failed badly. He’s been in my home for 18 months this time, but he could still reunify. If a safe reunification was possible, I truly think I’d be okay with that. I’d be sad, but not devastated. That makes me wonder…

But parents do love their kids differently. I know people like to say they love all their kids equally, but research has repeatedly shown that’s not actually true. You can love all your kids, but you can’t love them all identically, simply by virtue of the fact that they’re not the same person.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, maybe the fact that a newborn is likely joining this drama makes the reality of forever more likely? But I also believe nothing.

And, my god, what happens if that baby is removed? What happens if she stays?

I was aware of Satanic Panic already, which aligns with the time period and is mentioned in one episode of the documentary, but not the reality of what else was going on in family courts at the time. Or that there was an entire network that smuggled women and children through safe houses across the United States.

Did her organization go off the rails? In part, absolutely. But my response to the documentary is definitely different than it would have been before I started fostering. I have seen the system and courts fail so many children. Should children be smuggled across the country? Ideally no. Would her system have been better run by trained child psychologists? Yep. But when the family courts haven’t improved much since the 1980s, it’s truly disillusioning.

As a side note, the documentary makes a great point about how parental alienation syndrome isn’t scientifically proven and shouldn’t be used to blindly make custody decisions. Yet, guess who was accused of that on the stand during an endless TPR trial.

I support reunification, I support safe family building and education, I don’t support throwing the same resources over and over for 10 years, constantly restarting the clock, and giving parents endless chances when their children have no choice but to live in their consequences.

Speaking of consequences, I’ve learned there basically are none. You can damage your child for life, break state and Federal laws, get arrested and charged over and over and over and over, and then the state dismisses because the prosecution wasn’t ready or they don’t have enough state appointed attorneys and the charges get dropped.

One parent has over forty charges in the last ten years and has never served a day in jail. Why wouldn’t you break the law if there are zero genuine repercussions?

Greta (7): You’re a king.

Baby Henry: No! I a queen.

Greta: Boys can’t be queens.

Me, internally: Aww aren’t they sweet

Greta: Tomorrow morning when you wake up, you’ll get a present from Mommy! Something small. The best part is we do a treasure hunt to find it!

Me, internally: Crap

———

Hi, it’s me, the Mom who accidentally established a tradition last year by creating a Valentine’s Day treasure hunt.

It’s 1:30am and the treasure hunt is complete. It requires them running all over the house reading clues, so it should give me about 2.5 extra minutes of sleep tomorrow.

Actually, scratch that. They’ll want me to watch the treasure hunt.

All our kids are traumatized

This is just what traumatized kids do

There’s no point in listening to therapeutic or clinical recommendations

There’s no point in pursuing a trauma eval

In today’s “worst”, those of you who have been following us for a longtime know that a couple of years ago threats of violence were made against the children by a biological family member. These were not idle threats. These were threats that said family member has a history of incarceration for.

These are, this-could-really-happen threats. These are threats that could cause significant harm or (likely) death if they were carried out.

In the meeting, DCFS said they were unaware of the threats. To be clear, there is a ton of documentation, physical proof, and police reports. This is all in the DCFS case files.

DCFS wanted to put all 3 children in a situation that would have given the family member direct contact.

And this is child welfare in America.

Which, okay, except that punishes no one except me. I mean, Baby Henry wants to go to school so I guess it somewhat punishes him. But in regard to adults, it’s not like DCFS is going to step up and figure out anything. I have to figure it out. I have to provide 24:7 care. I have to miss work.

I’m exhausted. I can’t keep missing work. Tomorrow we hopefully meet with the school (ha) and provided that happens if he is not allowed to return to school DCFS has to figure out daytime childcare so I can work.