I wonder if anyone here feels like trying to help me with this. I feel a bit silly, these happened to me 20 and 30 years ago, but I spent yesterday morning in tears again, crying about children who are long since adults.
My parents were foster parents for the state and a few agencies. I took foster children myself in my early 20's.
Of the kids my parents took there was one sibling group of three who we felt were 'ours'. They were with us from the
time they were 1, 3, and 5, and stayed 4 and 1/2 years. We were told that their mother wasn't able to take them back and that we'd be able to adopt, so we formed very close bonds. They visited with their bio mom 2 or 3 times in the 4 and 1/2 years, so she didn't seem too involved.
A new social worker came on the case. I mean, she was a new graduate, first job. She decided to reunite this family, and got things rolling. We were told on a Monday that they'd be going home the next Monday, the SW had been on the job about a month. The following Monday a different SW showed up to take the kids. The first one had quit that past Friday!
These kids didn't know their mother. We had to pack up all of their clothes and toys and prepare them to leave the only home they remembered to go back to a woman who really wasn't that interested. Though the youngest bounced in and out of care all his life, he never came back to us, nor were we able to find out how they were because the districts had been redrawn and we were in different ones, afterwards.
Just the facts, Ma'am. THis hurts soooo bad, I can't even go there. I'm trying to ask with help for my grief, yet I'm not even mentioning it!
I felt as if these 3 kids were MY OWN KIDS. I was 16 when they were taken, and i'd changed diapers and combed out head lice, and taken them to the park. I'd gone to their school plays. Twice a year, from the time I was 13, my friend and I would round up the younger brothers and sisters and somehow, though I can't imagine how, get our mothers to let us take them on a trip to Boston, 20 miles and 3 buses and 2 subway trains away! Once we were out of town, we get the kids to start calling us "Mama", which gave them fits of giggles. We took them to Filene's to see Santa's workshop and over to the common to see the lights. We'd eat at McDonalds and get home just in time for dinner. We went in the summer, too, to play in the Frogpond and ride the Swan boats.
And there were days at the beach or just hanging around the house. I LIKED the kids, enjoyed having younger brothers and sisters. I loved caring for the baby, I don't want to use his name, but feeding him and bathing him, I thought it was sooo much fun.
I thought that maybe as I got older, and had my own kids I would realize that I had loved them as siblings, not as my children, but having had 5 of my own, I can tell you, I absolutely loved them as a mother loves her babeis.
And then they were gone. Forever. We saw them once afterwards. Their older brother, who had lived with us for a short time brought them for a visit. I don't remember much of it They were teen agers, uncomfortable, a bit sullen. I was devastated, barely able to talk. They claimed not to remember us, except, (now I'm crying) the oldest girl remembered sitting on a red-haired girls lap and the little boy remembered a redhaired girl always chasing him around trying to kiss him. (I'm the only red-head)
So, I grew up and took foster kids. Sheesh. I had my son for 18 months when they said they were giving him to a two-parent home so he could be adopted. The same kind of thing, I was allowed to believe I'd be adopting. I won, that time. But I took 20 kids and each one of them haunts me. They're adults now and I know that. They were mostly little ones, so I wouldn't be someone they remembered, but I'm stuck, grieving.
The other day my sister found the middle sisters web page. (the one who was 3 when she came to us) Her brothers had signed on to her guest book and I so wanted to, but to what end?
I grieve, not her. She doesn't miss us, we were a bad time in the life of her family. Yet I yearn to know if her older sister and younger brother are safe. We've never heard a word about the baby, though occassionally we'd here that one of the girls had joined the service, or moved. They have an unusual last name, so I've been able to do searches and find them all safe, except our baby. The son no one thinks of as mine but me.
Please, it's been 30 years since we lost these kids. They aren't kids, but adults now. I can't talk to them as I can my dead relatives, which would bring me some peace. I feel that contacting them would be wrong, for THEM.
Anyone know how to move on?
My parents were foster parents for the state and a few agencies. I took foster children myself in my early 20's.
Of the kids my parents took there was one sibling group of three who we felt were 'ours'. They were with us from the
time they were 1, 3, and 5, and stayed 4 and 1/2 years. We were told that their mother wasn't able to take them back and that we'd be able to adopt, so we formed very close bonds. They visited with their bio mom 2 or 3 times in the 4 and 1/2 years, so she didn't seem too involved.
A new social worker came on the case. I mean, she was a new graduate, first job. She decided to reunite this family, and got things rolling. We were told on a Monday that they'd be going home the next Monday, the SW had been on the job about a month. The following Monday a different SW showed up to take the kids. The first one had quit that past Friday!
These kids didn't know their mother. We had to pack up all of their clothes and toys and prepare them to leave the only home they remembered to go back to a woman who really wasn't that interested. Though the youngest bounced in and out of care all his life, he never came back to us, nor were we able to find out how they were because the districts had been redrawn and we were in different ones, afterwards.
Just the facts, Ma'am. THis hurts soooo bad, I can't even go there. I'm trying to ask with help for my grief, yet I'm not even mentioning it!
I felt as if these 3 kids were MY OWN KIDS. I was 16 when they were taken, and i'd changed diapers and combed out head lice, and taken them to the park. I'd gone to their school plays. Twice a year, from the time I was 13, my friend and I would round up the younger brothers and sisters and somehow, though I can't imagine how, get our mothers to let us take them on a trip to Boston, 20 miles and 3 buses and 2 subway trains away! Once we were out of town, we get the kids to start calling us "Mama", which gave them fits of giggles. We took them to Filene's to see Santa's workshop and over to the common to see the lights. We'd eat at McDonalds and get home just in time for dinner. We went in the summer, too, to play in the Frogpond and ride the Swan boats.
And there were days at the beach or just hanging around the house. I LIKED the kids, enjoyed having younger brothers and sisters. I loved caring for the baby, I don't want to use his name, but feeding him and bathing him, I thought it was sooo much fun.
I thought that maybe as I got older, and had my own kids I would realize that I had loved them as siblings, not as my children, but having had 5 of my own, I can tell you, I absolutely loved them as a mother loves her babeis.
And then they were gone. Forever. We saw them once afterwards. Their older brother, who had lived with us for a short time brought them for a visit. I don't remember much of it They were teen agers, uncomfortable, a bit sullen. I was devastated, barely able to talk. They claimed not to remember us, except, (now I'm crying) the oldest girl remembered sitting on a red-haired girls lap and the little boy remembered a redhaired girl always chasing him around trying to kiss him. (I'm the only red-head)
So, I grew up and took foster kids. Sheesh. I had my son for 18 months when they said they were giving him to a two-parent home so he could be adopted. The same kind of thing, I was allowed to believe I'd be adopting. I won, that time. But I took 20 kids and each one of them haunts me. They're adults now and I know that. They were mostly little ones, so I wouldn't be someone they remembered, but I'm stuck, grieving.
The other day my sister found the middle sisters web page. (the one who was 3 when she came to us) Her brothers had signed on to her guest book and I so wanted to, but to what end?
I grieve, not her. She doesn't miss us, we were a bad time in the life of her family. Yet I yearn to know if her older sister and younger brother are safe. We've never heard a word about the baby, though occassionally we'd here that one of the girls had joined the service, or moved. They have an unusual last name, so I've been able to do searches and find them all safe, except our baby. The son no one thinks of as mine but me.
Please, it's been 30 years since we lost these kids. They aren't kids, but adults now. I can't talk to them as I can my dead relatives, which would bring me some peace. I feel that contacting them would be wrong, for THEM.
Anyone know how to move on?
