Could you suffer in silence, please?

I have secrets now. I guess everybody does. Only these secrets are ones I would rather unburden myself about, but can't because of confidentiality constraints. But if I had no scruples at all and felt like risking my entire life's destruction, I could tell some tales, boy howdy.

Right now there are hundreds of thousands of children in Foster Care in the U.S. I don't have current figures, and almost don't want to look them up. It is just too grim. What I do know is that the courts are set up so strange that navigating the issues that Little A has just about make me insane, and we are far from being done with it.

With all the kids that are in foster care, there is a really desperate need for more foster parents to care for them. But would I ever recommend that a friend do this? Probably not. Not unless I was really mad at that friend and wanted to see them suffer. There is no court advocate for foster parents' interests. If you are lucky, your goals and the county's coincide. Right now that seems to be the case with us, but that could always change and we could be asked to do things we would rather not do.

I have heard horror stories about foster parents being abused or their opinions discounted outright. Who would sign up for that? It almost has to be a calling, and many of the people I have met have had some kind of faith community that supported then during the rough patches. Alas, I don't really have that, but it would be handy to think that God has a plan on days when it seems that the earthly forces at work are confused and delayed and at cross-purposes.

I tried to guard my heart, but I'm totally attached to this little kid. It took about an hour and I was already sunk. She really deserves no less, but it makes it so much harder for me to maintain my professional demeanor and face the still viable possibility that she could be reunified with her family of origin. That is supposed to be a good thing, and can be if the family can get it together. Currently that is not her legal plan, but that could change pretty easily.

In the meantime, I have to love her like I will never lose her. I'm not brave or noble. I love her fiercely. I have never had so much of my future on the line. If we lose her we go back to being childless, which seems impossible now that we have integrated her laughter, her tears, and even her laundry into our lives. Even picturing her bedroom empty for more than ten seconds makes me physically ill.

In any case, my life is being forever altered on a daily basis, and I have to keep my mouth shut about it. The petty little details and things that annoy me and even the things that make all of this worth it are all under the table. I hope I can talk about it openly someday, because holding it in sometimes really hurts. I worry, and in the vacuum of my own head, the echo chamber gets a little out of hand.

So, should you be a foster parent? May is Foster Parent Awareness month. I can't answer whether anyone else should do this. All I know is that as long as we are all contractually obligated to do whatever we do in silent forbearance, the media makes up whatever they want. All people hear are the horror stories about "those kind" of foster parents. You know the ones: they grab headlines for further abusing the delicate lives in their care. They eat steak and give the kids hot dogs. The dress the kids poorly. They end up representing all of us, because the good foster parents are the silent ones. We are the invisible parents (or ersatz babysitters on the bad days) that care for some wonderful kids whose parents have made some less-than-beneficial choices.

I'm a foster parent, and this isn't my story. My story is in the details, in the small gestures, in the way Little A feels about me when I give her reasons to trust me. Trust me, it is a pretty good story sometimes. Maybe someday, if she still has me in her life, she can tell you. I can only hope in the meantime that I am giving her the means to tell it with a measure of pride.