Fostering 301

Instalment 3 - Letting Go (aka Grieving)

It’s been over a month since our first foster kiddo left our care. By all accounts this part of fostering has to be the most convoluted and complex. Not only are there little to no supports from the system for foster parents when a child leaves your home, but in our experience, there is a scramble to know where the child will be going exactly. For us, we had set a clear time-limit and were working with the child and the Ministry towards a specific goal.

Our time-limit was pushed to our maximum from even before the child entered our home, then was extended (we agreed), and then we were asked to have it extend again (we had to say no). We agreed to everything we put ourselves through, yes, but I’m not sure that we truly understood what we were agreeing to, nor did we entirely understand how that would effect us individually and as a couple. 

Personally, I believe that the Ministry failed us as new foster parents, and did little to help us understand the system and the barriers that we all faced. Additionally, the Ministry attempted on multiple occasions to lengthen our contract by nearly double, and it was one of the hardest things to have to repeatedly say no, all the while having no answers for the child for what came next for them - couldn’t we just extend so that the child had some semblance of stability? No - our bodies and minds were overextended, and our emotional reservoirs drained. 

We had done a lot of work with the child to explain what we were able to provide and why to have them understand why decisions were being made. This had us divulge a lot of really personal information about our lives that perhaps typically foster kiddos aren’t privy to. We felt that this child was old enough to understand, and had a right to know why we were making decisions that affected their life. But, with all this work it wasn’t until 3 days prior to the end of our contract (which is the day the kid moves) that anyone was able to say what was happening and where the kid was moving. I can’t express how incredibly unfair this was for the child, and how much unnecessary stress it added to our lives.

To be fair, MCFD is an imperfect system. Here in Northern BC, they constantly operate with inadequate staffing, deal with high turnover rates, and a perpetual shortage of foster homes. All while attempting to work in the best interests of children. When you’re talking removal from parent(s) care, you’re talking about a pretty crappy situation off the hop. Though, as a foster parent, that isn’t your problem. It’s something to be aware of, but the Ministry’s failings aren’t the foster parents - they have to be understood in order to have realistic expectations of what is actually happening, but they should not compromise anyone’s understanding of what the Ministry’s job actually is and that they are duty-bound to fulfill it, at a minimum. This shouldn’t be an ideal or something to be laissez-faire about.

It came as a surprise how quickly things have gotten back to our version of normal within the first week or so of not having a child in our home. At the same time though, it seems to me that each of us haven’t completed the grieving process. To me it feels like some combination of break-up and death, or a very important person (friend/family) moving far away - it’s a numbness, a freedom, and a sadness.  Grieving is a process and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Recently, I had a conversation with an couple that had been interested in fostering a few years back. They were interested because of infertility problems and knew that they wanted kids in their lives. They opted not to because of some wisdom (I use that word lightly here) that their social worker shared with them. It seems that they had much more direct and upfront conversations about letting go that we were privy to. This couple was told that you couldn’t let yourself fall-in love with a child - that you had to guard yourself and keep the child at a distance so that when the time came for the child to leave that this could be done without having done damage to yourself. 

I don’t agree that you don’t fall in-love with the kid because they will understand, more than they already do, that they are different and that you’re holding back. That child’s life is already in turmoil, and maybe has been for their entire life. They deserve to know what unconditional love is and feels like. Not only do they deserve it, but they have to experience it in order to be able to form healthy relationships in the future. 

Yes, loving a kid this way will be harder for you to let go, but their experiences with you will be that much richer and will have a greater impact. I know this is true, because when we were finally able to tell this kid where they were going after living with us, they took a moment to register the information and the first thing they said was, “I hope all your dreams come true.” That kid, if we hadn’t loved them completely, wouldn’t have cared what was going to happen to us in the moment they were told what was happening to them, if we hadn’t open our hearts without barriers. I won’t let anyone tell me that this isn’t true.

Over the past month, my partner and I have had a number of conversations where we figured out, together and individually, how we grieve and then move forward. I don’t think there’s one way to do it, or a list of ways that you can do it, but for us this is what we did. The first weekend after the child left, we went on a mini-vacation away from cell-phones and the internet where we could simply be together;  we decompressed and slept a lot. In the following week, to encourage conversation about what we just experienced, we came up with mental lists that we shared with each other - some of these were thoughtful lists, and some of were spontaneous. These lists included things that we missed, were thankful for, that we learned, that we hated, what was the most stressful, what we appreciated about the other in these parenting roles, and what we were thankful for. In the first child free weeks, we actively took time to reengage with things that we enjoyed individually and together that had fallen on the way-side. I think next time, we’ll grieve with a little more grace than we did here, but I’m proud of how well we did.

During this entire experience, we constantly talked about if we would like to continue fostering or not, what our time-limit is, and how frequently we are able to have a child in our home. These conversations have continued to this date, and I anticipate that they will continue until we decide to not be foster parents anymore. I can’t stress enough how open communication is the most important thing to surviving and thriving through being a foster parent, while also understanding that talking might not be in the cards for your partner at the moment, or that your partner just needs you to listen without offering suggestions. Knowing yourself and your partner’s strengths and quarks is key to being able to support each other throughout having a kid in your house and especially when you’re getting ready to say goodbye.

We’ll that’s the end of this. I hope that I provided some useful information to anyone considering being a foster parent, or to anyone simply interested in what it’s like. Please, understand that all of these blog posts are based on personal experience, and may not be duplicated if you or someone you know fosters, and may not even be the same for me if/when there’s another kid stomping around my house.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with me - I am more than happy to answer what I can and speak of my experience.