My Story - Foster Kids

As always My Story is from my point of view. You can read my disclaimer here.

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When I was 6 we moved to Oregon. My mom had spent a few years there as a child and wanted to go back. This was also when they started working together as full time group home parents. We had a few foster kids living with us in California but they were the easy kind. The little kids who needed a safe place to stay while their parent(s) figured things out and got their act together. My parents always said that they wanted to serve Jesus by loving and caring for the widows and the orphans.

I have mostly fond memories of these foster kids. I remember a girl named Wendy who was my exact same age. She and her older brother and sister lived with us for a while. She had brown hair and brown eyes and I had white blond hair at the time with blue eyes. We were yin and yang.

Now my parents were going to start a group home for 6 teenage girls. This was no longer a simple act of taking a few kids into our home while we lived a pretty ordinary life with Dad commuting into the city from the suburbs. No this was a wholly new life, full of drama and chaos, teenage expletive laden rants, and being exposed to a world of evil and pain most little kids do not know exists. I learned about sex and molestation as a young child. I was yelled at and belittled by teenage girls who resented the fact that my father was not abusing me. I was introduced to the darkest of evil at a very young age.

My world was a much older place than my young age. I was expected at 6, 7, 8 to participate in the same chore chart and kitchen duties that the older kids, these teenage girls did. I was parented in the same manner as these high needs, at risk kids were parented. I was also very aware that these kids needed my parents, needed their care, even if that meant I did not get a story that night or my mom was late to pick me up after a school activity. I had my parents living with me and these girls did not. I needed to share, I needed to be willing to give unto others.

I don’t know if this was right or wrong. I sometimes wonder if my kids need to be doing more around the house, if I am coddling them too much. But I look at my 8 year old and wonder how my parents ever expected me to do all my own laundry, do all the families dinner dishes on my night, or clean a bathroom without adult help.

I also wonder if I could open my home to a group of kids who had suffered so much damage, so much harm, that the people around them are inevitably part of the pain and the healing process. At one point I remember doing family counseling, and by family I mean the 5 of us and 6 teenage girls who changed month to month, year to year. I don’t know if I could or would ask that of my kids. I guess if that is what God has called us to do we would. And my parents were always really adamant that this was their calling, that God had told them to do care for the orphans, not just in spirit or with donations but in our home.

A few years back when I was talking to my mom about how I was having a hard time with the monotony of being a young mom, she told me something that sort of changed my understanding of my parents being foster parents. She mentioned that she was so bored with just the two of us, my brother and I, being a stay at home mom that they decided to bring in more kids. We were probably 2 and 6 years old.

This new kernel of information tainted my altruistic feelings of taking in the orphans and those in need. I understood her boredom, but was it the right decision for her kids, for us, to bring more kids into the family just so she wouldn't be bored. It certainly makes me wonder how many times really good acts are based on selfish motivations, selfish desires that may be harmful to those around us. The story of my parents taking in foster kids eventually did harm my family. I know that many kids were helped through the years, but when I saw the end results, it made me ask was it the right decision?

I don't have the answers. I know that being a foster parent is a tremendous gift. I do know though that it is a complicated decision that cannot be taken lightly.

4829

4829 - that is how many words I have written for my book.

10 pages in a word document. I have read that novels start at about 80,000 words.

I have some writing to do and I love it.

I love spending part of my day in a fictional world. Some of the time, I am pushing the story along, but I have had those moments I have read about, where a character changes things on me. Where I am writing dialogue in one direction and I can almost hear the character writing different words. Nothing crazy, just the character becoming more alive and less of a cliche in my head.

It is work for sure to sit down and face a blank page, to have to figure out how my characters are going to get from one scene to the next. It is work just to get myself to the blank page. It is easy to get distracted after school drop off, to fill up the few hours I have when the house is quiet enough to really get some work done. There are so many things I want to do with these few hours of freedom I have. I want to get to the gym. I want to have long, uninterrupted chats with over coffee with friends. Even when I am at my desk with my laptop, there are so many places on the internet to visit. I love twitter @findingfruit and finding new people to follow. I love seeing what my friends up in Oregon are up to on Facebook. And I love reading other people's blogs and then clicking through the comments to new blogs. The distractions are endless.

But more and more, I am wanting to write. The story is taking on more shape. I am finding myself drifting into the story when I am folding laundry or driving the kids to the pool. I am finding myself sitting down at my desk more and more often to type out a new scene or to let the characters find their way to the next major plot point I have in mind.

I am loving the writing and yet it is also so incredibly scary to do something that I feel completely inadequate to do. I feel so silly at times. Who am I to think I can write a book? I read amazing stories crafted by talented authors and wonder how I have the audacity to think I can do the same thing.

I recognize that my writing may never amount to much more than the process. But what I have learned is that most of life is not about the results. It is about the process. The best life lessons, the most growth have come as I faced the unknown and walked the steps. There is value and worth in the process no matter the results. I will be changed in the process.

