I want you to imagine the following scenarios.
Scenario 1
You have a four-year-old daughter. Her name is Suzie. Suzie is getting picked up at 10am to go on a play date with her best friend Ruth. You have known Ruth and her family since you met at play group when the girls were toddlers. When Ruth’s mum Wendy arrives, you smile. “I just need to use the toilet!” she exclaims. You don’t apologise for the mess because you know that Wendy has seen it all before.
Suzie’s booster seat is waiting at the door to be placed in Wendy’s car. Suzie scrambles into the car excitedly, but Wendy chastises, “Hey! Give your mum a hug good bye.” Suzie gives you a quick hug, and you remind her to be a good girl. “Just let me know when you want me to pick her up,” you say to Wendy for the third time. You give a wave and go back inside, deciding what you shall do with this blessed child free time…
Wendy sends you a text soon after with the caption “All good!” attached to a photo of the girls dressed as princesses while making a chocolate cake. At 11:30 you receive another message: “Going to Maccas for lunch. Chicken nuggets alright?” You reply: “Yep that’s fine, no soft drink please?”
Sometime later you come in from the back yard with a basket of clean washing. Setting the basket down on the dining table, you check your phone and see a 5-minute old message. “Girls have had enough of each other. Head over soon? No rush. X”
When you arrive at Wendy’s house, Suzie and Ruth are watching Tangled. Barbie dolls and dress-ups lay scattered across the floor. You are invited in for a piece of chocolate cake and a coffee. Wendy shares an anecdote about how Suzie and Ruth were able to quote whole scenes from Frozen, and she re-enacts the squabble the girls had had twenty minutes earlier, making you laugh. You move on to other gossip, before offering to clean up the lounge room (offer denied) and you take your daughter home.
Scenario 2
You have a four-year-old foster daughter. Her name is Michelle. Michelle is getting picked up at 9.30 to go to a contact visit with her biological father and his girlfriend. For the last ten minutes she has worked on a picture for her dad, drawing large headed, googly eyed stick figures and flowers, and decorated the card with stickers. “This is me and mine Daddy Matt,” she says proudly. You write the names next to each person.
You keep an eye out for the contact supervisor who is running late. It is different person each time, yet they all seem the same. Thin, young strangers whose ability to prevent your child’s abduction is seriously doubtful. Finally, she arrives at your door. “Do you have ID?” you ask her, “Oh. It’s in the car,” she replies and goes back to retrieve her identification. A minute later she returns and presents it to you. You check it, forced to be satisfied with the flimsy lanyard containing a bleak photo beneath a first name and her company. It has often struck you how easy it would be to replicate the ID card; it could be anybody at her door. “This is Katie,” you explain to Michelle, handing the contact supervisor a back pack containing a hat, water bottle, change of clothes and snacks. Michelle knows the drill, and happily takes Katie’s hand. It bothers you that Michelle thinks this is “normal”. When you get to the car you see there is no child seat inside. Usually a seat is provided. When you point this out to Katie, she asks “how old is she?” Annoyed, you go back to the house to get your car key so that you can get Michelle’s booster seat.
You are upset when Katie whisks Michelle into the car, giving you no chance to give her a good bye cuddle. Through the tinted windows, you cannot even see Michelle to wave to her.
You appreciate this little bit of respite from Michelle, but you cannot enjoy it. You feel trapped in the house; unable to go out to the shops or even into the back yard in case Michelle returns early from contact. You remember an awkward time when Michelle was returned 15 minutes early and you were occupied in the bathroom… You wonder what would happen if there was an emergency and you needed to communicate with the contact supervisor. You don’t even know her last name, let alone her mobile phone number. Your case worker isn’t in the office today… perhaps you would have to try to get through to her manager to find out the required phone number? Even that would be difficult. It feels so wrong to send your child away with a stranger that you cannot contact to see someone who you know hates you.
As the time draws closer for Michelle’s expected return, your stomach is churning. She always returns happy. Happy, laden with stuff. Contact was usually held at a playground next to a shopping centre. Clearly they did not play for long, as their two-hour session always included a trip to McDonalds and a shopping spree. You are nervous to find out what Daddy Matt has said this time to his impressionable young daughter about you; his biggest gripe is that Michelle calls you and your husband “Mummy and Daddy”. You can understand why it hurts his feelings; but haven’t you earned the title? You brush hair (as gently as you can), wash clothes (a mountain of them), apply band-aids (daily), change wet sheets, wipe up spills, care when sick, make sandwiches (cut into four triangles), read stories (yes, you do the voices), give cuddles and provide boundaries. What does he have to do? Have a supervised visit for two hours every two months where he plays and buys stuff. He gets to be the fun parent.
