Wellllll amazing babysitter was short-lived. Turned out to be kind of a psycho then went AWOL before I fired. Friend from the org I worked at when we first moved to the country just got fired (by the jerk who was our jerky boss, who then got fired for firing her) and is going to help me w/ the kiddos a bit. I love my new (not so new anymore, 2.5 mos) reentry/ comms job, work a ton (too much, should lower the bar, but itâs fun and I like it), and have a v full plateâ returning to grad school to finally finish my MFA and it was a real cartwheel trying to schedule my 4 hours/month of (virtual) grad projects meetings. A will be working 24/7 til mid-Oct, some weeks somewhere a few hours away. M is coming back to home school (she tried the local little pub school last year, was adored for being the awesome smarty pants she is, decided itâs too easy/ too full of republicans, decided she was over it) + has forest school one day a week (half hour away) she needs to get taken to/ picked up from, zooms throughout the week (piano, Spanish, math) she may need adult assistance navigating and sometimes I have work zooms at the same exact moment. Little guy (who is almost 3, HOW) is starting a preschool coop 2.5 hours, 2x week heâll also need to get taken to/ taken home from (also half hour away, thankful for the existence of the high-end hippie town to the west). Not sure how Iâll be in 50 places at once so my work friend having time/ desire to be our part-time caregiver/ lifesaver is incredibly helpful (plus I love her and love having her around; I didnât love having the not-actually-awesome-AWOL-sitter around, Iâm antisocial and donât like having many around, etc).
This is a really boring update; everyoneâs busy, blah blah blah. I used to use this space to process, share about deep shit, connect. When I first started posting here, after lurking a while, I was a (sorta, somewhat, at least by NYC standards) young (ish) single mom whoâd been through the systemsâ wringer, grappling with aftershocks of said systems involvement while living with the ongoing impacts of Aâs, he was still in prison and we were kinda romantically back together but not always totally yet. It was enlightening and fascinating to me to be able to share experiences w/ other women, other moms, also in some way navigating the child welfare system, from different vantage pointsâ foster parent, adoptive parent, professional in the field, foster parent and professional, etc. I went through the family court world and I went through the criminal court world but demographically I am not the typical person to be on the defendant side of those worlds; though I experienced and struggled with many of the things the âbiosâ experience and struggle with, demographically I was more like the foster moms in this online community. Iâd read the foster mom perspectivesâ generally well-meaning, well-off, well-educated, cool liberal ladiesâ and sometimes Iâd cringe at the lack of empathy for their foster kidsâ moms & dads, the absence of acknowledgment of how horrendously horrible it is to have your beloved children snatched from you (even if you did something wrong), the occasional desire for kids not to go home, the wish for someone elseâs baby to be their baby.
But because I connected with these humans in so many ways, related to and liked them, I was able to see and hear the different perspectives, which sometimes I agreed with and sometimes I didnât, but it was a special and amazing thing to have this weird digital space where we came to be honest and vulnerable together. I hoped that by being honest and vulnerable too, I could also share a different perspective, like theyâd entrusted me with their different perspectives, tell what it was like to be on the other side of the court room, articulate things that maybe the parents of the kids they were caring for might also be feeling but might not be able to, or have opportunity to, say, or might not be able to say the things that needed saying in a way that could be heard.
Over the years my life has changed a lot; over the years everyoneâs lives have changed a lot. While the trauma and PTSD of systemic involvement is still very real to me, I no longer relate in the way I once did to the role assigned to me during that involvement. Some of the people here I was so drawn to, so invested in, are no longer posting; most are no longer fostering; everyone has moved on in one way or another. Over the years I was so privileged to be granted a window into experiences, and to see perspectives shiftâ people here thinking deeply about the system, reevaluating their place in it, realizing that so many times so much pain could be avoided by just giving people money instead of the state spending tons of it tearing families apart to spend buckets more trying, supposedly and ineffectively, to velcro those same families back together via absurd hoops in a Kafka-esque vortex of a dysfunctional legal system, people here living through various versions of it with various details, and learning more and seeing more and sharing stories and heartbreaks here, grappling with big questions of equity and family and future here.
I firmly believe that the child welfare system is the most fucked up and flawed of all the fucked up flawed systems in this country. Even before defund the police, defund CPS. Abolish it, burn it down, build something vastly different, it inherently canât and shouldnât be salvaged. I believe itâs a system that causes massive amounts of very real trauma taking kids from parents to prevent possible or suspected or unproven trauma, that the needless damage inflicted far outweighs the needed interventions, and I believe these things far more now than I ever did then when I was at its mercy. Having glimpses into other peopleâs experiences with this system, elsewhere and here, but especially here, carried me to this conclusion. I appreciate the trust and care and reflection and vulnerability that lived in this space, as so many of us struggled with the meanings of this system that so many of us were touched by in so many varying ways.
What this place used to be isnât what it is anymore, for me. Maybe itâs that so much of my life has changed. I feel like when I come here now itâs to talk about the weather: childcare challenges, is it cove or is it flu, what should I make for dinner, and thatâs not what I loved about coming here. Anyway. I think my Tumblr time has ended. If you want to see pictures of what I ended up making for dinner, follow me on the Insta.
Itâs been real, ladies. Love many of you lots.
