To AA

“I am going to start with the assumption that you agree with the whole foster family thing, since I know you were consulted. Do you think, overall, there have been more positives or negatives about the experience? I will even go so far as to assume that as a whole it has been a positive thing in retrospect, but if you break it down do you think in each individual placement that, for you and/or your family, there have been more positive or negative things to deal with. I ask because perhaps not all families could deal with things as well as yours.

Next question: Do you think it would have been better to stop with one placement or has it been better to keep adding kids?”

“How (if at all) has having gay, older brothers impacted you? Specifically, I am wondering if/how being a member of a PFLAG family has impacted your social relationships at school, but I would be interested in your other related thoughts.”

Well first off your right in both assumptions. As for positive and negatives I defiantly think there have been more positives than negatives. I love my brothers very much and it’s very hard for me to imagine life with out them. There have been challenges but overall it’s been a great experience. It has also given me an incredible amount of insight and understanding about life in general.

If I were to break it down placement by placement I would say that the first placement with Carl was great. Most of the worst issues were handled by my parents, like the time he came home drunk after a party, and they didn’t affect me as directly. The few months Ann was with us were really hard as I’ve talked about before, and I’d say it was a negative experience overall. David was also a good placement up until the last few months. It was hard to see my mom get that stressed out, but overall it was positive and it’s much better now that there isn’t a constant struggle to keep him in high school and living at home. Evan was also positive overall. I had problems with him personally but it was just that we had problems getting along. Neither of us were actively seeking confrontation or really hating each other. It also got much better later on when we worked out most of those differences. Frankie might not have been a good placement but I feel that once it was clear that it wasn’t working out and that he needed to be somewhere where he could get more help, things were dealt with. It got to be pretty bad at the end but it was a short period of time and not a long term ordeal.

I think overall it was good to keep adding kids although I wouldn’t use those words necessarily. I don’t really feel like I have to share parents. I could potentially see a point where there would be too many kids but that seems a fair ways off. I would definitely feel differently if they had all been there at the same time, three kids in one house is enough. It would have been incredibly hard if they had all been here at the same time.

My brothers being gay hasn’t actually affected my life at all, the way other people view homosexuality and how they treat my brothers has. Having gay brothers has made me more aware and sensitive to the ignorance and bigotry that surrounds the subject.

As far as my social life is concerned it has had an impact although perhaps not in the way one might expect. I haven’t had to deal with a lot of hatred (I think s word would be much more fitting but come on my mother will be reading this) directed at me. It causes me a lot of pain seeing the ignorance and hatred at school and has certainly affected who I make friends with. Hearing kids use various insults and slurs isn’t fun for me to say the least. I could probably go on for pages about it but I’ll save that for when I have more time.