I had a busy and wonderful Chanuka, and before jumping into sharing about other things going on, I want to share about the idea of less being more and how that applies to children. It’s a useful concept and though the winter holidays are a particularly appropriate time to integrate these ideas, you’ll find other opportunities throughout the year to apply this.

There is so much we want to give and do for our children, and typically Chanuka is a time of gifts and family activities. We buy gifts we’re excited to give them, and plan trips that we’re enthusiastic about. Often we’re bursting to give it all to them as soon as the holiday begins, because we can’t wait for them to have whatever it is we bought.

I strongly suggest holding back on your excitement and dialing it down, since all of the stuff, experiences and emotions can easily become overwhelming for young child. If we’re not careful, a child will get and experience so much that he won’t be able to process and appreciate most of it. Then you’ll have what looks like a spoiled, whiny child asking, “What else did you get me?” instead of enjoying what he was already given.

I consciously stretch out the Chanuka activities, foods and gifts so that our children can enjoy and appreciate all of it. I’m a strong believer that less is more, and jokingly have said on a number of occasions that I’m a fan of deprivation. Though parents give and give and give with the intent to make a child happy, often it does just the opposite.

Recognizing what you’re given and appreciating it is critical to being a happy and content person. Kids don’t feel appreciative when they are saturated with stuff. How we give doesn’t just affect if we get an excited “Thank you!”, but if our children are happier people in the long run.

Here’s how we structured our Chanuka activities this year:

In our family, we begin Chanuka with my husband and the older boys lighting their menorahs outside. After the blessings, we all sing together, swaying in unison side by side with our arms around the shoulder or waist of the person next to us. Then we go inside, and the younger children light their own menorahs. After they finish, we all sing more and dance together in a circle. That’s our foundational activity that is consistent for every single night of Chanuka.

First night – When Chanuka arrives, there’s a lot of anticipation that has built up. The kids have learned about it, talked about it and have their own ideas about what will happen.

This is so much newness to experience, that on that first night I don’t add anything else. No presents, no additional activities – I want to fix the specialness of the menorah lighting and being together in their minds without any other distractions.

Second night – this year the second night was Friday night. Since there’s so much to do in a short time to get the Shabbos candles and Chanuka menorahs lit on time, that’s all we did.

Third night – after candle lighting, we gave the youngest three children a gift of matching Chanuka pajamas. This doesn’t sound exciting? It doesn’t have to be exciting for kids to love it! They all wanted to dress in their pajamas right then – which they did – and pranced around showing everyone what they were wearing. Once Chanuka ended, every single one of them has continued to wear them every night.

Fourth night – before candlelighting, I took the kids to a Chanuka activity with bouncy slides, art activities and face painting.

Fifth night – I took the kids to a Chanukah play followed by a public menorah lighting where doughnuts were distributed. Then we went home for our family lighting.

The next morning, I took the kids to a huge outdoor park we had never been to in a city thirty minutes away. The zipline was a huge favorite.

Sixth night – the feature this night was a special Chanuka dinner with homemade latkes, applesauce, tuna quiche and doughnuts.

The next morning I took the younger four children with their scooters to a park at a kibbutz.

Seventh night – family lighting, family dinner with all the teenage boys at home with us, followed by game night for the older kids.

The next morning, I took the four younger children horseback riding (ds17 accompanied them one by one) and then to a trip to a local park.

Eighth night – chocolate coins for everyone, gifts for the youngest four children. We kept these low key and activity based – a bouncy ball kit for ds11, and stencil books for the youngest three, all activities we did together with them the next morning, which was the last day of Chanuka.

About gifts – I personally don’t wait until Chanuka to give gifts, so don’t think that this is the big present they wait for all year! Not at all. For example, last week we bought a balance bike for ds7, which we gave him for his birthday. But if it wasn’t his birthday now, he would have gotten it anyway. I don’t have to get my children presents when it’s their birthdays, and they don’t have to wait for presents for their birthdays.

This approach of low key giving and putting more focus on family time and experiences has served us well. Our children are appreciative of what they get; recently two of our teenagers even told me how lucky they feel to have such a good life.

Avivah

Can you believe seven months have passed since the twins joined our family?

Overall they are doing well. I’ve seen a lot of positive changes, and I also continue to see areas that will take more time and input to shift. Overall they are sweet children who need a lot – a lot – of time, connection and supervision. Sometimes I feel like they take up all the emotional air in the home and am specifically concerned about ds7 getting his needs met, since he is so easygoing and non-demanding. I try to pay extra attention to him and do things with him that they don’t get to do.

It was very positive and important for them and for us that they were home with us for three of the first four months. We saw a lot of emotional development; dd6 was about a three year old level and is now close to her actual age. Ds6 was at the level of a very young toddler when he came; possibly an eighteen month old but not more than a two year old. Now he’s more like a four year old. (These are just my own personal assessments, not anything official.) During that time we were able to learn their typical behaviors and see who they really were without the external stressors of school.

As soon as they began going to school, I saw both of them showing significant negative changes in their behavior. Dd6 would scream within minutes of picking her up from kindergarten and continued throughout the afternoon until she went to sleep. She was hitting her siblings constantly, jumping up and down while screaming and screeching about everything that wasn’t the way she wanted it (which was almost everything).

