Foster Kid Jokes

May is National Foster Care Month. Learn more at http://www.fostercaremonth.org/Pages/default.aspx

Loving a Foster Kid 101

Just had to share the super special gift I recently received from my sweet and talented friend Laura.

It’s a quilt with 18 of my friends’ handprints stitched on and their initials in the middle! (Zoom in for a better look.) When Laura and I were freshmen, our InterVarsity Large Groups included a meet-and-greet of sorts that the emcee would introduce by saying, “A wise man once said that everyone needs [insert ridiculous number, like maybe 32] meaningful touches per day to be well physically, emotionally, and mentally — so go give some people a hug, a high-five, or a fist bump!” It was super silly and weirded more than a few people out (which is why it was discontinued by our sophomore year) but I always loved it! So now I can have my daily “meaningful touches” even when we’re all apart.

Seeing the quilt for the first time with two of my friends, Julia (l) and Lucille (r)

If there could possibly be anything cooler than this quilt, it would have to be the note Laura gave me with it, part of which read:

Dear Kelliann, 

This is a slightly belated birthday present. It’s a quilt with hand prints of some (but not all) of the people who love you on it. I wanted to make you something special because your 21st birthday means that you age out of the foster system. That’s really scary, at least some of the time. This quilt is to remind you that you are loved a whole lot, and we’ll always be there to listen and pray, even if we can’t fix things.

Need I say more?! I have no commentary to add – I honestly don’t think I could do a better job at loving on a foster kid in the midst of aging out of the system… and I am one!

I am incredibly blessed to have such sweet and thoughtful friends in my life.

Gratitude and Grief: The death of a birth parent in foster care

Remembering and being grateful for the mom who gave me life and loved my brother and me so fiercely. I am so grateful I had several good years with her as a little one.

Also grieving the loss of this mom to addiction many years ago and death two years ago this past weekend. Grieving the adolescent and young adult relationships I haven’t gotten to have, and the loss of the privilege of having my mom with me and getting to know her into my adulthood.

As a foster kid, the death of a birth family member can be a very isolating experience. In typical families and situations, most people have the rest of their family and family friends around to go through the mourning process with and to remember their loved one with, especially at times like birthdays and anniversaries of the death.

I was on a spring break service trip when my mom died my freshman year of college. I told three friends I was on the service trip with about it, two of whom I am close with; I don’t recall that any of them said a word to me about it – either that week or ever again. I can pretty much guarantee that if anybody else’s mother had died in the middle of the semester, our community back at school would have been alerted, and support would have been offered.

The fact that I wasn’t living with my mom at the time did not negate the impact of her death. Nor did the fact that we had a very broken relationship. Birth family connections do not simply disappear when kids enter foster care or are adopted.

With any sort of death or major loss, I think people just generally don’t know what to say – so adding in the complications of foster care and all the mess surrounding that just makes things more difficult. But in my experience, saying something, giving some sort of acknowledgement and support, is better than doing nothing. I was grateful for the gestures of a few folks at that time – a couple of my high school youth group leaders called or emailed me, a college friend who has also experienced the death of a parent reached out to me once I told her about it, and my former foster mom made numerous efforts to honor my mom and acknowledge her death.

Foster kids come with a lot of unusual circumstances and experiences. People often aren’t going to be able to completely relate or empathize. But, at least for me,

“The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.” – Barbara Kingsolver

My Favorite Foster/Adopted/Kinship Characters!

I like it when well-developed foster, adopted, and kinship characters are included in the storylines of mainstream television, movies, and books. My favorite TV show, Grey’s Anatomy, includes two:

Alex’s history of bouncing around foster care and caring for his two younger siblings comes to light in season 6 (episode 19). I love that Grey’s includes the implications of this tough background in Alex’s character, but that it doesn’t single-handedly define him, and I love that we see him struggle in his own way to heal and learn to build healthy relationships. Well, about as healthy as they get on a prime-time soap opera at least.

