My Foster Mum and I had different views about my time in foster care. She really thought that I was very unhappy most of the time that I lived with her and my Foster Dad and that quite a bit of the blame for that should be directed towards the two of them.
I was able to tell without having to make up anything to spare her feelings that most of the time I was happy enough and when I wasn't happy it was far more to do with things that had happened at school or it was straight after a visit to my Mother in the mental hospital.
I don't blame my Foster Parents for the lies I was told about my Mother. I still think it would have been much kinder if somebody could have told me "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about her condition. When you are young you sometimes hold onto even the tiniest crumbs of false optimism so when a doctor or nurse says something about being hopeful about a new treatment or drug they were planning to use on your Mother I used to leave the hospital expecting that she would be cured and then released to come home to me quite quickly. Of course that never happened and she spent the rest of her life in hospital not even knowing who I was.
I got used to living in somebody else's house, living by their rules and knowing that I wasn't particularly welcome. Looking back none of rules were unfair and nobody ever said to my face that I was not wanted. There was just a small amount of tension all the time and so I realised that it was so much easier to keep out of my Foster Dad's way as much as I could. We never argued because I avoided speaking to him except about really routine things.
Of course it would have been nicer if I could have friends round sometimes but that was just something that was never going to happen. My Foster Dad didn't like young people so after a while I worked out that my friends wouldn't stay friends for long if they ever had contact with him. I have said it before but I would like to say again that he never hit me or even threatened to hit me. That wasn't his way. Yes there was a cane kept in the cupboard under the stairs but it was never used on me. Anyway I expect there was a rule about not hitting foster children?
I was 14 when I went to stay with the two of them and 16 when I left. At that age I didn't really think too much about my future. I knew that I was quite brainy because I always came towards the top of my form in exams, especially in subjects that involved numbers or science. On the very, very rare occasions that my Foster Mother talked about the future I always felt worried that she was going to ask me to leave so I tended to give her the answers I thought she wanted to hear rather than say what I was actually thinking.
I'm pleased that I was able to make my Foster Mother feel less unhappy about the whole middle section of our time living together.
Mumsnet
Friday, 4 March 2016
Friday, 5 February 2016
Meeting my Foster Mother after over 40 years (2)
I didn't know what to expect when I met my former Foster Mother after so long. I certainly didn't expect that she would remember as much about those two years we shared as she seemed to. I also thought that she would only want to talk about the good parts of our time together and all the things where there had been problems would be ignored. Well I was wrong and it serves me right for being such a pessimist!
Almost the first thing she told me was how sad she was that my time living with her "hadn't worked out" and that "Those two years nearly destroyed my marriage.". She told me that her husband had never been keen on fostering and that he had only gone along with it to stop her nagging and because it brought some extra money into the household. He was a proud and stubborn man who was, just about, prepared to accept the income from having a foster child but certainly didn't want any of the expenditure.
He valued his privacy and hated having what he saw as a stranger living in his house. It was never personal - he didn't particularly dislike me and she thinks that it would have been the same whoever it had been. It wasn't my fault.
She could remember my first few days really well and it was good for me to hear a different perspective on that difficult time. I had arrived in the late afternoon not knowing that my foster Mum and Dad had had a furious row that morning about me coming to live with them that had ended with him storming off to work leaving her in tears.
When the Social Worker drove off after doing the introductions it was all very difficult. I didn't know what the house rules were or even what I was to call my Foster Parents. After tea I helped wash up like I always used to do when I was living with my Mum but then I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The two of them sat in the lounge watching the TV and I didn't know if I was allowed to go in to sit with them or not and anyway if I was allowed to go in where would I sit? There wasn't a spare chair and I didn't want to sit on the floor like a dog would. I went upstairs and read a book in my bedroom feeling rather lonely and abandoned. All the time I was sitting there my foster Mother and Father were having another row downstairs with him saying again and again that it was bad enough I was living in his house without having to share his lounge with me. Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't know what was going on!
I think we were both upset, even after so many years, walking about those times back in the late 1960s. Now I am old (60+) I can look at things in a different way to the way I did when I was just 14. But even now I don't understand how I came to be placed with a couple with one of the pair totally against the whole idea of fostering! It was almost bound to end up badly and of course that is exactly what did happen. It would have been useful to hear my foster Dad's memories but he died in 2009 without ever talking about me to his wife.
