Family

With Father's Day coming up and Mother's Day just past, family comes to mind.  Some of us have less than lovely memories; yet, family also includes those that we choose as family or who did play that role in our lives.

My foster family was special to me.  I have great pictures of the three girls with the St. Bernard, Billie, that I couldn't stand but they all loved.  All of our lives turned out so differently from that perfect little family as I remember it.  I lost track of my foster sisters.  I hope they are well. Their parents have passed, and I felt a great loss though I hadn't seen much of them since my 14th birthday when I left foster care.

Anyone else with fond memories they wish to share?

How  long were you in Foster care?  Where did you go after you left?

I was in foster care from age nine to fourteen and it was a beautiful time in my life.  My foster mom made me feel like I belonged and so did my foster dad.  The girls were a little miffed at first to add a third to their room and closet, but we had a lot of fun together so they got over it.  We lived next to a park and near school so our house was sort of a gathering place.  It was a good time.  My foster mom and her sister were adopted as children and I think it was her way of passing on the goodness in her own life.  She was very organized and my memory of her is that she knew how to parent with love and appropriate discipline.  I was fortunate in my youth to be surrounded by adults that were good role models as an extended family.

You  have a wonderful perspective and attitude.

In retrospect, I would  probably have been  better off in a foster home.  I  never bonded with my mother--not her fault or mine. 
I do have pleasant memories and unpleasant as well. 
What is, is.
I have very  happy memories of my dad's and my interactions, but they are tainted by his and my brother's inability to get along.
The upside is, I never had bad  homesickness.

I went away to a private, religious boarding school at age 14 and was only home on vacations and in the summertime thereafter. 
At age, almost 20,  I elected to drop out of college and marry my soldier love.  We have had a wonderful life together.

Family memories can include current family - family is wherever we find it.  My own mom and I were never close after I went into foster care; however, after my son was born we began to build a friendship that has grown over the years.  I thoroughly enjoy the winters she spends with me.

So happy for you. DK.  How old is your son?

6/12/2013

                             DK..
                                   What made your Mother put you in a foster home ?

                                                            Cheers  Joe 

I was already incorrigible at nine - not really 

Did you dad have anything to do with placing you in foster care?

Some judge put me in foster care.

Against your parents wishes.  I sense a story here.

I've heard several versions.  Fortunately, the memories are lovely so I let it go at that.

6/12/2013

                      I don't celebrate Mother's Day nor Ftaher's Day , both parents
                      are deceased one in  My Father 1956 , My Mother 1998 , My step-
                      Father 2003 , I do send my Sister-in-laws gifts on Mother's Day,
                      one loves chocolate covered strawberrys, I had ordered them from
                      Figi's this year and she said they were huge, I couldn't believe it,
                      she sent me a photo, here they are...

                       Cheers  Joe........

Is  this a mystery thread?  I am not understanding it.  Sorry.

Joe,

 You have very fortunate  sister-in-laws.

This is a good time of year for reflecting on family relationships.  I find lately that my perspective of the past is changing.  Not the incidents themselves so much as how I see them.  I have heard from many sources that we choose our parents before we are born, that they are part of our Soul families, and we have known them in earlier incarnations.

Some of these sources say that we incarnate in order to play a particular role - like being in a movie or a stage play.  We come with scripts and character studies and create these limited timespaces, sometimes just for the fun of it, other times because there are lessons we can learn from the experience of it.

Don't know if I believe it, but it is an intriguing idea.

What I do know these days is that I am who I am today because of all the experiences in my past, both "good" and "bad," and that in looking back, much of what seemed one at the time feels more like the other in the context of the whole 70 years that I've been living this life so far.

I see my parents, more and more, in a similar way - looking back over what I know of their lives as children and young adults - who they were before they met each other, how is was that they managed to fall in love, what their circumstances were when they brought me and my brothers into their world.

I do believe that each of us is born for a reason, with a purpose to fulfill, and a probable destiny.  I also am beginning to think that, if we want, we cah changes our minds, and our scripts, along the way.  We are in constant connection with others who are creating their realities in and around ours, so stuff doesn't always go according to plan.  sometimes we need to form a Plan B.  Or C..or...

