I love all my children. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep them safe. I enjoy them – watching them learn and grow and adventuring with them. It’s so cool to see how far each one of them have come. How unique each child is and how together we create this family.

There is a child in my pack that pushes my every button. It seems like every minute he’s doing something to get negative attention. It’s non stop and some days I feel like I’m about to lose my ever-loving mind. His voice reaches an octave that makes me want to chew on glass and run with scissors. He will wake up at 3am to go potty and then will decide to wake the entire house up and have a party. He won’t follow simple directions. He makes unsafe choices that make it hard to trust him. When he pees all over the toilet and bathroom floor, when he’s clumsy and breaks something of mine, when he lets the shower curtain drip water all over my bathroom floor, when he leaves the car door open all night and the batter dies, when when when… over and over and over again – I feel like he’s punishing me. I know it’s not rational. It’s trauma. The scars of severe neglect. I’m struggling. And so is he. At school he has started this thing where he’ll retaliate against his teacher by wetting his pants if he’s asked to wait a few minutes before using the restroom. He’s now no longer allowed to use the restroom alone because he violated another student’s privacy by crawling under the bathroom stall… the other student happened to be wiping at that moment and startled, got his feces on my son. It was quite literally a shit show. Once a star student, he’s refusing to do his work and disrupting his class.

It’s exhausting and I am having a hard time not feeling resentful this season. There is so much shame and sadness around this issue.

There’s no Idiot’s Guide to Fostering and Adoption. Or maybe there is and I didn’t read it? Lol. Nobody told me that there would be scenarios like this (or that laundry would be a 24/7 cycle). I don’t feel as bonded with this child. There’s a click that’s missing. He’s 7 and talks like a baby and wants to curl up and have me hold him like a baby. And I feel like such a bad mom because I’m not getting it or don’t have the emotional capacity to be what he needs in those moments. Some days I fantasize about him growing up as an only child in another woman’s home. I truly believe he should be an only child and would thrive. That he’s been so neglected, he worries that there isn’t enough love or attention or food or whatever for him. But there’s no chance of single childhood happening. If I ever recommended the thought to a social worker, we’d risk the powers that be coming in, taking the sibling group and them possibly bouncing around many homes again, separated like they were before. This child has huge trauma and people who know trauma and kids know that the kids who need the most love often ask for it in the most unloving ways. Knowing he went through a dozen homes before he walked through my door, in April of 2018, I can’t let him go through that again. I won’t let it happen.

I’ve been hearing from other foster and adoptive moms who have had similar experiences and it’s so encouraging to know I’m not alone. I’m not giving up on this kid. I truly believe these behaviors and issues will pass and things will get better for our family. More importantly, things will get better for him.