What's in a Name?

When we first started fostering, we weren't sure what to ask the theoretical kids who came to our home to call us.

We didn't want to ask them to call us Mom and Dad because we knew they would have parents that they associated with those names. Whether those associations were good or bad, we wanted them to be able to leave that with those people and have us be a "fresh slate."

We didn't want to ask them to call us Mr and Mrs LastName, because that seemed overly formal for the parental role we expected to be filling.

We didn't want to ask them to call us by our first names, because that seemed a little too familiar. (Keep in mind, we're talking about children ages 0-6. If we were expecting teenagers, this might have been a different conversation.)

What does that leave?

Thankfully for us, we live in the south, which means that many children around here are used to sometimes addressing adults as Mr or Ms FirstName. My bio children called most of their preschool teachers this; most of the adults they interact with at church use this format; the children in the choir I direct call me this as well. I didn't love it as a plan, because I felt like it didn't go far enough to establishing the strength of the relationship. Foster children in my home are more closely linked to me than a child I happened to teach to sing This Little Light of Mine. We assuaged that guilt by reminding ourselves that we would be open to "special" names if the children wanted them, but that those could develop naturally.

So, we were introduced to our first placement, R and A, as Mr FirstName and Ms FirstName. They were only with us for the length of the day. R was a whirlwind, into everything, trying everything, and mostly played with Mr D. I don't remember what he actually called us if anything. Within a few hours, A was following me around the house and calling me Mommy. I think we quickly would have been Mommy and Daddy to both of them, but they were gone before the first night had passed.

L and O came from a very different family situation. We have been Mr FirstName and Ms FirstName the whole time they've been here (over 8 months now!). They see Mommy every week; they talk to both Mommy and Daddy regularly on the phone. Mommy and Daddy are real people to them, people who are important in their lives, people they expect to go back to. Whenever O has slipped up and accidentally called me Mom or Mommy (because my biokids all call me Mom, after all!), L has been quick to correct him. Which has been fine. I've always responded to her correction -- usually a snapped, she's not your mom! -- by speaking to him with a smile and saying, "I'm your Ms. FirstName!"

A few weeks ago, L announced out of nowhere that maybe she could call us Mom and Dad because she calls her parents Mommy and Daddy, so it "wouldn't be confusing because it's different names." I felt she was just testing for a reaction, so I just calmly told her that would be fine if she wanted to do that or she could keep calling me Ms FirstName; I'd answer to either one. She dropped it, and continued to call me Ms FirstName.

Yesterday, she came home from a respite night. She'd had a great time with this family, which has daughters both older and younger than L, at least one of whom is a different ethnicity than the rest of the family. I'm not sure if that triggered something or not, but last night she announced that she was going to start calling me Mama, and kept correcting herself when she started to say Ms FirstName. We'll see how long it lasts.

I don't know what it means that she's changing my name. I don't know if it means anything. I would have been content to be Ms FirstName for them throughout their stay, although I'm not going to reject her desire to call me something else. This is not a placement that is ever likely to turn into an adoption--I expect them to go back to Mommy at some point, although I don't know when. I do hope that we're successfully giving her a model of what a functional marriage should look like. (Her parents are divorced, and there was domestic violence in the home prior to their split. Mommy appears to be true of the stereotype that abused women often end up in other abusive relationships, so L has seen a lot of that even after the divorce.) Maybe someday, she'll be reminded that she wants what "mama" had from her boyfriend/husband (respect, affection, trust), rather than what "mommy" had (verbal and physical abuse).

Hurry Up and Wait

There's just so much uncertainty in foster care.

When R and A came to us, we were told they would be long-term -- a year or more, maybe turn into foster-to-adopt! They'd been in care before, surely the judge would want to be thoroughly convinced before sending them home. Later that same day, the judge had sent them home.

When we were first called about L and O, we were told it would be short-term -- probably no more than a week or ten days at the most -- but that they had to come to us in the next hour or so. We rushed to get rooms ready, then spent a week or two waiting for the phone call to pack them up. Which never came.

Then we registered her for school, got serious about his toilet training, hoped to get all her dental work completed before the 3 month court date, enrolled him in speech therapy. That 3 month court date came and went and still they stayed. Next court date is 3 months away, after Christmas.

Suddenly, there was a family member home study being done in a different state, hoping to get them approved before "the holidays." The date for that approval passed, with not a comment from anyone about how it turned out. Is it still in process? We don't know.

Next, we heard about another family member, local, DFCS expecting to have their home study done before Thanksgiving and hoping for approval before Christmas. Thanksgiving arrived, with no word on the status of their paperwork.