Blogs I Wish I Wrote

I am trying to work on my book, which means I am spending more time clicking through twitter feeds and blog comments, instead of actually writing. The fun thing about procrastinating is I often find some really good new things to read.

Today I found a few blog posts I wish I had written. Ideas I had been contemplating but had not gotten around to writing. And now that I see these blogs, so well written with great content, I realize I don't have to write everything. Sometimes, it is better to pass on something that is really good than to make my own.

Sprinkles cupcakes are so much better than my attempts at homemade cupcakes (which really means from a box).
A great quote can often better some up a thousand of my words.
Store bought clothes still beat anything I can make myself.

And these blogs -

Kathy Escobar writes about loving God in lots of different ways. I commented but it has to wait for moderator approval so this is what I wrote about her post,

I have been struggling with how I love God for a while. I know I love Him, but my love looks so different from those around me. Looking at your list I am an intellectual, a traditionalist, a contemplative. I find God in His word. I find him in church. I find Him through music. But my response is intellectual. It is a series of beliefs that dictate my choices. It is not a feeling thing. It is a thinking love. And sometimes this doesn’t feel adequate, like I love God enough because my emotions are not affected. Thanks for this post. It reminded me that we give and experience love differently. Not better or worse, just differently. My love for God is very real, even if it looks foreign to those around me.

Preston Yancey admits to possibly being the worst theologian ever. In the middle he writes,

All the while, the rooted faith, the desire to glorify, love, and serve the Lord remains.
The doubt and questioning have nothing to do with Him, but with practice. And feeling. The terrible, beautiful gift of feeling.

Beautiful and so true for me.

And in this last post, Jennifer at You are My Girls speaks about confessing glory in a vlog (video blog). I actually sat on that same couch yesterday talking with Jennifer who is a dear friend. I love that everyone can hear her wisdom and the sweetness of her words. I just wish everyone could also taste the yummy pasta she made us for lunch.

I would love to read your favorite posts from the week. Want to share?

My Story - I Loved School

As always My Story is from my point of view. You can read my disclaimer here.

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With Little One staring kindergarten last week, my mind has wandered through my elementary years. Little memories from my childhood.


I remember going to kindergarten in Simi Valley, California. There was a gate around the kindergarten classroom. I cannot remember my teacher's name but I do remember that we got a lifesavers lollipop when we were able to identify all the lower case letters of the alphabet. It took me a couple of tries, those b's and d's were hard to tell apart, but eventually I got my strawberries and creme lollipop. I felt so proud of myself. 


I remember being so sad at the end of the first day of first grade because I did not learn to read that day. I had been wanting to learn to read for so long. As a kindergartner, the school had wanted to have me go to first grade for a reading class but my mom declined. She did not want me to be bored in school like she was all those years. She promised I would learn to read in first grade. Turns out that was not the curriculum for the first day. 


I remember moving from California to Oregon at the end of October during my 1st grade year. In Oregon we rode a bus to school. I liked waiting at the bus stop and riding around the neighborhood with my friends. In first grade in Oregon we played on the bars at recess and made houses out of the trees on the playground. 


I remember in 2nd grade, my friend and I used to make colored glue using our markers and white glue. I am sure we were supposed to be doing something more productive with our time but we were both often done early with whatever lesson we were doing that hour. I remember going home after school with my friend Rebecca and roller skating in her culdesac for hours. I think that was the year my mom made me a Little House on the Prairie dress that I wore as many days as I could. 


Third grade was a hard year for me. I was an incredibly emotional little 8 year old. I left the room crying a lot. I thought it was all the stress of my family life at the time, but my Hockey Boy is also really emotional and he often had to sit in the hall to calm his tears once he turned 8. I survived though even though I was convinced my teacher did not like me. A hard thing for a little perfectionistic, teacher lover like me. 


I remember times tables in 4th grade and having a male teacher for the first time. I liked his class though he was the teacher nobody wanted. I liked the times tables tests. I liked being good at math. 5th grade was another male teacher. He was older and spent a lot of time building character but did not seem to care too much about the academics. It felt like a play year to me but I think I actually learned a lot as well. 


One of my favorite school lessons ever was in 5th grade when a group of us got to go to a special class once a week or so and create our own civilization. Philofire because we were lovers of fire. All our artifacts had fire references. At the end of the unit we went to another school and buried all our artifacts in a big pile of dirt. We then dug up another school's make believe civilizations artifacts and tried to figure out what they were all about. What a great lesson plan!


School was a refuge for me. There were rhythms and systems in place that did not change year to year or moment to moment. There was lunch times and recesses to play and be kids. There were new places to visit in the pages of the books we read. There were caring adults, well except that one third grade teacher, who took care of me everyday no matter how they were feeling. 


I loved school. I loved it so much that I eventually became a teacher myself.