GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

Forgive me, I'm having a bit of a rant.

 Transitioning from female to male is challenging enough, our newest and eldest foster child is doing it, and he (he chooses to identify as 'he') is a hero. His heroism includes his courage in the face of politicians and newspapers who are whipping up protest about the process, all for their personal gain.

Twas ever thus…

I'm forever shaking my head about pople who know less than nothing (by which I mean the things that they think they know are untrue), and enjoy using them to stop other people, who they've never met, doing what they choose to do with their own lives.

They keep banging on that they're "Only trying to help"

At one Blue Sky training session we talked about people's behaviour towards others. We heard about a psychologist called Eric Berne who'd spent much of his time researching why people behave towards others in ways they themselves don't understand. 

He called his book "Transactional Analysis". It sold 3000 copies. A few years later he tweaked the writing and called it "Games People Play" and it sold 300,000 copies.

That's what you call a good psychologist.

His basic belief is that people spend most of their time trying to get the better of others. It sounds rotten of us, but he points out that way back in history early men and women needed to be top dog to get the mate they wanted. So there'd be lots of squabbling and fighting going on.

Now that we're civilised we have to find other ways to feel we've bested someone, but the behaviour is just as persistent as when we lived in caves.

What Eric Berne did was to identify different ways in which people go about besting others, and put them into categories. You'll recognise people you know in a minute.

Might even spot yourself…

One category - and I had a colleague who did this all the time - is called "Why Don't You? Yes but.."

What she would do is tell colleagues about a problem she had and ask for their help/advice. But she always had an answer for why none of the suggestions could work. Example;

Her: "I'm going to struggle to get in for 9.30 tomorrow. My car has to go in for new brakes and the garage doesn't open until 9.00"

Us: "Could you leave your car outside the garage and put the keys through the letter box?"

Her; "Yes, but there's no parking in the street"

Us: "Could you drop your car off at the garage tonight on your way home?"

Her; "Yes but I don't finish here until 5.00 and the garage closes at 4.30"

It would go until we ran out of ideas, then we'd say;

Us: "Gosh, you really do have a problem."

And she'd smile a triumphant grin and say;

Her; "Yes!" and go happily on her way, having bested us.

Eric Berne identified about a dozen common strategies that people use day in, day out, to feel on top.

Others include "Wooden Leg". In Wooden Leg the person habitually says to their family, friends and colleagues "What do you expect from someone with a wooden leg/unhappy childhood/dependent mother/eating disorder etc". Sometimes children in care play this one.

The game that's being played by politicians and press who are making capital denouncing trans people is called "I'm Only Trying To Help You".

In this game the player pretends they're being helpful while they're actually doing the opposite. They know deep down that if they persist in giving bad 'help' the victim's situation will deteriorate and they'll need more 'help'. Appearing 'helpful' makes the player look good and caring. The more 'help' the victim needs the worse their situation becomes.

If and when a trans person comes a cropper 'helpers' can single that person out and claim it as a victory for those who tried to 'help' and weren't heeded.

Oh and by the way…

The Game played by good foster carers is called "Busman's Holiday". An example of Busman's Holiday is the ear-nose and throat doctor who spends his two week holiday doing voluntary work in a Rwandan hospital. He returns to work more refreshed and with better stories than if he'd hung out on a beach in the Maldives.

We're friends with a couple who have several holidays a year. They're always playing golf, spending the weekend in the Cotswolds, throwing dinner parties. And are, to be honest, a bit lost in life, and miserable. I don't go any further than our front gate any more, I've nothing to 'get away from'.

I'm happy with my lot.

I foster.

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GO FIGURE

 Yes, there is quite a bit of paperwork involved in fostering.

And yes, fostering folk have to attend quite a lot of training sessions.

Home visits by social workers, though always enjoyable, are nevertheless time-consuming and demanding. When I say 'demanding' I guess I mean you have to keep your concentration up for the entire 2 or 3 hours. Yup, they don't show up for a five minute cup of tea,

I'm flagging this up mainly for anyone thinking of becoming a foster parent. 

Fostering is a fantastic vocation; there's nothing like it - but you have to be realistic about it. Fostering is hard graft, and fostering folk need to be at the top of their game 24/7.

Then there is the child.

Or in our case, children (we have multiple placements at this time).

Don't be under any illusions, children who are taken into care and need a foster home have all got harrowing stories, and are almost all affected by the things that have happened around them before they were removed from their real parents.

If it weren't for the intervention of social services who knows how screwed up the children might become, or how much of a drain on others and society in general.

