We have nothing but praises for the foster family who looked after our son. In fact, the passion and dedication they put into their role of carers inspired us to take up fostering ourselves. However, not every adoptive family holds their children’s foster carers in such high regard.
Some families can’t wait to distance themselves (and their children) from the previous carers, and I can understand why. It’s hard enough to create a bond between a child and a parent where there is none, even without the interference of the old foster family. But I’m not sure the foster family is the enemy in this strange love triangle.
As a newly adoptive family, you want to have your go, and God knows you’ve waited long enough for it. Then, why should you make concessions for the foster family? After all, they knew the terms of the deal from the start. Possibly these terms are the very reason why you would never seriously consider fostering yourself, because it’d be too heartbreaking for you to let go of a child you care so much for.
The foster carers I spoke with feel exactly the same way you do, but they’ve decided to take on fostering despite of it. Unfortunately, having taken that decision doesn’t spare them the pain of losing a child they still love and have loved for some time. It’s true, they always knew the terms of the deal, but they also knew that love and loss are part of the equation, and that there cannot be any parenting without love. Their love, at some time, meant the world for your child.
During our adoption training, we were invited to play all sort of silly group games. But one of these games resonated for me, and I’m surprised I haven’t heard more often of it. It’s called The Water Bucket Exercise.
The Water Bucket Exercise is an activity meant to help children understand time and make sense of their own identity, but I believe it could also help parents. To perform the exercise, you needs a big bucket, like a large laundry bucket, a jug, and a tap.
The exercise is initially lead by the parent, who starts retracing the first few years of the child’s life. Details are not important here, just the highlights. The child might have spent two or three years with his birth family, for example, so for each year the parent fills a jug of water and pour it into the bucket. Once removed from his birth family, he might have stayed with an emergency foster family for a few weeks, and maybe he still has memories of them. For them, the parent fills only the bottom of the jug, and pour the content in the bucket. Then it’s the turn of the foster family with which the child has spent several years. Those years take as many jugfuls of water, which are again poured into the bucket. The exercise continues until we get to the present time. At that point, the carer, pointing to the water in the bucket, ask the child, “Can you tell me which part is which?”.
Hard to tell, isn’t it? The exercise simply illustrates one of the realities of adoption: the person your child is today, or the child you are about to adopt, is the product of all the people who have been in some way important in his whole life. You, as his adoptive parent, are the lucky one. You are the one who will be there to see the bucket filled to the brim, but the time spent with others will always be in there too. Those years have value, and they should not be negated.
I remember the water excercise from our stage 1 training – seems like ages ago but can remember the group stuff we did like yesterday
The first time I heard of the water bucket exercise it didn’t mean very much to me, but being so simple and visual, I intuitively understood how it would work for a child. I never thought that one day it could help me understand adoption and the children involved a little better. A lot of the adoption training should come with a disclaimer: “It might not right now, but give it time, all of it will eventually make sense.”
From my experience and from talking to friends who have adopted, foster carers can be good, bad and somewhere in between. One friend had an amazing foster carer for his two children and they still keep in touch years later, another thought the foster carer had done a great job with their child but they did do somethings that seemed strange and rarely keep in contact. For us the foster carer was very heavily attached to the children who are now ours. She loved them, particularly the oldest who had been with her since birth for 18 months and spent alot of time during intros telling us how we were taking “her” children and giving them kisses and hugs. This could have affected their attachment but they were fine when they moved home. We would have kept in contact but during intros she told us how she had been taking the kids to see the birth grandmother every 2 weeks – without SW knowing! Concerned that this would be an issue as birth grandmother had been turned down for special guardianship I set up a fake Facebook profile and searched for the birth grandmum who has lots of photos of the kids all over her Facebook with comments such as “I promise I will find them one day” “Please keep an eye out for these kids and let me know if you see them”. We had no choice other than to speak to SW and raise it as a safeguarding issue.
Even now 9 months home the birth grandmum is still posting more photos taking before they came to us and asking people to look for them. SW had to speak to FC and say that it wasn’t acceptable and that we would not be keeping in contact because of this. I just cant risk her not passing information on to birth grandmum or taking photos and sharing with her. I could also go on and on about no boundaries being set or the development of our youngest but I think that’s enough for now.
I’m very sorry to hear what happened. I cannot think of any reason why anyone would do what your children’s foster carers did, and you are right, some carers do a great job with the children in their care, others less so.
Some think their role is similar to the one of a warden, with the only duty of keeping the children alive. An underpaid one too, so it’s only fair they should do as little as they can. Far better carers love the children to a fault sometimes. I tend to condone minor missteps when they are done out of love. As a carer, I’m sure I’ll make my mistakes too, and I’ll try to learn from them.
Very rarely two people will agree on what is best for a child. We can only expect foster carers to do what they believe is right for the children, the rest it’s up to us.