I don't want foster children in my house.

[Bitterwounds]

Getting straight to the point, I was brought up in the care system - my parents were violent & neglectful. I moved through several placements and witnessed & experienced many terrible things from the other foster children. My belongings were repeatedly stolen & broken and nothing was ever done about this as it could never be proved who'd done it. I vowed when I left the care system I was out of it for life.

Here's the crunch, my dc (who has 2 dc of their own) has just announced they're going to be foster parents & they've started the process. I told them I don't want any foster children in my house. It's too painful & triggering for me and I dont want to be in that position ever again. They've told me that I've no choice but to welcome the foster child alongside my grandchildren as equals in everything (birthdays/xmas etc). That they won't tolerate my not accepting them. They'll consider the foster child completely equal and that if I reject it I'm rejecting them. For what it's worth, I think my dc is trying to mend my childhood by repeating the process but getting it 'right' this time. I think they're very naive about what they're getting themselves into. Not to say that it's not commendable what they're trying to do. How do we move forwards? Aibu?

*the passing of responsibility

@Vivi0

but it IS the daughters responsibility. If she knows that fostering will mean her kids can’t go round their grandmas and she does it anyway.

And Op should not push beyond her own boundaries which she has for a reason out of fear that her daughter may “walk away from the relationship altogether”

I voted YABU because you're jumping the gun. You're making assumptions about what this child will be like, or how you'll react to having them around, or both.

My suggestion for the best way forward would be to step back from any absolutist pronouncements about your own position and instead help your child figure out whether they're adequately prepared, emotionally, practically and otherwise, to become a foster parent. Your description does suggest some naivety on their part - maybe you can explore this with some open-ended questions?

The most important people in this equation at the moment are the existing children. No one will approve the daughter to foster if there is a big risk that existing relationship’s within the family could be damaged by fostering. That situation could be very damaging to all parties involved including a potential foster child.

Those posters focusing on the daughter wanting to do a noble thing clearly have no concept of the bigger picture.

I genuinely think that if you have not had experience of fostering/adoption and children in care then you really don’t have the right to pass judgement on the OP

Are you really this naive, @SleeplessInEngland ? Do you genuinely have no knowledge that some foster carers are abusers? Did you not read the OP's own testimony? You can't be this ignorant, surely?

I am not saying the OP cannot have boundaries around the foster child. But if the DD considers her mum’s boundaries to be harmful to the foster child, then she is perfectly entitled to take steps to ensure that she is protecting the well-being of the foster child.

Except in this case, it is the OP that is saying she doesn't want the foster child around her, and her DD is who the one who is trying to throw the foster child at her mum.

Even more proof that her DD is not fit to be a foster mother. Only the OP is looking out for the foster child's welfare. The DD wants to have her mother around the children, that's how delusional the DD is.

@TalkingFeminism I think you are being unreasonable in telling the OP she doesn't even know her mind. Foster children are triggers for her. She knows herself better than anyone else. Who are you to tell her she doesn't know her own self?

Well, it isn´t politically correct but what some people forget when the foster or adopt is that the whole family isn´t fostering or adopting it is them on the contract who are doing it. You are perfectly within your rights to say who enters or doesn´t enter your house, but it will come at a price it seems.
You have obviously had a shit experience, have you had any therapy to help you navigate your past?
I think your child is being super unreasonable with this you will do this or else. I think not.

Again, you are just placing all of the responsibility for the relationship onto the DD.

She’s probably carried this responsibility her entire life.

There are so many people in the DDs position who struggle to live their lives free from the chains of guilt and obligation. The constant guilt tripping and passing of responsibility is why they end up just saying “enough - no more” and walking away. It’s just too much.

@Vivi0

well that’s up to OP’s daughter isn’t it. If she wants to walk away 👋

As adults, however, it is up to them to find ways to deal with their trauma to limit the effects it has on others. That is in no way unreasonable. You cannot, as an adult, expect others to consider your needs above their own.

It’s not like OP hasn’t attempted to address her trauma though. She has, with years of therapy. To what degree it’s been dealt with we don’t know, as we don’t know the impact it’s had on her daughter through her life. It’s entirely possible OP copes just fine as long as she’s not confronted by the biggest trigger of her trauma. Sometimes that’s the best you’re going to do, in terms of ‘dealing with it’. Some wounds don’t heal in their entirety, no matter the treatment.

I do think it’s weird that you would choose to go down a path that you know is going to have these ramifications on people (her mother AND her children) you have a good relationship with.

As OP needs to take responsibility for her choices, so does the daughter.

