<\/p>\n
All this talk about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Families Belong Together\u00e2\u20ac\u009d raises complicated feelings for me.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not because I lack outrage at the humanitarian crisis that has taken hold at our border. \u00c2\u00a0I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not conflicted about that at all. No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wary because the simple fact of the matter is, if all families were kept together, mine would not exist.<\/p>\n
So, I had to do some serious thinking. \u00c2\u00a0I want to be able to tell the activists marching in the street that I do <\/i>agree that family separation as an immigration policy<\/i> is abhorrent, without following a toxic self-reflective whataboutism back to myself. \u00c2\u00a0How do I square my place in this debate with my place in a system that separates children as part of its mission.<\/p>\n
To satisfy this contradiction, I had to think back to my training. \u00c2\u00a0Yes, training. All foster-adoptive parents in Massachusetts have to attend a MAPP training course<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Stephanie and I did, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this program changed our lives forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Their mission is simple.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DCF trains foster parents so they have the skills needed to nurture children who have experienced trauma and to work in partnership with birth families.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n This is a 30-hour series of small-group classes in which experienced social workers break it all down. \u00c2\u00a0We learned about the legal complexities of the foster system. We learned coping skills, for yourself and your future children. \u00c2\u00a0We learned about the wide variety of potential medical, education, and emotional complications we may face. We learned how to move forward as a family, together. \u00c2\u00a0Throughout the process, one crucial fact was drilled into us: separation is deeply \u00c2\u00a0traumatic<\/b>. \u00c2\u00a0As adoptive parents it becomes our mission to help our children navigate this trauma, and try as best as we can to pave the road towards attachment and permanence.<\/p>\n But, if we know the process is deeply traumatic, and we know the scars from that trauma will last forever, why does it happen? \u00c2\u00a0The sole reason any child protective service intervenes so severely is to protect the well-being of children<\/b>. \u00c2\u00a0To save lives. \u00c2\u00a0That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the bar that must be cleared. \u00c2\u00a0Otherwise we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re inducing lifelong suffering without cause.<\/p>\n The children who were separated at the border during this shameful episode? \u00c2\u00a0They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t separated because their lives were in danger. They weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t separated to shield them from abuse or neglect. \u00c2\u00a0Depending on who you ask, they were separated to reduce the flight risk of asylum-seekers<\/a>, to send a deterring message across the globe<\/a>, or just to piss off the libs<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0None of those justifications, not a single fucking one of them, clears the bar.<\/p>\n Children are separated in this country, by decree of the government, every day. \u00c2\u00a0But the difference between a humane system and a cruel one is that the former does so when it must, while the latter does so when it can.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All this talk about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Families Belong Together\u00e2\u20ac\u009d raises complicated feelings for me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not because I lack outrage at the humanitarian crisis that has taken hold at our border. \u00c2\u00a0I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not conflicted about that at all. No, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wary because the simple fact of the matter is, if all families were kept together, mine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}