More next time - when my Foster Mum and I talked about the middle 18 months of the two years I lived with her in St Albans.
Almost the first thing she told me was how sad she was that my time living with her "hadn't worked out" and that "Those two years nearly destroyed my marriage.". She told me that her husband had never been keen on fostering and that he had only gone along with it to stop her nagging and because it brought some extra money into the household. He was a proud and stubborn man who was, just about, prepared to accept the income from having a foster child but certainly didn't want any of the expenditure.
He valued his privacy and hated having what he saw as a stranger living in his house. It was never personal - he didn't particularly dislike me and she thinks that it would have been the same whoever it had been. It wasn't my fault.
She could remember my first few days really well and it was good for me to hear a different perspective on that difficult time. I had arrived in the late afternoon not knowing that my foster Mum and Dad had had a furious row that morning about me coming to live with them that had ended with him storming off to work leaving her in tears.
When the Social Worker drove off after doing the introductions it was all very difficult. I didn't know what the house rules were or even what I was to call my Foster Parents. After tea I helped wash up like I always used to do when I was living with my Mum but then I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The two of them sat in the lounge watching the TV and I didn't know if I was allowed to go in to sit with them or not and anyway if I was allowed to go in where would I sit? There wasn't a spare chair and I didn't want to sit on the floor like a dog would. I went upstairs and read a book in my bedroom feeling rather lonely and abandoned. All the time I was sitting there my foster Mother and Father were having another row downstairs with him saying again and again that it was bad enough I was living in his house without having to share his lounge with me. Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't know what was going on!
I think we were both upset, even after so many years, walking about those times back in the late 1960s. Now I am old (60+) I can look at things in a different way to the way I did when I was just 14. But even now I don't understand how I came to be placed with a couple with one of the pair totally against the whole idea of fostering! It was almost bound to end up badly and of course that is exactly what did happen. It would have been useful to hear my foster Dad's memories but he died in 2009 without ever talking about me to his wife.
More next time - when my Foster Mum and I talked about the middle 18 months of the two years I lived with her in St Albans.
Friday, 29 January 2016
Meeting my Foster Mother after over 40 years
Just before Christmas I found a message waiting for me on Facebook. It was from somebody in St Albans who had read my blog and who thought that her aunt was possibly my foster mother! It seems that at a family event a few years ago they had been sitting at the same table for lunch and somehow the topic of adoption and fostering had come up. Her aunt mentioned that she had done some fostering for a young lad whose father was dead and whose mother was in a mental hospital. My blog reminded her of that conversation so she decided to write to me.
When I replied I thought I should only mention the road in St Albans where I lived when I was in foster care. Almost straight away though she messaged me back with the surname of her aunt and it was my foster mother. That was quite a shock to me I can tell you!
I didn't hear anything for over a week so I started to think that the whole business was over. But then I got a much longer message telling me that my foster mother was still alive and well and still living in St Albans. She was in her 80s but she wanted to meet me.
I live in west Wales so it is a long way to Hertfordshire but now I am semi-retired I have more spare time so after a couple of restless nights I decided I would accept the invitation. My mind felt very jumbled up, rather like it did just after my dear wife Jane passed away. First of all it was going to be a long train trip (I get travel sick on buses) with changes at Birmingham and London Euston plus a trip on the Underground. It was also going to cost a lot of money but as I have some "rainy day" money saved up I thought I could afford it.
We were due to meet on a Saturday so on Friday I caught a train mid-morning and nearly six hours later I arrived in St Albans. I found the Bed and Breakfast place I had booked quite easily. The next morning I had a walk around the town thinking how much some parts had changed and how some parts were just the same. I also visited the cemetery on Hatfield Road to put some flowers on the two graves where Mum and Dad were buried so long ago.
Then I set off to the meeting place for what turned out to be a long and quite sad and strange conversation. I will write about that next week.
When I replied I thought I should only mention the road in St Albans where I lived when I was in foster care. Almost straight away though she messaged me back with the surname of her aunt and it was my foster mother. That was quite a shock to me I can tell you!
I didn't hear anything for over a week so I started to think that the whole business was over. But then I got a much longer message telling me that my foster mother was still alive and well and still living in St Albans. She was in her 80s but she wanted to meet me.
