You know when I used to get a Case of the Mondays? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... but even worse? Friday. Casual Dress Friday. Who needs that shit?
Casual Dress Friday is an admission that really, there's no need to wear a suit to work every day. It doesn't hinder you doing your job, it doesn't really impress anyone and the world continues to spin even when you don't have that polyester tie on.
Yeah, I'm gonna celebrate having one day of the week where you let me pretend I'm free to be comfortable at my own desk. That won't remind me that my manager commented last week that skirt-suits "really are more feminine, don't you think?" in a thinly veiled directive to stop confusing the men with my liberal pants-wearing attitude.
And what's casual about it? It's not like anyone has the balls to turn up in a stained tracksuit or their moccasins. Nada always wears her jeans with a crease ironed down the front and Martin seems to have confused Casual Dress Friday with Ugly Joke Tie Friday.
Casual Dress Friday is another one of those areas in an office which makes people uncomfortable. No-one ever tells you what casual means, which usually results in everyone dressing pretty much like any other day. Or they don't, which makes management take a note never to promote you. Your taste in slogan t-shirts are an overt display of your love of beer and dislike of fat chicks... that's supposed to be kept to the management meetings, where you can be safe in the protective cocoon of the Boys Club, tsk tsk.
When Casual Dress Friday includes casual martini lunches, or at least a comfy chair for me to work on, I'll be there with my moccasins on.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday Find...
Here's one I've had pinned in my feed reader for ages. I've always loved Braille Radio. When the lovely gentleman moved to Melbourne (years ago now!) it was great fun to read someone discovering your city and falling in love with it. In this post, Patrick shares one of the greatest visual graphs I've seen around for a while. Awesome concept, damn good design.
This is Listen, a project which visually shows us what the most popular body parts are (by amount of times mentioned) in various genres of music. The website has the full story.
This is Listen, a project which visually shows us what the most popular body parts are (by amount of times mentioned) in various genres of music. The website has the full story.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Little boxes... or pods.
Aiden, of Capricious and Arbitrary, wrote a great post in response to my Case of the Mondays #1. You should all head over and read it. I started writing a response in her comments section, but it got too long and unwieldy, so I decided to post it here. Thanks for your thoughts, Aiden...
My view of office work as hell isn't so much a judgement about those who do it, it's an extension of my distaste for the hegemony into which people are expected to live. It's the idea that we're asked to shed all personality at the door, wear the requisite uniform, conform to an unspoken code of behaviour.
Aiden is right though, because often when I hear myself condemning that lifestyle, it sounds as if I have an issue with the people who either want to, or have to, do it. I don't look down on the work done in offices. I support people who enjoy what they do in their office all day. I just don't like that in most instances it stifles people from being themselves.
I've worked in offices. I worked one particularly hideous job, let's call it The Office of Doom, where I felt like I was going to suffocate if I didn't leave. I couldn't handle the faux-enthusiasm and the motivational staff meetings. I did my work badly because I hated every moment of it (and it was actually pretty creative and interesting work, but that didn't make it any better). I'm not able to hold those polite lunchroom conversations, I just can't. I know the other person doesn't care what I did on the weekend and frankly, I don't care what they did. We're from different worlds, we have different ideas, different values. I don't understand why it's not enough to be polite and live our separate lives. I didn't think less of my co-workers, I just didn't have a lot in common with them. And I knew, from the sexist and homophobic comments I often heard, that they certainly wouldn't accept my lifestyle or my points of view.
Conversely, besides my involvement in creative stuff here in Melbourne, I work one of the most tedious, repetitive, paper-shuffling jobs in the world. When doing that job, I work in suit central... Parliament House. However, in my particular office, we can wear anything as long as it's neat, we work within a team that shares common vales and aims, we're respected because of our personal contributions to the team. We aren't asked to do anything except do our best work. Even though this work is, in fact, part of the largest cog in a faceless, personality-free system, I do much better work there. Even though this work is, in fact, menial compared to the work I did in The Office of Doom. Even though I work 15 hour days and I have to see Wilson Tuckey in the corridors.