The contact supervisor is running late to bring Michelle back home. You hover near the front door, anticipating the arrival of the silver hatchback.
When Michelle steps out of the car, your eyes are simultaneously drawn to two things; firstly, the McDonalds cup of Coke in her hand, and secondly, the new pair of sparkly, strappy shoes on her feet. The contact supervisor passes you the back pack, a Happy Meal box (the top has been ripped off as Daddy Matt insists this is the correct way to consume a Happy Meal and Michelle adamantly agrees) and a shopping bag containing some new clothes and two large chocolate bunnies (thankfully there are no toys this time). Your heart is absolutely racing but you are trying to stay calm. “How did it go?” you ask Katie to which she responds “Great.” “Did he tell Michelle not to call us Mummy and Daddy again?” you ask. Katie says “I’m not actually allowed to go into details about contact, if you want to know you will have to talk to your case worker.” You know that the case worker will be phoning you in a day or two to pass on Daddy Matt’s latest complaint, probably about Michelle’s shoes being on the wrong feet, or something similarly trivial.
After Katie leaves, you pour the Coke out onto the grass. Michelle bursts into tears, screams and howls. You remind her that it isn’t good for her and get stuck into an argument.
Inside the house, Michelle forgets her distress and runs off to play. As you unpack her backpack (unsurprisingly, the healthy snacks are untouched), you find the picture that Michelle had lovingly crafted that morning. “Did you forget to give it to your daddy?” you ask her. She responds, “I didn’t! He put it back in my bag.” “Why didn’t he put it in his pocket?” you ask. “I don’t know,” she replies, totally un-phased. “I will give it to him next time and tell him to put it in his pocket.”
It is difficult to get Michelle to say anything about the contact visit, except that it was good. You know you should be happy for her. But your heart aches.
“Daddy Matt said he is my real daddy, not daddy in our house,” Michelle says at bedtime. She goes to sleep in her new clothes, the shiny shoes on her feet.
Scenario 3
You are a mum to three young children. Your mother comes over one afternoon a week so that your baby can enjoy a long nap while you collect your daughter from kindy. Your mum goes into the messy lounge room and picks up the scattered cushions and straightens up the bookshelf. She sits and reads to your pre-schooler, washes the dirty dishes in the kitchen and does some ironing. When you get back from the school pick-up, you all enjoy some afternoon tea together and a chat. You love how you can talk to your mum about anything- showing her cute photos on your phone, and sharing how you messed up with the kids. She doesn’t judge. Before she goes home, she even peels and chops some veggies for dinner.
You love that about your mum; she always leaves your home (and your heart) better than when she found it (you wish you could say the same for when you visit her house with the children).
Scenario 4
You are a mum to two teenagers and three foster children, two boys and a girl, aged 1, 3 and 6. You rush home from the school pick up and try to straighten up the house because the case worker, Nicola, is due at 4 pm for the monthly home- visit. You have already answered three phone calls from Nicola today; what could possibly be left to discuss?
Your foster children are excited to see their case worker (she is the third they have had since they have been in your care). She has brought them presents today from the Christmas party you couldn’t make it to because you were supervising contact with their grandparents. Outwardly you smile about the gifts, inwardly you groan. A cheap Barbie with a hundred small accessories? A board game? Don’t they know that everything gets lost and trashed within minutes?
You sit with Nicola at the kitchen table. For the next 90 minutes she gets you to sign paperwork, asks for copies of various reports, enquires about therapy, wonders why you haven’t made it to the dentist yet and questions why you cut the children’s fringes yourself. You talk about contact. She wants to know about behaviours and strategies, she needs to take pictures of their bedrooms. In the midst of all this, the children interrupt constantly and snack on everything within reach in the kitchen. You know that you cannot reprimand them in front of their case worker because it would look bad.
By the time she leaves it is 5:30 pm. You feel drained and on edge. Dinner hasn’t even been started yet. You order pizza.
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Some people cannot understand why Daddy Duck and I would want to become Miss A and Miss L’s legal guardians rather than staying as their foster carers. As guardians we will be entitled to less support from FACS and will no longer have an allotted case worker. Supervising contact visits (or paying someone to do this) will become our responsibility. We will have to prove to an independent agency and a judge that we are good carers and will make adequate guardians. Is it going to be worth it?
If you felt any frustration reading scenarios 2 and 4, you might understand where Daddy Duck and I are coming from; why we want to be free from the constant scrutiny of Community Services, of feeling that we answer to them. I want to choose the location of contact visits. I do not want to put my children into cars with strangers. If something happens during a visit that I should know about, I want to hear about it.
Becoming guardians is about providing our nieces with stability and security, and hopefully, a semblance of a somewhat normal life.
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