You have never really been a fan of Mother’s Day. Yes, you have heard it all and you know that you are so lucky to have adopted these kids. You understand that you and your husband are a blessing to them. The real fact, however, remains. These children are not biologically yours. You did not suffer through cravings, swollen ankles, or hours of labor.
You have, however, spent countless hours drying tears after visits from biological parents and and foster care supervisors. You have dealt with irrational behavior at home and at school. You have even navigated feelings of loss and rejection with children who had to deal with grown up feelings as small children. You have dealt with being treated with disrespect and spoken to like a maid. You even know what it feels like to help growing adolescents face scary emotions and increased feelings of doubt from children who are looking for the life they might have had, not the life that you are giving them.
An entire legal team has helped you understand the process of visitations, adoptions, and guardianships. You are the mother, but not really. In a life that is complicated by courtroom visits and disability claims, you have managed to learn everything that you can about children who suffer from PTSD, a trauma that happens when children are removed from a biological situation and placed in an unfamilair situation they have no control over.
Foster children and their parents, with the help of a legal team, fight a family war that no one wins. The casualties are huge. It isnt fair, and it isnt their fault. Local attorneys, family court judges, advocates, social workers and other foster parents know you by name. They too understand the implications of having to make choices for children who are unable to make decisions for themselves.
Legal Teams Help Families Assist Children Who Need a New Start
Your two oldest foster children are part of the 64.2 million people who received benefits from programs that are administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2014. Your youngest two foster children are part of the 5.4 million people who were newly awarded Social Security benefits that same year. Those benefits, though helpful, do not take the place of missing biological parents and previous placements that did not work.
So on Mother’s Day, or any holiday for that matter, you do not really rejoice and enjoy the celebration. Your children are in pain and it is easy to see it. They act out and often seem like they are from another world. When things are not right they scream, fight, and destroy things around them, and they almost always blame someone for everything that happens. They say horrible things to their adoptive mother, and you try to let their comments roll off your back because of their past.
Your legal team sends cards and calendars during the holidays, but you have personally lost your joy for them. You and your husband continue to try to make the children you have been given both joyous and happy, but you can see in their faces and actions that their hurt is still there.
So this Mother’s Day as inothers, you celebrate what you have, and try your hardest to be the second mom to the children you have in your home. The mother they never chose to be in their lives.
Family lawyers and other legal team members can help families with children of special needs file disability claims and get the assistance that they qualify for and the assistance that they need. Without legal representatives, families who decide to foster or adopt children may struggle to get the services that they need.