Am I Selfish?

This morning I had to email about a respite need for this weekend and since I didn’t know who our new case worker was, I sent it to the supervisor (who has been my temporary stand-in case worker twice in the past). She responded with our new case worker's name and email and I was sort of disappointed. While doing the planning meeting last month, our most recent case worker brought along a new worker who got to hear a LOT about our case. This new case worker was mentioned as one of two possibilities for our assigned case worker. I found out this morning it is not her. And I’m bummed because this means our case worker is a total stranger. I haven’t met her yet, so I have no ill-will or bad blood towards her, I just wished it had been someone who knew something – at least we’d be getting a familiar face. I’m not sure when we will meet our new case worker, I imagine soon, and I have to just remain positive about it and ease her into things. From scratch. Sigh.

 

Yesterday I was conversing with a new employee at work. Being new she didn’t really know anything about me, things I assume most of my co-workers know because A) there aren’t that many of us, B) I’m friend with a bunch of them on Facebook and that lends itself to knowing things, and C) I’ve worked here for six years and things just have a way of being known in that amount of time. So, we were talking and I made mention of the baby forgetting that she didn’t know I was a foster-adopt parent. I thought it was obvious, looking at the pictures at my desk, that we aren’t biologically related, but apparently she didn’t think about it the same way. So we chatted a bit about a family she knew who adopted a girl (and didn’t tell her she was adopted until she was 7!) and then wanted to adopt again and got twins, a boy and girl. For whatever reason, this made her question if I was “done” after I adopted the little ones. Oddly enough, no one has ever asked me this question before. I answered honestly, stating I didn’t know, I feel like I’m fairly young (and bless her heart she thought I was closer to her age, which is a whole decade younger than I am!) so I just don’t know what the future might hold. I would like to keep fostering, but at the present time I am lacking room to do so. With this idea in my mind I happened across a fellow foster-adopt blog in which the writer questioned if she wanted a second child and listed many pros and cons to raising a single child or multiple children. Clearly I’m already past the single child state, and even if I did only want one child, none of the children in my care are only children, they all have siblings. I grew up the oldest of three (and this was also mentioned in the post, how one grew up tends to color how one views siblings versus no siblings) and never considered having just one child. In fact, growing up I wanted a BIG family. But, this fellow blogger mentioned how she felt she could be a better mom to just one child and might feel spread too thin if she had/adopted a second. I have been single for nearly all of my fostering journey and, with the exception of a few cases, I have always had multiple kids in my home at the same time (my first placement came alone, as did my second  - Primero also came alone but it wasn’t too long before Love Bug came home). Often times I felt it was easier to have at least two kids because they could occupy one another when I needed to do household chores and things like that. Only one time did I feel overwhelmed by the number of children and it was really because the older girls were rather wild (not naughty, just untrained) and I had never cared for a newborn before, which made for an interesting time. Eventually, we got into a groove and I was able to manage just fine, but the first week or so was touch and go. My mothering skills have improved since then and I’m sure I would face the same situation totally differently today than I did three years ago (has it really been that long?!?!). But, I’m questioning myself now – am I selfish to be raising three kids alone? When things were really off the hook last month with Esperanza, I had reached out to my mom for some emotional support. Instead, I found her to be unsupportive, telling me I couldn’t do “this” on my own (when I told her being a single parent is HARD) and I should just narrow the field to Primero alone. Basically, I had no business raising three kids, was her opinion. Because I showed some weakness, because I showed I was human and therefore vulnerable. I was very hurt by this, especially because it made me feel like I really couldn’t handle things AND it made me feel like she doesn’t care about the little ones – they are like an unused appliance to be shipped off to someone who can find use in them. I’m sure she didn’t mean to come off that way, but that’s sort of how it sounded. I think I shall be pondering this issue for a while now, thinking if I’m doing the right thing by forging on alone. Am I enough for these three kids? Am I enough for Love Bug and Chica Marie as a single mom? Primero has made it clear that he prefers to be raised by a single mother, so I don’t doubt so much with him. Just the babies because surely the county could find them a loving two parent home with ease. But, am I selfish to want to keep them and adopt them all by myself?