Not only was she emotionally extremely reactive, but she was screaming at me – something she had never done. I saw she had no inner brakes, no emotionally capacity to hold the attachment when she was away so many hours. Once she was dysregulated to this degree, there was no way to calm her down; she rejected any kind of touch or loving gesture. I was so glad that we knew how sweet and loving she could be because she really became intolerable for everyone to be around.

Ds6 also had behavior changes, but it showed up differently. Though they both have ADD/ADHD diagnoses (almost all foster/adoptees have this at this age), as soon as he went back to school I saw it very clearly. He literally was vibrating when I picked him up from school. He made lots of sounds with his mouth and his body was wired; he had so much pent up energy. He was unfocused and seemingly didn’t hear instructions or respond to it. He kicked and hit even his teenage siblings over no provocation.

Since all of this behavior change happened as soon as they went to school, it was clear to me that the school day was too long for them. When I kept them home, I didn’t see any of this. There could be tiredness or unhappiness, but that was easily addressed. Our social worker said they would get used to the school day and it would get better, but I didn’t agree. I thought that the demands of the school day were overwhelming their capacity to cope.

I spoke to our parenting counselor about my hesitation about sending them for the extended afternoon program (school ends at 2 but the extended program continues until 3:45). I had agreed to take the twins with the understanding they would be home from school around 5 pm and that I would have time to spend with ds11 and ds7 every day when the twins weren’t here – that was a critical consideration.

My dilemma was that if I didn’t send them for the extended program, I had no time with just the two boys. Even with twins in the extended program, I hardly had time with the boys because they would eat lunch when they got home, and then I had to leave for pickup soon after that. If I did send them for the extended program, they became increasingly unpleasant and difficult to be with, and that’s harder for everyone in the house.

The parenting counselor said there’s no right answer about that, and that her concern is that I’m supporting their needs in so many ways (she called me ‘a full therapeutic staff’) that she doesn’t want to see me burn out.

I experimented with taking them to school later and picking them up earlier to see what their inner set points for being away from home were. At the end of October I decided I would do the earlier pickup from school. However, I then learned that lunch is served only for the children who stay for the afternoon program. Having to cook lunch for them was an additional demand at a time that I had a lot of demands on me (by this time my mom was staying with us).

Additionally, when I picked up dd6 early, she threw herself crying and screaming on the floor of her kindergarten and became almost hysterical because she didn’t get to eat there. Food or perceived lack of it is very emotional for her and that was the point that made me decide to leave her at the afternoon program – so she could eat the food with her peers. I couldn’t go out for two different pickup times, so ds stayed longer as well.

Right now we’re still in process. It’s almost easier for me to have them at home than to send them to school because the after school behaviors take so much emotional energy to manage, and it’s never ideal to guide or direct children when you don’t have a working positive attachment with them. They love staying home with me and almost every day ask to stay home, which is interesting because in their past foster home, going to school was their highlight and what they never wanted to miss. (Threatening them that they wouldn’t be able to go to school was the best behavioral incentive she had.)

What has been very helpful for them is keeping them home one day a week (usually not on the same day but together with ds11 or ds7). The positive effects last beyond the day that they stay home. I’ve experimented with different pickup and drop off times to find the point that they can tolerate without disintegrating, and have been taking them to school later in the morning to shorten the time they’re away.

Dd6 has begun telling her teachers she doesn’t want to stay in the afternoon, that she wants to go home. This is a shift for her, because in the beginning she wanted to do what all the other girls were doing and stay for the full time. After Chanuka I intend to begin picking them up as soon as they finish eating, so they’ll only be staying a half hour or so longer. Every way that we can shorten the day for them makes a difference.

It’s also critical to brace myself emotionally before they come home so that I’m prepared for their behavior. When I’m expecting them to act in a pleasant manner, it’s never helpful because then I feel frustrated by the discrepancy between my expectations and the reality.

As Chanuka begins, I’ve already told their teachers they won’t be coming for the Chanuka camp next week, and they won’t be coming today even though officially school is still in session. Ds11 and ds7 will also be home. It’s a different kind of busy on the days they stay home; it takes much more time but everyone’s emotions are on a much more even keel.

Avivah

Two weeks ago was my birthday. There’s something about reaching a new decade that is a big deal, and turning fifty felt particularly momentous to me. That’s a serious age, you know? It’s the first time I feel almost self-conscious to say how old I am.

My daughter and her family came to stay with us that Shabbos since they were about to move and their house was packed up. It’s always nice when they come, and that week was very quiet since it was just the youngest six kids and my husband and I at home. We had a birthday circle for me; it was low key but nice.

A week or so ago, my son-in-law told me that as a surprise for my daughter’s birthday at the end of November, he was getting a photographer to do a family photo shoot on Friday and they asked my husband and I to participate, which of course we were glad to agree to.

On Friday morning, my husband offered to get the kids ready for school since he knew I had a very exhausting and physically challenging week. (I had traveled to Beit Shemesh to pack up all of my mother’s things, gotten a serious asthma reaction to the dust and was completely out for the next day with terrible muscle pain and breathing difficulties, then slowly coming out of that for the next couple of days.) I was glad to be able to sleep in for another hour, and since he took dd6 to get her stitches taken out (she fell and cut her chin open to the bone a couple of weeks ago) after getting the three boys to school, when I got up, the house was quiet.

