Recipe for a Foster Parent
From my kitchen to yours, may I share a beloved family recipe? Not quite a crowd pleaser, but a must-have, nonetheless.
Before we begin, let’s be clear on your role here. You are not the chef, and neither am I. You and I may be doing most of the stirring and mixing, measuring and basting, but we are sous-chefs at best. There is no one chef, yet many believe themselves to be. There will be times with too many cooks in this kitchen, and times when the kitchen seems deserted. The closest to the true chef is the court, who has the authority to add or omit ingredients. But the court does not determine flavor; that depends upon the condition of the ingredients.
While you will carry many chef-like responsibilities, there will be many instances when it is abundantly clear you have no say in what you’re preparing here. You and many others are, paradoxically, the ingredients, the product, and the crucial means of preparation. You are the sous-chefs and the cutting boards, the seasonings and the salt. The outcome is dependent on all the ingredients’ ability to integrate. Indeed, this dish could not exist without you.
What is it you’re making, exactly? It’s hard to say. A nomadic people long ago asked the question, “What is it?” when they were presented with life-saving food. It was hard to describe, so they called it by their question. Manna: “What is it?” Perhaps that is the best way to describe this many-layered source of nourishment, flavor, occasional bitterness, and survival for yourself and those entrusted to your care. This dish is all-encompassing: at once a hearty stew and a fragile delicacy. It will nourish you, if you let it. It may poison you, if you don’t. You must first prepare yourself by understanding this inability to understand, and then you will be ready to proceed.
In a large pot–that is, your life–combine the following:
- One home, allegedly whole
- One or more homes, allegedly broken
- One or more parents deemed temporarily unfit to perform the tasks of their title
- One or more children of said parents (“child” from here forward)
- One “substantiated maltreatment incident” reported to the local child welfare agency
Dredge each parent and child in a mixture of emotions and expectations, and then sear in butter in an oven-safe pot. Set aside. Use a little wine or broth of your choice to deglaze the pot, then add:
- No fewer than three professionals with confusingly similar titles such as “caseworker,” “case planner,” “case manager,” hereafter referred to interchangeably as “case-person.”
- One professional with the title “home finder” whose job is not to find homes, but to act as a supervisor of paperwork for ingredients like you who voluntarily enter their food processor.
- Set aside: Copies of every document ever submitted to this individual, as during cook time such documents will become lost and requested to be supplied again.
- One judge. Occasionally substitute one referee for unclear reasons.
- One mediator: optional. Inclusion is based on the birth parents’ ability to blend well with the other ingredients (should the foster parent fail to integrate, a mediator will not be added. You will be omitted).
- One attorney per legal party.
- Unlimited questions, not to be answered at this time.
Preheat oven to whatever temperature seems good to you, as it is subject to change. Just ensure there is some warmth before continuing.
Add seared parents and children back in, plus enough tears to ensure all ingredients are covered in liquid. Stir to combine.
Bring to a boil, then lower to simmer. Note: it is difficult to locate the knob for lowering the temperature. Some likely options include: befriending angry birth parents, saying yes to all requests by a power-hungry case-person to reduce splashing of hot liquid, saying no to more case-person requests, therapy for the child, a support group for yourself, date night with your spouse. Avoid boiling over or one or more sous-chefs will be burned.
Simmer, stirring occasionally, until questions and doubts bubble to the surface. A case-person or judge will skim these off and either discard them or return them to you.
Cover. Transfer to oven. Cook time will vary.
Intermittently, add the following:
- Multiple times per day, connection between foster parent and child: read, play, laugh, listen. Your job in this stage is to teach the child’s brain to attach to a trusted caregiver.
- One or more weekly visits between birth parents and child.
- Frequent changes to the visitation schedule, with little notice.
- Monthly/quarterly visits to the foster home by each case-person, the child’s attorney, or the attorney’s representative.
- Occasionally, omit some or all.
- Regular medical/dental visits for the child.
- Optional: add birth parents, as they are required to attend, though no ramifications will come of their absence. If birth parents attend, allow them to make all medical decisions during appointments.
- Note: the doctor’s office will always be inconveniently located, will almost never answer the phone, and will include long wait times. Allow for a minimum of two hours added to total cook time for each appointment. Keep all documentation from visits. In three or more years if this recipe results in adoption, a case-person will require notes from these visits and will not be able to reach the doctor’s office, so you will be obligated to produce these records.
- Quarterly appointments with the WIC office for children under five. The child’s food preferences will be inquired about at each appointment and then disregarded, as it is a standardized list.
- Optional: early intervention or school evaluation and services for various therapies, as needed and as advocated for by the foster parent.
- Monthly, quarterly, and annual court appearances for subtly different purposes, either before a judge or referee. All attorneys are required to attend, though this requirement is not strictly enforced. Foster parents are sometimes permitted to attend, though no one can say ahead of time, so always be available on the date of court. Court will typically last less than ten minutes and nothing will change. Approximately half the time of each court appearance will be dedicated to finding the next court date.
Baste the child daily with large quantities of love, patience, compassion, and humor. Assess yourself daily for the development of a surface layer of jadedness, judgment, or anger. Skim this layer off as soon as it is detected, or a bitter flavor may seep into the child. After each skimming, season the child with extra attention and unhurried time together. Wait indefinitely for the case to be fully cooked. This may take months or years. Do not make assumptions of its doneness, as this is unpredictable and relative. Do not listen to anyone’s assessment of how near to done the case is, as the time required and the outcome resulting in “doneness” is subject to change at any time. Accept the outcome as “done” when it is declared so, whether it is to your taste or not. Share your meal with those closest to you. Breathe deeply as you eat, savoring your hard-won meal, whether this manna tastes like sorrow, joy, or both.
About the Author
Elisabeth Carbrey is a writer, birth doula, and homeschool mom of both foster/adoptive and biological daughters in Buffalo, NY. With degrees in English Literature and Adolescent ELA Education from the University of Toledo, words and writing have always been precious commodities to Elisabeth. For the past several years, most of Elisabeth’s writing has been on the pages of journals as a means of inner survival through the grief of multiple miscarriages and the rollercoaster of foster care life. She shares her thoughts on these topics on her blog between homeschool math lessons, working in her garden, and family rock climbing excursions. You can read more of her writing at www.onlyascribe.wordpress.
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