The Goldilocks principle

I’d shared goat curry with Sudanese rebels. I could be calm for this. But could I afford to wait for the Goldilocks kid?

This time was going to be different. I would treat this like any other public health emergency operation that I was running. I’d sat with the head of the Sudanese rebels eating goat curry with our fingers from the same communal plate. Surely I could keep calm and quiet through one last training.

I called Little Foster Agency, gave an anonymous name, asked the questions: how big does the room have to be, how many culturally-and-linguistically-different caseworkers did they have on their books, how long did I have to not work if I was assigned a baby, how many potential Carers were on their permanent program just waiting, how much money did I need to earn, was being single a disadvantage, if I was Asian would I need to wait until they had an Asian baby. I told them about my previous experiences and they were suitably outraged. Most importantly I asked

“How long do I have to wait?”

The answers weren’t what I wanted but at least they were clear. I could work with that. There was a critical shortage of carers. They’d rush me through. After that, maybe six weeks to six months, it was impossible to be sure. The government wanted to reduce children being churned through short term homes for two or more years. These kids needed forever homes, desperately.

I called again, gave my real name, got the mega pack of forms:

1. They didn’t ask about specific medical conditions, just for a letter from my doctor saying I didn’t have a condition that would impact fostering.

Medical: Tick.

2. They didn’t ask me about my sexual or relationship history.

Sexual history: Double tick.

3. They didn’t ask about my heritage. They had kids of all nationalities. No, they did not cater for mostly Anglo families. Who told you that?!

Racial bias: Triple tick.

4. A child needed a real bedroom in a decent sized house. My Mum still owned my childhood home, the home in which I’d been born. My sister made seeing the grandkids almost impossible. Mum wanted a grandchild. It was a win-win. She would let me move into the house rent-free.

Two-bedroom house with a backyard: Tick.

5. “How will you support a child?”

An interesting requirement all agencies had was that I be off work for a year. A whole year. How many single women can do that? A trust fund, husband or a lot of savings were required. One of the ladies-who-lunch club with a husband earning the big bucks was, by default, the most likely to become a mother. The modern woman, the nurses, the teachers, single women on moderate incomes, the high flyers who couldn’t take a year off lest they lose their place at the table; they simply couldn’t afford to be a mother.

I had enough money in the bank to be out of work for a year. I wasn’t big on fashion, booze or drugs. There was no man with whom I went to fancy restaurants, no lavish holidays on my own. IVF was over. If I drew down on my home loan, I could look like I had an extra $50k in the bank. I could find part time work at the hospital or uni to help me get by for the next two years.

That made the decision about how many kids I could take. I could afford one in a public school without major medical or psychological issues. No BMW as a birthday present.

Money: fake tick but tick.

Alot of money was required. ADDIE JUELL at Martha Stewart

6. I moved house, got a part-time job, a flexible job that could work around a 0-2 year old child, a job that could be dumped at a moment’s notice without a big project going down the toilet.

I put my good Catholic girl face on and – I kid you not – went to work for the nuns. I did an admin job, a means to an end, mind-numbing but not soul-destroying. I was working for nuns after all. They were feisty women in their 70s, good for a laugh, with a skeptical attitude to the patriarchy of the Catholic church. They championed women’s education in a time when women got married or joined the church. Now the original feminists were tarred with the same brush as child-molesting priests.

Flexibility: Tick.

The assessment caseworker Amanda was pregnant; she had four months to rush me through the system. She wanted to see this one through. She had a baby boy. Ellen, a woman barely in her twenties and probably living with her parents, did the home visit.

“It’s cute. It’s small but there’s enough room for a toddler.”

The house cost nearly 2 million dollars. Cute? Clearly she didn’t live in this area. It was a miracle that I did.

Ellen asked me:

“What’s your shark music? You know in Jaws you hear the Da da. Da da. Da da. Dadadadadadadadadada! There’s some things that just bring out that response in you, the deal breakers. Something that you know you just couldn’t deal with.”

What’s your shark music? You know in Jaws you hear the Da da. Da da. Da da. Dadadadadadadadadada!

I’d thought about it.

“A child who was distant and would never attach to me. Or a child that was sexually abused with sexualized behaviour. I just couldn’t deal with that.”

Ellen wrote that down to add to the now heavy file. Down to the last hurdle!

In the training I managed to be quiet for the most part. When Beverly, the trainer, asked a question I waited for her to stand in silence for 30 seconds before helping out. Culture was a question and I answered. Beverly took a step back, crossed the room and for the rest of the training made no eye contact.

In the break I met Anna and John. Anna’s hair was a perfect multi-tonal wheat-blonde, her manicured fingers a shell pink. She wore a pale pink twin-set and pearls. Her diamond ring could take your eye out. John was in an Armani suit on a weekend.

“We’re just going to say I’ll give up work for a year. I mean seriously! I’m not some 1950s housewife! I can’t go on a holiday without checking my email. I’m a manager at Deutsche Bank and John’s a –“

Anna looked around and noticed John was on the balcony, intently talking to his phone.

“John’s a barrister.”

I asked Anna why she wanted to foster.

“I hardly see my friends any more. Their world is kids parties and school parents. It’s hard to meet new people. I just want to be part of that community.”

