Guest Post by Laura Deurmyer for Adopt-a-tude
We are once again a family of three. Our most recent foster child went to live with relatives, reunited with his baby sister. He's getting the help he needs from his social workers; he's going to counseling. He'll be OK. He'll be safe.
We'll be OK too, but it's taking a little adjustment time. And to make the move even more jarring, my husband and I have determined that it will be our last foster placement for a while.
To be honest, I have such mixed feelings about the whole thing that I don't even know where to start writing.
I feel guilt most strongly. We're going back to being talkers, not doers. Sure, we'll still support children's rights and policies that protect them against abuse and neglect. But words matter little compared to deeds. I know that; my husband knows that. And our son will know that too.
Then there's relief. For the first time in months, our son and I can have a mom-son moment without a little voice plaintively interrupting “Aunt Laura!” Just as kids sense an adult on the phone and immediately move to get attention, our foster son sniffed out any attention that I was paying to Jacob and immediately moved to get his share. The little guy virtually velcroed himself to my side whenever he was not at school; he lived on my lap, in the chair beside me, pulling on my arm. Just being able to hold Jacob’s hand or being able to sit by him at breakfast seemed like a shiny new experience last weekend. But I feel guilt that I feel relief. Guilt again.
Strangely, there's hurt. When our foster son got the news that he was going to live with a relative, he was thrilled. He let us know in no uncertain terms that this would make him really happy. That he would not miss us—or our many rules—and that he was outta here. His attitude was basically, “Pack my stuff—all my stuff—and make it snappy!” It's childish of me, I know, but his eagerness to leave us hurts my feelings. Just a little. What happened to his intense protestations of love? Of course, I feel guilty that I feel hurt.
Naturally, there's worry and sadness. Will he be safe and loved? When he gets home from school, will there be an adult who will do his homework with him? (He loves school and loves homework.) Does he know that we really love him, that he is worthy of being loved? He demanded so much attention and gave so much affection in return; despite my relief at being free of the constant pressure, I feel a strong sadness at the thought of never hugging him again.
Quite aside from the emotional end of things, there are other changes that our re-configuration back to a family of three entails. I miss the kids’ laughter echoing down the hall from their room. I miss their silly conversations in the car on the way to school. I miss how they made their way to the cafeteria for breakfast each morning, “big brother” Jacob proudly guiding his pal through the parking lot.
On the other hand, I don't miss the constant smell of urine in the bathroom, generated by the pee that went everywhere but in the toilet, and I can't say I'm displeased that I no longer have to clean the bathroom every night before bed. The Geo-Trax train parts all over the floor are something I can live without too. Also the pouting/ crying/ lying sessions that occurred with some regularity. (I understood why he did those things, I just don't miss them.)
With our under-forty population in the house down to just Jacob, I also realize how much drama and stress our foster son created. The time-out corner is no longer continually warm. We don't have to watch out the window vigilantly to make sure that no one is getting physically attacked in a sudden bout of acting-out violent dreams, memories, or fantasies. Bedtime is a snap.
I feel sure that Jacob is sad; he is trying to be very adult about it. It twists my heart when I ask him if anything is wrong and he answers with a pained smile that doesn't reach his eyes: “I'm OK, Mom.”
Though his Dad and I told him it was fine for him to cry, fine for him to miss his “brother,” he isn't allowing that for himself. He plays quietly with his toys when he's not outside with the neighborhood kids, but much of the joy of playing cars or knights or pirates comes from interaction with another child. Thank God we live in a neighborhood full of kids who play together.
In deciding to make this our last placement for the foreseeable future, my husband and I discussed why were were fostering. I realized clearly that one of the biggest reasons for me—a disturbingly important reason for me—was that I had always wanted a second child. I wanted a sibling for our son. We had combined this semi-subconscious want of mine with my husband's feeling that we could be doing something to make the world better and wound up foster parents.
My selfish motivation is not what is required for embarking on a life-devoting labor of love like fostering. Instead, it is a reason that was all about me and not at all about the children or my family.
I still feel that our family could play a role in helping children. At some future point, I may be able to shift my heart again from what I want—fulfilling my view of what a family "should" be—to what the kids need. Meanwhile, the look in Jacob's eye at losing yet another “sibling” confirms our decision that we're not at that point right now.