But our families, as we were growing up, our biological parents, any foster or step parents we might have known, our siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, all contributed to the people we are today, and even the negative influences they brought with them can, over time, lead to positive values within ourselves.

I still do not condone their abusive actions. when those occurred.  My dad once suggested to me that, while we should not blame others for our failures, we get to take complete credit for our successes.

I look back on my life and see it as successful.  I have survived - sometimes even thrived - through challenges and obstacles that turned out to be simply the stepping stones to my achievements.  I believe I was a good mother.  I know I was a good teacher.  My writing?  Well, that is still a process, so it's too early to see the value of the product.  Time will tell.

But I know that what my dad told me was only partly true.  I don't think I can claim all the credit for the person I am today, but I do carry the responsibility for my responses to their actions, good and bad.

And I think that is a good thing.

And so are the new posting boxes a good thing.  Thank you, Shelagh, or whoever is responsible.

Annie

Very good points.

Ann, enjoyed reading your post.   
Reincarnation is part of the story I'm writing.  Whether one believes or not, that feeling one gets of having been to a place before or done something similar is real.

We are influenced by our upbringing and can remember the good and the bad.  Our past made us what we are today.  What may have been considered bad at the time, may have challenged us in a positive way. 

Those of us who lived through hardship have been strengthened by the experience.  We take nothing for granted.  We can appreciate the good times understanding the flip side.  Nothing lasts and that includes the good and the bad.

Chocolate strawberries - my favorite.  Someone just came out with a book about only children that is quite popular and debunks the myth about characteristics of loneliness attributed to only children among others.

Any "only" children here?  What about siblings?  How did your position in the family hierarchy impact your life?

I started an only child, had foster sisters for a few years and my mom and stepdad had a son when I was 15 with whom I am very close.  Yet, I seem to have "only child" characteristics.  What about you?

I have a brother two years older than I am.  Had a half brother many years my senior.  He passed in 1985. 
My mother preferred my brother and my dad was charmed by me.

He had 3 boys and was surprised by me being a girl. 
His second son died of spinal meningitis at age 4.  I am glad I was not an only child.

My younger brother died when he was 7 and I was 14.  Less than a year later, my older brother left for college, so,  I technically went from being a middle child to an only child,

But, instead of becoming a typical only child, I became my mother's whipping boy girl as my mother expunged her guilt feelings over forgetting that we needed our tetanus boosters as my dad retreated from the reality of what had happened to my brother and what was happening to me as my family hero older brother managed to escape from the reality of what was happening at home.

Wealthy kids don't have the foster family option.  We just have to suck it up.

I am who I am because I got through it on my own.  It happened.  It was a long time ago.  It had an effect on the person I have become.  It cannot be changed.  I worked hard at being an effective parent as a result.  Please don't offer condolences or ask for more information.  It was what it was.

I am so happy for your successes and your positive role model for others.  Thank you, Ann.

I expected family stories to include both joy and sadness. They seem to be more on the sadness side.  I wonder if that drives us toward the arts as a means of expressing those feelings.  I'll bet there are very few people who had ideal childhoods even though some may remember them as such.  I think our brains sometimes blot out our memories to save our sanity.  I don't remember the years up until the day I went to Foster care.  I don't think I want to either.

My son remembers his entire youth as too horrid to comprehend, one misery after another.  In truth, it was not so, at least from the perspective of adults.  However, children respond in their minds differently than what adults think they should.

I thought the international travel he experienced was fun.  He remembers it as lonely and always being around adults and starting over in new places with no friends.  I thought the years fishing and sailing were treasures.  His hate for his stepfather was so consuming none of the good times filtered through. 

Thus, what I truly believed was a childhood in which I provided him with love,security, and all the opportunities a young man could want he sees as a nightmare he wants to forget and cannot.

Our memories, too, from the mind of a child, might be more terrible or more joyful than they were perceived by the adults and siblings around us.

I think it's good, however, to seek out some of the good memories and attach them to the people we love.