We are TINKs again. Not the
Disney fairy in green or any other green fairy for that matter. WE are back to being Two Incomes, No
Kids people. This is the story of how we have returned to being TINKs. After 6 months of
being in our home London moved out in March. It was a much quieter event than we
imaged. There were few tears, but no yelling, no questions, no pleading – just silence.
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We did a pretty good job
considering we had never been parents. Considering we were only twice her age. Considering
we were not told the whole back story or even the entire current situation. Considering
she had more than 13 YEARS of inadequate programming. We did a great job
setting boundaries. We did a pretty good job explaining those boundaries and
why they existed. We even steadfastly held London to the consequences of her
actions even when she whined or complained that they were unfair.
When we said yes to 14
year old London coming into our home we knew we would be challenged and we knew
we were getting in over our heads. MANY people were kind enough to tell us that.
The first couple months lulled us into
false hope. It was actually not too hard. Yeah rearranging our work schedules and
making the daily drive to and from school was not super fun, but a lot of other
times were. We said over and over again that teenagers might just be better
than babies – they sleep through the night, they can take care of their own hygiene
(well maybe with some reminding), and hey, this one could even prepare a simple
meal. This child was even old enough to share the responsibilities of some
chores – like the much disliked kitty-litter-box-clean-out task.
Other than the drama that
naturally surrounded court dates and visits with the bio-mom and the surprising
number of doctors visits for a healthy 14 year old, the first three months were
pretty easy. London did ballet and soccer, we went on a family vacation to Disney
World, and we successfully navigated Christmases with all three of our
families. We were really starting to enjoy this whole family thing. At Disney
World Kelly rocked the mom bag complete with park maps, bottled water, hair
ties, and snacks. Scott was honing his ability to embarrass London with loud
embarrassing statements or questions. And it felt like things were starting to
gel.
Starting second semester
of her eighth grade year, London reached the point where she had been in this
school longer than she had been in any of her previous 13 schools. A couple
weeks into school she was suspended for fighting. There were consequences laid down
and we lived through 3 days of suspension and 2 weeks of grounding. Then a few
weeks later, after being reprimanded at school for being disrespectful to a
teacher, London skipped class with a couple other kids. She was suspended from
school for a week. London was back to school for 2 weeks exactly when she was
found taking drugs on school grounds. This earned her expulsion from the public
school system entirely.
We thought we handled the
fight pretty well. We were told we handled the skipping school drama with
aplomb. We talked a lot with London about her choices and what they
communicated to us. With her actions she was communicating that she could not
function within our family. That she could not hold up her end of our growing
relationship. After all, you cannot have a healthy relationship with someone
you can’t trust. After she ran away one Saturday we found that we could not
trust her out of our sight, even at home. We were learning that she could not
be trusted at school unless she was under the direct supervision of an adult,
even then she was disruptive and rude. Ultimately our talking was just air and
the consequences we laid down were not doing their job. London was escalating
her acting out and becoming more and more disrespectful at home and school.
We ultimately decided
that she did not respect us and would probably never follow our rules. We came
to the conclusion that London was very good at adapting to meet a situation and
was able to match the tone of the people around her when she wanted. That’s why
our first 3 months went so smoothly. She was a very good apologizer and when
she was in a good mood she was really fun to be with. These are skills that
help her survive the foster care system, but make her extremely difficult to
actually live with, because she used them as tools to get her way.
After much prayer and many tears we decided
that it was time for London to move on to a more experienced home. We even
suggested something like a group home that would insulate her from the
pressures of normal life and remove her from some of the drama of cute boys, mean
girls, and tempting drugs.
In the end, the foster
agency did not take our suggestion. London was moved from our home to another
foster home, but with more experienced foster parents. Or so we were told.
Since we are no longer her foster parents we have no reason to receive updates
about her or how she is doing.
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It’s been about 2 months
now and we have returned to being just Scott and Kelly again: TINK. The first
couple weeks were pretty quiet around our house. We didn’t realize how much of
our thoughts had been filled with London – what to feed her, what could we
teach her, how could we let her know she was loved, how could we help her feel
normal? We have now returned to our own lives again. We have taken a getaway
weekend and we watch rated-R movies again. We have enjoyed being kid free, but
we still talk about her fairly often. We still find things she would think are
funny or things we want to show her.
People ask how we are; they
seem to expect us to be depressed. In some ways we feel relieved. In some ways
disappointed that we could not be what this kid needed.
We’ve taken a break for a
while from the foster care system. We haven’t decided yet if we will give it
another try. We’ll let you know.