When I wrote that for the most part my friends don't work in traditional offices and jobs, I didn't mean that they (and I) are better because we're creative or artsy types. I meant more that most of us don't check into our cubicles in the morning and wear a mask of calm over our internal despair. Most of my friends are genuinely happy with the work that they do, and the life that they lead. They haven't compromised themselves in order to fit into a corporate system that only works for... well, the system. They might compromise on fitting into traditional office hours, which they'd rather not do, but they recognise is necessary in order to do the job they really love. Or they work in a cafe, where they are able to just be themselves, work all day even though they aren't passionate about food or coffee per se, then go home to their passion (their children, their music, their partner, their garden). I think my friends are lucky because they all have the faith of their convictions, which means that they refuse to let a workplace, or anything/anyone else, turn them into a drone.
Most offices are set up in this impersonal fashion for a reason. Conformity, regulation and bureaucracy all work for giant corporations. They take away personal opinion, freedom and expression. They enforce a standard which attempts to mould people into behaviour that makes them work harder, longer and with less questions about why they are doing what they are doing. Companies want us to give them the maximum profit. They want us to make their bottom lines look bigger. They want our KPIs to be met so they can keep raising them. They want annual turnovers to grow, and to get more value from you as an employee. They don't care that we love to play tennis. They don't care if we have kids at home waiting for us. You know why small talk is required in the office? Because we aren't given time for real conversation. Team building excersizes don't let us get to know and like our workmates, they try to make us see that if we all work together, little cogs and big cogs combined, we work better. Our output is better. They get more from us. By taking away our individuality with a business suit, we become a walking billboard for how 'professional' and squeaky clean the company is. Of course it's no coincidence that it also helps us to be, look and feel more like cogs in the same wheel.
The latest farce in this game is work life balance. What that means is that some executive finally cottoned on to the fact that people were getting tired and burnt out from all the unpaid (or paid) overtime and leaving for greener pastures, where they hoped they might make it home before the kid's bedtime. It costs more to retrain and rehire a new employee. Solution? Give the illusion of being on the worker's side. Tell them to go home to their families earlier (but don't actually give them less work to ease the burden, just expect them to do more in less time), bring in massage therapists over lunchtime (instead of giving them time to do something which truly relaxes and centres them, instead of this $500 stunt), give them access to counsellors to discuss any issues in their life (which they have to see during their own time, or company time in which no-one is covering for them so they'll just come back to an even bigger workload). Run seminars for time management (so that while you put more pressure on they learn to do more in less time), run yoga or aerobics classes twice a week (because healthier staff are more alert and take less time off sick). Encourage them to eat better, make good use of their weekends, offer time in lieu. They'll never notice that none of this costs the company anything. It's just a way to bribe you to feel like being a cog in this particular wheel isn't that bad.
And yes, I am one of those people who treat Office Space like it is more than just a comedy. I know that it's satire, and that's why I like it. It makes me laugh (and yes, squirm at the misogyny too, Aiden), but it also shares my values. Too often we allow ourselves to be brainwashed into feeling as though we need to conform in order to be good at our job. Some of the targets are so well hit that it hurts. The casual racism towards Samir and his automatic outsider status speak volumes, and remind me of office horror stories outside fiction. While Mansha was in Melbourne on the weekend she recounted a story where on conference she and the only other two Indian women in the whole company were placed on the same table. We're talking a lot of people here. Not a coincidence. The company had a diversity problem, she said. No, they have a racism problem. They want all their cogs to look the same, they want them all to be able to politely discuss their rugby team and whether their bridesmaids will wear pink or green. They don't celebrate difference.
