I’m driving the eldest to PGL, the outdoor residential activity course for schools. He’s learning how to read at the moment and is fascinated by initials and abbreviations. “What does PGL mean,” he asks. “It stands for Parents Get Lost,” I answer. I can feel his brain whirring away as he sits next to me. “But you’re not my parent,” he says. Maybe they should call it Parents and Foster Carers Get Lost, I suggest. “Then it would be PFCGL.” He finds this very funny, for some reason, and the conversation drifts away into the world of silly abbreviations. It is a cheap diversionary trick, I know, for which I apologise.
The lad’s right, of course. I’m not his parent, not even a relative. He and his brothers have lived with us for five months. We include them, in every possible way, as if they are our family. But they have a defined relationship with their parents and consider this to be a temporary arrangement. We have grown closer, over time, but I know they still think of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Aspects of our way of life are still alien to them, although the tension this creates is easing. We rub along just fine, most of the time.
We are short-term foster carers, which means that children come to live with us while grown-ups sort out what is best for them in the long run. In this context, ‘short-term’ is open-ended, from a few weeks to a couple of years. Experience has taught us to assume it will be at least one year; our last placement ended after a little over two years.
At PGL, deep in the Sussex countryside, the excited children gather with their suitcases and backpacks and I mingle with the actual parents. There are a few familiar faces but I am still a stranger to most. They have all known each other for several years and their children have grown up together. Some are curious about my role as a foster carer while a small number remain suspicious, I think. Much about foster care is still a mystery, and foster carers and the children they care for exist at arm’s length to families around them. Here today, probably gone tomorrow. People lead busy lives and it is a big ask for them to make connections with strangers whose lives are complicated.
PGL is a milestone in children’s lives and some of the parents are anxious about how their sons and daughters will cope with being away from home for three days. Our lad seems unconcerned. Perhaps the events of the past year or so have prepared him for this. We are not his first foster carers, so the experience of sleeping in a strange bed in unfamiliar surroundings, away from loved ones, is not new. Indeed, over the following days he is the one who gives comfort to those who struggle because they miss their mum and dad. He understands their feelings in a way that they cannot. He has developed a sense of empathy beyond his years, for all the wrong reasons. Such is the resilience of a child in care.
The moment comes for parents to say their goodbyes. The mums and dads linger, even though I sense their children just want them to leave so they can get on with it. Among a crowd of kids, I pick out ‘our’ lad and he waves. Just as I am about to walk away, he breaks free and runs towards me. I get the biggest hug of all. It reminds me of the times, many years ago, when our own children did the same. I don’t want it to end.
And I realise that it is time for parents, and foster carers, to get lost.