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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"SOCIAL WORKER"? MORE LIKE "SUPER PAL"

 We've had a change of our Blue Sky social worker, a temporary change, but quite a lengthy one.

Maternity and all that! Congratulations to our regular social worker and her partner, and their new baby.

I struggle to find words that are adequate to praise the people that Blue Sky send out to help and support us.

So; while our regular SW was away we were provided with a new one.

A new SW can be a big change, your lifeline is hugely important. The person you get is a big part of your whole life, not merely your fostering.

There are many people who are 'thinking' about giving fostering a go.

I remember our trepidation about taking the plunge, but, as it was something I'd identified as being kind of on my bucket list, I overcame nerves and doubts and, one morning, sitting at our kitchen table, I googled 'fostering near me' and Blue Sky came up, so I picked up the cordless and dialed.

It was such a moment that I still have a flashbulb memory of all those years ago waiting for someone to pick up.

Now that I'm a grizzled veteran of this amazing profession, I feel the need to toot the horn of the social workers who have become the cornerstone of our lives - all of my family, not just me.

Fostering is, for most of us, a leap into the unknown. Not entirely unknown; most of us have experience of family life (it's not essential; singles are among the best fosterers I  know). Equally most of us  have had children of our own (again, not a deal-breaker; one of the most brilliant foster mums I've ever met had no kids). And on top of those experiences, every single one of us was once a child, and we can draw on that enormous experience to build understanding of the young people who arrive at our door.

But it's still a leap into the unknown.

Mind, so's taking a partner in life, having children of one's own. Buying a home, getting a job, going abroad. So many leaps, yet fostering seems a particularly big leap.

I'm sitting here wondering why?

Perhaps it's the responsibility. Also the fear of failure. Then maybe it's the concern that somebody in your circle will warn you off it, and you don't want to prove them right. Then you realise that there are countless smaller unknowns in fostering and you start wondering if you're stacking up endless problems for yourself and your home life.

Enter your social worker.

They pull no wool over anyone's eyes, they have the facts and the details, they also do one thing that blows all the uncertanties to one side. 

They believe in you.

There's not enough self-belief in many people (mind, there's too much self belief in some).

I've believed for a long time that the best parents are the ones who worry about whether they're any good as parents. The worst ones are the ones who think it's a piece of cake.

Well for what it's worth, I believe it's even more the case with fostering.

The best foster parents are the ones who worry if they're good enough.

And that's where your social worker steps in.

So; was our stand-in social worker up to it?

When it came to her last day with us, there were almost tears.

Delighted to get our long-standing person back - she's almost family, but never withour her understated professionalism.

But saying goodbye to yet another person we'd long for as a friend, a mentor, a guide, was borderline heartbreak.

So, what I'm saying is this; to anyone thinking about giving fostering a go, be clear that for all the ups and downs of it, there will always be one enormous up; the ever presence of the sort of person in your life you've only dreamed of.

Until you foster.

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FIRST TRANS PM?

 When you foster a child who has a particular issue you tend to get involved in the issue yourself. 

How could you not?

If, say, your child has problems with authority you find yourself examining the authority, how it functions, and whether the child has a point.

I'll never forget being summoned to a school to discuss the behaviour of a teenager I was looking after.

The meeting was fixed for 9.00am.

On the dot I was sat, along with the girl ('K'), outside the head's office.

At about ten past nine the head showed up, went into her office and shut the door behind her. 

Another five minutes passed then she asked us in. She said that we were waiting for the head of department in charge of the girl, who'd been delayed.

Just before 9.30am the second staff member showed up and sat down.

"Now," began the head, "The first problem we must discuss is K's punctuality…"

I kid you not.

So, now that I have a child in my care who is transitioning from female to male, my learning curve is steep. My antenna are constantly twiching.

I'm not hugely political, except when it comes to fostering.

When I say "when it comes to fostering" I guess I mean that I look at the lives of the children in my care at any one time and compare their needs with what's on offer from politicians. Every little helps, and if policies and public opinion can help or hinder my children I'm interested.