Anna had a serious case of FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. I was pretty sure a vomit-covered twin-set wasn’t part of her picture.

“I never wanted a baby. I don’t want to derail my career. We’ve got a separate cottage for the nanny on the grounds.”

None of this was said to the trainer. They laughed quietly and nodded in the right places. They checked their phones without her noticing. At the end of the training, I waited to thank Beverly. I was keen to dispel any tension caused by mentioning culture. Beverly didn’t feel me standing by her elbow. I interrupted her conversation to say goodbye.

“Bye” she replied without looking at me.

As I left, Beverley was in the corner laughing with Anna and John.

“You’ll make perfect parents.”

There was one thing Little Foster Agency had over all the others – apart from the fact that they didn’t reject me in 48 hours. Beverly said

“The government’s party line is restoration to the birth family unless absolutely impossible. Off the record, I disagree. What’s most important is the attachment. If a child is attached to you and safe and happy, we will fight to keep them with you. We will fight for what we believe is in the child’s best interests.”

This was what I needed to hear. They would not be cavalier about ripping a child away from me. They would fight for me, for us.

All the boxes were ticked. I was approved. I just had to wait.

Any day now that cot would be full of baby. Two years went by. I got older, too old for a baby according to the rules. I got more desperate. A two to five year old but definitely just one kid. Okay, maybe two siblings if they could share the room. There was only one spare room. I remained firm on one thing: only long term, foster-to-adoption.

I was offered twin girls for respite care. I’d have them every weekend. If their carers couldn’t handle them full time, I was pretty sure I couldn’t.

I was offered two siblings, a five-year old girl and six-year old boy:

“They tend to self-soothe with each other.”

“Self-soothe?”

“We think there’s been sexual abuse. They need separate bedrooms. It’s not penetration but they need to be watched at all time. ”

I was offered a five-year-old girl who was being removed from her father. He had an intellectual disability and was no longer able to care for her. They weren’t going to tell him. They would pick her up from school and take her to her new home. I could not conceive his anguish. Could I be party to that brutality? It felt like kidnapping a child from a father too vulnerable to fight. I searched for reasons to betray my own morality. I wanted a child so badly.

“We’ve never seen her laugh or smile. She may have an intellectual impairment. We don’t know. She’s very…detached. What do you think?”

I thought a child who never smiled had some serious problems. I’d worked in substance use in pregnancy. I had a catalogue of possible diagnoses.

Three times I said no. Was it three strikes and you’re out? Were they giving me the kids no one else would take? Had all children in foster care been so damaged by their parents that they might never be repaired? I didn’t have the resources, emotional, financial or temporal, to be all that such a child would need.

“The more picky you are the longer it will take. Most of these kids have two or more siblings and we try to place kids together. It’s so rare we get a single child, let alone one without significant care needs.”

In the two trainings I went to that’s what every person wanted. One child.

“If there is a critical shortage of carers and the government doesn’t want kids in short term care for over two years, why is it taking so long?” I asked Amanda. Her son was 18 months old now.

“There’s policy then there’s politics. Kids shouldn’t be in care for over two years but we want to keep families together at all costs.”

Two factors were at play:

The government didn’t want another stolen generation, another generation of children forcibly removed from their parents.
Most importantly, foster care cost money. The infrastructure to support investigations, court and foster carer payment cost millions. It was much cheaper if the kids went back to their parents.

Sue was gentle and kind, not what I expected from her. I only heard from LFA if there was a child needing to be placed or for an annual assessment. I called them every three months, often enough not to be forgotten but not often enough to be annoying.

“I haven’t forgotten you. You’re one of twelve names on the whiteboard next to my desk. We haven’t had kids moving from short to long to long term care. It’s the same in all the other agencies.” Sue said.

“But in the paper it said there’s a new policy to stop kids being in the system for years.” I heard myself whining, reducing my credibility as a responsible adult.

Sue’s sigh reverberated down the phone.

“That’s the policy in the papers. I haven’t seen it in practice. If anything kids are staying in short term for longer, to give there parents a longer time to rehabilitate. There’s nothing more I can do. You just to wait. It would be easier if you were willing to take two children or a high needs child?”

In a moment of sanity I decided to wait for the Goldilocks kid, the one that was juuust right! Two kids? What had I been thinking? I could barely afford one.

Two years later I was still waiting. My life had been suspended and my savings drained. I could not afford to go on. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

It was at this point I wrote a letter to Keanu Reeves. At the time it seemed rational. It’s not the craziest thing I’ve done by a long shot. I’d spent six years overseas as an aid worker and hadn’t heard his name. Now his name was everywhere. Perhaps facebook had tracked my grief. His views on love, loss and children came from all directions. The guy who came to buy my fridge was called Neo. The coincidences were bizarre, hilarious and endless. He didn’t write back with some startling revelation – Quelle surprise! – so I made the decision on my own.

There’s policy then there’s politics. Kids shouldn’t be in care for over two years but we want to keep families together at all costs.

I walked outside the hospital on a contrarily sunny day to make the brutal call that would rule out motherhood. I was out of money, out of hope and out of time. As Keanu Reeves said, 52 was too late. I turned fifty-two in two weeks. It was time to reassemble my life.

Next: Part 6 Letter to Keanu Reeves

Wishing you love and all good things x