We've helped several children get through very hard times in their lives. We love them all. We have a wonderful child of our own who is the joy of our lives. For now, that is enough.
This post has been cross-posted on Laura's blog at Open Salon.
Showing posts with label foster parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foster parenting. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Fostering and Taxes: How We Parented and She Gets Paid
Guest Post by Blue in TX for Adopt-a-tude
Blue in TX originally posted the following piece in Open Salon, where it created quite a furor. This is her personal take on a financial aspect of foster parenting that surprised and disheartened her. As she says after the back and forth at Open Salon, "the jury is still out" about fostering and taxes. Her situation may not apply to other families in other states. She and Adopt-a-tude welcome comments that provide more information and help demystify the finances of fostering.
The going rate for a kid in the United States is $4,600 and change to families making $110,000 or less in 2009. At least that's what my tax prep computer program is telling me. (A $3,650 dependent deduction plus a $1,000 child tax credit.) So, the mightier your uterus, the bigger your tax break.
My uterus is weak and puny and has produced only one child. But we foster parent, and one of the ways the government compensates foster parents is by allowing us to claim tax deductions and credits for our charges as though they had popped out of our own baby-makers. Or so we thought.
So, I set about doing our taxes to include the little boy who spent a little more than half the year with us in 2009. No big deal, right? Wrong.
According to our case worker, the only time you get to claim a foster child as a dependent is when the state has forcibly wrenched the child away from his or her natural family. Voluntary placement kids are still deductible by their natural parent(s).
Many kids in foster care are in care because their parents voluntarily gave them up—either because they could not afford to feed and house them or because they are in prison, or because they just don't want to be bothered.
One of our friends fosters two little boys who were voluntarily placed at birth. They are both six years old now. For six years, our friend has fed, clothed, loved, Band-aided, taught, and honored these children, apparently all without being able to deduct them as dependents. To a single mom on a high school teacher's salary, that's a huge disadvantage, financially.
A couple of years ago, when our finances were less tight and we had not even dreamed of a child, I would have thought "how crass—griping about a tax deduction instead of thinking about helping a child." I still feel somewhat like that—we won't stop fostering if we can't claim tax deductions; in fact, if the government revoked all tax deductions and charged people for kids instead, we'd still have had our own son, and been just as grateful for it.
I just have to wonder what we are trying to achieve as a society with the policies we have set around children and taxes.
On the one hand, we have a problem with more demand for social services than we have the will or the heart to budget for. The more impoverished the kids, the more demand. Worldwide population growth is an environmental concern on many levels, from food scarcity to global warming.
But instead of teaching family planning in our schools and encouraging young people to have fewer rather than more children, we offer the single biggest tax incentive available to average people (outside of the mortgage interest deduction) to those who procreate the most. And we discourage families from taking care of kids whose own parents can't care for them by denying that tax deduction to at least some of those caretaker families.
The little boy we had in our home was moved to another foster family because he was behaving threateningly towards our son. He's a great little boy and is now in a home with his natural sister, where his behavior is exemplary. He and our son still play together. We would have cared for him even had we known from the start that we would not be able to claim him as a dependent.
His mom has five children. She was broke and homeless and living in her Escalade when she placed the kids in care. Now she's broke and living with some guy with whom she reportedly smokes dope and goes to bars when she's not in hairdresser classes.
She sold the Escalade and bought a little BMW 5 series with the proceeds. My heart broke for the eldest child when she first saw her mom's new car. She's a precocious seven-year-old and can count well enough to see that three car seats, two booster seats, and Mom will not fit in that car. Since the mom can claim all five children despite them being in other homes more than two thirds of the year, she should get a handsome sum back from the government after she does her taxes. Hopefully, she will use the money to get a more suitable car and put a deposit on an apartment.
That's our case worker's hope anyway. I'm not holding my breath.
Foster parenting is wonderful and terrible. Amazing children, amazing love. Monotonous paperwork that goes on forever, home inspections, CPR classes, licenses, continuing education. Getting attached and having to step aside for a natural family member. Getting attached and having to admit that there are some behavior issues that you just can't handle.