Soon after our three teenagers came home and I suggested they join us for the photoshoot. I was sure their sister would be happy to have pictures with them. But they refused, saying it didn’t make sense for them to be there if all of the siblings weren’t going to be in the picture. I disagreed, but Shabbos preparations had been done and they wanted to go to shul to learn, so I wasn’t going to force the issue.

My husband and I went over with my mother to my daughter’s house. When we got into the house, I heard many voices shout out, “Surprise!”, and start singing Happy Birthday. I couldn’t believe it – every single one of children and grandchildren were there! I was so deeply touched and overwhelmed, and of course I started crying in the first few seconds when I realized what happened.

Since four of five of our married children live in Jerusalem/Beit Shemesh, it’s a really big deal for all of them to have coordinated being there together. One had asked to come for Shabbos and was staying with us. All of the others had made arrangements without me knowing anything.

As far as the boys who ‘went to shul to learn’, they had all headed over to their sister’s house to be there for the surprise. What about the four youngest children who were supposed to be at school? My husband had taken them all to my daughter’s house instead of to school, though I did get a call from a teacher asking why ds11 didn’t come. Not knowing anything about the plan, I told her my husband had taken care of the kids that morning and I didn’t know what happened, but probably our son had wanted to stay home to spend time with our daughter who was visiting from Jerusalem.

Then they told me not only was everyone there for my birthday, but the photoshoot wasn’t for my daughter’s birthday, but for mine! Well-known to all of my children is my huge disappointment that at the last two weddings we didn’t have a family photo with all of our family members present. We tried to do a family photo when we had Shabbos sheva brachos in February, and then tried again when four of the five married kids were here for Pesach (the other family took a photo when they came and we thought we could photoshop it all together), but it just didn’t work out.

In fact, that morning when I was thinking about the photoshoot for my daughter’s birthday, I was thinking about how much I wanted a family photo and wondering what it would take to get one done. I concluded that at this stage of life, getting everyone together at once was highly unlikely short of at another family wedding. So maybe each time one family came to visit, I could take a picture of them, then take a picture of our core family living at home, and put the pictures of each family around our family picture?

You can only imagine how moved I was that they were all here to participate in the family photo.

In our family photo from 2016, we were just two parents and ten children. It was so easy in those days to set up a picture! Everyone was a different height, and there were so few people.

Less than eight years later, our new photo has almost three times as many people – my mother and nineteen new family members. It’s incredible to have so many additions in such a short time. As much as I love the family picture that’s been on our wall for the last 4.5 years, I’m looking forward to replacing it with something up to date.

After the pictures were taken, my daughter told me we were having a festive birthday breakfast. I was so overwhelmed by seeing all of our family members when I walked in, that I didn’t notice the table beautifully set up.

Everything was ample and delicious, and then my son announced he had planned a game. I’m not one to enjoy games, but this was very special and showed a lot of thought and planning. He prepared eleven questions about me, and then everyone had to choose from a multiple choice response about how I would choose or respond in a given situation. Then people explained why they chose the answers they did. Being able to do this showed me how closely he listened to details I had shared at different times during phone conversations.

After that we had the birthday cake, and while we were finishing up, my husband announced he had written a grammen for my birthday. (A grammen is a rhyming song, consisting of rhyming stanzas of four lines, sung to a specific tune. It’s usually performed on special occasions.) The grammen began with telling about when I was single, and covered points of our 31 plus years of our marriage, summing up our years together. It was so beautiful.

I’m telling you, I was so tired from all those happy emotions, from seeing so many people show up with so much love and thoughtfulness.

And then my daughter told me we would all be having the Shabbos meals together in her new home! I knew she started cooking for Shabbos on Tuesday but I didn’t realize it was to prepare for the huge crowd that would be present.

After the Shabbos lunch meal, there was a birthday circle, with only those who weren’t present two weeks ago at my scaled down birthday circle sharing.

It was the most amazing, beautiful birthday celebration. I couldn’t have asked for anything nicer or more meaningful. And I’m still just so touched and astounded when I think how all of them worked together to plan this surprise and keep it from me.

Avivah

Many, many families have evacuated the northern and southern parts of Israel. An extended family from an area closer to the northern border is staying at a home a couple of doors away, and several days ago I went to welcome them and invite them to bring their young children over to see our animals and/or play.

Late this afternoon, two of the mothers came with one young boy. We were chatting when dd6 came over and asked them where they’re from. “XXX city”, one said.

Dd6 exclaimed, “Me and my brother are also from there!”

Then dd6 said to the woman, “I know you from there!” (She is very good with visual details.) The woman paused and looked at her closely, then at ds6, then back at dd. In disbelief she responded, “Yes, you do know me from there!”

She glanced at me and in an undertone said, “Are they living with you now?” I nodded.

The twins wanted to show her the swings and have her push them, and since I didn’t want to discuss anything referencing their placement while they could hear, we didn’t continue talking at that moment.

