The next question in my installment of intrusive questions is: “Do you know anything about their ‘real’ parents?”
Hmmmmm. The sticky part of this intrusive question is how one would define the word ‘real’. When my kids refer to someone other than me and hubby as their ‘real’ parents, I make them pinch my arm. Then I ask them if they think I am a ‘real’ person. They usually respond with the rolling of the eyes and a “Yes Mom, you’re real.” Point made. Point taken. However, I don’t think the pinching thing would work as well with strangers. It might be a bit odd to ask a person in line at the post office to pinch me and then mock them. Fun, but definitely odd.
As far as I can tell, I am a very ‘real’ person. I am also a real mom. I do real mom things and I have a real mom appearance right down to the silver minivan. So I am befuddled as to how it could appear that I am a ‘fake’ mom. One would assume that if my children have a ‘real’ mom lingering around somewhere, then I would be the ‘fake’ mom or the interim mom. Last time I checked, I’m here for life, being the real mom.
Now, with the ‘real’ issue aside, there is another issue with this question. It may be possible that my interrogator meant to ask if I had any info on my children’s bio parents. If this is the case, I still wonder if this is an appropriate question. One can almost guarantee that if I do have info on the people who got my children placed in foster care in the first place, it probably isn’t good info. Kids don’t end up in foster care because healthy, thoughtful, unselfish birth parents choose to relinquish their children so that they would have a good life. Children don’t end up in care because those same unselfish birth parents want to be able to provide a positive situation but they cannot. Children end up in foster care because someone hurt them. Usually that someone hurt them so many times that even bureaucratic red tape couldn’t hide the abuse. Kids in care have been abused, abandoned, and scarred. The information I may or may not have is certainly not going to be information that makes sense to share in the Walmart parking lot.
The information that we have, as parents of children from the foster care system is private. It is not information meant to bring a dramatic moment to your day. My children are not poster boys for child abuse. The information, if any, that I have been given about the birth parents of my kiddos is for them to have when they are old enough to handle the truth. It is a part of their history, their past. That information is part of what has made them who they are, good and bad.
So, do I know anything about their ‘real’ parents? Yes I do. We ARE their real parents. Do I know anything about their birth parents? Yes I do. It is my children’s private information and I will not share it to entertain anyone.
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