And yet…

Today I visited a neighbour and shared a cup of tea, He's aged 89 and almost blind, plus his left knee is permanently painful and gives out without warning so he's borderline housebound. He lost his wife some nine or ten years ago. 

He doesn't care much for talking about himself, he prefers talking about his children and grandchildren and the world in general. This is always a sign of a well arranged mind.

And he is more than just well organised mentally; he's not merely bright he's loving and kind, generous to a T, and always ultra-courteous.

In fact, I don't think I've ever known a more exemplary person.

But today I found out more about his early years which left me agog as to how he turned out to be such a fine man, a pillar of society, a wonderful husband and father. A model human being.

His childhood was a catalogue of neglect and abuse.

When he was a small boy the war was on. His mother had left his father, who he never met, and was shacked up with a waster; a savage drinker and flake. 

She was a two-bit actress, touring the UK with a flea-circus theatre troupe putting on tacky plays up and down the country. Her partner was a musician who was attached to the cortege largely to facilitate a supply of booze. This bloke and my friend's mother lived life zig-zagging the country in a haze of fantasy in which they were glorious stars of the stage. They would dress up in stage clothes to go out the shop and pick up fags and gin and lord it over the provincial oiks. 

Madness.

My neighbour/friend from his earliest age had to tag along. Throughout the war he never went to school, or was in any place long enough to make one single friend. He'd be on a stern warning not to talk to anyone or reveal anything of his life. The travelling actors would perform at night, then go back to their digs and drink and delude themselves they were stars and that Hollywood was about to beckon. They'd sleep away the daytime, and he'd be kicked out into the street to wander around and entertain himself. Whether he was in Rochdale or Glasgow, Southport or Chatham, he'd skulk around trying not to look like catnip for the truant-catcher (yes, they existed!). He was on a big warning not to alert the authorities about his circumstances.

His tale gets worse.

Over our second cup of tea he told me about the other half of his life as a child, the half that was even worse than his solitary life on the road.

His mother was always trying to dump him and go off.

When she got fed up with his presence she'd put the word out around town to find a family who'd take a boy in. There were plenty of takers back then. She'd pay them a small fee for 'looking after' her child so she could swan around the country unencumbered. And the people who took him in could treat him however they liked.

He was never sent to school because of the danger that the authorities might wonder who he was and that the game would be up. Instead the families put him to work.

Aged eight his day job was to scour the beach looking for driftwood to fuel the family fire. His evening work included walking right across town to make the payment for the family's pools coupon.

He found himself derided by the family's real children for being a skiver and a waste of food.

Not that there was much food; provisions were rationed and he generally ate leftovers, of which sometimes there were none.

His mother abandoned him six times in this way. He might be an old man now, but he remembers each abandonment with heart-rending clarity.

On one occasion she left him with a family she'd stayed with for just one night - the night before - and he didn't see her again for a whole year.

My tea got cold and went off, his story was so compelling.

And when he was done telling it, he apologised for hogging the conversation and asked me if I wanted a piece of cake then asked me how my curious family were doing. What's more, he really wanted to know. He's frail now, but still generous and kind, and caring about everyone, even people he's not met.

I told him that if he had been a child living now he'd have been taken into care like a shot.

And yet; would he have been a better person for it? How could he be a better person? He's close to perfection.

I guess if there's a point to my thinking about him a lot this evening it's that fostering helps kids, but if the basic building blocks of a decent human being are in there all you have to do is gently fan the flame.

Almost every kid we've had come and stay under our roof has been a hero one way or another.

But the question of what makes a person entire is beyond me, so I decided a while back not to spend too much time trying to understand the matter when there are potatoes to peel and beds to change.

Spuds and duvets; the grit of fostering. Yet something else is afoot and amen to whatever it is.

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MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

 Ok so the complexities of fostering a transitioning child.

Try this one.

Before you do, can I make one thing crystal clear. I love this work to bits and am uplifted each and every day by the fun and joy of helping these kids on their way.

So;

He wanted a lift to school, which he didn't need as he has a bus pass, but he gets nervous if the bus driver says or does anything with him he might interpret wrong, as he's highly sensitive about being misconcieved as female. Doesn't want to hear 'Luv' or 'Darlin', things people say innocently but unthinkingly.

No problem, I drive him in.

Happy to enjoy his company.

Only this particular morning he's fuming. We set off and he's straight into his anger;

"Why did you call me 'her' just now?"

Me; "What? I never did!"

"You friggin' did! I hate it when you do that. Don't you realise what I'm going through?"