And then there’s adorable Zola, a Malawi toddler cared for at Seattle Grace Mercy West and eventually adopted by Derek and Meredith! Again, I thought the show did a good job demonstrating how difficult the adoption process can be as well as portraying the joy of it finally coming through.

Harry Potter – classic. In the incredibly intricate Harry Potter series, author J. K. Rowling weaves together an epic tale that not only allows Harry to save the world but also to deal with the realities of growing up an orphan and under the kinship care of his cranky Muggle aunt and uncle. Throughout the series, Harry deals with the pain of losing his parents (and later his godfather), imagining and wondering what could have been, and lack of understanding from his friends, all of which accurately reflect the journeys of real-life foster, adopted, and kinship youth in my opinion.

Finally, I recently read The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. I can’t say enough good things about this book. Told from the point-of-view of the main character Victoria, the novel uses alternating chapters to weave together the protagonist’s childhood with the beginning of her life after aging out of foster care at age eighteen. Diffenbaugh gets it all right – some of the common experiences of youth who age out (such as homelessness and lack of education and job skills) as well as the emotional repercussions of life in the system. Victoria is a complex character – she struggles, she overcomes, she struggles some more. Sometimes she takes two steps forward and three steps back. She is real and complex, just like real foster kids and just like all of us!

Thoughtful Questions

I’ve noticed a pattern over the past several years: Many people in my life are interested in foster care and/or my story, but few ask me about either.

I simply assumed that lack of questions meant lack of interest, only to find out months later that some of my closest friends were super confused about things but had not felt comfortable asking me questions about my birth family or my time in foster care.

To be fair to my older friends, I was in fact very reluctant to divulge any details about my home life or foster care situation in high school. Clearly, I have become much more open since coming to college (hence this blog). And like all humans, I desire to be in relationship with people and to be known – so I actually really appreciate thoughtful questions!

Reason #74 I love teaching middle schoolers: Some of the most honest and thoughtful questions I’ve gotten about my foster care experiences have been from middle schoolers. When I taught with Breakthrough in 2010, each teacher was responsible for leading an All-School Meeting (ASM), a time of day all the students, teachers, and staff come together as a whole community to learn something or be silly or usually both. I led my ASM on the foster care system and shared some of my own experiences in foster care before opening for questions.

They asked so many great questions. They asked why I had to go into foster care (which I hypothesize is one of the #1 questions that people have but will not ask). I loved that they were honest about this curiosity and just put it out there.

So they had no filter – that’s pretty typical of middle school students. I was expecting that. What I wasn’t expecting were the incredibly insightful and empathetic questions I got, like:

“Do you miss your mom and dad?”

“Do you ever cry about it? ‘Cause I would cry.”

I was so impressed (as usual) by my students and by these questions. While also keeping in mind Big Girl tact and timing, I want to take a cue from my awesome middle schoolers and have the courage to step further into people’s lives by asking thoughtful questions!

More Thoughts on Family and DNA

I smile when people say that my brother and I look alike…

…that we have the same expressions…

…or the same blue eyes…

…or even the same walk?!

And I think I smile mostly because it means people are acknowledging that we “go together,” that we belong together. It’s cool that we can be easily identified as family thanks to the shared genetic material, but that is far from the only thing making us family!

Another testament to the fact that sharing DNA and thus looking alike is, for me, mostly just a means of showing that we go together, is that I once caught myself thinking, “I wonder if anyone ever gets me and Lucille mixed up?”

Lucille is my college roommate of two years, one of my very best friends, and my stand-in “sister.” As soon as I had that fleeting thought I started laughing hysterically at myself. And here’s what would happen if I told Lucille that:

Clearly, I look nothing like my beautiful, tiny, Asian American roomie. But something in my brain reasoned that since we spent so much time hopping around in the same sleeping bag…

…and just generally being cuddlebugs attached at the hips/waist/arms/wherever…

…that surely people would notice that we “go together” too.