Or how about Milton? The slightly weird guy it's so easy to walk all over because he won't stand up for himself. Every office has a Milton. Someone who has been there forever, who lives for order and routine. Who other people take advantage of. In The Office of Doom, that was Fran. Fran was very sweet, eager to please and unable to say no. My manager, let's call her Debbie Does Darebin, because that's what I did call her, would waddle her officious arse over to Fran and swamp her with procedure designed to make it look like Debbie Does Darebin was doing a fantastic job. Poor Fran would be lumped with hours of pointless work, which everyone knew was pointless, but made Debbie Does Darebin feel important. Their manager didn't stop this because she knew, no matter what, that Fran would do everything Debbie asked (and still get her own work done) and never complain. Oh yeah, and then there's the little matter that anything making Debbie Does Darebin look good to management might just make her look good, too.
I guess I see office work in the same light as Little Boxes (the song at the start of the TV series Weeds). Society is more comfortable if we're all in boxes, and we're all the same. But like the show explores, there is always more than the 'same-ness' that is required to be presented to the world. And I'd rather we allowed people to be individual - it doesn't stop them doing a good job. My real issue with working in an office is that there is often a subtext of pressure and impossible expectations, which leads to people being made to feel that their only worth is in being a cog, just like all the other cogs. But we're not cogs. We're people doing a job. We're supposed to be exchanging our labour, be that brain or brawn, for fair recompense. Fair recompense. And for me, checking my personality at the door and pretending to be like everyone else just isn't worth it.
My view of office work as hell isn't so much a judgement about those who do it, it's an extension of my distaste for the hegemony into which people are expected to live. It's the idea that we're asked to shed all personality at the door, wear the requisite uniform, conform to an unspoken code of behaviour.
Aiden is right though, because often when I hear myself condemning that lifestyle, it sounds as if I have an issue with the people who either want to, or have to, do it. I don't look down on the work done in offices. I support people who enjoy what they do in their office all day. I just don't like that in most instances it stifles people from being themselves.
I've worked in offices. I worked one particularly hideous job, let's call it The Office of Doom, where I felt like I was going to suffocate if I didn't leave. I couldn't handle the faux-enthusiasm and the motivational staff meetings. I did my work badly because I hated every moment of it (and it was actually pretty creative and interesting work, but that didn't make it any better). I'm not able to hold those polite lunchroom conversations, I just can't. I know the other person doesn't care what I did on the weekend and frankly, I don't care what they did. We're from different worlds, we have different ideas, different values. I don't understand why it's not enough to be polite and live our separate lives. I didn't think less of my co-workers, I just didn't have a lot in common with them. And I knew, from the sexist and homophobic comments I often heard, that they certainly wouldn't accept my lifestyle or my points of view.
Conversely, besides my involvement in creative stuff here in Melbourne, I work one of the most tedious, repetitive, paper-shuffling jobs in the world. When doing that job, I work in suit central... Parliament House. However, in my particular office, we can wear anything as long as it's neat, we work within a team that shares common vales and aims, we're respected because of our personal contributions to the team. We aren't asked to do anything except do our best work. Even though this work is, in fact, part of the largest cog in a faceless, personality-free system, I do much better work there. Even though this work is, in fact, menial compared to the work I did in The Office of Doom. Even though I work 15 hour days and I have to see Wilson Tuckey in the corridors.
When I wrote that for the most part my friends don't work in traditional offices and jobs, I didn't mean that they (and I) are better because we're creative or artsy types. I meant more that most of us don't check into our cubicles in the morning and wear a mask of calm over our internal despair. Most of my friends are genuinely happy with the work that they do, and the life that they lead. They haven't compromised themselves in order to fit into a corporate system that only works for... well, the system. They might compromise on fitting into traditional office hours, which they'd rather not do, but they recognise is necessary in order to do the job they really love. Or they work in a cafe, where they are able to just be themselves, work all day even though they aren't passionate about food or coffee per se, then go home to their passion (their children, their music, their partner, their garden). I think my friends are lucky because they all have the faith of their convictions, which means that they refuse to let a workplace, or anything/anyone else, turn them into a drone.