"What are you on about? I never called you 'her'"

"Yes you did. I heard you. You said to dad 'I'm going to take Tyler down to school and then go on to Tesco and get her some tea."

"I never said that!"

"Yes you did. I heard you. You didn't know I was in the hall. So yeah, you still think I'm a girl."

OK I could spin the argument out as long as it took, but it boiled down to this;

I'd said to my other half, standing in the kitchen;

"I'll take Tyler to school and then go to Tesco and get us some tea."

Say it to yourself.

If the 's' sounds of 'us' and 'some' fuse together, like they can do when we speak, it could easily sound like "get her some tea."

I had to fight my corner all the way to the school gates.

I argued that I've never had to go to the supermarket for one individual family member so the words "he" or "she" have never featured; only "us".

No dice Chicago.

All I could do was implore that I only, ever, totally, saw him and see him as who he knows he is.

He got out of the car crying quietly.

I sent him a text from the fruit aisle saying sorry I got upset.

I got a reply over by the wine section saying he was sorry too. 

Come tea time all forgotten, that is, no further argument.

Going to be watching and listening for other difficulties.

And going to be careful with words in future. 

No, going to be ultra-careful.

If a job's worth doing it's worth doing well.

There's no job more worth doing than fostering.

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IT'S THE MOST COMPLICATED TIME OF THEY YEAR...

 In fostering it's never too early to start thinking about Christmas.

It's eleven weeks away, but Sky have already got their Christmas Movies channel up and running.

We fostering folk have to start thinking about how it's going to work for us because, unless you have the same children as the Christmas before, every Christmas is very different.

And Blue Sky have kicked the conversation off with their Carers, asking if the looked-after children have talked about it to them, and if they haven't we should maybe start getting some information. We could try asking questions such as;

"What was your last Christmas like?"

Unless you know otherwise it's best not to ask questions such as;

"What did you get for Christmas last year?", because some children got nothing. Unbelievably, one child we had for a Christmas had never recieved a present in their life, and parroted what they had heard as the reason, namely that Christmas is "Too expensive."

So, first off, you have to tread warily.

The information you need is all about understanding their expectations. For children who have regular contact with their parents/significant others we fosterers have to gather clues as to who they want to spend Christmas with, and for how long. 

Often you get situations where the child's real parents live separately, and you find their preference determined by which of their parents new partners they dislike the least.

The chidren don't get to make the final decisions, because the Social Workers may know more than they do about the domestic scenarios at their home.

I've mentioned it before, but it's more true now than ever; households that are vulnerable to chaos are more likely to have a breakdown over Christmas than at any other time of the year. Families are jammed together, there's booze aplenty and old tensions re-surface.

The children must not get caught in the crossfire.

Then there are other factors, such as the importance that your own family has the Christmas they want too.

Which can mean all sorts of complications, because if you come from a big family the business of who goes to who's for Christmas dinner is often ridiculously over-important to some family members.

Other complications; do you spend the same amount on presents for your foster child as you spent on your own when they were the same age? After all, the foster children will get presents from their own family too (hopefully).

Then there's the simple fact that some families are toning down the whole Christmas hoo-hah, sometimes because it IS too expensive, or else it's just a load of work for next-to-nothing. 

Then there's this; we live in a wonderfully diverse country.

At my first Blue Sky Christmas lunch there we all were sat at long tables. 

I got talking to the young couple oppisite, who I'd pulled crackers with. We'd put on those silly paper hats and told each other the feeble jokes. There was wine, but they didn't touch it. 

I asked them how they'd spend Christmas day and they replied:

"Well, we're Muslim. If we don't have a placement it'll be just another Tuesday in our house. But if we have a placement and they are going to be with us on Christmas Day, and Christmas matters to them, we're going to do all the traditions and trimming. Decorations, tree, presents, turkey."

"Flippin' heck!" I said, "You're going the whole hog?!"

"No." they laughed, "We're Muslim, we will draw the line at hog…"

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SURPRISE!

 I'm not as pre-occupied with out new child's transitioning as might come across, but it's such a huge new thing for me it's in my mind all the time.

But everything else goes on in the fostering world in our house. Some of it like clockwork, most of it not.

If there's one thing that fostering brings to a household for which there's no getting round, it's that the normal rhythm of a house is all to pot.

Normally, one knows everyone in the house, and has done since birth. You know your partner, if you have one, and you have been alongside your own childrem, if you have any, since they popped out.

That's not to say there are no surprises, but the fact that something may come as a surprise is a surprise. But in fostering surprises come along all the time. It would be a surprise if there were no surprises.

I remember the first time a child ran away. He had only been with us two days and we took him into town on a Saturday morning as we were doing some mild shopping. 