I have a new child who is transitioning.

To be blunt, conservatism is hurting him, so because I'm for my boy, I'm against it.

I'm against the politics that instincively fights against any change without giving it the hard work of investigation and understanding. The type that bangs on about freedom and reducing the size of the state, but want to restrict the freedom to choose who you are, and if necessary send in the state to intervene.

I'm old enough and wise enought to have seen this conservatism over a couple of generations.

This is what my fine teenage foster son has in store;

Not long ago, women were absent from front line politics, conservatism quietly enshrined a men-only policy. Spool forward and conservatism now champions women leaders,

Not long ago sons and daughters of immigrants were sidelined by conservatives. Now they take their place on conservatism's front benches aplenty.

Not long ago the thing they called 'homosexuality' was illegal, and conservatism, standing for what they saw as 'common decency' and 'God's word' stood foresquare opposed to it. Now it has become a mere detail on the CV of many a right-minded thinker.

So.

It will be EXACTLY the same with trans folk.

Conservative thinking will abhor it as an abhorance, and rail against it, and campaign for legislation against it.

Spool forward a generation.

Britain's first trans Prime Minister is elected.

A conservative.

Go figure.

NB I'm deliberately avoiding labelling Conservatives as conservative on this issue. I'm agin the conservatism that makes my foster son despair. There are probably plenty of Conservatives who are as open minded, even more open-minded than most, after all we hear of plenty who have first hand experience of confusion over gender issues and matters of the heart too...

Meantime my boy is one of many in for a rocky ride, just like women, immigrants and gay people before them. 

Then maybe my boy'll choose a career in politics and go on to become the first...

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BROTHERLY LOVE

 Our latest new foster child is in an okay place, and okay is great in fostering.

Apparently the Buddha said everyone who's ever lived has always had 83 problems apart from the person who tries to get rid of them all.

They have 84.

Latest addition is transitioning and going along well. It's his decision, his life. Maybe it's a mistake, maybe it isn't. People who get paid for their opinion, such as pundits and politicians, are piling in on the issue, often for their own benefit.

He gets on with the one thing everyone owns in a free country; being who he is.

When a foster child arrives the balance of the family home changes more than the average event, except obviously a birth or a death. Or redundancy. Or bankrupcy. Or prison. Or illness. Or mental health or dementia.

Come to think of it, fostering is barely a wrinkle.

And none of the aforementioned shock-horrors come with a guarenteed Social Worker at your side. 

On your case.

Someone who's got your back, someone who's (to use an Eastenders perennial) "Always there for you."

So; middle foster child has been in a grotty mood on and off since school broke up.

We ask if child is okay and just get grunts.

We're used to grunts. Our own kids could grunt for England.

Blue Sky's SW shows up regularly to make sure everything's okay.

The SW had a 10 minute chat alone with child.

Reported back to us what the child said, with professional discretion as ever.

So: child lent a friend £8 and is having trouble getting it back.

Child was not explicitly invited to a gathering at a house the child had previously been invited to for a previous gathering, but if, the child learned, IF they are invited they'd need to be able to offer transport (me) and give a car-load of others a ride there and a ride home - at midnight.

BTW, 'midnight' to teenagers translates as 1.45am.

Child is feeling not sufficiently loved.

The SW was brilliant. Told child it wasn't fair, that child deserved better, but hey; life's not fair and people let you down.

Told US we were doing a fantastic job.

I wondered out loud if the child was feeling sidelined by the new child who has just arrived and has high-profile needs. Social worker thought there was maybe something in that, but generally, the child told the SW, they had clicked and were feeling brotherly.

Wow.

Onwards and upwards!

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YES, WOMEN HAVE TESTOSTERONE TOO

 When a new placement (the technical term for a child in care) is settling in it's important to make sure everyone else feels loved and wanted just as much as before, because a new placement (it's such a barren term isn't it?) can take up a disproportionate amount of your attention.

