The Foster Child's Three Sets of Parents
by Mary Reistroffer
Very often a foster family parent says- with vehemence and conviction- "A foster child is like any other child." A first reaction to the statement is the thought that the foster parent is trying to convince himself; a second and more likely "reading" of the comment suggests the foster parent is claiming first-class status and treatment for foster children rather than advocating a fiction. The statement, then, is a pro-foster child comment made by a person child-oriented and child-protectionist in thinking. And who is to decry this poignant and touching plea of people who seek to defend or be advocates for the placed child? Not I, for I am glad that placed children have foster parents who speak up for them and claim for them the same things all children need and should have.
The statement, however while well-intentioned and suggestive of caring, is far from precise because the foster child is unique. The very fact of his foster child status makes him so. The foster child- unlike most children- has multiple parents, parents who have impact from his past, have important involvement in his present, and portend much for his future. These multiple parents cannot be erased or ignored and we must help the foster parents and the foster child understand them and cope with them because they affect the child's daily life and his future.
In our culture, most children have a single set of parents. True, separation, divorce, death, illegitimacy or remarriage may subtract or add one, but generally, the child is immediately affected by his natural parents- a mother and a father who function in those parenting roles. Not so for the foster child; he has at least three sets of parents- perhaps more.
The foster child's first set of parents is his biological parents. In our language, those parents are variously tagged "blood parents", "own parents", "real parents", or "natural parents". His second set of parents is his "dream" or fantasy parents who exist only in his mind and feelings. These imagined parents are heroic persons who are very real at times and who have significance in the child's life. The third set of parents is his foster parents with whom he lives. These are real people who, because they are physically very near, are the targets for his reactions to all of his many parents. And the foster child may have other parents mixed into the picture too. Perhaps this is not his first placement, so there are those who suggest that the agency which has much to say about the child's life and destiny is a parent of sorts. The agency, as a possible addition to the multiple parent configuration, has conceptual definitions that are too broad and varied to discuss here, but it cannot be ignored.
And so what do the myriad or multiple parents mean in the life of the foster child? Do they all effect his behavior? Are they all a force for good or bad in his future?
The biological parents exist for the foster child whether or not they are involved in his present life. Even if the child has no recollection of them, has had no good or bad experiences with them, never mentions them, or is not currently in contact with them, they are real and directly affect his life and his adjustment. A foster child knows that all children are born to someone and that he was not just found under a bush. Even if he has no memory of these blood parents, they affect him because the simple fact that he is not with them means much in his mind and feelings. It means that he thinks- and feels- he is some kind of unlovable creature who was too unacceptable to be kept with them, that he is basically a "bad character" who likely caused the breakup with his family, and that he will be whole only when he is "found" by his biological parents. This unworthiness, guilt, and sense of loss and incompleteness prevails even if he has no factual knowledge of his familial situation. It exists in his mind and his feelings and directly affects his "now life"- how he behaves, how he relates, and what he hopes to become. His picture of himself is loaded with conflict about these people. If his feeling memories and mind memories include bad treatment by his biological parents, his life is worsened because this is confirmation of his essential badness and unacceptability; if he has no memory of these parents, he meshes them with his dream parents and suffers even greater distortion and has an even more difficult time making the pieces of his parent picture puzzle fit together.
The dream parents of the foster child are the kind typical of all children who, when vexed or angry with parents, imagine they have "other parents someplace". They are, however, more significant and meaningful for the foster child because they are, touchingly, the parents he wishes he had. They are super-parents who never punish, are never angry, are all-loving and accepting, have heroic qualities and abilities, and do not have any human frailties. Super-father, for example, may be a combination of John F. Kennedy, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Vida Blue, and the current rock stars. Super-mother is stunningly beautiful with the attributes of Cinderella and the current cinema sex symbol. These beautiful super-parents have exceptional resources too-gorgeous cars, unlimited money- and are willing to share all these resources with the child. However, these beautiful models with sterling qualities, heroic attributes, and resources are unattainable. How can a foster child who sees himself as a second-class person ever hope to be like them or to be acceptable to them?
The third set of parents is the foster parents with whom the child lives. Because they are real, they are in-sight targets for the conflicts the child has about the "other parents" and the behavior that results from those conflicts. They are also models for the foster child, but human models with frailties and shortcomings. They walk on the ground. What they have going for them is the concern and affection they express daily in their care of the child; what they have going against them is their humanity and their availability for comparison.