On the way back to our car we had to cross a large patch of open green which belonged to the local college who'd layed it out for sport. It was a big bit of territory; three or four rugby pitches. We'd used the park and ride facility on arrival, but decided to walk back to the car as the queue for the bus was long.

We got to the field and started to walk across, but almost immediately the lad started to get fidgety.

He was aged eight and had been taken into care because his mum couldn't handle him, and a large part of his problem was that she didn't try. She simply locked him up. She'd bolted a hasp onto the outside of his bedroom door and padlocked him in.

Every evening she'd lock him up and go out hunting for men and fun and booze and whatever. And left him imprisoned.

So, we're not a few yards onto the open space when he ran for it.

Yep, he just raced away. 

What can you do? 

I'm no athlete, nor is my other half. I told him to stay with the other kids, I'd try to keep track of the boy. So, listen, I'm not legging it like Sebastian Coe here, I'm just trotting, trying to keep him in sight.

My mind is teeming with what to do. Do I use my phone to tell Blue Sky I've got a child on the run? Do I call the police? 

The best bit of advice I ever took about fostering came from an old hand at Blue Sky who said "Whatever, just use your common sense."

Obviously there are times when you have to do what the handbook says you have to do. But ninety-nine times out of a hundred it's not clear cut. That's when it's down to you to decide.

So, I figured, no-one was in any danger. He hadn't actually gone missing even though it felt like that was beginning to happen. What if he did disappear/ How long should I wait before I called for support?

By this time he's away across the field and gone in among seome outbuildings that turned out to be student accomodation units.

It took me four or five minutes to get there. When I did there was no sign of him, so I prowled around just in case he was lurking. 

In the end I gave up and started to walk back to the others. No sooner did I do that than he appeared.

He'd been shadowing me around the outbuildings. Enjoying his moment.

Of freedom.

I asked him about it and he threw back his head with a massive grin and gurgled "I just felt FREE!!!"

After that I often took him out into the countryside to let him enjoy space.

And freedom.

He brought several surprises, this lad.

For one, he brought on one of my earliest connections between the damage done to children and the outcomes in their behaviour.

For two he helped me position my fostering so that I worried the right amount. I began understanding that mostly things work out okay if you allow kids to explore as they feel impelled to, and discover things for themselves rather than be told.

For three I bumped into him a while back in the street, pushing a pushchair. 

He'd done alright.

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WHAT'S IN A NAME?

 Much focus in our house at this time remains on the programme of transitioning that our recent arrival is undergoing.

In fostering it's a good idea to expect the unexpected, and for sure things keep coming out of the woodwork that are new to me, and frankly new also to the various professionals connected to the child. 

His school are great; they have a communal bathroom with nothing but cubicles, which he uses. But around town he has to plan his toiletting carefully as he's cautious about using "Gents". Luckily there are some individual cummunal cubicles in the car park behind the high street which are for males, females, wheelchairs and mothers and babies. And him. This problem had never ocurred to me before.

Similarly he tends to avoid school trips in case he's embarrased. He's ok at gatherings and parties because a) people go to the loo alone anyway b) his social circle know about his trans-ing and are cool.

He's opening up more and more with us about his decision. Actually it was no more a 'decision' to transit than any of us make a 'decision' about our height or the colour of our eyes. We're born that way, and he's as much a male rather than female as anyone else is black rather than white, or blonde haired rather than dark. He knows this, he's helped me understand this.

Tell you who struggles with the thing; beaurocracy. He needs all sorts of organisations to recognise his new name and impending new gender. We're having to change his bank account, his NHS details, his passport. We're having to change his school records so that his exam certificates are in his new name.

Then there's the question of who is responsible for overseeing all this paperwork.

It got complicated with lots of to-ing and fro-ing of "We'll contact so-and-so, can someone else write to the other lot?" So I put up my hand and did the dread thing; I volunteered to co-ordinate.

Anyone who's worked for a medium to big employer knows that volunteering to 'co-ordinate' people amounts to volunteering to do the whole lot yourself. And that's pretty much where I am.

I could write a War and Peace length blog on how the passport officeisn't anywhere near up to speed on people who want a new name. I understand that they have to be on the lookout for people wanting false identities for money laundering and all sorts. So they request all sorts of verification and they're not sure what they want or who they want it from. Then there's the problem that they're all working from home these days, and some people use that as an excuse for not getting things done, as in "I have been unable to get this signed off due to Covid restrictions".