Most offices are set up in this impersonal fashion for a reason. Conformity, regulation and bureaucracy all work for giant corporations. They take away personal opinion, freedom and expression. They enforce a standard which attempts to mould people into behaviour that makes them work harder, longer and with less questions about why they are doing what they are doing. Companies want us to give them the maximum profit. They want us to make their bottom lines look bigger. They want our KPIs to be met so they can keep raising them. They want annual turnovers to grow, and to get more value from you as an employee. They don't care that we love to play tennis. They don't care if we have kids at home waiting for us. You know why small talk is required in the office? Because we aren't given time for real conversation. Team building excersizes don't let us get to know and like our workmates, they try to make us see that if we all work together, little cogs and big cogs combined, we work better. Our output is better. They get more from us. By taking away our individuality with a business suit, we become a walking billboard for how 'professional' and squeaky clean the company is. Of course it's no coincidence that it also helps us to be, look and feel more like cogs in the same wheel.
The latest farce in this game is work life balance. What that means is that some executive finally cottoned on to the fact that people were getting tired and burnt out from all the unpaid (or paid) overtime and leaving for greener pastures, where they hoped they might make it home before the kid's bedtime. It costs more to retrain and rehire a new employee. Solution? Give the illusion of being on the worker's side. Tell them to go home to their families earlier (but don't actually give them less work to ease the burden, just expect them to do more in less time), bring in massage therapists over lunchtime (instead of giving them time to do something which truly relaxes and centres them, instead of this $500 stunt), give them access to counsellors to discuss any issues in their life (which they have to see during their own time, or company time in which no-one is covering for them so they'll just come back to an even bigger workload). Run seminars for time management (so that while you put more pressure on they learn to do more in less time), run yoga or aerobics classes twice a week (because healthier staff are more alert and take less time off sick). Encourage them to eat better, make good use of their weekends, offer time in lieu. They'll never notice that none of this costs the company anything. It's just a way to bribe you to feel like being a cog in this particular wheel isn't that bad.
And yes, I am one of those people who treat Office Space like it is more than just a comedy. I know that it's satire, and that's why I like it. It makes me laugh (and yes, squirm at the misogyny too, Aiden), but it also shares my values. Too often we allow ourselves to be brainwashed into feeling as though we need to conform in order to be good at our job. Some of the targets are so well hit that it hurts. The casual racism towards Samir and his automatic outsider status speak volumes, and remind me of office horror stories outside fiction. While Mansha was in Melbourne on the weekend she recounted a story where on conference she and the only other two Indian women in the whole company were placed on the same table. We're talking a lot of people here. Not a coincidence. The company had a diversity problem, she said. No, they have a racism problem. They want all their cogs to look the same, they want them all to be able to politely discuss their rugby team and whether their bridesmaids will wear pink or green. They don't celebrate difference.
Or how about Milton? The slightly weird guy it's so easy to walk all over because he won't stand up for himself. Every office has a Milton. Someone who has been there forever, who lives for order and routine. Who other people take advantage of. In The Office of Doom, that was Fran. Fran was very sweet, eager to please and unable to say no. My manager, let's call her Debbie Does Darebin, because that's what I did call her, would waddle her officious arse over to Fran and swamp her with procedure designed to make it look like Debbie Does Darebin was doing a fantastic job. Poor Fran would be lumped with hours of pointless work, which everyone knew was pointless, but made Debbie Does Darebin feel important. Their manager didn't stop this because she knew, no matter what, that Fran would do everything Debbie asked (and still get her own work done) and never complain. Oh yeah, and then there's the little matter that anything making Debbie Does Darebin look good to management might just make her look good, too.
