16 Dec 2013
On Universal Children’s Day I attended a fascinating forum on the changing face of fostering in Australia. It is a subject that interests me generally, I know people in the past who have fostered and I know people now who are considering doing it. I have always thought that this might be something that happens in our family at some stage.
I came away with a billion different thoughts churning through my brain which I have tried and failed over the past couple of weeks to put into a coherent piece that I felt comfortable publishing. Basically because I worried about coming across as a patronising fertile heterosexual git pontificating on the changing notion of family and how fostering is part of that.
That, for me, was the bit that really resonated in the presentations by both the ‘official dudes’ and the people who are foster carers. Family. Fostering for them is about creating or extending families to provide support and love to children who need it. They don’t see themselves as foster families – they see themselves as family. They don’t see themselves as ‘getting a foster child’, they see themselves welcoming another child into their lives. A child (or children) who needs a home for whatever length of time that may be.
How many children are in this situation? That number is an overwhelming 18,000 plus children in NSW alone. An increase of almost 25% in just four years. That’s a lot of kids that need love and support for either ‘time-out’ or, you know, their entire childhood.
And the reason I worried about how my words looked all put together is I have too many friends at the moment and in recent years traversing the road of infertility, non-traditional conceptions, surrogacy and long term fostering vs adoption to get all rah rah about something a lot of people consider an end of road option. That of caring for children that don’t ‘belong’ to you.
Belonging is not about ownership or ‘making your own’. You don’t love your dog or your partner any less just because you didn’t ‘make them’. And children are generally pretty easy to love. They are just human beings who generally like to be fed, hugged and allowed to watch TV sometimes. They are robust, intelligent and mostly amusing. They don’t tend to lick their own butt and then your face. Which makes them miles more attractive than dogs in my view.
Belonging when it comes to relationships is about inclusion. Being a part of, being welcome in, being accepted. So children that come into your life, children that you want, they are always going to be children that belong to you.
Sophie Ellis Baxter’s mother once said to her “It might be the wrong man, it might be the wrong time but it is never the wrong child.” A very simple and powerful statement that has so many levels of true as to be up there with “other very true things people have said that remain true forever because they are very very true”
All sorts of people want children in their lives. Single people, old people, young people, working people, cool people, dorky people, bearded people, gay people, uber-godly-SAHM people, “traditional” family people, country people, city people, multi-lingual people, people that wrote Jedi on the census form and adult people that wear jelly sandals non-ironically.
And adult people that wear jelly sandals non-ironically aren’t necessarily going to be able to have a baby the old fashioned ways. Nothing says passion killer like grown-ups wearing jelly sandals non-ironically.
This is where fostering is really changing. Fostering reflects real life. The facts show that more single people foster now than couples. And while there are no stats on the number of those single as a result of fashion foibles, they are mostly working. And just like a single biological parent, they still have the capacity to love and care for a child or children while holding down a job, a social life and all those other things that make up a life.
The system has basically worked out that to help look after all these children, the system had to change – move with the times as it were. It’s not being managed by the government anymore but by almost 50 NGOs coordinated by the pithly named ACWA (Association of Children’s Welfare Agencies – see what they did there?) who are on a massive drive to let people know that fostering is not what it used to be.
Enter – me and a few other bloggers. Unless you count my own copy of the Trend Paper “ifoster2: The changing face of fostering in Australia” as payment, you’re just getting my views on a topic I found interesting from a personal view point and now find fascinating knowing the scope of the problem and the challenges faced by the NGOs looking for people to be foster carers.
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| The picture on the trend paper |
Speak to any of the foster carers on the day and you were speaking to people who are big on family and creating environments for children that are loving, supporting and consistent. People who mostly get it right, sometimes get it wrong but are trying really hard to be good at the whole parenting lark.
Just like me with my own ‘home grown’ children.
These are people who know that having children enter permanent foster care with them means keeping birth parents as part of the circle. These are people who know that the children coming to them are coming from shitty situations and have no reason to trust anyone. These are people that know that the children that are coming to them for respite are possibly going back into an environment that won’t include them and so they have to pack all the support they can into the time that they have. They are people who proactively choosing to learn about being a better parent by undertaking training, networking and reading lots and lots of things on the interwebs.
People just like us.
And that’s what was so fascinating about fostering.
It is not about extraordinary people.
It is about ordinary people.
You. Me. Yep, and ol’ jelly sandals over there too.
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For more information on fostering including all those burning practical questions now that you have identified that you are totally eligible to be part of the future of fostering go HERE or call them up and ask questions by dialling 18002 FOSTER or follow them on Facebook or on Twitter at @FosteringNSW.
5 Dec 2013
It has to be said, somewhat immodestly, that Playschool has never been the same since it forgot to employ me.
