Tag: writing

So I am a father of 6 children, well now 5 of them are 18 and over 2 of my girls have kids of their own. so that now makes me a grandfather at the age of 35 and yes this was a premade family for me as I came into their lives at the ages of 3,6,7, and two around 8 and 10. This is were my life is a little complicated as my wife basically took in her exes two kids and raised them and continued to raise them even after they broke up and we got together. My wife has 3 with her ex and 1 with me, that is a quick break down but all of the kids see me as their father as I was their for them through thick and thin, and I love them as they are mine.

Ok now we got a little back detail out of the way you can kind of tell I am a very family oriented person and I got into this premade family when I was 20 ish and yes that seems young to already have 3 kids and their half siblings most of the time for a young person but I loved it and them seeing them grow up and become who they are now and hoping I helped influence them in a good way by showing my determination for the family and values. My wife and I dated for about 2 years before my son was born the youngest of the kids and it was a hard labor for my wife. That being said we agreed for her to get her tubes tied as she might not survive another pregnancy her risk was so high and she is only 9 years older than me and this was done when she was about 33. Now that was a hard decision for me as I wanted more kids but with the doctor saying their would be an even higher chance of her hemorrhage and bleed out since it took so long for the bleeding to stop last time. I told my wife even though I would love to have more kids and I know my kids need their mother more and I would not want to risk her for my selfish reasons.

Now lets skip ahead a few years lets say 11 years and now her sister the same age as I am now, she has had her first kid, and now a year and half and is pregnant with her second child, now her boyfriend the kids father gets out of jail and they get back together the thing is they have their issues and things happened to were after the baby was born they caught a case with D.C.S. or cps depending on you location.

My wife and I were asked if we could foster the two kids as it would be better to keep them in the family and of course our answer was a fat yes. Now in order to do that we had to go to classes get certified in C.P.R. and other items get a home inspection and a bunch of other rules and regulations we had to follow and become a certified child safety informant… ok i forgot the actually word but yeah if we see something wrong with a child health and or care we need to report it. I mean they put foster parents in a foster parent college type of thing to learn and must complete so many credit/hours in order to be a foster parent. it is all worth it when all you do is care for and raise the kids and give them the love needed and in my wife’s and my eyes it is all for the children to grow and be come successful good people.

I have heard the stories of bad foster parents I mean from the ones who care for money and or just doing to help a friend or family out and do not know how to rase a child to even the most grotesque situations of taking advantage of them, complete disgusting people. These are the situations I am like how did they get to do foster care and get children in their homes and the social services does not notice till it is to late? Yet their is all these inspections and regulations to get into it just to be a foster parent and once a month home visits.

We have been taking care of our nieces for a year and 3 months and have been raising them as they were our own. The 2 now three years old is none verbal on the autistic level and she did not know her name and or recognize people, she was still using a baby bottle and a pacifier and had to rocked to calm down for bed I mean she was very behind and the mom didn’t start to get her help that she needed. We were able to get her into programs that helped her start understanding things and broke her of the bottle and pacifier this was a challenge. This poor baby was starting so far behind that it was gonna make her life that much harder and that is not acceptable. After we got her into some programs to help her learn and start moving correctly she has improved still nonverbal but she can do some sign language and has even said a few words this baby wants to do better and she has worked hard to improve as much as she has. This girl is smart she knows how to manipulate people if she thinks she can and has done that to her parents before to get snacks and whatever she wanted. Now this girl knows her name and is mostly able to play with other kids we still get the yelling and screaming tantrums or this is mine when it is in her area or when someone get close to her she doesn’t want around her but that is part of her disorder and being worked on the doctors we see were impressed with her improvement over the year. Not to mention this baby was late on all her doctors appointments we we received them so we had to get all caught up so she would be eligible to go to school early but it was done and this baby is getting better.

Now the baby her little sister is now 16 months and hitting all the mile stones a baby should reach and has no issues just wanting to be around her sister who thinks she is annoying, every time the baby goes to her sister the 3 year old it is a tantrum since she is in her space but she is getting better.

Their is some background on our foster children obviously we cant say to much about the case or we could loose them due to foster restrictions of information and the safety. Now with that being said and my wife and I are only about the kids and seeing them improve and be productive people when they are older. The Foster care system says they are for the children and family but what is it with all their misshapes, Yes reunification is their gaol but their qualifications should be the same it is for the foster parents. their are so many rules for us foster parents to follow and abide by but i have seen a lot of slack to the biological parents. their have been issues I have seen and brought up to the worker and it is brushed off like when the parents are suppose to do 8 supervised visits a month in order to progress to unsupervised and yet they only do 3 or 4 in the month frame. so the social services are like they are trying and we believe if they have unsupervised they will make more visits. so they get moved up to unsupervised once a week and once a week supervised and still only make 2 unsupervised visits a month and no supervised. Now here is the best example of negligence on the social services for the foster system well the parents are asking for longer unsupervised as they can do more things with the kids so it is granted and at the same time they get overnight once a week. So guess what they never do a unsupervised visit again and maybe have done 3 overnights in the last month. now how is that spending time with your kids you wanted back so badly, How is the social services pushing them up the reunification ladder if the parents have proven to not be able to make plans and keep up to the appointments how are they gonna take care of the babies? With the oldest being autistic and needs a lot of attention and a lot of doctors appointments?

There is a lack of timekeeping and care, right now they have the mindset of we can see them and still live a childless lifestyle staying up late playing video games and waking up even later. Here is a question if you are an adult and get sick and you have kids, do you just say I cant today I don’t feel good and not take care of your kids? Cause not taking your kids for an overnight just cause you don’t feel good but your partner is healthy why cant they help with the kids or come and get them so they can see their kids. What happens when they get their kids back and one of them gets sick are they gonna not pay attention to the kids or pawn them off so they can get some sleep. I know as a parent myself I have been sick but still had to take my kid to the doctors or school make food. These visits are suppose to be bonding time and a trial like run for them to see if they are ready to take care of the kids. The problem is they are some how failing up. The foster car system is just trying to close the case before the adaption time line cause it has been over a year and the kids are young. How can you do a third of the work and still get more privileges they now have been granted two overnights and to force them to get their two visits in a week and show the court they are doing their obligations to reunify with the kids.

In my opinion this is gonna end up hurting the kids more than it would be helping them and they might regress from all the progress they did and the parents would not know how to keep working with the kiddos in the way they need. Yes the kids leaving is gonna affect my wife and I for a bit and it will be hard but that is what we signed up for. In the long run it will affect the babies more. Now if the parents were square and on track with everything and already showing that they can handle all the obligations that are needed for a autistic child and a 16 month old, I would be ok with them going back but in my thought process they are not close enough.

This is just my experience and thought of this situation and trying to get the anguish of the situation out of my head so I thought I would share a bit and maybe get some good info from the replies. Thank you for reading,

Commit if you have thoughts again thank you