When the children switched to riding scooters and were making too much noise to hear what we were saying, she told me that she manages the daycare they attended the year before last. That year was the first time the daycare participated in a program servicing children from high risk homes, where children are placed at the recommendation of social services. This woman knew the complexities of their background and their behaviors; she knew their parents and even their grandmother. who had periodically come to pick them up. They attended this daycare for a year, until the day they were removed from their parents’ home and moved to a different city.

She described how extremely neglected they were and said she was so glad to see how happy and calm they looked now.

I was glad for the twins to have this small point of connection with someone from their past.

Isn’t it amazing what a small world it is?

Avivah

When children come into foster care, there’s often a need for neglected doctor visits and dental care to be tended to.

One of the first things I was told by the social worker after the twins’ placement was to get dd6 a hearing test. I took her to the doctor, got the referral for the hearing test, and then submitted it for an appointment. Soon after I was told it was denied because she had a hearing test just a few months before, and that I needed to be in touch with her past foster mother for the results.

Since the results of the hearing test weren’t submitted to the doctor, it wasn’t on her record. I don’t know if their social worker wasn’t notified that it was done or she didn’t notify the committee, but that’s the kind of thing that can happen with foster care. Happily, otherwise all is well with her.

Next, I took ds6 to the doctor to get a baseline checkup for him. It turned out to be very very fortuitous that the local pediatrician on their health plan is actually a pediatric endocrinologist. She requested labwork for him, and when it came back normal, told me she wants to run more tests. Most doctors would have left it at that – his numbers are ideal so there’s seemingly nothing to do.

Since this is her area of expertise, the perfect bloodwork creates another questions and she wants to determine if daily medication is actually necessary – is his blood work perfect because he has the ideal medication amount or does he not need medication at all? There’s nothing in his medical record that indicates why he was given this medication or diagnosis; when there’s an issue like this there’s supposed to be blood work done every three months. His last blood work was in 2019, over four years ago.

She gave me a list of tests he needs; none of which could be performed in either of the two cities a half hour drive away for several months. Since I didn’t want any further delays in having this taken care of, I took the earliest appointments available, regardless of distance. That resulted in an hour and a half drive for the first appointment, only to be told that I needed an additional doctor to do this test with the technician, and that doctor wasn’t available at that location. Not only that, the receptionist didn’t know when or where or how I could schedule an appointment with both of these people simultaneously if I called the scheduling hotline.

The receptionist was very apologetic and so helpful. Early the next morning she took the initiative to directly contact the only technician in the health clinic staff who has the expertise to perform this testing without a physician. She told me that if I got to a different city (also over an hour away) within the next few hours, he would take us without an appointment. I had plans for the morning and all the kids were home, but off we went, hoping to make it before it was too late. Thankfully we made it.

I took those results back to the pediatrician. That test brought up another concern that necessitated a visit to a different specialist in – yes – a city over an hour away. I was able to get an appointment a couple of days before Rosh Hashana. She was an older Russian physician, who harshly asked me why I waited until he was six to take care of something that should have been done when he was two. I covered the ears of ds6 and told her I’m his foster parent and am trying to get all of this taken care of as quickly as I can. As soon as she heard that her judgmental attitude and icy demeanor dissolved.

The next morning I took him to the dentist to get his teeth checked out. Amazingly, he had no cavities. I don’t even understand how that’s possible but I was so relieved. Afterwards we did some shopping together to make it a special Mommy outing for him, before taking him back to school. It’s always nice to have one on one time with children, and he loved it.

The most recent specialist visit resulted in a referral to a hospital procedure that ds6 will need. The last time I called this hospital I spent twenty five minutes waiting for a person but did get someone, and hopefully by the end of this week I’ll have that appointment made.

As far as hospital appointments, I’m still waiting to have a different test scheduled at a different hospital. (The hospital closest to me doesn’t perform this testing for children under ten.) It took a month of calling until I got a live person to tell me that I needed to submit the referral by fax or email. To do that, I had to return to the doctor and request that the referral be printed out since the hospital can’t access the computer records, then have it sent it. It’s been several weeks and I haven’t yet heard back from them.

Once I have all of this testing completed, I can go back to the pediatrician to evaluate what is going on with him. It’s been really busy taking care of all of this on top of the other things going on, but I’m so appreciative of her thoroughness and expertise, and hope that soon we’ll have resolved the issues that need to be addressed and have clarity about if there’s anything else he needs to stay healthy.

Avivah

The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy and left me with little time or energy to share with you here.

Some of you have asked for feedback after my last post about how d6.5’s first visit with his birth parents went.

Before the meeting, my husband told me his intention is to restore the dynamic of trust and communication we had with them at the very beginning. We jointly agreed to adopt this attitude, and both of us communicated with them in this spirit.

It took a lot of courage and emotional energy to have this meeting, but I’m glad we did. The meeting went very well – it couldn’t have gone any better. Of course ds was very cute and engaging because that’s how he always is, and they seemed to enjoy seeing him.

At one point, ds said to his birth mother, “When I was a tiny, tiny baby I was in your tummy.” He was waiting for confirmation and when I glanced at her I saw she didn’t understand what he said, so I repeated what he said. She looked a little misty eyed at that, but nodded at him.

