Another Shuffle: How Being Placed in Respite Foster Homes Builds Superpowers for Future Success.

It’s January in Minnesota. I’m lost in my own thoughts as I look out my attic window to the front yard of my foster home.  The sun is shining without a cloud in the sky, the freshly fallen snow glistening like small gems scatter as far as I can see. I feel the internal pull to step outside and feel the warmth of the sun with the crisp air hit my cheek, the feeling of letting go and for a moment feeling free; when suddenly the reality of the day hits me and I realize there is no time for daydreams or stepping outside, we’re leaving in a few minutes, and I must finish packing.  My foster parents are leaving for a cruise and all the foster kids are being shuffled to surrounding “respite care” homes for the week.

I take a deep breath, I haven’t gone to this home before, it’s just a “mom”, her name is Carolyn.  I hope she’s nice, maybe it will feel like a vacation for me too.  But as I stuff my schoolbooks into my backpack and close my small duffle with a week’s worth of clothes, I’m doubtful. This isn’t my first rodeo; it happens a couple times a year, another reminder that I don’t belong. That I’m different.

I get my bags into the car, and we drive to one of the next towns my heart begins to sink as we pull into a trailer park and pull up to a brown and white double wide. I take a deep breath and put on my game face.  Being agreeable is always a good strategy.  I walk through the front door; my eyes begin to burn, and my nose begins to itch; the smell of cigarette smoke permeates through the whole house.  Nope, it isn’t going to be a vacation, it is going to be a countdown; a countdown to get back to school, a countdown to sleep in my own bed, a countdown, to not have to fake a smile and thank her for the “hospitality.”

I spend the week doing homework, so I don’t fall behind in school while observing the curling smoke coming out of her cigarettes as she drinks coffee watching country music videos all day. I keep to myself, clean up, and do my best to be agreeable and blend into the environment.  I hope my foster mom is having fun as I sit in this dingy house just wishing for the time to pass.  How is it that time can go so slow. 

Often kids in foster care are not just bounced from foster home to foster home in placements, but they often must go to unfamiliar homes for respite care.  Respite is used for foster parents to get a break from the foster kid(s) or go on vacation.  I typically went into respite care twice a year. Whether it was a vacation my foster parents were going on or a family vacation with their biological kids, it hurt.  It hurt to be shuffled to another home, to not be a part of their “family” vacation.  Although I understood on a practical level why I and the other kids didn’t go on their vacations, it didn’t change the fact that I didn’t have a family to go on a vacation with.  It didn’t change that my friends at school didn’t have to miss school to stay with another family they didn’t know, but more than anything else it didn’t change the heaviness in my heart. 

However, what it did do, was give me incredible superpowers that have served me well into my adult life.  The superpowers of resiliency, change management, and the ability to read a room and know how to interact. If you are a current or former foster and you feel the hurt I felt; know your feelings matter; no child should feel the way we have felt.  But take away with you the skills you have learned and use them to your benefit.  Use them to make life better for your kids, make sure your future generations don’t have to feel the way you felt.

Do you need help capturing the superpowers you gained while a foster kid?  This is what I specialize in, send me an email at hello@mandyfrench.com to learn how we can work together to use your experiences to be the best version of you.  Success is the best revenge, let me help you get there.