A Day in the Park

It isn't easy being a kid in foster care. You miss your mom and dad and you miss how your life used to be. Sometimes you also miss siblings who live in different foster homes. Occasionally you even find yourself missing your foster parents when you get moved from one foster home to another.

When you're a foster kid you have a lot of questions; When will I see my mom? Where is my dad? When will I go home? Why did this happen to me? Was it my fault? Along with the questions come lots of big, complicated feelings that come seeping out at unexpected times, in unexpected ways. Stuff that used to be easy - like going upstairs to the bathroom by yourself, or sleeping at night - can suddenly seem scary and overwhelming.

My three are pretty lucky, as far as being in foster care goes. They are together, still go to their same school and get to see extended family regularly. But it still isn't easy for them. All three are wrestling with their feelings about missing mom and dad on a daily basis. One is very sad, another is very angry, while the third is clingy and shy. All of them are trying to come to terms with the conflicting emotions that come from being happy where they are right now, while still wishing they were somewhere else.

Yeah, being a foster kid really isn't easy. All I can say is thank goodness for sunny days at the park, when a kid can just be a kid - foster or otherwise - running around, jumping off the swings and playing in the sand with other kids.