I told our social worker when they initially said they would come for a visit but didn’t update her when we made more concrete plans because: 1) I was emotionally drained thinking about it and didn’t want to discuss it, and 2) I wasn’t sure they would show up. She was shocked when I confirmed they had actually come.

Since his bio parents until now hadn’t shown an interest in being actively involved, the committee recently decided they want to push for us to be allowed to adopt him. Since this decision was predicated on their uninvolvement, my social worker expressed concerned that beginning visitation will affect the negatively impact the adoption discussion. When I made plans for them to meet him I knew this could happen but nonetheless felt a person deserves to know his roots and it would be selfish of me to deny him that if I had any way to impact them being part of his life.

I’m so glad we did it. Buried in the back corner of my mind has been the concern about how and when to broach this topic, and now it’s openly on the table and we can talk about them freely with him.

We asked them if it would be okay to take a couple of pictures of ds with them, so we can print them out and add them to his personal album of his birth and early months. They agreed, and I sent them the pictures as well. They sent me a pleasant email thanking me for the pictures and said they had enjoyed the visit.

Will they come again? I didn’t ask them, but did tell them we would welcome regular visits of whatever frequency they are comfortable with. They bought ds some treats and when he said something about them buying him more ‘tomorrow’, I told him they weren’t going to be there the next day. His bio father hastened to add, ‘next time’. So hopefully now that the ice has been broken, more visits will follow.

Thank you all for the good thoughts and prayers on our behalf. I’m sure they were a positive force for us all!

Avivah

I mentioned recently that August was a milestone month in a number of ways for us. It’s a milestone in an additional way, one that I was thinking about a lot when I went to see my newest grandson for the first time a few weeks ago.

As I was holding him, it occurred to me that he is the third child of my third child (also born in August). We made a huge, life changing decision when my third child was born, a shift that affected everything in our family that happened ever since then.

Until that point, I was the breadwinner in the family. My husband was a full-time avreich (Torah student), and we lived a very idealistic, simple and mostly happy life.

The issue that was becoming more and more of a conflict for me was needing to rely on others to care for my children. When I had to go back to work after the birth of my first child, I looked for a babysitter close to my office. Our baby traveled an hour in each direction with me from our home to my office, snug against me in a baby carrier. I worked from 8:30 – 1:30; I nursed him when I dropped him off at and picked him up from the babysitter (a lovely woman who was the mother of six children). Mid morning my babysitter would call and say, “Avivah, your baby is hungry,” and I’d dash out to nurse him.

When he was young toddler, he started gan (preschool). A van would come to pick him up and drop him off. We took him to one neighbor in the morning who put him on the van since we had to leave before it came, and then a different neighbor would take him off the van, since I wasn’t yet home at that time. I’d get home around 2:45 pm, and then I’d spend the rest of the day with my two little children.

Until that point, I took my children to private babysitters who were neighbors or friends who cared for children in their home. It was a home environment, there were a limited number of children, and it was just one caretaker other than myself, minimizing the attachment difficulties for a young child. It was as good a setup as I could find and though I didn’t love it, I overall felt fine with it.

However, I felt increasingly concerned about my son. One day I got a call from the morning neighbor who saw my son had been dropped off in the afternoon on the sidewalk in front off our building, and the afternoon neighbor I was paying to take care of him didn’t get him. He was left standing there, 2 3/4 years old, not knowing who was going to take care of him and unsure where to go, until the morning neighbor took him in and then called me.

I was on the bus home when I got this call, and it tore my heart. There was literally nothing I could do about it at that moment. I didn’t read any books or get any message anywhere, from anyone, that maybe something wasn’t good about this kind of childcare arrangement. After all, this is the kind of thing all working mothers had to do, and I was fortunate to work it out as well as I did.

Rationalizing aside, I had a strong gut feeling that this was too high a price for a small child to pay, and that day, I told my husband, I can’t and won’t do this to our son anymore.

I was also exhausted all the time and though only in my early twenties was constantly wondering, “Is this what my life is supposed to be like, racing on a hamster wheel?” I had a decent job that I enjoyed, I had a wonderful husband and adorable children, and a job I did well and got positive feedback for on a daily basis. It didn’t make sense to give all of that up, did it?

It was two months before I was due that we made the decision that when our baby was born, I would stop working. How would we manage financially? Well, with three children ages three and under needing childcare, that would have taken 3/4 of my income, so I wouldn’t be coming home with that much once I paid all the babysitters. When we did the math, we figured out that if we would simplify even more and my husband could get tutoring work, we could make ends meet.

That’s what we did. It was tight but the feeling of happiness I had when every day, I put my own son on the preschool van in the morning and later in the day took him off, was euphoric. It felt right.

Being home with our children continued to feel right throughout the years – I’m not saying it was always easy and I was continually glowing with happiness, because it wasn’t and I wasn’t. Periodically there would be life circumstances that would cause us to reevaluate if this was still something doable for us, but my husband and I continually came back to the decision that it was best for our children that I be home with them full-time.

That was a long time ago – my third child just turned 27. Now it’s my own children that have to make the tough decisions that we faced about working with young children.

