Here and Now
Raising children is confusing, tough business….but raising former foster children adds a new level of strangeness to it. Since we don't have any biological children to compare them to, it is hard to know which behaviors are normal kid behaviors and which ones come from their "past lives". I am using the plural "lives" very intentionally. My two children have lived three distinct lives: the first 5-7 years under the care of drug-addicted parents who were neglecting their children; the second 2-3 years bouncing around the foster care system; and the past year and a half as "our" children. Each phase of their life brought a different set of habits, some good and some not-so-good.
One behavior I think is a product of their past lives is my children's sense of entitlement and unhealthy expectations. You might be reading that thinking "How can they have 'unhealthy expectations' living in a home that is so safe and provides them so much more than they had in the past? Shouldn't they feel like they are spoiled in this new situation when compared to the poverty from which they came?" That's the same thought we have had many, many times.
The interesting thing about kids raised in a welfare system is that they have been trained to expect things to come to them without any work. Each month, without a job, their parents received enough money from the government to afford food to eat. They received a generous free meal at Thanksgiving and free presents at Christmas time. Helping agencies gave them clothes for free and each year they got free school supplies. Other than cooking meth, their parents didn't have to lift a finger and my children were raised seeing that lack of effort as the norm. My children didn't have to take good care of the free items they received because they knew that in a few months they'd get another round of free items to make up for the ones they broke or lost.
I have a friend who pointed this out very clearly. She lives in rural Alaska where residents receive a payout from the oil companies who are raping their land. Hush money, if you will. For many residents, particularly those in poverty, they see their payout as more money than they've ever held in their hands at one time. They dream of all the things they've always wanted -- that they can now afford with their new "wealth". Instead of seeing the payout as an investment to be used for paying off debt or using to pay bills for the following hard months, these newly-rich residents get that boat or snow mobile or whatever they have "always" wanted to own. But then a few months later you see the crashed, broken down, decaying "dream object" laying in ruin off to the side of their property. No big deal! The next payout will come along soon and the broken item can be replaced! And this pattern continues year after year.
I've heard the same thing happens on Native American reservations where people receive a payout from the casinos. And I saw the same thing play out when FEMA paid people their stipend following the Joplin tornado in 2011. The dumpsters at the FEMA temporary housing site were overflowing with boxes from large, flat-screen TV's and gaming systems. I heard stories of people who used their FEMA payouts to take family vacations. And then those people went back to living in abject poverty because they used their temporary wealth to satisfy an itch -- instead of using it as an investment to rise out of poverty.
For people in these situations (payouts from oil companies, casinos, the government) what matters most is what they can see in the moment -- the here and now. On the day the check arrives they think "In this moment I have enough money for a vacation (or a flat screen TV or a new cell phone or…) so I will spend this money on the thing I've always dreamed about. Today is what matters because all I can see is this moment here, this choice now. The future has always been bleak and hopeless, but in this moment I can buy myself some happiness."
As I see my children break their expensive toys or lose items out of carelessness I wonder: Is this "normal" kid behavior? Or is this the side-effect of poverty-induced entitlement? Do my children expect that I will just give them a new expensive toy or replace that lost item because that's what the government used to do when they were in poverty or in foster care? And, what is maybe worse, do they expect that "real life" will work that way when they are adults?
My response tends to be to go the route of the "mean mom" by making them work to earn the money to replace their broken toys or lost items. The process of working to earn money to buy things is important training for my children whose earliest memories were of government-subsidized laziness and drug addiction.
I wonder if other parents of former foster children struggle with the same habits?
One behavior I think is a product of their past lives is my children's sense of entitlement and unhealthy expectations. You might be reading that thinking "How can they have 'unhealthy expectations' living in a home that is so safe and provides them so much more than they had in the past? Shouldn't they feel like they are spoiled in this new situation when compared to the poverty from which they came?" That's the same thought we have had many, many times.
The interesting thing about kids raised in a welfare system is that they have been trained to expect things to come to them without any work. Each month, without a job, their parents received enough money from the government to afford food to eat. They received a generous free meal at Thanksgiving and free presents at Christmas time. Helping agencies gave them clothes for free and each year they got free school supplies. Other than cooking meth, their parents didn't have to lift a finger and my children were raised seeing that lack of effort as the norm. My children didn't have to take good care of the free items they received because they knew that in a few months they'd get another round of free items to make up for the ones they broke or lost.
I have a friend who pointed this out very clearly. She lives in rural Alaska where residents receive a payout from the oil companies who are raping their land. Hush money, if you will. For many residents, particularly those in poverty, they see their payout as more money than they've ever held in their hands at one time. They dream of all the things they've always wanted -- that they can now afford with their new "wealth". Instead of seeing the payout as an investment to be used for paying off debt or using to pay bills for the following hard months, these newly-rich residents get that boat or snow mobile or whatever they have "always" wanted to own. But then a few months later you see the crashed, broken down, decaying "dream object" laying in ruin off to the side of their property. No big deal! The next payout will come along soon and the broken item can be replaced! And this pattern continues year after year.
I've heard the same thing happens on Native American reservations where people receive a payout from the casinos. And I saw the same thing play out when FEMA paid people their stipend following the Joplin tornado in 2011. The dumpsters at the FEMA temporary housing site were overflowing with boxes from large, flat-screen TV's and gaming systems. I heard stories of people who used their FEMA payouts to take family vacations. And then those people went back to living in abject poverty because they used their temporary wealth to satisfy an itch -- instead of using it as an investment to rise out of poverty.
For people in these situations (payouts from oil companies, casinos, the government) what matters most is what they can see in the moment -- the here and now. On the day the check arrives they think "In this moment I have enough money for a vacation (or a flat screen TV or a new cell phone or…) so I will spend this money on the thing I've always dreamed about. Today is what matters because all I can see is this moment here, this choice now. The future has always been bleak and hopeless, but in this moment I can buy myself some happiness."
As I see my children break their expensive toys or lose items out of carelessness I wonder: Is this "normal" kid behavior? Or is this the side-effect of poverty-induced entitlement? Do my children expect that I will just give them a new expensive toy or replace that lost item because that's what the government used to do when they were in poverty or in foster care? And, what is maybe worse, do they expect that "real life" will work that way when they are adults?
My response tends to be to go the route of the "mean mom" by making them work to earn the money to replace their broken toys or lost items. The process of working to earn money to buy things is important training for my children whose earliest memories were of government-subsidized laziness and drug addiction.
I wonder if other parents of former foster children struggle with the same habits?
Comments
Post a Comment