As a sort of aside I do think this idea that you only cope with trauma if you confront it head on and ‘embrace’ it is dangerous, tbh. That isn’t to say that packing it away and never talking about it is better, but the point is that when it comes to individuals what may work for one can be devastating to another. One person will need to confront their trauma, another may only ever be able to live with it by packing it away. When it comes to human beings there’s rarely ever a one size fits all solution to every issue, and to think there is, is naive at best.

I’m not going to call the daughter a psychopath because I don’t know her. Similarly I’m not going to call her kind hearted or altruistic either. There’s clearly a lot to unpack here, considering context. We don’t know her motivation, and ludicrous or not spite can indeed be a motivating factor that drives people to great lengths.

What choice does she have?

You’ve demonstrated it perfectly in our conversation over the past couple of pages. She either suppress her own needs for the sake of her mum, or she take full responsibility for everything that happens if she doesn’t suppress her own needs.

It’s a no win situation.

The entirety of the relationship isn’t solely on either one of them, but when it comes to what is probably one of, if not the, hardest lines in the sand that OP has, by choosing to aim straight the daughter has to accept that she’s invited the consequences such an action will entail.

No one in this scenario is adopting anyone.

you seem determined to place responsibility for the daughter’s decisions onto her mother. God knows why, maybe you enjoy kicking someone who is clearly struggling.

if you want to foster, go ahead and try. But you have no right to demand that someone else does just to satisfy your fantasy that it’s “right”

if you want to foster, go ahead and try. But you have no right to demand that someone else does just to satisfy your fantasy that it’s “right”

What on earth are blathering about? It's the daughter's right to foster. How does that somehow turn into me having to do it too?

No one 'needs' to foster, you are being hyperbolic. She has literally hundreds of avenues to choose from, she doesn't 'need' to foster.

By choosing the ONE method guaranteed to hurt her mother, out of the hundreds of others, the daughter is choosing to alienate her mother from her and to remove her own children's relationship with her grandmother. Allllll because she can't use one of the hundreds of avenues to help children, she just has to choose fostering, right? Yeah, nah.

Odd to accuse someone of hyperbole then go on to suggest there are 'hundreds' of avenues comparable to fostering.

No one “needs” a lot of things, including kids or a partner or to spend time their grandchildren, you can survive without all of these things, it doesn’t make someone’s desire to have them any less valid because they don’t “need” them.

I said avenues to HELP CHILDREN, not 'comparable to fostering'.

Again, you are just placing all of the responsibility for the relationship onto the DD

The DD is making the change. The OP has put boundaries in as she needs to address her own experiences.

The DD is making a choice and telling the OP that she and the DGC will both be deprived of their mutual relationship because the DD won't respect that boundary.

As PP say - there are many, many ways to help and support children in need. Choosing the one thing which you know will retraumatise someone suffering from trauma and then using that to break an existing relationship seems a mighty odd decision.

I agree with this, really nasty actually.

No one seems concerned about the biological children and how the introduction of Foster children into their home will impact them. Not even OP seems concerned with that. If it were my DGC I would very much want to remain in their lives, especially given that they themselves may need support, and nurturing away from what OP believes to be difficult foster children. I would very much want to keep an eye on my own GDC if my own experience of foter children had been so traumatising. Given that children in care have suffered trauma, and almost always exhibit challenging behaviour I'd want to see with my own two eyes what impact this was having on my DGC.

Yanbu to be triggered by this as you are clearly very traumatised - it’s not a choice, it’s a trauma response.

the assessing social worker needs to be aware of this. They will be assessing your daughters support network and they will also touch on your upbringing to understand your family history and family dynamics etc.

it is really important that they are aware of the impact that a foster child will have on the wider family, and the impact that you may have on that child.

your daughter really can’t be giving ultimatums in this kind of situation.

One small point. The DD will not be a foster parent or mother. She will be foster carer. She will almost certainly be expected to maintain foster children's relationships with birth parents and any siblings. This is not a task for the faint-hearted, and can be massively time-consuming and emotionally exhausting.

Add to this her own children's reactions, and her casting aside of their grandmother OP, and it seems to me that there is a lack of forethought and empathy here.

The assessment process is gruelling because it needs to be. Among other things it will look at support networks and conflict resolution. I think cutting OP out of her grandchildren's lives will ring alarm bells.

Her DD is not being unreasonable in saying that her foster children will be part of her family for the duration of their stay with her.

That is totally reasonable of her - indeed, a prerequisite for a good foster parent.

If OP wants to indicate that she is only open to seeing some of her DDs children and not others, then her DD is absolutely justified in deciding that she's not going to subject her foster children to that sort of rejection and awkwardness.

If OP doesn't like that, then she can figure out ways to work through the fact that she seems triggered by all children with experience of the care system.

You're right - the OP has no formal responsibility for her DD's decision to foster. But she also has no right to demand that her DD give her contact with some of her family but not all.