When I think of young families today, my heart goes out to them. Even if they have an awareness of the importance for young children of being with their primary caregiver around the clock, logistically it’s so daunting for them.

My husband and I made the decision that was was right for our family, and we’ve continued to live simply and frugally throughout all these years to continue to make this possible. We’ve had many experiences we couldn’t have had if I had been spending the bulk of my day working outside of the home. But more than that, I had the inner peace of knowing that I was able to be the primary caregiver for our children and create a sense of stability and consistency throughout the years as we experienced big and small changes.

If you’re living in the modern world, regardless of what community you belong to, you have to be somewhat countercultural to make the choice to stay home with your children. You need to be very intentional and thoughtful to find a way to meet the needs of the children in a world in which working women have become the norm and daycare an option that is seen as just as good as being home with mom. (It’s not.)

Am I critical or judgmental of women who work outside the home? Absolutely not!

What does deeply concern me is that I don’t see the crucially important societal conversation happening about what is best for young children. Children have needs that have clearly been proven to be necessary for their healthy emotional development. We don’t have to guess about this.

We don’t want to make mothers feel bad by bringing up the concern about how children might be negatively impacted if she isn’t able to be present with them for a number of hours a day – but the children can’t speak up for themselves. They literally have no voice. And if a mother has never heard a different perspective or had information shared that might affect how she makes choices, how can she make an informed decision?

I’d like to encourage parents to learn about the attachment needs of young children, and then think outside of the box about how to meet the needs of our youngest and most vulnerable. Maybe you need to work for financial reasons, but is there a way to work from home, or cut your hours, or cut your expenses, or work alternate hours when your children are sleeping? Can parents alternate their schedules to minimize the time children spend in the care of others, or can they be cared for by relatives or friends?

There are no easy answers but my experience has been that it’s worth asking those questions. When you get clarity about what you want, possibilities and solutions you didn’t consider previously often appear.

What benefits children will benefit families, and benefit our society at large. I don’t think having more children grow up with a healthier sense of themselves can be anything but positive! This isn’t an issue of compromising our needs to make someone else happy, or giving up what matters most for something inconsequential. It’s quite the opposite – finding a solution that you know meets the needs of your entire family creates more peace and contentment for everyone.

Avivah

Six years ago we took ds6.5 directly home from the hospital as a very small infant, and in every way he’s grown up as a member of our family. Everyone in our extended family thinks of him as a sibling; no one looks at him as a foster child. As far as we’re concerned, it’s just a technical legal term.

When we had the initial conversation prior to his placement with his bio parents, they indicated they would like to visit weekly, which we warmly supported. We had always assumed we would tell ds6.5 from the time he was very young about his birth status, in conjunction with the ongoing visits. He would grow up with this being an accepted part of his life.

However, there were only two visits when he was a newborn, and then two and a half years later a very short visit. And so the conversation never happened.

As I began researching foster care and adoption trauma about six months ago, I was taken aback to learn that often babies adopted at birth show the most trauma. I couldn’t initially understand why that was. After all, if a baby has known love and security from his first weeks, how could it be possible that sometimes he was emotionally worse off than a child who was abused or neglected and only found a safe home at a later age?

I had to hesitantly tiptoe around the answer, because I lot of emotional resistance to learning more. I didn’t want that to be true. I didn’t want to think that the infant that I had raised from so early in his life, who I slept with on my chest as a tiny baby so he would feel secure and to encourage bonding, the baby I spent two years gathering mother’s milk for from various donors all over the country to keep him as healthy as possible, who we all loved in a whole-hearted way from day one – I couldn’t accept that he could emotionally be missing anything.

It was very difficult for me to listen to and read extremely negative perspectives from adults who were adopted, perspectives I had never been aware of and therefore never considered.

I may have been resistant but my nature isn’t to ignore information I don’t like.

Unborn babies begin to bond with their mothers in the womb. Thus, there is an emotional bond that is broken the moment he is born and his mother isn’t there for him. What has been termed ‘the primal wound’ is the baby’s loss of his mother; he is fully aware of this loss though he will later likely never be able to verbalize or even remember it. This pain can stay with him for life and impact his later sense of self and relationships.

Though I began doing this research because the possibility of the twins coming had been broached, I began thinking a lot about ds6.5 and what this meant for him.

I would love to think that by raising him as we have (and this is what I thought until recently) from as young an age as we did, that we took away the short term pain of the loss he experienced. What I’ve learned is the pain of that loss is forever.

What I care about most is doing what is best for him, and thus, I strongly requested through my social worker that his bio parents visit him. At our meeting, that subject was raised by the social workers and I added my voice supporting that preference. They weren’t interested; the social workers told me they don’t have a way to compel birth parents to see children if they don’t want to.

Soon after his bio father called me and I made a direct appeal, telling him that this is best for ds, that he should know who they are and have a relationship with them. He called me back a few weeks later and told me he and his wife were planning to go away to the north for a couple of days in the beginning of September and would try to visit then.

I asked him to send pictures of them both so that I could begin the process of introducing the topic to ds6.5. He did send a picture, but it took a few weeks. By the time I received it and was able to get it printed out, I had a week until their visit to break the news to ds6.5.

My stomach was in knots thinking about how to go about this.

