Recently

After two months of night classes, my wife and I were licensed to be foster parents this summer. Last week, we received our first long-term placement: a bright, adorable, attractive one-year-old girl.

Only thing is, she screams bloody murder when I walk into the room. With my wife or with the kids (especially our oldest) she's fine, but she has no use for adult males unless there's no women around.

Now I'm a big boy, and I can handle it. With four other kids in the house, it's not the first time a baby didn't want to be held by me. And it isn't even truly that she doesn't want me to pick her up, because she'll reach for me if no one else is there: she just prefers to be held by women. But she looks terrified when I pick her up.

Could be nothing. Maybe she's just not spent that much time around male family members. Or maybe it's more than that. I know I'm a stranger to her (and moreso than the rest of the family because of work) and that I'm just projecting here, but I can't help be angry at a world in which a little girl is terrified that she would be left alone with a man.


Tag: foster