Differences of Opinion

It turns out that my sister-in-law is not quite out yet, but might be within a couple of days. She just has to clear up one last warrant based on an unpaid fine, and she'll be released to a drug rehab program. Her husband got out a few days ago, and is awaiting sentencing on a couple of things.

She knows what she needs the most right now. The judge presiding over her Drug Court also knows what she needs. I also know what she needs. Same thing for him. He has his ideas, the judges have their ideas, the family has their own ideas.

The problem is that none of them are exactly the same. Extended family and the judges tend to agree fairly well, but none are in perfect agreement. There's a bit of give and take, and there's a specific chain of authority and responsibility that must be recognized.

The judge has specific duties and goals. He's responsible for administering justice and following the programs and guidelines. At our home, we're responsible for raising the children. Their parents are responsible for meeting their own needs. The tricky parts are the overlaps. The parents want to visit the kids. The judge issues a no-contact order between the parents. We need to show up in court to find out anything useful on status. The parents don't like the programs, requirements, fines, and fees imposed on them, and want to do things differently.

Things can be difficult at times, but I'm willing to play my part and allow everyone else to play theirs, even if it's not exactly to my preferences. Sure, I'd like to be able to micromanage things sometimes, and at other times I'd like to wash my hands of the more difficult complexities, but that's just not the way the world works.

Synergy takes advantage of our own little differences and specialties, and allows us to accomplish things as a group that nobody could do individually. Let's just hope that all the jobs get covered, and everyone pays attention to those with the right to dictate the methods of their own portion.

Phone Time

We have an interesting contrast at our home. We have to restrict phone time. Not in the way you might expect, based on previous blog entries, though. You see, we have teenagers. They'd be glad to camp on the phone constantly, so we have made a rule of ten minutes off for every twenty minutes on, to show some mercy toward those who are trying to call our house.

Now contrast this with the phone calls to and from the non-custodial parents of our four kids-in-care. Over the past year they've averaged a phone call every week or two, with more than that toward the end of the year during the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The kids will occasionally get onto a kick of calling them, but it can be discouraging to them when they always get the voice mail, and don't always get a return call.

It's also difficult when the parents have been through no less than six different phone numbers over the past half year or so. They will usually tell us something about losing the phone, having it stolen, or something else about how the phone was not working. It really makes little difference why the phone situation is so unstable, whether due to finances, theft, damage or plain old bad reception. The kids know the numbers keep changing, but don't know why. They just know it won't be the same for long, so there's not a lot of point to memorizing the phone number.

It's important that the kids know that we don't discourage the contact. It's important for them to talk to their parents. These kids will always love their parents unconditionally, as they should. It's important that contact is available, even if it's not used regularly, sort of like knowing the fire department is there for emergencies, should one come up.

We can't dictate the stability of their phones, but we can control the stability of our own (and control usage as necessary from our end as I mentioned earlier). We don't have any formal visitation arrangements, and haven't had any reason to set up anything formally at this point. Things are much easier for us in many ways than they are for divorced parents. We don't have any of those ex-spouse-visiting issues or discomfort. Our only real issues with visits are that they give us enough warning to make sure we're available, and so long as the parents are drug addicts, we supervise contact with their children. The purpose of guardians is to guard, after all.