In which I attempt to love my enemy
How do you work closely with people you distrust, for days and months on end? What if your generosity is enabling them to keep failing? Or, God forbid, to succeed?
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Foster care
Three ways foster parenting is easier than traditional parenting
Foster parenting is easier in that you get extensive training for the job you’re about to do, and ongoing training while you do it.
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Three ways foster parenting is harder than traditional parenting
Parenting was created to be an experience shared by two people who are lovingly committed to each other for life. When you are a foster parent, you are parenting as part of a large team of people you may not know well, agree with, or even like.
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Three day potty training. Again.
The three-day program involves throwing away all the diapers, launching straight into underwear, encouraging fluids, and using the frequent accidents as positive training on rushing to the bathroom. YOU MUST CATCH EVERY ACCIDENT AS IT HAPPENS.
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My life on WIC
But when I really start tensing up is cashing out with multiple checks: an ordeal that takes twenty minutes, at minimum, depending…
In defense of foster parents
We can’t tell you what we’ve seen, because it would be violating section nine of code-code something-something, but we’ve seen it and we can’t unsee it. Our children carry deep and lasting pain because somebody who was supposed to protect them hurt them.
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Practical ways to teamplay with bio parents
This is a continuation of my last post, In Defense of Bio Parents. Confession: Everybody says that foster care is “all about the child,” but the truth is that in my county it is all about the bio family. That means every reasonable effort will be made to a) avoid removing the child from his
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In defense of bio parents
If we dare to meet your eyes at this moment, it would help so much if we could see in them that you respect us – not because of what we’ve done or left undone, but because we are fellow humans going through the worst days of our lives.
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Little glimpses
Once upon a time, when I was twelve or thirteen years old, my father took me with him on a week-long speaking engagement to central Pennsylvania. The church was warmly welcoming, and I made some good friends, including an eighteen-year-old named Gloria who took me under her wing. She was so pretty and stylish, and
Between songs
When a beautiful woman in her sixties, with a serene face and an artistic hand, sits beside you at the craft table and asks to hear your story, you do not refuse. Nor do you refuse when a fun-loving stranger offers to do a coconut-oil-honey-and-cocoa-powder facial with you, and all the supplies are laid out.