Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wanted: Family - Must LOVE Horses
Apparently, all children in foster care get ponies for Christmas. I don't intend to sound mean but this is my first impression of searching for children in the foster care system to adopt. 75% of the children I have found LOVE horses and enjoy riding horses and delight in tending to horses and want to live with horses. I'm not kidding. I have a severe allergy to horses. So do I immediately rule these children out? What if they seem perfect for our family in every other way except the horses? Do you give the child an ultimatum of forever family or horse? Should I even do that to a child? By expressing interest am I putting them in a horrible situation? Another 15% on top of the 75% want to be veterinarians when they grow up. Again, allergic to animal fur here. This is not a career choice that I can exactly promote. Its probably the people at the stables where their ponies are kept that are encouraging this occupational path. Wherever it is coming from its definitely not helping me. I'm just feeling discouraged at the moment. The whole process is frustrating. There are so many children out there that seem like a good fit until I get to the horse and/or vet portion of their little bio. I know they won't all become vets or olympic equestrians but how are you supposed to know which ones are truly in love with the idea and which ones said it just to have something in their bio. Hubby came up with the idea that the horses may be a therapy thing. Since many of the children have been through traumatic experiences or have disabilities this may be the situation, but that doesn't help me any. Oh, and they apparently all get trampolines for their birthdays. I don't have one of those either.
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Ponies? Really? Who can afford or has the space for such things? I don't think you should rule out the kids that want ponies....every kid growing up wants one...I did....didn't get one though and I'm okay. That child needs parents to love them, forever. Not to provide them with a pony.
ReplyDeleteAgain, all kids want to be vets as well and you can still encourage that. You don't have to have pets to want to fix them.
Honey, go with your gut on the child alone..don't worry about the ponies, the vet thing or a trampoline. You'll be a great mom to some lucky child and that's what counts. xx
Keep in mind that a lot of these case workers talk to the kid for maybe 30mins, then go and write up a bio for them. So, their responses tend to be only up to what the case worker asked. Instead of asking "What type of animal do you like" or even if they DO like animals, they simply ask "Do you like horses?" And all of the sudden, the bio reads the way the CW wrote it, not what the child really likes. My opinion? Leave that part (horse, vet. etc) out of the equation for the moment - find the girl, then meet her and ask for yourself! You'll know the answer to all you questions once you are face to face. You knew when my brother was right for you, and you'll know when it comes to helping a child find her forever family. I have total faith in that.
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