Not that I have ever applied. And I can’t sing. But when it comes to CRAFT. I’m the bomb.
Only when I feel like it though. I don’t normally have the patience for detailed piece work. And by this I mean anything from sticking stickers in books to knitting. My impatience for detail is completely egalitarian.
Today, I had three small people with a gap in their calendar. So we made what I called ‘wreaths’ and one toddler called ‘the sparkly bon bons’.
Call them what you want. They are 3.5 minutes of creative genius.
Take a paper plate. Cut a hole in the middle.
I didn’t take pictures as I went so I have googled one for you. I bet you couldn’t have worked this out for yourself. WHICH IS WHY I AM HELPING.
Then you staple a piece of tinsel to the top and wrap the tinsel around and around until the paper plate is covered. Then you staple the end in place.
This is tinsel.
When I say ‘you’ I obviously mean the two three year olds and the one year old. But they are pretty crap at following instructions, so sometimes it is easier just to do it for them after they try and fail. But make sure you are very encouraging about their efforts. This is a key element of good parenting and important to use when in front of other parents.
Then give the three toddlers a box of Christmas themed stickers and tell them to cover the wreath as they will. Then staple a hanging decoration in the middle of the wreath to make it look GENIUS. Take a photo of the cute toddlers with their mound of tinsel and stickers…
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| All perfectly legit |
And then, take ’em home and hang ’em on the door….
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| Best to use the same hanging decorations to avoid toddler warfare |
Share genius with world on the slim chance that other parents out there are looking for ways to bond with their children in meaningful Christmas activities that last for less time than it takes to read this post.
You’re welcome.
Please note: no children or their egos were harmed in the making of this blog. All methodology is copyrighted.
30 Nov 2013
Today, on the first day of summer, I have the enormous privilege of guesting posting for the divine Ms M over at Five Frogs Blog
I am talking about the best wee you ever did see.
I know. How can you possibly wait any longer. Go visit!!!
28 Nov 2013
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Just like yesterday but it was a fairly ordinary Wednesday and so didn’t seem so portentous somehow.
Today is the day that I stop listening to golfers. And play baseball.
Today is the day that I listen to the inner voice that says ‘Screw it, what’s the worst that can happen’ and not the one that whines ‘but what if it all goesssssssssssssssssss wrong?’.
Today is the day where I embrace a world where I can write things and include words like portentous, dissolute, raconteur, discombobulate and chutzpah every single day if I choose to do so.
Today is the day where consequence is considered in the context of subsequence. For if I don’t begin, how can anything happen?
Today is the day where I stop living cautiously and start living with the gay abandon of the ridiculously confident. Obviously faking it until I make it but a girl has got to start somewhere.
Today is the day where I go boldly where I have not gone before, throwing off bowlines and what not. With appropriate references to both Mark Twain and the people that wrote Star Trek.
Today I become without job and reliant on my own talent, passion and drive to derive an income. A fact both terrifying, exhilarating and slightly nauseating.
Today is big.
25 Nov 2013
It’s official. I’ve got no more room. I’m full to the brim with a combination of incredibly useful information – like how to pinch an artery in a severed leg and less useful information like the names of all Angelina Jolie’s children.
a) hard – until the blood stops spurting
b) Maddox, Pax, Shiloe, Zahara, Vivienne and Knox
In addition to the ridiculous amount of trivia in my brain, I am sitting here watching Q&A and am full of impotent rage about the state of the world and how we don’t seem to be giving a shit that we are a country that is regularly, systematically and defiantly contravening our obligations under the UN convention. Yes our country. We are seriously sucking at being the lucky country right now. And not just on this issue. Deep breath.
I worry about my friends and family all of whom have their own journeys at the moment. And I worry that I don’t have enough time for all of them, and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to work out a solution for each and every one of them. For those wanting to date – PLEASE let me write your eharmony profile – you are crap at selling yourselves.
I am learning about starting a business and am on a seriously steep learning curve. I’m exploring my writing. I have books I haven’t read. I am sifting through mentoring. Trying to focus on my achievements. Rewriting my resume and bashing out SOAR statements with the best of them. I am soaking in jargon because… actually who knows. Jargon just feels useful when you’re out of your comfort zone.
I am conscious that I need to be keeping my fitness levels at a level that will allow me to run an ultra half marathon next May. I’m failing miserably. Thinking about that takes up brain space. Beating myself up about it takes a little bit more.
I fill little spaces with articles on how to bring up my children to be functioning adults, despite their parenting. I read articles on how to be a better partner to my husband and I waste brain space grousing that he’s not reading enough articles on the same lines. And then I get distracted by videos that Adam Hills’ makes when he is drunk.
