Meeting #2

Sorry for the late post, for those of you who a) actually read this, and b) know that the meeting was Thursday night.

If possible, this session was even more frustrating than the second. Looking back on what we learned (more below), I can see now that it was really only frustrating on a superficial level, which means that I'm a pretty superficial guy.

I'm sure that's a natural consequence of being so incredibly good-looking and devilishly charming, but still, it's a hard lesson to learn . . .

Seriously, though. Session 2 taught us about the Foster Process. How do kids get into DFACs custody, what are the steps that everyone in the process must take, what are the possible conclusions and outcomes, etc. Tough stuff.

Now, none of the 3 couples in our class are up for Foster Care, so I didn't really think this was that important. And so I spent a good deal of time tackling our War & Peace-sized stack of application papers. But I did realize near the end (and even more on later reflection) that we have a much better grasp of what these kids have been through, are going through, and what potentialities they face.

It all boils down to this in my mind: these kids families are pretty awful; they are in for a tough time in Foster Care, but that's still better than where they came from; and they should be put with wonderful families like the folks we know.

It seems to me that Georgia DFACS has, as an institution, an unhealthy attachment keeping "natural families" together. Now, I have some thoughts on this that partially arise from my own family experience, but I'm with Solomon.

Remember the story? Where 2 women come to King Solomon, both claiming that the baby was hers? He says to cut the baby in half, one woman says, "Fine," and the other woman says, "No! Give her the baby instead!" Then Solomon gives the baby to the second woman.

The Bible doesn't say which woman was the actual mother. I say it doesn't matter. DFACS would say that it does, and that the first woman, if the child's natural mother (the "egg donor and incubator" in 4boyhouse parlance) should be given a couple of years to get her act together and rethink the whole baby-splitting thing, all the while the kid lives in limbo.

Give the kid to the one who cares. Period. End of sentence. Blood may be thicker than water, but sweat and tears trump even that.

Whew. Once again, this is why I'm not signing up for Foster Care. Yet.

We also looked at some examples of picture books ("Life books"?). These are little picture albums that are shown to the child (or the pregnant mother, in the case of Infant Adoption), to show them what wonderful folks the adoptive family are. It's a marketing brochure, plain and simple. Not that I'm cynical. These are necessary, since the kids can't come and live with each family for a week to see which one they'd like best.

But the whole thing is macabre, just a little. I get the feeling that, if we put enough Disney World pictures in, or show the kids playing on the neighbor's trampoline, or show the creek, or the cat, then we just might be able to edge out the other families, "Woohoo! We won! Use more colors next time, suckers. Stencils might help, too."

Still, it's the best of a bad situation, and I realize that my disgust of this whole process comes from my wish that the situation didn't exist. I wish that these kids could all have good families, that there was no need for DFACS or Bethany Christian Services. I would gladly give up my own wants if these kids could naturally, by default have the families they so desperately need.

But they don't, and so we will go on. We'll make a book, and try to (non-cynically) display our family in the way to best represent what it's like to live here.

As I was thinking about this earlier today, I thought, "We'll have to arrange to get pictures of our extended families." Then I realized that we wouldn't. All Glory and Honor to God, we see those folks quite a lot.

We saw my wife's family today for the three March birthdays, and we'll see my side of the family tomorrow for another birthday. The only arranging we'll have to do is to get everyone to stand still long enough to get a picture. The lovely, wonderful, warm chaos of these get-togethers will be hard to capture in a picture, or an album, or in words.

They are a life to be lived, a life of sharing to be shared.

And now I've made myself cry.

Until next week.