Part of the paperwork we had to fill out in our Trust included
a document called a “Child Protection Plan” in which we also had to provide
information for any possible future guardians of our children. The name alone of the document, “Child
Protection Plan”, sounded like some sort of form a child welfare worker would
fill out, but rather than being filled out by a social worker, it was filled out
by two parents concerned for the welfare of their children’s futures. Some of the questions on the document we had
to answer were:
“What values do you
want instilled into your children?”
“What special
holidays or observances would you like them to participate in?
“How would you like
your children to be disciplined?” (I had
a whole list of books & theories for this question when, perhaps, the words
“lovingly” and “just” would suffice.)
“What community or
extracurricular activities would you like your children to be involved in?”
“What people do you
want to be a part of your child’s life?”
It was a bit overwhelming to answer these questions because it
really hit home what an enormous responsibility and commitment parenting
is. My husband and I found ourselves
exploring topics such as “How are we
doing raising our children?” and
“What kind of legacy do we want to leave for our children after we’re
gone?”
It was also very depressing to think about not being able to
be there for our kids when they need us the most. I automatically equated the way I was feeling
to how an expectant parent or birth parent might feel when choosing to make an
adoption plan for their child and trying to decide what kind of a family or
person to entrust with the sacred responsibility of raising their child. What an incredible sense of loss and a huge
relinquishment of control! I saw the following
quote last year and it helped me to get a glimpse of what it might be like to
be a birth parent:
I also thought of what it would be like to be a parent whose
children are taken into state custody: Who
would I want my child placed with? Do I
even have a say in the matter? Or, I
imagined what it would be like to be an
unwed mother in the “olden days” of unethical and unregulated adoption
practices who had their child taken from them against their will (I’m knocking
on wood that most of those horror stories were in the past and don’t currently
exist). In either case, I would be in a
state of utmost panic for the sake of my child:
Would my child’s new caregivers be able to give them the care they need? If they have children, will they treat my child
as well as they treat their own children?
Whether you are a birth parent/first parent reading this who
grieves for the child you brought into this world but whom you aren’t raising,
or perhaps you had your children taken away from you and placed in foster care or
have had to, by necessity, have family members step in and raise your children,
and may be shouldering burdens of resentment, guilt, or grief . . . I think there are some feelings any parent can
relate to- namely, It’s tough- [whether you had a say in where your child ended
up or if it was against your will and personal choice]- not to be able to raise
your children the way you want- or perhaps, by whom you want. It takes an extreme amount of trust that
there are other people out there who have enough love in their hearts and room
in their homes (and resources- because raising children isn’t cheap!) to commit
to raising a child.
It is also a helpful reminder to those of us raising children who weren't ours to begin with to be mindful of their first families.
