FORGETTING OLD ACQUAINTANCES

December in the UK means, for many; Christmas.

Christmas is no cakewalk. Families are getting more and more complicated.

It can be an even trickier time for families who foster because we need to juggle things that ordinary families don't.

We fostering folk have the back-up of social workers, in my case Blue Sky, to help shape the way we deal with issues.

Issues such as;

How to advise a child who wants give a gift to an adult who may or not have neglected her (or worse)?

How to manage a Contact meeting between a child and real parent. A real parent who routinely bad-mouths the fostering system?

Not easy, but do-able thanks to the support network available plus one's own native life-skills.

Here's my thing though.

Hard on the heels of Christmas, tailgating it in fact, comes…

New Years Eve!

Oh Lordy; the logjam of Winter 'celebrations'.

For kids up to the age of about eleven, New Years Eve is a doddle; a chance to stay up very late. 

But I've noticed something different in the teenagers we've cared for when the clock ticks around to midnight.

They've twigged that the whole New Year thing is about fresh beginnings.

A new start.

Hope.

I've seen teenagers give a really meaningful midnight hug to whoever is wearing a party hat and say (and mean it);

"Happy New Year!"

They hold each others gaze and wish it in earnest.

By which they mean;

"May it please be better than last year…"

Sometimes they join in a chorus of Auld Lang Syne with gusto. The line about forgetting old acquantiances seems tinged with particular significance.

The bottomless sincerity of their hope is as hearfelt as it's forlorn. We all know - and they do too - that each year brings more challenges. It brings rewards aplenty too, but ups are harder to spot than downs. 

Their problems "squat like a toad on a merangue" as someone memorably put it.

Regardless, I enjoy watching the optimism of their "Happy New Year" to each other.

And, as a foster mum, each year I resolve to do everything I can to help their coming year be as good as it can be.

Happy New Year to you, whatever time of year you find yourself reading this.