I guess I see office work in the same light as Little Boxes (the song at the start of the TV series Weeds). Society is more comfortable if we're all in boxes, and we're all the same. But like the show explores, there is always more than the 'same-ness' that is required to be presented to the world. And I'd rather we allowed people to be individual - it doesn't stop them doing a good job. My real issue with working in an office is that there is often a subtext of pressure and impossible expectations, which leads to people being made to feel that their only worth is in being a cog, just like all the other cogs. But we're not cogs. We're people doing a job. We're supposed to be exchanging our labour, be that brain or brawn, for fair recompense. Fair recompense. And for me, checking my personality at the door and pretending to be like everyone else just isn't worth it.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Case of the Mondays #1
I spend a lot of time trying to convince people that my life of non-permanent employment due to CFS is nothing like a holiday. Coping with reoccuring, chronic (and remitting) pain isn't a holiday. Walking around feeling great one day, realising it will end in you suffering pain for it later isn't a holiday. Knowing if you take the time to drive to your doctor's appointment you will probably have to sleep for a full 24hrs afterwards is not a holiday. Feeling like you're wading through mud every waking hour of the day for weeks at a time is not a holiday.On the other hand, regardless of my CFS, I've managed to pretty much escape a 9-5 existance. Every time I watch the movie Office Space I can laugh, smug in the satisfaction that I don't have to deal with a land of cubicles. Recently I was in an elevator in the CBD and managed to overhear the obligatory "will the pies win on the weekend, mate" conversation that I had forgotten existed in this world of I-don't-know-you-but-we're-forced-to-spend-more-hours-together-than-I-do-with-my-kids-so-we-better-find-something-to-fill-the-silence-with style world. And I got some perspective. I'm lucky. I'm so damn lucky it's not funny. I have a partner who supports me so we're not completely destitute, a family who cut me every break possible to let me focus on my health, some days where I feel great, a medical system that manages to keep me somewhat on track to improving, and the luxury of looking forward to a future in which I can change the things that don't make me happy.
None of which involve someone coming up to my cubicle and saying "it looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!" or asking if I understand the new system for the TPS reports.
In celebration of this, and to remind me of it each and every week, I will be offering you regular 'thank god we don't have to live with this reality' moments such as the one I begin with this week. For the most part, I know my friends don't work in traditional offices and jobs, but the ones who do have a sense of humor about it (or at least understand that while it may work for them, it's my worst nightmare)... so join me in my series of Monday posts "Case of the Mondays".
Case of the Mondays #1
Steve works in an office. Steve actually manages to like his job most days. He works in the public service, so for every day he actually gets in at 9am, there are five more where he manages to include 4 hours drinking beer as part of his 'lunch break' before returning to the office to write scathing emails to his 'friends' all afternoon. It's an office, but not one that has managed to suck his soul yet... I'd go so far as to say it's actually made him slightly saner. But then again, his previous life was all about student politicians and the young labor movement, so I guess sanity is relative. So far, his office doesn't seem like a prime target for our 'Case of the Mondays' file. I mean, public service? Long (drink filled) lunch breaks? Leaving early to do your shopping at the market? Considering finishing early on a Friday for drinks to mean you don't come back from your morning tea break where you started having a wine with 'early lunch' and finished by drinking the second bottle with 'late lunch' until finally heading for 'after work drinks' to round out the afternoon?
Don't let that fool you. He still works with Slightly Chatty Receptionist who wants to tell everyone about her wild weekend of drinks with The Girls at Metro. Then there is the fact that he has to wear a tie to work. And once, when I visited his office, I could see with my very own eyes that they have motivational stuff in their workspaces. Imagine working with people who have motivational posters stuck up next to their computer. By choice. I always thought those things were invented by CEOs who wanted to convince their worker drones that they should be worker drones with aspirations to keep on droning. I never dreamed the worker drones would allow themselves to be so brainwashed they decided to seek them out for themselves. Most terrifying though... they have decided to do away with that clinical term 'cubicle'. Oh no my friends, no 'cubicle' for the public service. They have PODS. These drones are one advanced species. They work in pods, where one can only assume they churn out some kind of alien ooze (perhaps slurm?) for the good of The Company. Is it just me, or is working in a pod even more disturbing than working in a cubicle? And, just quietly, if it walks like a cubicle and it talks like a cubicle... it's a cubicle.
Serendipitously, my phone just called. It was Steve. Clearly hard at work with our tax dollars. I told him I was blogging about his pod. He informs me that there was a meeting about upcoming changes to the pod layouts. Butcher's paper was involved. No decisions have been made.