As we inched into December, I emailed the caseworker. "Any news on that relative in-state? Did you get the paperwork you needed?" No response for over a week, then an update that they were waiting on the relative to get her drug test and fingerprinting done. They won't be moved before Christmas now.

Thankfully, L and O knew nothing about these faint hopes for reunification with family. They know only what we have repeatedly told them: You'll be here as long as it takes your parents to do what they need to do. We don't know what all they need to do and we don't know when they'll be done or how long it will take. We're sorry. When we know something for sure, we will tell you.

Our First Placement!

They arrived about 9:30 am. We had cleaned the house, made their beds, put a few clothes in their closets that we hoped would fit. We knew dinner was coming, so there was nothing to prepare there. By 9:15, we were both pacing, anxiously waiting their arrival, not sure what to expect, hoping we were ready.

We weren't. R wanted to explore the house immediately. He couldn't settle to one thing long enough to take your eyes off him. A was into everything. I'd forgotten that shelves of books and DVDs are irresistible to 3 year olds! While the caseworker talked to me about the paperwork and the initial things we needed to do, Mr D tried to keep up with both of the kids. Who of course wanted to go in two different directions!

Somehow we got through the paperwork. The caseworker left and we were on our own. Mr D took R out into the backyard to play with a toy football. A attached herself to me. Less than 30 minutes after their arrival, I walked away from her when she wasn't looking. She ran after me, calling "Mommy! Where Mommy?" For a second, I thought she was asking me where her biological mother was. Then she spotted me and joyously cried, "Mommy!" again. She was calling me Mommy already.

Dinner arrived with the volunteer. R and A were excited to see her and she talked with them a little bit. She gave them each a toiletry kit, which A carried around everywhere the rest of the day. She told me to call her if we needed anything, and I confessed I didn't even know what to ask for!

Our three "original" children got home from school and a baseball game began in the back yard. Around 5pm, we were getting dinner on the table. We realized we hadn't bought a baby monitor to put in A's room, so we would hear her if she got up in the night. Her room was at the top of the stairs and we had images of her falling down the stairs at 2am. One of the rules of foster care is that you cannot lock a child in their room, so we couldn't prevent her getting out of the room; we really needed to be able to hear if she got out of bed.

Mr D put a call in to our caseworker, to see if a volunteer would bring us a baby monitor. She said, "You won't need that."

Umm, we won't? We're pretty sure we do!

The caseworker had been about to call us when we called. They'd just gotten out of court. The judge said the kids had to go home.

They had been with us for 7 hours.

When we told R and A that they were going home and someone would come to pick them up after dinner, R asked if they would be taken away again. We didn't know what to say. We couldn't even guess if he was hoping for a yes or a no.

When they drove away, after many hugs and goodbyes and forced smiles, we looked at each other. We were emotionally and physically exhausted. It hadn't even been a day and it was one of the hardest things we'd ever done, letting them go.

Lesson learned: No one ever knows how long a placement is going to last.

The next day, we got the letter in the mail approving us to be foster parents.

And . . . we're off!

Although our family profile is still on file with an adoption attorney, it was full steam ahead towards foster parenting. We went through the hours of initial training. We submitted fingerprints for background checks. We handed over copies of our marriage certificate, our tax returns, and our financial records. We went through medical exams and drug tests. We got letters from the pediatrician and the vet stating that our children and animals were in good health. We submitted letters of reference from employers, friends and family members. We answered questions about our childhood, our parenting philosophies, our activities, and our marital relationship. And finally, someone came out to examine the house and talk with us about our fire safety plan, where our medicines and alcohol were kept, and which rooms would be used by the foster children. At the end of that visit, we were told we would get a letter stating our approval for up to 3 related children, ages 0-7; soon after that we would be called if there were children needing placement for whom our home was a good fit.

The day after her visit, the first call came. R was an "active" 6 year old boy and A was a 3 year old girl who the case worker described as "a pistol." They had been in foster care before, but the former family was no longer fostering, due to a change in the husband's work schedule. It would probably be a somewhat long-term placement, since it wasn't the first time they'd been taken into care. They were currently with a short-term care family, but needed somewhere they could stay as long as they needed to. Would we take them in?

We weren't ready, but we didn't have a good reason to say no. We took a collective deep breath, then asked if we could wait til the next day for them to arrive, so we could go get a few things we needed. Mr D took the day off work, so we were both home when R and A arrived around 9 in the morning.

Since they had been in care before, there was already a network of people who knew these children. One of them brought us dinner for the first night and visited with the children a little bit. She was able to tell us a little bit about their history and gave us the former foster family's phone number. School was still in session, so most of the day it was just Mr D and I and two new kids.