The foster child, then, has multiple parents who are multiple models to compare, reject, emulate, or copy as he thrashes about, trying to stabilize his life and decide what kind of adult person he will be or hopes to become. Multiple parents are both a help and a hazard for the foster child as he moves along the path of childhood, adolescenthood, and young adulthood. And integral to this is the fact that adults watch children closely but forget that children are watching them very closely and learning more from what the adult is and what he does than from what he says. Actually, rearing a child would be a breeze if adults had only to "tell" the child rather than have most of the learning occur because of the modeling and because of the kind of person the adult is.
Perhaps the touching truth of the parental model and the foster child's comparison of parents is told an illustration. I asked a placed child what kind of a man he wanted to be, rather than what he wanted to be when grown. After a few moments, the little boy said, "Like Mr. Bob" (his foster father). When asked to explain, he said, "well, he don't hit much and he don't hardly ever yell." This is an excellent example of modeling based on the corrective living experience for the foster child who is supported by good experiences with adults in the parenting roles.
How do the child's first two sets of parents affect his performance and behavior with his third set, his foster parents? His biological parents may have been defective models, may have hurt him dreadfully in either psychological or physical ways or both; they likely hurt him by what they were or what they failed to be in relation to his needs. Because they are his "own"- remembered or never seen- they have provided him with a large load of guilt and a sense of damaged self which he lives with daily. The conflict causes him to repeat his view of his relationships with them, to alternate between grieving for them and feeling rage toward them and toward himself and what has happened to him. In essence, they complicate his today life very much. If they are in some way involved today, they remind him of what might have been or they stir up all his guilt, sense of failure, and incompleteness. He then alternates between a fierce loyalty to them and a rejection of them. This is almost overwhelming for the placed child and it is why he is "different" from most children. He needs all the things other children need, but in addition, he needs something more in order to sort out this situation, resolve this conflict, and avoid continuing into adulthood his distortions of feeling and thought that will cause maladjustment, problems and more hurt.
If the biological parents are phantom people, out of view of the foster child's experience or memory, they often became merged with the child's dream parents. This merger can really complicate his life now and later. The merged parents are ready-made actors for a drama the child plays endlessly in his head instead of "hearing" the classroom teacher or the foster parent or participating in real life. The merged biological and super-parents are hard to dislodge, even with treatment, because they fit so well and respond so well to the feeling parts of the child. In addition, if merged, the first two sets are in a sense "his", and as such, he sees them as attainable models. Also, being lost and being found is a part of the folklore of childhood and adolescenthood, a folklore aided and abetted by literature and television. Likely, many foster parents can recall the distress and anxiety with which the child awaited the ending of Hansel and Gretel or awaited the weekly Lassie segment when Lassie took several weeks to find her way home.
The foster parents, then, in the current parenting role must absorb and handle the effects of the child's status even though they had no hand in causing it. And is never easy to be on the receiving end of such intense feelings and upset even if the child's feelings and upset are displaced from earlier relationships or imagined relationships. This is especially true if the displaced feelings come off as a rage or terrible anger. Even skilled therapists may have trouble maintaining control under the gun of a tongue-lashing or physical abuse from a foster child. The foster parents, understandably, may react in kind when under such provocation, answering rage and anger with rage and anger or returning a swat for a smack. If, however, the foster parents are to survive and not accumulate thousands of miles of emotional depletion, they must get the whole picture fixed in their minds. To see beyond the behavior to the cause may make the behavior less a personal attack and more endurable.
But to endure and understand behavior is not enough. It is not enough, either, to effect a holding action, expecting that time and the changed circumstances of living with a good and loving family will transform the child. He needs help from people outside the parenting role if he is to put his feelings, experiences, and future "together" and make it. The wise foster parents and the wise agency worker work together, defining their roles and tasks to bring the child through this jungle of feelings, thoughts, and actions which beset him because of his status.
Kind Band-Aids simply will not suffice if major emotional surgery is required, and for most placed children it is required. In this picture, the foster parents and the agency staff are the surgical team. The foster parents provide the clean, warm climate and support and assist the surgery by co-operating in all ways; the agency worker is the scalpel for the inside straightening. And this is not instant surgery; the child's accumulated hurts did not happen overnight and they will not be corrected overnight. Rather, it is a gently, often long, combination of leading, directing, and correcting. For the foster parents and the agency personnel to do less is to use a Band-Aid approach with ignores the child's future well-being.