I live in west Wales so it is a long way to Hertfordshire but now I am semi-retired I have more spare time so after a couple of restless nights I decided I would accept the invitation. My mind felt very jumbled up, rather like it did just after my dear wife Jane passed away. First of all it was going to be a long train trip (I get travel sick on buses) with changes at Birmingham and London Euston plus a trip on the Underground. It was also going to cost a lot of money but as I have some "rainy day" money saved up I thought I could afford it.
We were due to meet on a Saturday so on Friday I caught a train mid-morning and nearly six hours later I arrived in St Albans. I found the Bed and Breakfast place I had booked quite easily. The next morning I had a walk around the town thinking how much some parts had changed and how some parts were just the same. I also visited the cemetery on Hatfield Road to put some flowers on the two graves where Mum and Dad were buried so long ago.
Then I set off to the meeting place for what turned out to be a long and quite sad and strange conversation. I will write about that next week.
Sunday, 17 January 2016
A former foster child asks "Am I doomed to always feeling slightly cheated?"
Am I doomed to always feeling slightly cheated?
My Dad died when I was too young to remember him.
My Mother had mental health issue and so from 14-16 I was in foster care.
My foster parents were never abusive but never showed me a scrap of affection.
My dear wife and I were never able to have children.
She then died while still quite young. She was 54 and died from heart disease.
I posted, for a reason I still don't really understand, this question to a well known website recommended to me by a young friend. I didn't get as many replies as some of the other threads seem to get but those I did get were very helpful.
"I think the circumstances of your parents would be very difficult for anyone to deal with & can see how you would feel cheated. But its not something you can do anything about so maybe try to reconcile it for your own peace of mind."
"You're not doomed to anything ,how you see your life is a choice. Sadness is normal, but feeling cheated...well that's a perspective that causes bitterness, and that only hurts you. I lost my parents young, I've had other troubles. I've never felt cheated. Life is random and fickle and things happen. How you deal with those things is entirely up to you."
"I suppose it depends on whether you wish to actively deal with it through counselling or some sort of therapy. Or if you prefer to try to live with it then regard it as part of life's journey, that good things happen & shit things happen but at the end of it you are still alive & look at what you do have instead of what you don't have? A sort of counting your blessings type thing, although it sounds unbelievably trite!"
I think the third one of these felt best for me. I suppose everybody has good and parts of their lives and I till just have to accept that some of the time I spent living in St Albans will have to be put on the bad part pile. When I was working in schools in St Albans and Wolverhampton I sometime heard such terrible stories about young people who had been abused for years. I never had anything like that happen to me so perhaps I have no reason to feel cheated after all?
My Dad died when I was too young to remember him.
My Mother had mental health issue and so from 14-16 I was in foster care.
My foster parents were never abusive but never showed me a scrap of affection.
My dear wife and I were never able to have children.
She then died while still quite young. She was 54 and died from heart disease.
I posted, for a reason I still don't really understand, this question to a well known website recommended to me by a young friend. I didn't get as many replies as some of the other threads seem to get but those I did get were very helpful.
"I think the circumstances of your parents would be very difficult for anyone to deal with & can see how you would feel cheated. But its not something you can do anything about so maybe try to reconcile it for your own peace of mind."
"You're not doomed to anything ,how you see your life is a choice. Sadness is normal, but feeling cheated...well that's a perspective that causes bitterness, and that only hurts you. I lost my parents young, I've had other troubles. I've never felt cheated. Life is random and fickle and things happen. How you deal with those things is entirely up to you."
"I suppose it depends on whether you wish to actively deal with it through counselling or some sort of therapy. Or if you prefer to try to live with it then regard it as part of life's journey, that good things happen & shit things happen but at the end of it you are still alive & look at what you do have instead of what you don't have? A sort of counting your blessings type thing, although it sounds unbelievably trite!"
I think the third one of these felt best for me. I suppose everybody has good and parts of their lives and I till just have to accept that some of the time I spent living in St Albans will have to be put on the bad part pile. When I was working in schools in St Albans and Wolverhampton I sometime heard such terrible stories about young people who had been abused for years. I never had anything like that happen to me so perhaps I have no reason to feel cheated after all?
