Comments on: May Is National Foster Care Month…

By: Mom2Many

Mom2Many — Sat, 20 May 2006 19:56:16 +0000

It’s a sad reality that many children will forever lose the ability to feel the joy that we take for granted.
We have fostered over 75 children over the years ad the onle thing I notice is children who have had a strong early attachment to a primary caregiver do much better than those who didn’t have an emotional connection to someone else. Attachment and “feeling close” to someone else, someone special, is the very hallmark of happiness.

Many of “my kids” have gone on to lead productive, healthy lives but there is a distance in their eyes, an aloofness that never goes away. The Damage of neglect can never be undone in some cases.

Thank heavens for the professionals out there who work so hard for these kids - I have abounding respect and admiration for you!

By: Griffon

Griffon — Wed, 03 May 2006 11:12:59 +0000

So well said, Lisa.
And Village Idiot you refer to upthread is just that, or worse.
In my own case, I dissociated a large part of my life so the the rest could carry on in an animated and engaged way. It did not leave me detached and emotionless. There is dissociation and dissociation. It can get very complex and each case is unique to some extent.
So my resilience was extraordinary, for a while. Now, not so.
Thanks for commenting on those points you did.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 02 May 2006 02:50:20 +0000

Additionally, speaking as a former foster child (and now wife and stepmom), I’d like to make the following distinctions:

1.) I disagree with an above posting that abuse is easier to get over than violence and neglect. Particularly, that person referred to sexual abuse.

Book recommendation for you: Come Back: A Mother and Daughter’s Journey Through Hell and Back by Claire Fontaine and Mia Fontaine.

It’s important to differentiate between what we see on the outside and what’s going on inside. Mia Fontaine was sexually abused by her biological father.

The abuse went underground — and then resurfaced when she entered her teens, manifesting itself in self-destructive behavior.

2.) I also want to differentiate between resilience and pathological behavior.

It’s possible to survive rape, abuse and foster care and emerge healthy and whole — but it takes a lot of work and a lot of time for healing. (And yes, like in the movie “Sleepers,” there is survivor guilt).

This is not the same as a person who hasn’t developed a conscience. My experience with that was: a girl from a group home I stayed in as a teenager was abandoned as a baby, and never bonded with anyone. She did behave like a psychopath and did not seem to have developed a conscience.

Her detached and disassociated behavior is not the same thing as resilience.

Resilience is the result of a conscious effort of will. It’s the ability to keep on breathing, even if you doubt life has much more to offer you the next day. It is walking through the pain — not numbing out and disassociating yourself from the pain.

My belief is that I emerged from my shaky background with a fierce joy - and a passion to help others. If anything, I hope that it has made me more empathetic, and not disassociated from the pain of other people.

www.sunshinegirlonarainyday.com

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 01 May 2006 22:53:23 +0000

Speaking as a former foster child, and current child advocate, what the world needs is more lawyers and judges who care about the welfare of foster children the way that you do.

http://sunshinegirlonarainyday.blogspot.com/

By: Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel

Mrs. Tarquin Biscuitbarrel — Mon, 01 May 2006 22:50:26 +0000

Oklahoma kiddo, I’m with you, dear.By any yardstick I should have been removed from my alcoholic, abusive parents’ home, but was not. Assistant Village Idiot, you are absolutely right: the shame factor of having their kids removed was the only thing that kept me from undergoing greater scrutiny by outsiders. My mother also got an enormous amount of housework out of me, in part to discourage me from studying and earning those high grades that nevertheless got me some scholarships and a path away from my family at seventeen.If not for the love and support of my grandmother, I’d’ve turned into Ted Bundy. I managed to get a university degree, marry happily, and raise children in an appropriate way. However, well into adulthood I still deal privately–through years of therapy and meds–with depression, anxiety, and PTSD.I’m the lucky one, though, not that I haven’t worked for every scrap of “luck” that I’ve been able to grab onto. My siblings are unbelievably scatty and low-functioning. It took me a long time to learn that I do best by keeping a whole continent away from them.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Mon, 01 May 2006 21:56:11 +0000

Wow, you have a lot of folks getting off-topic quickly, unable to contain their need to repeat the myths of BDS. You might want to check out what happened to Screwtape when he got overexcited. Note to the better posters: if no one hints that some are overdramatic, a visitor like myself will be tempted to conclude theirs is the general opinion here.

Briefly, to that end: #25 and #44, if you didn’t know that the adoption community and the prolife community have significant overlap. then you don’t know either. This is particularly true of the adoption of older children.

We have two sons adopted as teenagers from Romania five years ago. Both were abused and abandoned and spent time in orphanages there. I have wondered often about resiliency, both in the specific case of my own children and as a general issue. There is a loose network of the families which adopted from that orphanage, so I keep up with what’s happening with those other children as well. We also took in foster children at one time, though that was years ago. Lastly, I have worked in acute involuntary psychiatric care most of the last thirty years, and about one-third of our admissions are in the PTSD/Borderline/DID range. (Pace, griffon, dissociation is not only found in the intelligent and creative.) I read up on the subject as much as I can, though you can certainly find others who know more.

Neglect seems to be more damaging than abuse, over time. Sexual abuse seems to have some sort of threshhold: there are a great many people who were sexually abused who seem to suffer no ill effects. As the abuse gets worse (longer period, more intimate, more violent, and/or perpetrator more central) the number of children able to get by it with little damage decreases.

Terminating parental rights is often a horrible, no-win situation, but I think Cathy is right about some of the parents. The idea of losing their children, the insult of being thought unfit, and the affection that they hope to receive from the child weigh more heavily to some parents than good of the child.

By: Carolyn Kay

Carolyn Kay — Mon, 01 May 2006 13:15:31 +0000

I must say I am appalled by the research described in the NYT Magazine article on monkeys. If we can’t do abuse research on humans, I fail to see why we’re allowed to do so on other vulnerable creatures.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

By: jinny

jinny — Mon, 01 May 2006 05:01:15 +0000

When Mary McCarthy wasfired by the CIA she was withing two weeks of
retirement.

Mary had been attending Law School and had taken and passed the Bar
late last year- November I believe. She had taken early retirement and
intended to practice Family Law,specalising in Adoption. This, of course, will probably now be delayed whilst she fights to clear her name.

By: Phoenix Woman

Phoenix Woman — Mon, 01 May 2006 04:31:58 +0000

MarkFromIreland: Bless you and your spouse for being so kind and patient with Dario. I am so happy you were able to save him!

By: professor rat

professor rat — Mon, 01 May 2006 04:29:04 +0000

Thinking of all the children maimed, burned and mutilated in SW Asia today makes me so angry that I could C*al*s K*LL the Pres*dent V*agrA and firebomb the pentagon. Surely God will speak soon through a burning bush?

Let us prey.