Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Children are not socks

You would think that would be quite evident, obvious, a fact that if you heard it on the street your first reation would be "DUH.
However that is not always the case. There are people out there who feel children are like socks. No feelings, pull them out when you need them, toss them when you don't. Socks don't require much thought or care. If you are deciding between a striped pair and polk-a-dot pair and decide to go with the dots the striped pair won't care.

Children do. They do have feelings which surprises some people.

I had a visit scheduled last night. A visit that I schedule means its the "getting to know you visit" for an adoptive parent and child. Its an important visit. The child was older and was quite aware of what the visit meant. This child was also adopted once before and her new family brought her back a couple of years after the adoption was finalized. They told her it was because they were sick and they were sick. Were they as sick as they led the child and the court to believe? Nope. Did the court realize that they just did not want the child and could not deal with the problems that a pren-natal drug exposed child can develope as they get older? Nope.

The child realized. Oh she realized and she called her parents on it.
She asked why if they were feeling better why was she still living at someone else's house. She called them on their lies and their stories and the parents did what any coward would do.

They never visited again. They left with hugs and promises to see her next week. That was the last time anyone at the agency saw them.

Her therapist and a great foster parent picked up the pieces of her broken childhood and they did their best to glue it back together for the child.

The child has just now, months after this happened , begun to trust again.

The idea of adoption is ok to her.
She has a brand new suitcase so she could leave at anytime.
She is getting better at spelling so she is smart enough to be adopted.
She can make her own bed and pick up her clothes so she is usefull enough to be adopted.
She tries to be a good girl all the time so she can be lovable enough to be adopted.

She was so excited to meet her new, maybe, family last night. She worried about her outfit. She, in the end, decided to wear her school uniform so they would know that she was in school and she wouldn't be that much of a bother to them.

The mother cancelled the visit twenty minutes after it was supposed to start. She was at the agency making copies to give to her adoption worker but she couldn't visit with the child. She had not answered her cell phone nor was she there when I checked minutes before I was paged. She told me that she had been there for 20 minutes and her car was running and she had to leave. She ignored the child who was standing next to me and would not give any answer to why other than "something came up".

She told her adoption worker that it was ok that she had to cancel the visit because the child never saw her. That was a lie.
She knew this child's history. She knew the agency was concerned about introducing the child to anyone new until we were sure that the family wanted her. She knew and she promised that they were ready.

I was left stammering and looking like a fool because I wanted to yell at the lady. I couldn't; not because it wasn't professional. That hardly matters to me at times because these are kids and someone needs to stand up for them.

No that didn't stop me.

What stopped me was the look on the child's face.
I have never seen such a look.
She was shattered.
Her eyes filled with tears.
Her mouth started trembling.
Her hand gripped mine in a death grip.
I turned us around to walk back to the playroom and away from the lady. I wanted to get her away from the lady and the lack of concern that was sooo evident to me and of course the child knew. Of course she knew.
I turned her around and I looked down as I was telling her: Oh honey it wasn't you, something came up, but it wasn't you and lets go watch a movie and we'll talk about this and....
She was having none of that nonsense.
She knew she was rejected again
She took a deep breath
She pinched her lips together to stop them from trembling.
She blinked.
She looked up and smiled.

And then she told me it was ok sometimes these things happen and it was ok really.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This has to be the saddest of all your blog entries. I shed tears just thinking about it. Many friends are joining me in prayer so that you have the strength to deal with these hurting children. And we pray for the children who desperately need homes. God Bless you. xxooxx