Now that would give me a case of the mondays.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Friday Find...
I've been finding new blogs to read lately, some I've had sitting in Bloglines waiting for me to get around to for ages, some I ended up at after following a comment on something I already read, some I went looking for in hopes of finding some information to learn more about people's experiences of foster care. I rarely remember to talk about the things I find out there in the blogosphere, mostly because I pin them to come back to later when I can 'flesh out' my thoughts on the topic. What inevitably happens is I never feel up to that task, and consequently I never mention it and the topic is no longer relevant. So I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to at least post the link to whatever it was that made me laugh, or explored something I'm passionate about, or made me keep going back to re-read the post.
For your reading pleasure...
I've had The Book Grocer on my radar for a while, but just recently got around to reading through the archives (if you haven't had the pleasure of going into one of their stores, you really should!). While doing so, I came accross this post. It positively made my day. Honestly, I started chuckling knowingly somewhere around the scottish cousin and lost it in fits of giggles right at the end with the ears. If you've worked in retail (or any kind of service industry, really) you'll relate. This manages to cross the aren't-all-customers-annoying stories we all love to share.
For your reading pleasure...
I've had The Book Grocer on my radar for a while, but just recently got around to reading through the archives (if you haven't had the pleasure of going into one of their stores, you really should!). While doing so, I came accross this post. It positively made my day. Honestly, I started chuckling knowingly somewhere around the scottish cousin and lost it in fits of giggles right at the end with the ears. If you've worked in retail (or any kind of service industry, really) you'll relate. This manages to cross the aren't-all-customers-annoying stories we all love to share.
Monday, September 15, 2008
So much to tell you.
Where to begin? Considering my buzzing mind but lack of attention span I will provide dot points for me to follow up and expand upon at a later date. Running through my mind currently:
My position essentially boils down to a few salient points. I'm about to have a home, which is only possible by very lucky circumstances considering I don't work full time, so we really have 1 breadwinner and huge medical bills thanks to my health. This home offers more room than we really need right now, and a stability I've only imagined about for a long time. The foster care system in this country is overburdened (that's a polite way of saying it's pretty stuffed). Existing carers are almost all getting to the stage where retirement should be on the cards, not taking on more and more children. Plenty of people complain about support, opportunities and hurdles faced by kids let down by the system or not-so-great parents. We can all see what it does to these kids, and to society. But not many of us are putting our hands up to actually help.
I really don't know if I can foster a child. I'm not sure I've got it in me. I'm not sure Himself has it in him. I'm not sure if our relationship has the potential to weather it. But I do know that I believe it takes a village to raise a child. We're all disconnected, and for many mothers and families when crisis hits, often through no fault of their own, or through endemic poverty, or an addiction that they receive no support in beating, everything falls apart. I might not be able to help by offering a more permanent or stable home to any of the kids who are caught up in all this, but I can provide respite care that means more foster families can get some time off, help maintain the balance in their own frantic homes, or be a part of a more extended network for these children.
My family on both my parent's sides have some pretty significant issues with alcohol abuse. My father was raised in a home with alcohol and violence, and of his (plentiful) siblings, some have gone on to recreate this upbringing in their own families as adults. Luckily for some of these kids (my cousins), they've been able to tap in to support (or at least received love and attention) from some of their other aunts, uncles and cousins. I can see how, for some of them, this has been a lifeline. It's meant respite from alcoholic parents, time with kids their own age, getting taken for holidays once every few years. But what about the kids who don't have that? They might be in abusive situations, they might be subject to neglect, they might have developmental delays or behavioural problems. And there is no-one there for them. Not only that, there is not even an aspect of their life that shows them it doesn't have to be this way. Their situation is not a given, it's not the standard operating procedure. They can grow up and never really see that there are choices, or that there is another way to live.