3 Great Times in Life to be a Foster Parent

So many people in diverse stages of life can make great foster parents! Here are some ideas: 

1) A few years after graduating college or entering the workforce (your 20s!) – you know that glorious period where you’ve mastered (or at least adjusted to!) the demands of adult life and a job, have become financially stable, but may not be “settled down” with a spouse and/or kids? What a great time to open your home to respite, short-term, or longer-term foster care placements! In some localities, you can become a foster parent as young as 21 years old provided you have the emotional maturity, space in your home, and financial stability. 

2) When you’re settled down and building a family, with a spouse or as a single person (your 30s and 40s!) – Ready for a long-term commitment to parenting? Foster kids need care anywhere from a few days to a few months to a few years to forever. And you can still foster while growing your family biologically or through adoption too! My foster mom I lived with in high school currently has a grown bio daughter, an adopted son, and a foster son – and they are a great and hilarious group together! 

3) As an empty-nester (your 50s and beyond!) – Still have a heart for caring for kids, even with your own grown up and moved out? Instead of turning your kids’ bedrooms into that home gym you’ll never use or the sewing room that will collect junk, consider revamping it and taking in some kiddos in need. 

Here’s the deal – the need for good foster parents is incredible. Foster kids need respite parents to give their full-time foster parents a break or the ability to travel on business. Some foster kids need a safe and loving environment for a few months that will support the goal of reuniting and strengthening their birth family. Others need a lifelong permanent connection to a supportive family. In any case, good foster parents can mean the difference between a child experiencing healing while in care, or undergoing more trauma. Good foster parents can mean the difference between a vulnerable teen falling into homelessness and unemployment, or proudly showing their family around their college.

Not everyone is in a position to be a foster or adoptive parent (look for an upcoming post about how you can still help anyway) – but the option is open to far more people than may realize.

FACES has great information on how to become a foster parent. 

Family Finding

A new development in foster care policy called “family finding” has been making a splash since its introduction as federal law in 2008. The law requires that caseworkers play detective to track down foster children’s biological relatives – who could potentially provide care for them – within 30 days of the child’s removal from his/her birth home. This policy raises a couple of important questions for me:

1) What does “family” mean?

Does the 12.5% DNA similarity between biological cousins, for instance, make them family? Would your answer change if they live on opposite ends of the country and have never met versus if they live a block away and have grown up together?

According to this article that inspired my reflection, “family” seems to be used as a broad (and never explicitly defined) category here – the author mentions coming up with 100 family members for one foster youth, but also notes that “family friends” have been utilized as a placement option.

2) What makes a placement in the best interest of the child?

The underlying assumption with the family finding policy is that ideally, children should be with “family” – defined by good old-fashioned biology.  

I think this is okay in theory. (Of course, in an ideal, unbroken world, foster care wouldn’t have to exist in the first place.) But in reality, that’s not always an option at all, much less the best option. There are a lot of factors in determining what is best for a child who cannot be with his biological parents, including the needs for permanency and stability of placement (not being bounced around to dozens of different homes), and any special health or educational needs. Thus, the best placement option may or may not correspond to biological connections.

And what do the kids themselves think about it?

In the documentary From Place to Place, two foster youth who have aged out of care are given the opportunity to utilize family finding services. One of the youth, Mandy, chooses to participate in efforts to find the biological father she has never met. She is very open to the hopeful possibility that her father, or other relatives from his side of the family, could become part of her life. Raif on the other hand laughs at the idea that he and his unknown relatives could be expected to bond over a few shared gene sequences, and was uninterested in the family finding process.

As for me, I don’t remember how much consideration was given to relative placement when my brother and I entered foster care, from either side of the table, or if it was ever a real option. I do remember that it was at least mentioned as a vague and abstract possibility that happens in general to kids in foster care, at which I absolutely panicked. If I had been told that in addition to being taken away from the only family and home I had ever known I would also be torn from my state, hometown, friends, school, and church for the sake of some loose connections and the DNA that happens to give me the same blue eyes and brown hair as the entire maternal side of my family tree – I literally probably would have had a nervous breakdown. I had had enough uncontrolled change to last me a long time.  

