They live in my house, but they're not my kids. They are owned by the State of Texas.
My wife and I are 'Professional Parents.' The state hires us to raise their kids.
We wanted a second or third grader. You know...young, cute, malleable, easy, sweet. We wanted a child without parents, a true orphan. Instead they gave us a really angry thirteen year old on heavy medication with a psycho-mother.
And we fell in love.
When a child first comes into your house, you have a couple of days to make sure its a fit. We knew almost immediately when this young lady entered our house that it was a fit. It was like we took one sniff and recognized that this was one of our own children who had been lost to us at birth. Maybe it was just because she was our first. We've never had this experience with any of the other young ladies that have come into our home.
We always come to love the kids in our home. We knew we would. It's just how we're built.
She's been with us for three years and will probably be with us until she graduates high school. Other young ladies have come and gone. Some for short periods, some for long. Some successful - in college. Some failures - handcuffs.
Right now, we have a young lady preparing to graduate high school and go on to college as well as our sixteen year old.
When you take a young person into your house as foster parents, they come with a lot of baggage. And not just the suit case and boxes and bags of stuff. Our lives are filled with judges and lawyers and case managers and case workers and therapists and mothers and siblings. We are inspected twice a month by the state to see that their children are all right. We get inspected by our case manager quarterly to make sure we are conforming to the law. We see two judges at least twice a year. They each visit their mothers semi-regularly. They both see a therapist at least twice a month. It can be a regular three ring circus.
And then there's the medications. Many places that take these kids use medication to control their behavior. Some need it. Many don't. And there's no one to help you figure it out.
It is the best thing we have ever done.
Showing posts with label foster parent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foster parent. Show all posts
20 April 2011
19 April 2011
Parenting Strangers, part 2 - Thugs & Gangsters
First, a fact - better than 30% of the kids that enter high school do not graduate. It's been that way for a long time.
In the early 90's, I took a job with the City in a youth program that didn't yet exist. The idea was simple. Hire kids who had dropped out, were on probation or parole, and give them a job and teach them primary job skills.
Primary job skills are the stuff most of us understand without being taught; how to show up, how to show up on time, how to dress appropriately, how to take instruction from a supervisor, etc. Stuff we learned because our parents cared enough to send us to school everyday, on time, looking nice, and then asked us in the evening how school went and whether or not we had any homework. Stuff we learned because our parents had jobs.
We hired four kids and we were lucky. The first four were bright and wanted a chance to do something with their lives. They all had rap-sheets as long as your arm and had spent considerable time in juvenile detention. One of them was arrested and sent to prison along with a couple of his buddies for carjacking and killing an old man after he'd been with us for about six months. The other three had jobs, one was married, and they were doing well last time I checked.
My job was to take out a work crew and mow all the Fire Department properties in the city. It's a big city. There are a lot of Fire Stations ranging in size from half an acre to twenty acres. That first year was a challenge. I lead by example.
The program was a success. After a year, we hired more leaders and more kids and took on new jobs.
The City Management was confused. We were successful, i.e., our kids stayed out of jail when they were with us and for long afterwords and organization from all over the country were surprised and envious of our success. But the liability of having large numbers of thugs and gangsters on the city payroll was a strain on their tolerance.
I loved the kids. But the City Management was horrible. So bad, I finally quit in the year 2000.
There were other factors; personal issues and a desire to write.
In the early 90's, I took a job with the City in a youth program that didn't yet exist. The idea was simple. Hire kids who had dropped out, were on probation or parole, and give them a job and teach them primary job skills.
Primary job skills are the stuff most of us understand without being taught; how to show up, how to show up on time, how to dress appropriately, how to take instruction from a supervisor, etc. Stuff we learned because our parents cared enough to send us to school everyday, on time, looking nice, and then asked us in the evening how school went and whether or not we had any homework. Stuff we learned because our parents had jobs.
We hired four kids and we were lucky. The first four were bright and wanted a chance to do something with their lives. They all had rap-sheets as long as your arm and had spent considerable time in juvenile detention. One of them was arrested and sent to prison along with a couple of his buddies for carjacking and killing an old man after he'd been with us for about six months. The other three had jobs, one was married, and they were doing well last time I checked.
My job was to take out a work crew and mow all the Fire Department properties in the city. It's a big city. There are a lot of Fire Stations ranging in size from half an acre to twenty acres. That first year was a challenge. I lead by example.