Voluntary placements get turned away by our agency regularly because there is no home to place the child in. I wonder how many families won't take voluntary placement children because of the tax rule giving the deductions/credits for voluntarily placed children to their natural parent if they choose to claim them. Personally, I think that we foster parents who've actually cared for a child during the greater part of the year have earned the $4,600.
Blue in TX originally posted the following piece in Open Salon, where it created quite a furor. This is her personal take on a financial aspect of foster parenting that surprised and disheartened her. As she says after the back and forth at Open Salon, "the jury is still out" about fostering and taxes. Her situation may not apply to other families in other states. She and Adopt-a-tude welcome comments that provide more information and help demystify the finances of fostering.
The going rate for a kid in the United States is $4,600 and change to families making $110,000 or less in 2009. At least that's what my tax prep computer program is telling me. (A $3,650 dependent deduction plus a $1,000 child tax credit.) So, the mightier your uterus, the bigger your tax break.
My uterus is weak and puny and has produced only one child. But we foster parent, and one of the ways the government compensates foster parents is by allowing us to claim tax deductions and credits for our charges as though they had popped out of our own baby-makers. Or so we thought.
So, I set about doing our taxes to include the little boy who spent a little more than half the year with us in 2009. No big deal, right? Wrong.
According to our case worker, the only time you get to claim a foster child as a dependent is when the state has forcibly wrenched the child away from his or her natural family. Voluntary placement kids are still deductible by their natural parent(s).
Many kids in foster care are in care because their parents voluntarily gave them up—either because they could not afford to feed and house them or because they are in prison, or because they just don't want to be bothered.
One of our friends fosters two little boys who were voluntarily placed at birth. They are both six years old now. For six years, our friend has fed, clothed, loved, Band-aided, taught, and honored these children, apparently all without being able to deduct them as dependents. To a single mom on a high school teacher's salary, that's a huge disadvantage, financially.
A couple of years ago, when our finances were less tight and we had not even dreamed of a child, I would have thought "how crass—griping about a tax deduction instead of thinking about helping a child." I still feel somewhat like that—we won't stop fostering if we can't claim tax deductions; in fact, if the government revoked all tax deductions and charged people for kids instead, we'd still have had our own son, and been just as grateful for it.
I just have to wonder what we are trying to achieve as a society with the policies we have set around children and taxes.
On the one hand, we have a problem with more demand for social services than we have the will or the heart to budget for. The more impoverished the kids, the more demand. Worldwide population growth is an environmental concern on many levels, from food scarcity to global warming.
But instead of teaching family planning in our schools and encouraging young people to have fewer rather than more children, we offer the single biggest tax incentive available to average people (outside of the mortgage interest deduction) to those who procreate the most. And we discourage families from taking care of kids whose own parents can't care for them by denying that tax deduction to at least some of those caretaker families.
The little boy we had in our home was moved to another foster family because he was behaving threateningly towards our son. He's a great little boy and is now in a home with his natural sister, where his behavior is exemplary. He and our son still play together. We would have cared for him even had we known from the start that we would not be able to claim him as a dependent.
His mom has five children. She was broke and homeless and living in her Escalade when she placed the kids in care. Now she's broke and living with some guy with whom she reportedly smokes dope and goes to bars when she's not in hairdresser classes.
She sold the Escalade and bought a little BMW 5 series with the proceeds. My heart broke for the eldest child when she first saw her mom's new car. She's a precocious seven-year-old and can count well enough to see that three car seats, two booster seats, and Mom will not fit in that car. Since the mom can claim all five children despite them being in other homes more than two thirds of the year, she should get a handsome sum back from the government after she does her taxes. Hopefully, she will use the money to get a more suitable car and put a deposit on an apartment.
That's our case worker's hope anyway. I'm not holding my breath.
Foster parenting is wonderful and terrible. Amazing children, amazing love. Monotonous paperwork that goes on forever, home inspections, CPR classes, licenses, continuing education. Getting attached and having to step aside for a natural family member. Getting attached and having to admit that there are some behavior issues that you just can't handle.
Voluntary placements get turned away by our agency regularly because there is no home to place the child in. I wonder how many families won't take voluntary placement children because of the tax rule giving the deductions/credits for voluntarily placed children to their natural parent if they choose to claim them. Personally, I think that we foster parents who've actually cared for a child during the greater part of the year have earned the $4,600.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)