I try to remember bands I like so I can listen to relaxing music and I write lists of movies I’d like to see. I try and remember what I need to buy grocery wise and I spend an awful amount of time wishing that ‘Movember’ would end so all the people on public transport with creepy facial hair will go away. I compose eulogies for people – just in case. Unfortunately I have a crap memory so I do these things more than once, using up brain space that was already fit to burst.
So I find myself here.
My brain is ready to explode. I can’t be the only one who has a brain that never stops, but I’m assuming that everybody else is thinking more coherently and about things that are inherently much more useful.
Because if we are all walking around with brains like mine. We are in serious serious trouble.
Just sayin’.
17 Nov 2013
Today is the first day of Post-Natal Depression Awareness week. I wrote earlier this year about my experience of PND (I’m a mum in a million said millions of mums) and the discombobulation of feeling so bone achingly sad, out of control and generally overwhelmed at a time I had anticipated would be one of the happiest of my life.
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| Baby 1. My beautiful Chairman Mao |
It has been an interesting journey choosing to be open about my experience with PND. Most people, including some of those closest to me, have never raised it with me and find me discussing it discomfiting. I have found my internal self at war with accepting the diagnosis myself so I get that, however, without wanting to sound too Xena, Warrior Princess about it, if I don’t bang on about it – who will?
Until I started telling people that I had PND, I had no idea about how many friends and colleagues had experience with it as well. But they never articulated it because they were worried that people would think that they sucked at the parenting lark. Which I would have said was absolutely daft UNTIL I DID THE SAME THING.
So I decided, for better or worse, to be the person that ‘admitted to it’ so that any of the many people procreating or planning on procreating would know that they are not an island. So many lovely people producing adorable bundles of joy. They are tired, they are exhausted, they are happy, they are deliriously in love and they see any admission of it being different to how they thought it would be as an admission too hard. They are not all depressed by any means, to feel those things is a completely normal part of having a child, but some are teetering under a greater weight and if purely because I was open about what went on in my own brain they can articulate their own darkness to somebody than that is a good thing.
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| Baby 2 – My beautiful Flacco |
I would like to say that my experience with depression was over and that by acknowledging the diagnosis, taking the medication and going to therapy that my life now is peachy and to be viewed only in rosy hues, with a jaunty soundtrack as accompaniment. But it is not. It’s been a big three plus years in a number of different ways and one of those is acknowledging that depression may have been a periodic companion for me in the past and may well choose to be a companion moving forward. Am I happy about that? No. But did ignoring the professional diagnosis of PND help me? No. Sometimes, the facts are a bitch.
While I remain evangelical about the benefits of therapy, my amygdala and I still have not resolved all our issues and an attempt to self wean myself off the medication despite the advice of the professionals didn’t go so well. I hate being on it, but I acknowledge that for the moment, peace of mind about parenting and life, is supported by medication. And lots and lots of conversations about how I’m feeling with other people that understand.
PANDA (the only national helpline dedicated to supporting people living with PND) is keen this week to also grow awareness that PND doesn’t only affect women. While it may be more common, there are no stats on this because men generally tell themselves to have a cup of cement and harden up. But becoming a parent is just as much of an adjustment for men even if they didn’t push the wee darling out their very own hoohar. Their ability to love and self question their parenting is no less. So my plea for you all is to talk to the ‘other halves’, whatever gender they are, and make sure that they know that they have your full support also.
And people (even if you are not depressed) it can still be hard to adjust to the demands of a child – whether it is your first, your second, your third, your thirteenth. Talk to people, let them know how you are feeling and if you are the friend, for god’s sake don’t JUDGE. Those of us living with depression know how dreary it is and you not thinking we’re ‘properly’ depressed or those who start a conversation with ‘well when I gave birth’ need to be slapped in the face with a giant stinking fish. We know. WE KNOW.
Babies are without a doubt the most wonderful ways to start people. And I love my two girls with a ferocity that never ceases to surprise me. But with love like that comes a great commitment to not fuck them up. And sometimes, your amygdala and you might get out of sync on this one. And that’s okay too.
But please don’t cry alone. Don’t hug the fears and the terror to yourself and give yourself pep talks. Call someone, talk to somebody, verbalise it. Own it, in whatever small way you can.
It might be different to the plan, you might learn something about yourself you hadn’t expected and it may just be that you can never ever again watch an advert with a dog and toilet paper again without dissolving into floods of tears, but it’s not just going to go away and you can only run for so long before acknowledging that having depression does not define you. That needing help to sort it out, does not define you.
You are still you. And you are awesome.
* I am adding this post to a link up at Five Degrees of Chaos as part of Post Natal Depression Week (17-23 November 2013). Take time to check out the other blogs and maybe even share your story.