The program was a success. After a year, we hired more leaders and more kids and took on new jobs.
The City Management was confused. We were successful, i.e., our kids stayed out of jail when they were with us and for long afterwords and organization from all over the country were surprised and envious of our success. But the liability of having large numbers of thugs and gangsters on the city payroll was a strain on their tolerance.
I loved the kids. But the City Management was horrible. So bad, I finally quit in the year 2000.
There were other factors; personal issues and a desire to write.
28 March 2011
Neighbors as Ourselves
"In this Ashram, we make it a rule that we must say 'No' when we mean 'No', regardless of consequences." - Speech on 'Ashram Vows' at the YMCA, Madras, Indian Review, February 1916, The Hindu, 16 Feb. 1916 (from The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi edited by Raghavan Iyer)
My efforts at lobbying in support of the abused, neglected, and orphaned children in the state of Texas continued this morning.
After my disappointing and disheartening trip to the State Capitol last week, to talk to my local representative about the upcoming budget for these children, I wrote an email to the representative describing my position and my experience in her office. A return email from a staffer requested my telephone number so that she could speak with me about my experience and about the representatives support for the children of the state. I sent my number, but included that there was no need to call. That I did in fact understand what role the representative played in writing budgets and that the representative could still count on my support (which she can. Her opponents have made this state last among states in spending for children.)
She called this morning. I was polite. I was understanding. I was respectful. I'm afraid that what I was not was truthful. I'm afraid I let politeness smother the truth as I understand it.
What my representative agreed to in the budget will be a greater hardship for the children already suffering trauma.
I know that there are people in the world who would see the 'hardship' of my state as a huge step forward for their children. Their children lack food and clean water and shelter. Their lives are torn apart by disease and war.
I cannot reconcile these two worlds. I wish I could.
What I can do is speak for those being injured in my neighborhood.
But I must learn to lovingly speak the harsh truth and not hide the truth behind a curtain of politeness.
My efforts at lobbying in support of the abused, neglected, and orphaned children in the state of Texas continued this morning.
After my disappointing and disheartening trip to the State Capitol last week, to talk to my local representative about the upcoming budget for these children, I wrote an email to the representative describing my position and my experience in her office. A return email from a staffer requested my telephone number so that she could speak with me about my experience and about the representatives support for the children of the state. I sent my number, but included that there was no need to call. That I did in fact understand what role the representative played in writing budgets and that the representative could still count on my support (which she can. Her opponents have made this state last among states in spending for children.)
She called this morning. I was polite. I was understanding. I was respectful. I'm afraid that what I was not was truthful. I'm afraid I let politeness smother the truth as I understand it.
What my representative agreed to in the budget will be a greater hardship for the children already suffering trauma.
I know that there are people in the world who would see the 'hardship' of my state as a huge step forward for their children. Their children lack food and clean water and shelter. Their lives are torn apart by disease and war.
I cannot reconcile these two worlds. I wish I could.
What I can do is speak for those being injured in my neighborhood.
But I must learn to lovingly speak the harsh truth and not hide the truth behind a curtain of politeness.
25 March 2011
The Least of These
"Every sin is a form of violence."- 'Problem of Non-Violence,' Navajivan, 6 June 1926 (from The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi edited by Raghavan Iyer)
I'm a foster parent.
My state, like many states, is having sever budget issues. Yesterday, I went to my State Capitol to rally and lobby to restore the funds cut from the proposed State Budget for the agency that oversees abused and neglected children. I won't bore you with the details, even if I fully understood them, but suffice it to say, that the proposed cuts would devastate a protection system that is already last in the country in helping children.
I was brushed off by my local state representative, one of the few liberals left in my state's government, and I found out that this representative was actually responsible for writing this section of the proposed budget. She defends the budget by saying how much worse it could be.
I sat down in the halls of government and watched, and prayed, and thought.
Everything in the Capitol Building is over-sized, gilded, hand carved and covered in leather. Twenty foot high ceilings and doors. Marble walls, columns, statuary. Enormous wooden door frames and stair railings. Huge paintings of the important battles for independence. Portraits of every Governor, many of whom have gone on to be President. And gold and bronze gilded everything. The place was designed for fifteen foot high humans who stride like gods through the halls.
I went out onto the grounds of the Capitol and found what the plaque said was a collection of six statues of school children created with funds donated by school children in 1993. "A Tribute to Texas School Children" the plaque was titled. Only four of the statues were there. The base for a fifth was still there, the sixth base was missing.