Fortunately, dd6 made it easier for me. Being a child who came into foster care at a later age who knows her parents, our conversations about family are very different. My daughter gave birth three weeks ago and her family stayed with us until yesterday, so we got to see a lot of them. Dd wanted to know where the new baby came from before she was born, so I told her she was inside her mother’s tummy. (I realize that’s not anatomically accurate but that’s what I say to young children.)

She asked about whose tummy she was in before she was born, and I told her, her imma. I explained that her brother also was in her imma’s tummy before he was born. She was processing this, and then wanted to know which children in my family were in my tummy before they were born. (With my daughter’s family here, she was confused about who were my children and who were my grandchildren.) After clarifying which children were my daughter’s and which were mine, I told her that all of our children were in my tummy and all of my daughter’s children were in her tummy.

“What about ds11 and ds6.5?” she specified. I try not to say something not true and told her they were also my children, then changed the topic without specifically saying ds6.5 wasn’t in my tummy. She went on to ask this question a couple of times more in the last couple of weeks.

Then last week the twins had a visit with their parents and came home with balloons and scooters. Ds6.5 requested to go with them next time to their abba and imma and also get presents.

He’s heard all the conversations going on. I realized that he already has the concept that children can be born to someone else and raised in our family, and he has an association that children can visit their birth parents who will give them gifts. I realized opening up this topic with him could be very easy, that it didn’t have to be the heavy conversation it was feeling like to me.

I printed out a picture of his birth parents as well as a number of pictures of him from the day we first met him and the day we brought him home three weeks later, and put them all in an album. I sat with him and showed him the album, and when we got to their picture, he asked me who they are. I told them, “This is the lady whose tummy you were in before you were born, and then you came home from the hospital to live with Mommy and Daddy.” “Really?” “Yes, really.”

He was very positive about this and went on to show his album to everyone in the family. He showed me their picture later on and told me, “They will be my friends.”

A visit was scheduled a week ago for this afternoon at a local park. Though our home would be the easiest location, I prefer we not meet here. Though I know they’d want to see where he lives and assess all of what we do and don’t have, I want to have some distance. It’s not a reciprocal relationship; why should they know all about my life while sharing nothing about theirs?

They asked if it would be appropriate to bring a gift, and I suggested a scooter, since that’s something ds specifically hoped to get by meeting the twins’ parents. I didn’t want to tell him about this too much in advance. If it was still vacation, I would tell him as soon as he wakes up this morning and talk about it throughout the day with him. But I don’t want to tell him and then send him off to school; that’s too loaded a topic to not be present to process together with him.

I also don’t want to keep him home from school because of this. So I’m going to tell him when he gets home, and then soon after that we’ll go together to meet them.

I get a bit of a pit in my stomach thinking about the ramifications of this. Just like it was hard thinking about how to tell him and then it wasn’t a big deal, this visit could be the same. Not a big deal.

I tend to be very sensitive to his birth mother’s feelings at the expense of my own, and I’m thinking about how to hold that line.

A couple of things were recently said to me by his birth father that didn’t give me warm and fuzzy feelings. One, when I asked him if it was helpful for them to know he was doing well, he responded, “No, that makes it worse. If he’s doing well, he should be with us.”

Secondly, in the next conversation when we talked about the meeting place, I told him I saw it was hard for his wife to meet in our home in the past, and that it would be better in a neutral place. He said, “You have to understand the heart of a mother. She feels you took her child from her.”

The sheer audacity and denial implicit in that statement took my breath away. I don’t remember if I said anything in response. When we initially met they were so grateful to find us and we were the solution to their problem – a baby they weren’t going to keep and there were no suitable (to their mind) charedi families to take him, a baby left in the hospital for eight weeks until he came home with us – but in her mind as time passed, I’ve somehow become the source of her pain.

I think it’s going to be extremely hard for them to see him. We expected he would do much better if raised by us than the average family because of our parenting approach, and he has. He’s amazing. When talking with my daughter about the difficulties seeing how charming he is could present, she asked, “Isn’t there a way you could keep being so cute and smart just for that day?”

My husband trusts them to honor their commitment to us. They told us several years ago that they won’t take him back no matter what, and my husband believes they’ll keep to that even when they see he’s far more advance than they would have expected. I hope he’s right, I keep telling myself that he’s right, that they’re not going to take him away.

I’m doing this because I feel it’s right for ds, but not because this is easy for me. Personally, I would be fine with the status quo of them never seeing him if I believed that was in ds’s best interests. While the likelihood is that this meeting is going to go very well and tomorrow I’ll be able to share how well everything went, right now, I’m in emotional limbo.

Avivah

When children are in foster care, visits with their biological parents are supposed to occur on a regular basis. Sometimes the children visit the home where their parents live, and sometimes they have supervised visits at an alternate location.

In our case, the twins have supervised visits every other week. These visits take place in a center established for this purpose at the social services complex.

The first time I took the twins, it felt a bit like being in a spy movie. Since the parents aren’t supposed to see me (though I was told eventually the children will give them enough information that the parents will figure out who we are), I have to park down the street, call to confirm the parents were there, and only once the parents were inside could I park next to the building. Once I hear that they’re inside the center, I park in front of the building.

