not (quite) on our own

I haven't been overly thrilled with the state Division of Youth and Family Services, which handles foster care arrangements in our state.

The two caseworkers we've had have been wonderful. They listen to what we say, they check up on the kids, and they've been generally responsive to our concerns. I can't say a bad thing about them.

The state bureaucracy is another matter, though. While we were between caseworkers, our case was handled by the district manager. She returned our calls (eventually), but was generally pretty rude about things and gave us the impression that we had no rights in the situation. We were told to cancel plans in order to accomodate a make-up visit they set up without telling anyone; she changed the regular visitation schedule without checking with us to see if the new times would be good for us; and she never listened to a word we said about what was happening to the kids or what would be good for them. It started a phrase between us and friends of ours who have our foster son's sister: "Well, what would we know, after all? We're just the foster parents."

We were stuck with Anne for about three months, by the end of which I was practically pulling my hair out in frustration. The drivers who came to pick up the kids didn't have the appropriate child safety seats -- he once actually tried to use a regular seat belt on a 2-year-old! -- and were rude as could be to us. They didn't come to the door to collect Isaac; they stayed in the street and honked the horn. My wife was grilled because Isaac fell and skinned his knees once, and we were told we had to buy him new sandals and clean his ears better. (I had just cleaned his ears the night before and flat-out refused to spend money on sandals he didn't need.)

The worst was when the system decided it was all right for the birth parents to come to our house to pick their son up for visits, all without consulting us first. I had to raise cain and threaten to get a restraining order before they backed down.

All this is a long and circumlocutious way of answering your question. Do I feel abandoned as a foster parent? Not entirely. But I don't feel like the system really cares about me, or about my foster son.