Saturday, 9 January 2016
Long-term loneliness and being fostered
When my late wife Jane was still alive we used to get invitations to a wide range of family events. My problem was that I felt that I was only invited because I was Jane's husband and that was the label that almost everybody at these gatherings attached to me. I felt like a shadowy figure always doomed to be sitting in the corner trying to make polite conversation with other people who were in the same position as me while the "proper family" swapped memories and looked at old photographs. I never gave, I hope, Jane any hint that I felt quite left out at these events. She loved them and I would never have wanted to spoilt things for her.
Jane was very keen on family photographs and one of my favourite memories of her final few months was her trying to understand how to enter information into some genealogy software she had got from a family history magazine. Jane was very organised and she always used to write on the back of photos who all the people were and what event was being photographed. Sometimes she would add extra information years later like "Aunty Floss - died 6 months later" or "Cousin Frank - the first signs of his drink problem?".
When Jane died I returned most the photographs to her family. I thought they would be of more interest to them than they would be to me as a bit of an outsider. I was worried that if I kept them and then suddenly died the old photos might get thrown away without people thinking. I went through a rather black spell after her funeral and I made some decisions that perhaps were not sensible but returning the photos really wasn't one of them.
I had always got on well enough with Jane's family so it was disappointing that I ended up feeling rather lonely and abandoned after the funeral. I suppose they didn't want to intrude but as I didn't have any other family to help with all the jobs that need doing when somebody dies it might have been nice if they could have made more effort to help me.
Without my best friend Mike and his famous check-lists of jobs that needed doing I don't know how I would have managed.
Jane was very keen on family photographs and one of my favourite memories of her final few months was her trying to understand how to enter information into some genealogy software she had got from a family history magazine. Jane was very organised and she always used to write on the back of photos who all the people were and what event was being photographed. Sometimes she would add extra information years later like "Aunty Floss - died 6 months later" or "Cousin Frank - the first signs of his drink problem?".
When Jane died I returned most the photographs to her family. I thought they would be of more interest to them than they would be to me as a bit of an outsider. I was worried that if I kept them and then suddenly died the old photos might get thrown away without people thinking. I went through a rather black spell after her funeral and I made some decisions that perhaps were not sensible but returning the photos really wasn't one of them.
I had always got on well enough with Jane's family so it was disappointing that I ended up feeling rather lonely and abandoned after the funeral. I suppose they didn't want to intrude but as I didn't have any other family to help with all the jobs that need doing when somebody dies it might have been nice if they could have made more effort to help me.
Without my best friend Mike and his famous check-lists of jobs that needed doing I don't know how I would have managed.
Saturday, 12 December 2015
My first months as a foster child in St Albans - Part 2
A few days after I went into foster care I told my Social Worker how sad and disappointed I was that I wasn't living like a member of a family at all and that living in the foster home reminded me of a horrible Bed and Breakfast place that Mum and I had once stayed in over in Cromer.
I don't know exactly what my Foster Parents had been told about what they were expected to do to help me in exchange for the money they were being paid but what I do know was they didn't do much.
They knew that my Dad was dead and that Mum was in a mental hospital but perhaps they thought that it wasn't their job to deal with anything apart from my physical needs? I wonder if they thought that my school or my social worker dealt with everything to do with my worries or the sadness I sometimes felt after visiting Mum in hospital?
My bedroom was fine and I had enough to eat so nobody should think that my foster parents didn't do that part of their job because they did. What they didn't do was any of the things that "proper parents" would do if their child was feeling lonely or upset.
I'm sure they were not neglectful on purpose. I just don't think that they realised it was their job to be a substitute family for me. Looking back their way of doing the job they were paid to do did cause some strange situations!
My Foster Parents used to go to the cinema about once a month (usually the Odean but sometimes the Gaumont) but in all the time I lived with them they never once took me with them. The Gaumont was further away so they used to go there in the car. I can remember two or three times when I watched the same film as them at the same time but with me walking there and back and the two of them going in the car!
My Foster Dad wasn't a great fan of football but about six times a season he would drive over to Luton to watch a game. I used to go more often but only when I had enough spare money of my own to pay the fare and then the admission charge to the Oak Road End. Surely it must have felt strange to him that the two of us were going to exactly the same place but that he wasn't taking me or paying for me?