I wanted to cry.
The giants of the Texas Legislature and the school children of Texas.
"Every sin is a form of violence."
I'm a foster parent.
My state, like many states, is having sever budget issues. Yesterday, I went to my State Capitol to rally and lobby to restore the funds cut from the proposed State Budget for the agency that oversees abused and neglected children. I won't bore you with the details, even if I fully understood them, but suffice it to say, that the proposed cuts would devastate a protection system that is already last in the country in helping children.
I was brushed off by my local state representative, one of the few liberals left in my state's government, and I found out that this representative was actually responsible for writing this section of the proposed budget. She defends the budget by saying how much worse it could be.
I sat down in the halls of government and watched, and prayed, and thought.
Everything in the Capitol Building is over-sized, gilded, hand carved and covered in leather. Twenty foot high ceilings and doors. Marble walls, columns, statuary. Enormous wooden door frames and stair railings. Huge paintings of the important battles for independence. Portraits of every Governor, many of whom have gone on to be President. And gold and bronze gilded everything. The place was designed for fifteen foot high humans who stride like gods through the halls.
I went out onto the grounds of the Capitol and found what the plaque said was a collection of six statues of school children created with funds donated by school children in 1993. "A Tribute to Texas School Children" the plaque was titled. Only four of the statues were there. The base for a fifth was still there, the sixth base was missing.
I wanted to cry.
The giants of the Texas Legislature and the school children of Texas.
"Every sin is a form of violence."
21 March 2011
Fear & Love
"Fear and love are contradictory terms. Love is reckless in giving away, oblivious as to what it gets in return. Love wrestles with the world as with itself and ultimately gains a mastery over all other feelings." - 'From S.S. Rajputana-III' (Letter from M.D.)*, Young India, 1 Oct. 1931 (from The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi edited by Raghavan Iyer)
Fear, I understand. I am a very fearful person and have always been so from my earliest memories. My father used to tell me that there was nothing to be afraid of. This did not help. It only made me feel bad about myself for being weak.
Today, I still have many fears. I fear financial insecurity, even though I have more than enough money. I fear old age and poor health. I fear losing my wife. I fear losing my daughters, biological and foster. I fear strangers. The list goes on and on.
But I have also begun to learn love. I started to learn in my late teens when I decided that for me the most important thing in the universe were children. Much of my adult life has been spent sharing my life with children. This brings me great joy and great sorrow, but mostly great love. I don't know that I have helped any of them, but I know that they have helped me.
It was this love that brought me to non-violence. It takes but a glance at history to see that the greatest victims of violence and greed have always been children. Followed closely, I might add, by the victimization of women.
A world of non-violence, a world of love, would be a world where the least among us would be raised up as the most important and most valued.
* Mahadev Desai published the above extract from a discours given by Gandhi at the evening prayer, during his voyage to London.
Fear, I understand. I am a very fearful person and have always been so from my earliest memories. My father used to tell me that there was nothing to be afraid of. This did not help. It only made me feel bad about myself for being weak.
Today, I still have many fears. I fear financial insecurity, even though I have more than enough money. I fear old age and poor health. I fear losing my wife. I fear losing my daughters, biological and foster. I fear strangers. The list goes on and on.
But I have also begun to learn love. I started to learn in my late teens when I decided that for me the most important thing in the universe were children. Much of my adult life has been spent sharing my life with children. This brings me great joy and great sorrow, but mostly great love. I don't know that I have helped any of them, but I know that they have helped me.
It was this love that brought me to non-violence. It takes but a glance at history to see that the greatest victims of violence and greed have always been children. Followed closely, I might add, by the victimization of women.
A world of non-violence, a world of love, would be a world where the least among us would be raised up as the most important and most valued.
* Mahadev Desai published the above extract from a discours given by Gandhi at the evening prayer, during his voyage to London.
08 March 2011
"I Ever Compromise My Own Ideals"
"Achara means the outward mode of living and it can change from time to time. The rules of inner living must remain the same; that is, one should cling to truth, ahimsa, etc. In trying to follow them, we may change the rules of outward mode of living whenever necessary." A Letter (G.), Mahadevbhaini Diary, Vol. I, p. 364
When I first read Gandhi many years ago, one of the first changes I made was to give up my car and begin riding my bicycle for transportation. I felt then, and I still feel today, that in the United States, transportation by automobile is a form of violence. We fight wars for oil for our cars. Tens of thousands are killed on our highways, and hundreds of thousands are injured annually. Our transportation system sub-divides neighbor from neighbor with dead zones of blacktop. Money that could be spent helping the least among us is spent paving paradise and chrome plates our lives. More can be added to the list.
