Honeymoon.

Most people know what a honeymoon is. It’s a time of joy, sensitivity, a place of beginnings, planning with someone you’ve decided to love for a long time. Well, I’ve never been on one of those honeymoons but I’ve been on a few other ones.

Fostering is hard. Really hard. I mean, parenting in general is really hard. The past 3 years have been an absolute whirlwind. There are days I wish I could go to bed at 2PM and not wake up until the morning. There are days that I don’t want to end because the amount of joy I feel is heart exploding.

I have a major soft spot in my heart for the older kids who have been in foster care, for however long, then get shoved out into the world. Like, “Hey guys, thanks for living through the system, good luck out there.” What the actual fuck? How is this even remotely acceptable? How are kids going to know how to do any basic life skills like open a  checking account, write a resume, interview for jobs, create a savings plan, find somewhere to live, apply for colleges or make big purchases? Could life be any more unfair than it already has been?  It is total BS.

Fortunately for the rowdy teens out there, those are things I’m good at. I have my masters in HR and I know a thing or two about living. That doesn’t mean how I do it is the right way, by any means, but I’m doing ok. I see myself as a type of mentor to these kiddos. A parent too, but a mentor is someone they can look up to and trust like a coach. These are life skills I can help with along with learning how to study and organize their homework. School is a second thought a lot of the time and sitting down to write a paper when seems utterly useless to them. What’s the point? I’d feel the same way if I were them, how is writing a paper going to help me live?

A kid coming from no rules to extreme structure and family participation have a hard time in transition, of course. Usually the kids have a honeymoon period; where they are on their best behavior for a time. Then BAM! Shit hits the fan, buttons are pressed, doors break, eyes cry, bodies hurt, school is missed, fights happen and swearing becomes their first language. My middle human had a honeymoon period of about 2 days – then we just laid it all out on the table. The next 6 weeks were awful. Hard. Mind breaking. Heart bending. You know the quote “let it bend before it breaks” well it’s hard to let it bend when everything just decides to shatter. Now what do we do with all these goddamn pieces?

These kids have been wondering that for most of their lives. I have to constantly remind myself that in this time, right now, it may be really messy to me, but it’s actually feeling safe and reciprocated for them. That’s a scary feeling when things are going good. So, when the time is right, either within two days or four months, the balls start to drop and they invite the chaos back in to feel normal. These humans start to get vulnerable in the only way they know how and that means showing us their worst; testing to see if we will rid of them like the other people in their lives.

Don’t get me wrong, there are behaviors that I simply do not accept in my home but each kid gets a chance to prove to me they understand how it works here. They deserve to be spoken to, to understand feelings through conversation instead of being hit, locked out or abandoned. All that considered, I have my boundaries, they’ve been crossed and kids have left because of that.

I will never forget discipling one of my humans. We were sitting in the living room after we each had a period to calm down. I told her how her behaviors made me feel, how they affected everyone in the house, not just her, that there would be no more TV. She sat looking at me with her head tilted to the side like she was confused. I asked her if she needed me to explain the situation in a different way, had I not been clear? She said no, I understood you, but my mom would have beat me for that. In an attempt to stay calm I simply say, “We use our voices in this house, not our hands.” In a simple conversation the most outrageous life experiences come out, nonchalantly. They come out in a way that says this is normal life, this is how they know people treat one another.

One day, after my eldest human left then came back (we mutually needed breaks from one another) she said to me “I never knew how powerful words could be until I lived with you. My family never used words.” I asked what she remembered I said to spark that and she replied that I stated, “You’re making me very angry and I don’t want to be around you right now” and then I walked away. She was left standing there like, now what?

My younger humans get that grace too, walking away. Nothing good comes out of a heated conversation so it is very common to hear “I need time” or “Go take two minutes” in this house and those rules go for me too. Sometimes I need time, sometimes I just need two minutes. If I need that, as an adult who can mildly control my emotions, then kids need that even more. Life is hard to comprehend as it is let alone when their brains haven’t fully developed, plus going through puberty and trauma all at the same time. Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? It is.

This honeymoon time is tricky because if you’re not aware of the small motions that are happening or picking up on the silent queues that kiddos are putting out there, the crash landing from star gazing hurts, really bad. It’s our job as the adults, parents, mentors or coaches to track these instances and help the kids learn how to manage them from the beginning…even the small ones. Then, when the meteoroid comes soring in, it is a bit easier to break off its pieces little by little. If we can do that we may be lucky enough to have a soft bouncy landing instead of that overwhelming crash landing. No matter how hard you try to prevent or prolong the honeymoon from ending, it will. How the pieces go back together is up to me – I have to choose to lead by example, love through the hard times and show that my love won’t falter because of it.