Some kids need foster care for permanent homes, some need a chance for their family to get put together again, some just need time out of a harmful (or potentially harmful) situation. There are amazing people who open their doors every day, trying to help these kids. I'm not sure if I could be one of them. Be that primary care giver for kids who clearly need so much. I do know that the least I can do is support those families who can. Or mentor a kid who is in foster care and become a wider person in their support network. So I did the tough bit. I raised it with Himself, who was damn supportive, sent away for more info and spoke to an agency about what is involved, how it works and where we might go to from here.
Exciting times.
- What I have fondly come to think of as my re-boot into Melbourne life is only 2 weeks, 1 day away, when I will have a permanent abode.
- I was reminded very appropriately yesterday why I named this blog as I did (and why it's taken a rather different path than the one it started on) when I attended the state conference of the Australian Greens Victoria
- I have so many blogs in my reader tagged for me to get back to and comment on... there are so many interesting issues floating at the moment!
- I've managed to be quite social, all things considered, over the past month and have managed to catch up with at least a friend a week (despite my sub-par energy at some of those catch ups, I'm still proud I made it and could form sentances... mostly)
- I love my mother desperately and am missing her... almost as much as I miss my dog, who is currently living with my parents until we get into the house
- Being in Collingwood last night made me physically yearn for my old life, and I had to stop myself crying (I'm so not a crier) when I realised how different my life could have been over the past two years... I just miss my old life so much. I didn't want to give it up, or move on, and mostly I can accept where I am now and see it as such an improvement, but last night it just hit me in the chest and I could hardly breathe
- I'm researching and embarking on a potentially huge new aspect to my life and am both terrified and excited about it
My position essentially boils down to a few salient points. I'm about to have a home, which is only possible by very lucky circumstances considering I don't work full time, so we really have 1 breadwinner and huge medical bills thanks to my health. This home offers more room than we really need right now, and a stability I've only imagined about for a long time. The foster care system in this country is overburdened (that's a polite way of saying it's pretty stuffed). Existing carers are almost all getting to the stage where retirement should be on the cards, not taking on more and more children. Plenty of people complain about support, opportunities and hurdles faced by kids let down by the system or not-so-great parents. We can all see what it does to these kids, and to society. But not many of us are putting our hands up to actually help.
I really don't know if I can foster a child. I'm not sure I've got it in me. I'm not sure Himself has it in him. I'm not sure if our relationship has the potential to weather it. But I do know that I believe it takes a village to raise a child. We're all disconnected, and for many mothers and families when crisis hits, often through no fault of their own, or through endemic poverty, or an addiction that they receive no support in beating, everything falls apart. I might not be able to help by offering a more permanent or stable home to any of the kids who are caught up in all this, but I can provide respite care that means more foster families can get some time off, help maintain the balance in their own frantic homes, or be a part of a more extended network for these children.
My family on both my parent's sides have some pretty significant issues with alcohol abuse. My father was raised in a home with alcohol and violence, and of his (plentiful) siblings, some have gone on to recreate this upbringing in their own families as adults. Luckily for some of these kids (my cousins), they've been able to tap in to support (or at least received love and attention) from some of their other aunts, uncles and cousins. I can see how, for some of them, this has been a lifeline. It's meant respite from alcoholic parents, time with kids their own age, getting taken for holidays once every few years. But what about the kids who don't have that? They might be in abusive situations, they might be subject to neglect, they might have developmental delays or behavioural problems. And there is no-one there for them. Not only that, there is not even an aspect of their life that shows them it doesn't have to be this way. Their situation is not a given, it's not the standard operating procedure. They can grow up and never really see that there are choices, or that there is another way to live.
Some kids need foster care for permanent homes, some need a chance for their family to get put together again, some just need time out of a harmful (or potentially harmful) situation. There are amazing people who open their doors every day, trying to help these kids. I'm not sure if I could be one of them. Be that primary care giver for kids who clearly need so much. I do know that the least I can do is support those families who can. Or mentor a kid who is in foster care and become a wider person in their support network. So I did the tough bit. I raised it with Himself, who was damn supportive, sent away for more info and spoke to an agency about what is involved, how it works and where we might go to from here.
Exciting times.
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