Foster Care
milhayser | September 14, 2015Raising ten children—some biological, others adopted or in foster care—is far from a burden for Sharon Astyk. On the contrary, she says it mandates an artfulness to living, allowing her and her husband to help create something new and greater from the sum of many parts. Sharon writes that the result is "more fascinating, more fun, more engaging [...] a job worth building a life around." While some parenting hurdles multiply with more kids, others stay the same—or even vanish. And beyond the concerns of day-to-day living, Sharon knows she is maintaining and building new family ties for foster…
sastyk | August 2, 2012So I somehow forgot to mention when I went on maternity leave and promised to post on Thursdays that I meant I would start this Thursday, since I was on vacation last week. Sorry 'bout that. I will shamelessly blame the baby and sleep deprivation again.
We spent much of last week visiting family near Boston, which was lovely - the transition with K. and C. really took it out of us. I'm not a high-stress person, I tend to be pretty relaxed, but we really needed a break after two very hectic weeks and a lot of emotion. Among other things, we had sent K. and C. home two days before the movie…
sastyk | July 19, 2012Every time my life settles down enough for me to return to regular blogging, crazy stuff happens. First there was the sudden arrival of newborn baby Z. - we were called at 2:30 pm and by 4:30, Eric was picking him up at the hospital. Since normally one gets more than umm...two hours to prepare for the arrival of a new baby, we were a little discombobulated.
Then there was much back and forth insanity as the County and C. and K.'s family attempted to make possible a visit from across the US to our area. We didn't know until last Friday whether it would happen - and all of a sudden it was. …
sastyk | July 9, 2012Just as I was getting back in the swing of regular blogging again, I got quite a surprise - this afternoon we got called and asked to take an additional foster placement - a 2 day old newborn. As I write this, I have a tiny, sweet little person asleep in my arms (it turns out that like riding a bicycle, you never forget how to type and hold a baby). And yes, Z. is yet another boy! I shoulda known - just when someone gave me a buttload of girl baby clothes and Barbies ;-).
So, umm, if I don't post much in the next few days it is because I'm sleep deprived, drunk on new baby scent and…
sastyk | July 3, 2012A little while back we took our current foster sons to visit the university where Eric teaches physics. The boys had never visited a university before, and were curious about who goes there and what they do when they are there. This led to a discussion of the value of a college education, what kinds of jobs require college, and what kind don't.
From here, we segued to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and it was here that the enormous gap between my biological children, trained from birth to see an adult profession/vocation, mixed perhaps with informal economic activities, as…
sastyk | November 28, 2011In an interesting intersection of my interests in food and foster parenting, there's an emergent tendency to view extreme childhood obesity as a problem of medical neglect. Medical neglect can be grounds for removing children from their home and placing them in foster care, as seen in this recent case in Ohio:
An Ohio third-grader who weighs more than 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after county social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight.
The Plain Dealer reports that the Cleveland 8-year-old is considered severely obese and…
sastyk | November 21, 2011I'm going to guess that not many of my readers would have imagined that your blogiste would be planning to be out at the stores at 5am on Friday. She never has done anything of the sort before. While not really much of an advocate of "Buy Nothing Day" (I'm more for "buy little year"), generally speaking I'd rather rip my own eyeballs out than go shopping anyway, and the idea doing it among the crowds on black Friday would be even less appealing. And yet, that's precisely what I'm planning on doing.
Let's back up to last Wednesday, however. Last Wednesday Eric and I accepted an emergency…
sastyk | October 12, 2011Lots of stuff to update you all on. First, the family expansion project - still nothing new. After three months of waiting, we've decided to expand our looking in a few different ways - our county just doesn't have a placement, and after all the work of getting ready, we're anxious to get one.
Meanwhile, I'm powering through the Adapting-In-Place Manual, and it will be out next spring. Here's a preview of the Cover:
Making Home Cover.pdf
I'm also getting ready for the ASPO-USA conference - where I'm going to be sharing a hotel room with Nicole Foss. We're going to have a late night…
sastyk | August 18, 2011Just to keep you all updated, we learned yesterday that the children's social worker has decided to separate the children, and place them in three homes. Two will stay with the current foster mother, one with one home, and they are seeking a home for one child and the newborn. Since we will take larger groups than two and there are very few homes that take three or four, we are not candidates to take any of the kids.
I admit, I'm relieved not to have to make a decision about taking these kids - it isn't the numbers, so much as the ages - I realized about myself that while I would happily…
sastyk | July 15, 2011What, you ask, has Sharon been duing, besides getting mud and manure on her? (I feel like there's been a theme to some of my recent posts, no?) I'm sure you have nothing but this on your mind - the doins a'transpirin at my house being the focus of whole tens of people (well, maybe one ten on a good day ;-). Still, I'm going to tell you.
Well, what we've mostly been doing is getting ready for the fall garden season, and getting ready for the family expansion project. As of this week, our house is open as a foster home, but of course, in our usual "doing at the last minute something we…
sastyk | March 24, 2011Life has been proceeding more or less apace, and it feels like a long time since I've sat down and contemplated anything, much less my Anyway Project goals. At the same time, all this business is a series of steps on the way to actually many of the things done. I hope that's true of all of you!
As you'll remember, the goal of the Anyway project is to integrate our preparations for a harder future with our daily life now, to turn them many parts into a whole. As I wrote previously:
The larger idea of the Anyway Project is to make our lives work more smoothly. Most of us stand with feet in…