I know my perspective on my personal situation was shaped by a number of factors –

- Culturally and racially, I am a white American, and white American culture in general does not place as much value on the idea of family as other racial and ethnic groups in the United States and elsewhere.

- I was 15 when I entered care, and like most 15 year olds, the thought of changing states, schools, and friends at the height of adolescence was unappealing to say the least.

- Growing up, I got to see my extended biological family about once every year or two – often enough to feed my natural curiosity about my biological relatives but not often enough to develop truly strong bonds with them, though we have a good casual relationship.

I think the lesson here, from the article and the experiences of some foster youth, is that flexibility is key when handling cases and determining the role of family finding. Every foster child is an individual with a unique story and needs. Family finding is an excellent opportunity to find more options for a stable, loving, and committed placement. Still, the results of family finding should be just that – options. 

The Blessings of Foster Care, Part 3

I’ve been working on a summer internship application that asks, “What team/group working and living experiences do you have?”

Answering this question has led to appreciation for another aspect of foster care life – diverse living experiences. Although I had only one regular foster care placement during my pre-college time in care, I collectively lived with several different foster siblings and spent time in multiple respite homes.

After adding my various college and summer living experiences, I was able to say that I have (pretty darn successfully) lived with dozens of different individuals over the past five years. Even just sticking to my foster care-related experiences, my roommates and housemates have been African American, Latina, white, and biracial; heterosexual and homosexual; Christian, agnostic, atheist, and universalist; and many other things these categories cannot capture.

One respite home I really enjoyed staying in was the G’s. When I was in Mr. and Mrs. G’s neighborhood, I felt as if I had been transported back in time. The entirely African American and largely elderly neighborhood still has a porch culture. Everyone sits out on their generously furnished porches drinking Kool-Aid and hollering greetings across, over, and down the street. The neighborhood functions like an extended kinship network and no one hesitates to brave the summer rays a moment to make their way over to a neighbor’s porch to chat. Mr. and Mrs. G’s son lived right next door with his young daughter. I thought it was all quite beautiful.

Living with people of cultures, circumstances, and beliefs different from my own during my time in foster care was such an enriching experience. It allowed me to care about people different from myself on a deeper and more personal level. The opportunity to live with a beautiful array of people has continued throughout college and summers, and I have felt more prepared for it thanks to the diverse living arrangements I experienced in foster care.

Independent Living Assessment

Part of being a youth in foster care is participating in the Independent Living (IL) Program. This means that the system is supposed to make sure we at least have some basic survival skills when we leave care, especially the ~25,000 of us who age out each year with no permanent family connections. For the past five years, I have received a thick envelope from Social Services about every 6 months containing a 90-question multiple choice IL assessment to complete. Plenty of the questions are totally valid, and in theory, this assessment can be used to show Social Services which specific skills foster youth may need assistance with.

However, I find the inclusion of certain questions… perplexing. Here are a couple of my favorites. I know it’s hard, but try to remember that these are not supposed to be funny.

1) Which is a necessity?
a. make-up
b. cell phone
c. food
d. television

13) How often should you shower, brush teeth, and change your clothes?
a. twice a week
b. Saturday nights
c. when someone says you smell bad
d. daily

Remember that this assessment is given to teenagers and young adults. This is hilarious until I question whether some youth in care have truly never had the opportunity to learn life skills as basic as these. I hope that in those cases, the IL program steps in.

Other questions disgust me by communicating the extraordinarily low expectations maintained for foster youth (which, statistically speaking, are not always without cause):

The first three questions (of seven total) under the “Legal Issues” section:
79) If you are arrested, you should call…
80) The police arrest you. You have the right to…
81) If you are with a friend who commits a crime…

The IL assessment begs the question:
How much is the system simply trying to address the issues that foster youth “naturally” have…
and how much is it a driving force behind these issues?