Cindy posted a tough blog entry today about what happened at her house last night. Had I chosen to, the night before I could have blogged about something that happened at our house that made Bart angrier than I have ever seen him.
But what Cindy points out is the absolute most evil part of this journey as adoptive parents. We are expected to take the brunt of years of furious anger that is bottled inside small but growing larger bodies. We attempt to calmly redirect them, we listen to them cuss us out, feel them punch and kick us, and are expected to emotionally be stable, not react, not show our anger.
And when we can't take it any more, we know that we have to find a safe place to talk about that anger and pain. Because if we talk to the wrong person, we could be investigated, we could watch as our kids are taken way like other families have done, we could be blamed, criticized, ostracized and talked about.
And so often we hide our pain. We process our anger with our kids and spouses and sometimes with other adoptive parents. We can blog, but not necessarily without criticism. If we blog the truth, sometimes we are criticized because people accuse us of harming recruitment efforts or we find out that professionals who are "looking out for the best interests of our children" are reading our blogs and defining, using their perspective, just what that is when they may have only known our child for a few days.
I am always haunted by something that happened about ten years ago. A woman I met on a message board was adopting and had a blog before there were blogs. She had made a decision to honestly journal about her experiences in an adoptive placement. She ended up with three very hard children placed with her. They may have not even been able to function in a family setting at that point, but they placed them with her anyway. She honestly journaled about her frustrations and stress about what she was trying and not trying, as she attempted to parent, without many services or much help, three extremely agressive and mentally ill children.
She was committed to them. She may have not made the best choices every day but she was willing to do whatever it took. And they were going to finalize the adoption. Until someone found her journal online and read it with scrutiny. And they decided that she had made some mistakes. And weeks before finalization, the children were removed. There was no time to have an adequate goodbye. There was no time for the kids to process it. There was no hope that they would see the kids again.
No, I don't know the whole story. But based on what i saw, how scary is that for me to keep blogging?
These are the tough issues, the hidden ones, that most people don't talk about. Where do I go when I am the one who is hurt or downright angry? We are the ones who are supposed to be strong. We are the ones that are supposed to look flawless to avoid scrutiny?
And, as you can tell since it took me 9 hours to finish this, I'm not really sure what the answers are.
3 comments:
I'm with you, Claudia. The most recent time I was reported on, I believe it was a fellow foster parent who I had just been confiding in.
Angela :-)
I often think to myself, "So, then who can I trust?" First you lose those friends who think you're crazy to foster or adopt BEFORE you're even really in the trenches - they just don't like the idea of it, then you lose those friends who can't stand to be around your kids or don't want their kids exposed to your "slightly imbalanced" children, then you lose the people around you who disagree with your parenting - you're either too strict and don't let your kids have a break or you must be too lenient because they're acting out of control - either way, your fault, then you think you've found that perfect person, someone else who's working in the trenches right alongside you, someone who should really be able to empathize, someone who should and does seem to get it - and they betray you either by blabbing to others about your kids or worse. The social workers are so not wanting to hear about YOUR problems with the kids and I even had an awesome adoption worker who I had known for a decade tell me that my sons behaviors were just annoying, not murderous, so he couldn't go to RTC - just deal with it. So, who do you trust? Talk about feeling alone. The only time we have EVER asked for help, we're told "it isn't that bad and quit your complaining - it could be worse".
I only discovered these blogs a few months ago and they have helped me so much!!!
I have to agree with you. I only recently (last week) starting seeking therapy for ME! I struggle on a daily basis how to handle our kids' behaviors. To understand why it is ME they are targeting (ok I know why but to truely UNDERSTAND why is the hard part). I have not told but 2 people what I am doing for fear of what the SW or AW might think. IT's a tough place to be in.
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