Bad Day Explained

Yesterday, two of our foster children were abruptly removed from our home because of this very blog. A birth parent had found this blog and set a stir in motion that became quite reactionary.

Long time readers will of course wonder what's so wrong with this journal that our family should be torn apart:

1. On two occasions I posted pictures of the family visiting Denise and I at the hospital when she was in for birthing Rael and I was in for lung surgery. These family pictures included these two foster children (and well our family pictures should include them, they were, strike that, are our family). In my fervor for showing the love I have for my family, I forgot that allowing their images to be online was against the rules (instead, I should have photoshopped them out, even though I did remember to be sure not to identify them as foster children. Heck, I didn't identify anybody--to the point that readers like Drew had to ask me which one was Denise in the hospital pic for me). Posting those two family photos was a mistake and now everyone has to suffer for it. God I'm so sorry that happened.
1a. Though I occasionally discuss life with the foster children, I always have kept their identities anonymous. If the kids were the Simpsons, they would never have been refered to as "Bart" or "Lisa," as I was always careful to preserve their privacy (except for the mistake of two family pictures that lacked identifying information anyway).

2. Sometimes I use profanity here. Anyone who spends any time around me and my family would know that I'm very, very particular in my speech around children, mine or otherwise. If I want to say a bad word, I have every right to; still, I don't say them around my children (foster or bio) and none of my children (foster or bio) read this web journal or have its address. In fact, when any of our kids are online at all, Denise or I sit here with them monitoring them the entire time to make sure their web browsing is appropriate.

3. In the 300+ posts that existed previously, exactly one of those posts contained a criticism of social work, even though the social worker and foster child(ren?) involved were kept completely anonymous. This one post has labeled me as someone who uses this blog to write about how much I hate county employees and think extremely ill of them. Neither of which is true. I had exactly one post about my birth father and how much I despise him; does that mean this blog was then a venue for my contempt and criticism towards fathers? No. One instance of anything does not a trend make.

4. I had a link, a link to T-Shirt Hell, an online store that sells t-shirts. Many of their shirts are vulgar. Almost as many of their shirts are merely scathing towards politics (one reads: "Bet You'll Vote Next Time, Hippy" with a picture of the President), pop culture ("I Support Whatever's Trendy" written on a yellow ribbon) or religion ("WWJD for a Klondike Bar"). However vulgar or prurient any of the shirts are, they weren't depicted here, and, again, my kids weren't/aren't allowed here (or there) anyway.

So what if items 2-4 are outright malarkey. I did do wrong in number one. I don't think our family should have been so harshly torn asunder for a mistake that was made in love for my family. Perhaps a slap on the hand and order to remove the pictures would have been more reasonable, but it isn't for me to decide.

I love my kids. I love those kids. Heck, I wanted to adopt both of those kids. I hope they're ok. If their new homes are more lenient with internet usage and they ever find their way here, I hope they read this paragraph and know they'll always be in our hearts.

Folks, if I never type the words "foster kid" here again, you know why.