The foster mum or dad is busy trying to get handles on the new arrival. Trying to find out who they are, what makes them tick. What their flashpoints are. 

What they're like when their flashpoint is reached.

At the same time it's important to help them ease into a hugely challenging situation; they're in a stranger's house, they are suddenly part of a new family. They don't know anything about the parents or the other youngsters or how the home works. New place, new routines, new rules.

Yike.

As I've been explaining in the last few posts, our new placement - oh heck with that word - our new child is transitioning. As his foster mum I need to come up to speed not only on what he needs, but on the whole landscape of what's become a big issue worldwide.

The more I learn about him and what he's chosen to do, the more I'm saddened by the hostility he reads about every day on his phone. 

He's not being perstered or trolled by schoolmates or anything. The hostility towards him is in the news feeds he clicks on.

I'm not going to join up the dots on this young man, he deserves his privacy. But I can share some aspects of his situation which are common to most people who choose to transition.

First, and this is the biggest deal of all, he is male. But when he was born, as is the case worldwide and from the dawn of time, when he came out of the womb they took a quick glance between his legs and a decision was made for him; "It's a girl".

Not long ago, maybe three or four decades, being designated a girl meant that he would have to go through life wearing what he was supposed to wear, not what he wanted. He would have to wear his hair how he was expected to, not how he wanted. Play girl's games - which largely means staying away from the centre of the playground where the boys were crashing about and playing football. 

He'd feel sidelined, as a girl and later as a woman, for the rest of his life.

He may have found he liked girls in the same way many boys do. But girls having girlfriends and boys having boyfriends was simply not done. Adults who chose to make love to people of their choice used to be sent to prison, and in some countries still are. Or worse.

But the whole matter of love and romance and making love and making babies is, as far as the boy now in my care is concerned, peripheral.

He is an intelligent young man. He is well read and informed - believe me, he's researched the matter very thoroughly. He is a kind and gentle person, but immensely strong and courageous.

He has no side to him; he cares about everybody. He says he understands why some people are confused and even angry about transitioning, but saddened they don't mind causing him pain.

In a netshell; he's a good person. 

We need more people like the one I've just described.

We need fewer people who have more strident opinions than they have knowledge.

I realise now that only a few weeks ago, when this young person arrived, I had a hotch-potch of views about transitioning, even though I knew virtually nothing.

For example, he's been walking me through the effects of testosterone treatment which he hopes to undertake when he's old enough. I have to say I had almost no idea what the hormone was about, But I do now. 

I've met and known and worked with plenty of men. I was brought up among boys and men. I fell in love with, and married, a man. I've brought up boys, a couple of my own, the rest belonged to other people.

I know for an absolute fact, something I'm certainshaw burtonshaw about, that not a single one of them had or have the slightest clue about their testosterone. Ask them about it and they'll reel off a couple of sound bites they picked up in the playground or playing sport. They'll have an opinion too. Several even. Loud if necessary. Unshakable too, generally. Worth standing up for, maybe even fighting for.

Testosterone doesn't make people angry, it amplifies. I watched a lecture by a Harvard behavioural neurologist on how our behaviour is affected by our bodies, in particular neurotransmissions and hormones. It's a new field bringing science into understanding the human condition. 

I didn't know there was so much I didn't know. Now that I know more, I know I still need to know even more before I have a right to an opinion about somebody I'm not. 

(BTW I'm feeling a bat's sqeak of testosterone in my veins right now as I enjoy a flash of superiority over those who know less than me…there's a lot to be said for self-awareness).

See, it's the same with every other aspect of transitioning.

Everyone needs to know more.

But, bringing this back to fostering, I have a strategy in place to help him with the fact that half the world is going rabid about him and his fellow transitioners; I keep him away from news feeds, we don't watch the TV news and definitely not the opinion channels that call themselves news.

On a positive note, I gently probed as to whether he felt bullied or ridiculed at school. He said not. He added that if anything he's respected for standing up for himself. 

I worry about the adults of today. The youth of today are dandy.

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