Sunday, March 2, 2014

This is the end...

So, after these last few weeks, this is the last blog, for now. I will very much like to say that while at first I was a little intimidated at the thought of writing a blog every night, I was actually surprised at how many I was actually able to write. Granted, I did miss a few nights, all in all, while I may not have fulled the amount of blogs required, I was happy with myself for the amount that I was able to do.

At times it was very therapeutic. Being able to right down some frustrations of mine and it allowed me to put some thoughts onto paper.  However, I didn't feel that it was any more beneficial to me to write my thoughts down, then it would be to talk to someone about it, such as my wife. But, I do see the benefit because whether or not it is talking to someone, this blog does open up communication to other people, whether I know them or not, and, is that not the point?

The blog has definitely challenged me to write down and organize my thoughts in a more logical manner. It allowed me to put various view points of my own down on to paper, read my thoughts and change what I thought based upon what I wrote as sometimes, what I said, made no sense, even to me.

It was difficult at times to find something to write about though. I am a very simple minded kind of guy and takes a little time to get me invested into certain ideas and to develop an opinion about something. This was definitely one of my hardships with this assignment. Finding time every night for 3 weeks to write about things and to not be repetitive is quite the challenge. But, if I was able to come up with one good bit of writing, would all this be worth it? If I found out one small thing about myself that I hadn't already seen, would this have all been worth it? The answer is most certainly Yes.

I have learnt that no matter how intimidating something can be, if you just do it, you'll be surprised at how much you can accomplish.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Foster care

So, today was our first foster parent class, and to be honest, I wasn't really impressed at all. It seems that the more we learn, the more it seems very much opposite of what we have come to expect of everything. My wife and I had a good discussion after the class today, and both had a feeling that this may not be for us.

Essentially, what we came to find out that almost all children in the foster care system have been sexual abused by someone as a child. This is very startling. I mean, the whole objective of foster care is reconciliation of the child to the biological parents. Even if they got removed from the home due to sexual abuse, whether it be from the father, mother or other acquaintances of the family. This is a very startling reality that we think we may not be able to handle. Knowing that a child that we may have will more then likely go back to the family that they came from. The system is broken. The people who want children cannot have them, and those that don't want them seem to have them all the time. It's a cruel life sometimes.

Another very vital piece of information that we found out, is that we pretty much do not have any guardian like rights until we adopt someone. If we wanted to get the child a hair cut, we need to get permission from the birth parents first. We wouldn't have any access to medical records or any confidential file. We essential have no legal rights to the child unless adopted. This is a huge wall for any adoptive parents.

We left today kind of defeated. The high hopes that we had for this experience is feeling very lopsided to the side of the biological parents. It's a shame that even though the bio-parents violated the rights of the children for whatever reason, their rights of what they are able to do isn't taken away very easily. The system is in dire need of being fixed.