foster-caring, a few general remarks

Wanting to be careful these days to avoid specifics and naming names, a limit which might even stimulate me to improved writing. So, carefully, to foster caring, with teenagers who are new to me. It’s rather like teaching, though more informal. I recall many years ago hearing Simone de Beauvoir remarking that as a teacher she was only interested in the clever ones. Teachers are probably prohibited from saying that sort of thing these days. I sympathised with de Beauvoir but also felt uncomfortable – a sort of vicarious guilt that she/I might be happy to leave the flounderers floundering. Since then I’ve dabbled in teaching, or at least learning about teaching, and I’ve been impressed beyond measure at the sacrifices and the efforts made by some professionals to assist the flounderers (while also secretly feeling that they must lack something, whether in imagination or in intellect, to so allow themselves to keep company with those who will never make much of an impact on the sum total of human knowledge and achievement).
As a foster-carer I’ve been involved with kids some of whom have had a history of behavioural problems, problems in bonding with others, problems of trust, problems with the education system and learning generally. With the supported system I work in, I’m advised not under any circumstances to come down too heavily on my charges. My role, first and foremost, is to provide a roof, a relaxed bond, security. The social workers, the house support network, the department (CYFS), these are the people to apply the heavy hand when need arises. My role is to help out, to facilitate progress towards independent living.
This all sounds easy-peasy, but of course it isn’t always. For example, it’s very easy to forget just how wet behind the ears many teenagers can be. Some come to me without ever having been allowed in the kitchen, without ever having washed a dish or switched on a vacuum cleaner. They can’t necessarily be trusted to catch a bus to school. They’ll turn up their nose at all the exotic food you bring in and cook up, while a trip to KFC is better than sex for them.
For me the hardest thing is to not blow up at the egregious conservatism of the teenager. Was I like this at sixteen. In some areas maybe, but mostly not. Most parents, though they might suffer the enormous frustration of having their teen offspring repudiate all their efforts to educate or even simply advise them, at least see those teenagers emerge from these years of trial with all their old traits of determination, curiosity and venturesomeness surprisingly recast. The foster-carer is different, the gap might be wider but at the same time less concerning, since it’s more of a teacher-pupil relationship than a parent–child one. There’s generally nowhere near as much investment on the adult’s part. In some ways this causes other problems, as the carer might more easily become dismissive, even contemptuous of the youth’s inflexibility, dullness and apparent laziness. The carer has to be constantly aware that what he says to the youth will have far more significance than what the youth says to him. The imbalance is enormous. So it’s vital to be positive. Sarcasm has often been a failing of mine, I have to keep it within bantering limits. I’m also not in the habit of complimenting or praising people, ask my former wife. Considering that I’m cast in the role of inadvertent teacher in a one on one situation with a largely switched-off student, the urge to deliver praise or encouragement isn’t strong, so I have to constantly remind myself that the switched-off state is sometimes more apparent than real, that behind the veneer that tries to tell me everything I do is boring, there’s in fact a real hunger to know, to be guided, as well as to be appreciated and accepted. Get too pushy though about imposing your knowledge or values and you’ll quickly meet resistance. You have to let them unfold casually as part of the relationship. It requires some patience, some detachment, maybe some maturity. A lot of this is about leadership. These kids, perhaps more than most teens, are desperate for leadership in their lives, desperate too to mask the fact.