Elsewhere I was rebuffed by one civil servant/pen pusher because I "Wasn't a professional". Hah! That one makes me spit blood; I'm professional to my bootstraps. I'm the lad's current parent to boot!

A big part of his needs has to do with how he's percieved. He's petrified that if his name is his old female name on his GP's records when he goes to the doctor they'll call that name out and he'll have to walk through a full waiting room of people wondering why he has short hair and wears trousers. So it's important.

Similarly I had to take issue with his dentist, who, when I accompanied him for a check up, asked me "Are you her grannie?" TWO big no-no's right there in four short words. Shame on them. This kind of jumping to lazy conclusions is thoughtless, stupid, needless and just plain wrong.

Still, that's some professionals for you.

The lad dosen't go out of his way to thank me or anything for my efforts, and I'm not looking for that anyway. It's just a matter of doing the right things for the right reasons, the right reasons being it meets his needs, and fostering is about nothing if it's not about meeting each child's needs.

Whatever those needs are.

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HANDLING DEATH WITH FOSTER CHILDREN

 When you foster you are acting in loco parentis. Looking after someone else's children. Teachers do it all day, but hand the children back to their real parents when the bell goes. We are 24/7.

Latin isn't my strong point, but it's a term that stays in my mind partly because the loco bit hints at the crazyness of fully parenting someone else's child, although that's not the intention in this phrase.

Parenting one's own child can be daunting enough, but at least youknow where your child has come from in kife and where she's got to along the wat, because you've been with them every step.

Not so with a foster child. You've no way of knowing their full set of experiences to date, so you don't know where thet are at with various moral things, or the birds and the bees.

Or issues such as the Royal family.

Or death.

So; it's been an interesting week coping with the various emotions and feelings that the passing of the Queen has generated.

See, I've mentioned this somewhat shocking incident from my childhood before, but it's very relevant so I'll run over it again.

The death of the Queen is the biggest such passing in the UK since the death of Winston Churchill. I remember that Churchill's failing health became the focus of the nation during the final hours of his decline. The country knew what was coming, and the TV channels all had hourly updates on his condidtion. They all ended with the solemn promise that;

"There will be another bulletin in an hour."

These bulletins continued all day.

Eventually my youngest brother, who was about 5 or 6 years old at the time, burst into tears.

"Of course he's dying!" he sobbed "They keep putting another bullet in him every hour!"

I was only 12 or so at the time myself, and I learned a big lesson. Kids misunderstand, they misinterpret.

A public death can lead to all sorts of private turmoil, especially with the English knack of not talking about things.

That knack extends to many children in care. They often prefer not to talk, maybe because they used to have to keep a low profile in the house.

I had one child stay with us who hadn't had a meal prepared by anyone other than herself as far back as she coud remember, that was how invisible she'd learned to make herself. She was eight when social services learned of her.

When such poor interaction is constant, misunderstandings can grow into towering misconceptions. Take conception itself; a parent and child who stayed with us, the parent believed that if you ate ice cream during pregnancy your baby would be born blue. Someone had heard and misunderstood the term 'blue baby' and attached it to something they thought they knew about; ice cream, rather than ask around and find out about low oxygen levels in babies.

So; the death of the monarch provides fostering folk with an opportunity to help children with one of life's big challenges, namely finding a place for death in our lives.

I'm writing during the lull between the Queen's passing and her funeral. Every newspaper front page, every news bulletin, it's everywhere. There was no football last Saturday, ITV took down all comedy programmes, there was no escaping gun salutes, black armbands and black ties.

Hmmm. How to play this one so that it not only doesn't upset the children of other people who we happen to be caring for, but moreover help them find a good place for it.

First off, I tried to identify my own attitude; the Queen was a very decent person, from what one gathers. She worked her socks off. She loved horses and dogs. She had a sense of humour.

Finding my own perspective wasn't going too well to be honest. All the above I believe, but couldn't get a handle on the whole thing.

Then I read a newspaper article in which a celebrity said that meeting the Queen was "like talking to your mum"

And it all fell into place.

I told the children the reason she was loved and will be missed is because she was a mum. We all miss mum when she's not around.

The Queen was mum and gran to a family that were a bit all over the place (to put it mildly). 

You can see how this line chimed with foster children.

The Queen's loved ones had messed-up marriages, squabbled with each other, one even had the police wondering about their behaviour. 

But she never gave up on them, always stood by them, understood their problems even if she coudn't solve them for them.

I hope (but it's early days yet) that this line of explanation as to the affection for the Queen bears fruit in the relationship between the children I'm caring for at the moment, and their loved ones.

No-one is here for ever, enjoy who you have while you can.

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