Then I take the kids inside the building where I meet the social worker who facilitates the meeting in the reception area, and she takes them to the center downstairs.

When it’s time to pick them up, it’s done in reverse. I go into the building, wait near the entrance and the social worker brings them to me. Then she waits until I’ve had time to pull away and only then the parents are told to leave the center.

These visits are important for the children and their parents, to maintain and build their relationships with one another. It’s just twice a month, an hour each time, and the children are so excited for each visit. I’m glad for them that it’s such a nice experience

Their parents bring snacks for the visit, and they also come home with snacks and presents. After one visit, ds6 had stomach pains for hours. He told me his stomach hurt because he ate so many treats. He was crying in pain all evening and woke up twice crying from stomach pains in the middle of the night; then he stayed home with a fever the next day. My social worker told me it was appropriate to let the social worker at the center know so the parents would have helpful feedback.

Each time they come out from a visit, each of the twins are holding family size bags of snacks instead of small individual bags. (That doesn’t include what they eat during the visit.) Knowing what amount is appropriate for young children isn’t intuitive or obvious to everyone. At the beginning of a visit, I told the visitation social worker how sick ds6 had been and requested that the parents give a smaller quantity of snacks; she shrugged and said she didn’t think they were eating too many snacks. Just an hour later dd6 came out of her visit and told me that her stomach was hurting.

I think it would be a kindness to let the parents to know things like their shoe size and what toys are appropriate for their age – they’re buying the gifts and shoes anyway – but the social worker doesn’t seem interested in sharing feedback with them. I don’t feel it’s fair to the parents or the children not to give them appropriate information. The parents give gifts that are minimally used and don’t garner much excitement, and the children get things that are of minimal value to them.

When dd6 received sandals that were too small, she was so excited that I let her wear them to school for a week, even though her toes were sticking out over the top. But after that, I put them away because they weren’t suitable. If they fit her, I would have had her wear them to each visit so her parents could have the pleasure of seeing her enjoy the shoes they bought.

Then two months later they were given flip flops – again, too small. If they had been told the childrens’ shoe size after the first pair of shoes were purchased, these flip flops would have been a gift the children could have enjoyed more. And the toys they are given … it’s a waste of their resources to give things that are hardly looked at after the first day.

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A couple of weeks ago it was their birthday, and on the drive there the children were excitedly detailing all the things their parents would bring them: bicycles and scooters and cake and balloons and treats and more. I cautioned them that it might be different than that and they’d have to wait to see what their parents brought.

Unfortunately, after arriving at the building we learned their parents wouldn’t be coming. When the social worker called to find out when they would be arriving, they told her they had called in advance to notify them that they wouldn’t be there that day, but if that was the case, no one got the message.

As you can imagine, this was particularly disappointing and painful for the children. There is always a lot of anticipation the day of the visit, and this time there was even more because of the birthday. While generally I don’t see any negative behaviors after the visits, that time it was really hard. Ds6 repeatedly cried for his father and for the entire afternoon and next day repeatedly insisted he had to see his parents.

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When I looked at the Facebook account of their parents, I saw a post in honor of their birthday: past pictures of the parents together with the children (all taken at the mediation center) and the mother’s beautiful declaration of love for her children. Following that were comments, one of which was, “The most perfect family ever!”

The father’s account had an equally beautiful declaration of love for them on their birthday, concluding with, “Dear children, all you have to do is keep growing and smiling. Leave all the rest to abba and imma, we’re taking care of everything for you.”

There’s no mention on either of their Facebook pages about the children being removed from their care, nor that they missed that important birthday visit. I found it so reflective of the artificial and manipulated world of social media that people can post a picture of their beautiful family and have gushing positive responses, while the well-cared for children they see are those I care for in my home, in the clothing I bought and dressed them in.

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While there are minor blips in the visitation experience, I’m appreciative that they have supervised visitations rather than in-home visits. Another foster mother told me of the difficulty in sending her foster children back to a violent home each Shabbos. They would come back agitated and stressed, and by the time they would calm down, it was time for the next visit. I’m so grateful we don’t have to deal with anything like that.

Avivah

On Shabbos at 12:15 pm, our second daughter gave birth to a son (her third child, second son). Less than 24 hours later, our oldest daughter gave birth to a daughter (her fourth child, second daughter).

For those who are wondering, yes – these are the sisters who got married twelve days apart, had their first daughters 14 weeks apart, their sons two weeks apart – and now these children born within 24 hours.

It took twenty three years for our first eleven children to be born. Having grandchildren accelerates the rate of our family expansion, and it’s taken just six years for the number of grandchildren to match the number of our children. Bli ayin hara. There are now all of these wonderful children to have relationships with.

Since my oldest son and youngest married daughter were visiting when our newest granddaughter was born, they were all able to see her a few hours later.

We’ll have to wait a few days to see our new grandson; I’ll be traveling to Jerusalem on Wednesday and will see him then. The older boys will go for Shabbos to be there for the bris.

When starting this blog seventeen years ago, I kind of wondered what our family would look like in the future, but my mental picture has paled next to the reality. It’s been astounding and humbling to watch how our lives have unfolded and our family has grown.

Avivah