“I do permanent placement foster care...just one kid at a time.

Right now I am driving someone else's girl to high school in the morning. I have known her, provided her with respite care, through four placements. She works so hard at driving people away, and then she is hurt because they leave.

I hurt for her so much. And I know I cannot take her because I cannot ask my boys to live with the verbal abuse she dishes out to everyone she lives with.

How do you manage that? How do you stick with the ragers, the venom spitters, AND take care of the sensitive ones who find it difficult to live with the ragers? How do you balance all the needs of all the kids?

I want to know, and yet whatever you tell me, it won't make a difference in this girl's life. She is going to be moved, again.

It just hurts so to watch it happen.”

This description fits a good many of my children. But more so, I was impressed that this woman cared about this girl, who would never comprehend this love and concern.

I have children who visibly wear that sign on their chest, “DON’T LOVE ME!” all the while begging for love subconsciously.

Somehow, over the years, I’ve gained the ability to see that for what it is, the PushPull Routine. Please love me, I hate you, Hug me, Get away from me, Take care of me, I don’t need you.

I stifle a chuckle as the behavior is nearly cartoonish. I don’t get my own feelings of self-esteem from confused children. I’m the adult here. Y’all can say what you want kids, but it doesn’t affect me, nor the calling I feel towards you.

Right now, with one son in jail, one in a Youth Detention Center, and a daughter in a psychiatric facility…all living examples of the damage done to them in their early formative years, I am still not discouraged.

I know that I parented, and am parenting appropriately. I am nurturing, supportive, and loving, and I provide well for my children.

It’s not that they don’t know they are loved by me; they are simply petrified to accept it…as it could then be taken away from them at any minute. That’s been their lifelong experience.

As a greenhorn, back in my thirties, I took the insults and the challenges personally, now with many successes from my children; I am finally able to see many of the negative reactions from them as simply what it is. It is their fear of giving me the power to hurt them, like everyone else did.

If they give in and accept my love, they think I can withdraw that love and hurt them. Real emotional growth begins years later, as they consistently see my love in action, under all circumstances, through all the trials and tribulations, including all those of their dearly beloved siblings, Mama hangs tough, she really must love us after all.

That’s how I can hang in there through the rages, the resentment, and the initial hatred of life that then becomes directed at me, the one who is hanging in there for them.