For ten years my wife and I lived without a car. We cycled everywhere we went. To choose this life in an American city means sacrifices. Our daily lives were circumscribed by our limited method of transportation. We were happy with these limits for many years.
And then my life turned in a different direction. My daughter found out she had a medical condition that precluded her from having children. For many years I have worked with teenagers. The prospect of no grandchildren made us rethink our lives. We decided to become foster parents. Teenage girls began to come and live in our home. The foster care system requires trips to family court, to doctors, to therapists, to various and sundry meetings most of which were not in our city, and teenage girls have needs for social lives that are not local. Being without a car was no longer an option.
We own two now. The truth of sharing our home with children without homes has supplanted the truth of not owning a car. I still try and ride my bicycle to the local store and any nearby meetings, but my life now revolves around my girls and not my transportation.
Do I have mixed feelings about this? Of course, but I am comfortable in this decision. It's not perfect. I have had to compromise, but I can live with the compromise.
When I first read Gandhi many years ago, one of the first changes I made was to give up my car and begin riding my bicycle for transportation. I felt then, and I still feel today, that in the United States, transportation by automobile is a form of violence. We fight wars for oil for our cars. Tens of thousands are killed on our highways, and hundreds of thousands are injured annually. Our transportation system sub-divides neighbor from neighbor with dead zones of blacktop. Money that could be spent helping the least among us is spent paving paradise and chrome plates our lives. More can be added to the list.
For ten years my wife and I lived without a car. We cycled everywhere we went. To choose this life in an American city means sacrifices. Our daily lives were circumscribed by our limited method of transportation. We were happy with these limits for many years.
And then my life turned in a different direction. My daughter found out she had a medical condition that precluded her from having children. For many years I have worked with teenagers. The prospect of no grandchildren made us rethink our lives. We decided to become foster parents. Teenage girls began to come and live in our home. The foster care system requires trips to family court, to doctors, to therapists, to various and sundry meetings most of which were not in our city, and teenage girls have needs for social lives that are not local. Being without a car was no longer an option.
We own two now. The truth of sharing our home with children without homes has supplanted the truth of not owning a car. I still try and ride my bicycle to the local store and any nearby meetings, but my life now revolves around my girls and not my transportation.
Do I have mixed feelings about this? Of course, but I am comfortable in this decision. It's not perfect. I have had to compromise, but I can live with the compromise.
01 March 2011
The Contribution of Non-Violence
"Dr. Mott: 'What do you consider to be the most valuable contribution that India can make to the progress of the world?
Gandhi: Non-Violence." - Interview with Dr. John Mott, Young India, 21 Mar. 1929
And what a valuable contribution it has been. Gaddafi condemned and sanctioned for killing peaceful civilians. The amazing video of the lone man standing up to the tanks in Tiananmen. Rosa Parks and lunch counters and the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Draft card burners. Labor unionists occupying the Wisconsin State Capital.
The list goes on and on.
And in my own life, my wife and I ride our bicycles for ten years and don't own a car. We decide to become foster parents. I write scripts and novels and poetry that emphasis non-violent methods for resolving problems. (They don't sell, but that's a whole different can of worms.)
I know in these blogs, I have often written about my failings (and they are legion), but there are many, many successes.
And that's why I started and continue this blog. It is one of my daily disciplines to help me remember what is important in my life today. I consider it prayer.
Gandhi: Non-Violence." - Interview with Dr. John Mott, Young India, 21 Mar. 1929
And what a valuable contribution it has been. Gaddafi condemned and sanctioned for killing peaceful civilians. The amazing video of the lone man standing up to the tanks in Tiananmen. Rosa Parks and lunch counters and the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Draft card burners. Labor unionists occupying the Wisconsin State Capital.
The list goes on and on.
And in my own life, my wife and I ride our bicycles for ten years and don't own a car. We decide to become foster parents. I write scripts and novels and poetry that emphasis non-violent methods for resolving problems. (They don't sell, but that's a whole different can of worms.)
I know in these blogs, I have often written about my failings (and they are legion), but there are many, many successes.
And that's why I started and continue this blog. It is one of my daily disciplines to help me remember what is important in my life today. I consider it prayer.
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