I never got to love or respect either of them and I think that was a shame because if they had made a bit more effort I think it would have been easier for all three of us to share a house for 2 years. I also think that the Social Workers might have tried a bit harder to find my a placement with people that wanted me rather than with people who just put up with me.
I don't know exactly what my Foster Parents had been told about what they were expected to do to help me in exchange for the money they were being paid but what I do know was they didn't do much.
They knew that my Dad was dead and that Mum was in a mental hospital but perhaps they thought that it wasn't their job to deal with anything apart from my physical needs? I wonder if they thought that my school or my social worker dealt with everything to do with my worries or the sadness I sometimes felt after visiting Mum in hospital?
My bedroom was fine and I had enough to eat so nobody should think that my foster parents didn't do that part of their job because they did. What they didn't do was any of the things that "proper parents" would do if their child was feeling lonely or upset.
I'm sure they were not neglectful on purpose. I just don't think that they realised it was their job to be a substitute family for me. Looking back their way of doing the job they were paid to do did cause some strange situations!
My Foster Parents used to go to the cinema about once a month (usually the Odean but sometimes the Gaumont) but in all the time I lived with them they never once took me with them. The Gaumont was further away so they used to go there in the car. I can remember two or three times when I watched the same film as them at the same time but with me walking there and back and the two of them going in the car!
My Foster Dad wasn't a great fan of football but about six times a season he would drive over to Luton to watch a game. I used to go more often but only when I had enough spare money of my own to pay the fare and then the admission charge to the Oak Road End. Surely it must have felt strange to him that the two of us were going to exactly the same place but that he wasn't taking me or paying for me?
I never got to love or respect either of them and I think that was a shame because if they had made a bit more effort I think it would have been easier for all three of us to share a house for 2 years. I also think that the Social Workers might have tried a bit harder to find my a placement with people that wanted me rather than with people who just put up with me.
Friday, 4 December 2015
Role models for foster children in St Albans
TWO BAD ROLE MODELS - It probably sounds horribly ungrateful but I think that both my foster parents, but especially my Foster Dad, were not very good role models. He worked hard at his job and was clearly well thought of by his employer but that was it. He did almost nothing around the house to help my Foster Mum and he never showed any interest in what I was doing or what I was feeling.
Young people were only put into foster care when something had gone seriously wrong within their own family. Surely what was needed was some extra support? Not being made to feel that the only reason I was allowed to stay with them was because of the extra money it brought into the house!
He almost never started a conversation with me and most meals were spent in silence with him eating with one hand and holding the newspaper he was reading with the other. It never felt that I was part of his family or that I mattered even a tiny bit to him.
THREE GOOD ROLE MODELS - When I had to leave foster care I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't stay on at school but luckily in the 1970s it wasn't hard finding work at 16 and I found work at small engineering firm down one of the alleyways off the main shopping street in St Albans. The Boss there was the most professional person I have ever worked with. He had a lot of real "hard men" working for him but they were always in awe of the quality of his work so he never had any problems with them! All my life I have tried to be like the Boss by always trying my hardest to get jobs right, to get them done on time and to get them done at the agreed price.
One of the lecturers at the college where I studied for some City and Guilds qualification was always very kind and patient with me and always made a point of checking that I understood all the new skills he was teaching me. He was a pal of my boss at the engineers where I was working so perhaps they had discussed me when they were down the pub.
Mr T was an all-around good bloke and a very high quality engineer and he had a big impact on how my life developed. I think he would be embarrassed and shocked if he ever found out that I saw him as a bit of a father figure to make up for the Dad I didn't remember.
Mr T was an all-around good bloke and a very high quality engineer and he had a big impact on how my life developed. I think he would be embarrassed and shocked if he ever found out that I saw him as a bit of a father figure to make up for the Dad I didn't remember.
When I left foster care I lodged with Mrs H. She lived where the Maltings Development is now right in the centre of St Albans and only 3 minutes from my job. She was lovely and for the first time for what felt like ages I was happy to go home at night. Mrs H looked after me like a real Mother would and I started to realise that perhaps I did matter to somebody. Years later it was one of the very few times I cried as an adult when I went to her funeral. I helped carry her coffin from the hearse into the church and I was pleased and proud that I had been asked to do that.
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