Raising Other People's Children | Step-Parenting, Foster Parenting, & Grandparenting | Debbie Ausburn | MomCave LIVE - MomCave LIVE

Episode Transcript
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Jennifer Weedon Palazzo (00:11):
Welcome to Mom Cave live, where we may
have lost our minds, but wehaven't lost our senses of
humor. I'm Jen and we have areally fun guest today. More
than fun, she's going to bereally helpful too. Hi, this is
Debbie Osbourne. Hi, Debbie.

Debbie Ausburn (00:26):
Hi, how are you?

Good.
You know, we've got the twocameras going. So it's like
you're a movie star. You haveyour side view and your front
view. But yeah. Great, great tosee you. Um, so the title of
your book is exactly what wewant to talk about here. And
it's raising other people'schildren. There it is. What
foster parenting taught me aboutbringing together a blended

(00:50):
family. So we have a lot ofblended families that are around
here on Mom Cave. And we've gottheir foster families, their
step parenting families,grandparenting families. Every
kind of family imaginable, andwe need to know how to make it
work.

Okay. Well, I, I've done, I've done all of it,
except biological families. I'venever had any biological kids.
But I I've collected seven kidsand 10 grandkids.

Wow.
Okay, so you're the stepmom toseven kids?

Well, I have, um, stepmom to five kids. And
then there's two of my fosterdaughters. That became part of
the family.

Oh, wow.
Okay. So you've kind of run thegamut. Um, you you also in your
in your other life? You are anattorney? Correct?

Right. Yes.
That's how I pay my bills.

Well, we all need to pay our bills,
for sure. But I was reading thatyou also, as an attorney have a
lot of experience and likefamily law and these kinds of

I well, I don't work with domestic issues like
family law, which is I don't dodivorce and that kind of stuff.
But what I do is I representorganizations that work with
kids. So I do a lot of work withcamps, schools, childcare
centers, mentoringorganizations, right? Service

(02:29):
providers, protecting kids.
Protecting kids. Yes,

Jennifer Weedon Palaz (02:33):
wonderful thing. Yeah. Well, okay, could
anybody who has any questionsfor Debbie, go ahead and pop
them in the comments? And ofcourse, we're gonna give away a
copy of her book to someone whocomments. So kind of start me in
the beginning of your story, ifyou would.

Okay. Well, I started out my parents were
always very involved in youthministries at our church and
working with at risk kids. Andso when I graduated from
college, it was sort of anatural to go into working in
that field. I worked as aprobation officer with juvenile

(03:13):
court in metro Atlanta. A lot ofit involves social work,
although I wasn't, I was never alicensed social worker. But I
was essentially a social workerin the job. I burned out, I got
tired of dipping out the oceanwith a teaspoon and retreated to
law school. But even as alawyer, I stayed involved with

(03:36):
organizations and volunteeringwith kids. And eventually,
found myself as a foster parent.
And I did different kinds ofstarted out as an emergency
placement and then did respitecare, and then eventually had a
couple of long term placements.
And so then I left that job, Icame back to home to Georgia. My

(04:02):
mom had had a stroke. My brotherand sister were raising children
without my advice.

With out your advice they
needed? They needed me.
You must be the oldest sibling?

I am. Is it obvious?

Yes.
I'm an older sibling as well. Soyou know, they never listen to
you, if only they did.

But you know, my siblings and my kids, their wife
would just be so much easier.

So, so you went back to help with all
that?

That's right there. So I moved back home and
then met and fell in love with aman with five kids. Now, it's
not as bad as it sounds. Threeof the kids were adults. So the
two of them were still at home

needed parenting parenting at that
point.

You know, they keep coming back. So I joke
right now our middle son and histeenage daughter. They've moved
into our basement temporarily 11years ago, so we still

it's all relative 11 years old, it's
very in the scheme of the wholelifetime.

That's right.
It's still temporary. But wehave a good relationship and you
know that it's they have theirspace. And we have our space
and, and it works out. But we westill, we have good
relationships with most of thekids, one of the foster kids one
of the stepkids, you know, theymake decisions, and they pull

(05:31):
away, and you just kind of waitfor him to come back. But
that's, that's part of parentingother people's kids. It's one of
the things I've discovered isthat with foster kids and step
kids, we're not the people whoare supposed to be in their
lives, from their perspective.
And so we have to give themspace to work through that. And

(05:56):
some it takes longer thanothers.

Yeah. I mean, and there's a similar
phenomenon, I guess you'd say,even with biological children,
and that they have, they have topull away and become
independent. And sometimes thatpart is pretty painful. There's
sort of a rejection of where youcome came from. I think everyone
goes through that a little bitin adolescence. And then
hopefully, ideally, at least Idid, you come back and think to

(06:24):
wow, like, these are the peoplethat I love, and you come back
to it, you appreciate thingslater, but you have to grow.
Before you can do that.

The way I phrase it was teenagers is the aliens
will return their brainseventually.

Well, thank God thank god great. So
anyone who's watching drop acomment if you are a foster
parent, or a step parent, or youare helping raise someone else's
child, um, Debbie, like, let'slet's go with the step parenting
aspect. When when you first meetsomeone, and they have children,

(07:02):
or you have children, or both.
What do you think is the mostimportant thing to think about
with regard to the kids,

with regards with the kids, you have to, you
have to decide early on whatyour lane is. And like I said,
from the kids perspective,you're not supposed to be in
their lives, they're supposed tohave biological, intact family.
That's the way that kids arehardwired. And when things don't

(07:31):
work that way they're at there'salways all sorts of good reasons
that the intact family fallsapart. But it still leaves the
kids feeling something's offkilter. If we step parents come
in, and start trying to do toomuch too soon, then we're going

(07:56):
to copito the relationship. I, Ihave a great relationship with
my stepkids and started out on agood relationship. But, but I
understood that having been afoster parent, that my role was
not to replace their model. Theyhave a mom, she, she's very
involved, and she loves themvery much. And my role was as

(08:19):
more of a mentor. So if youthink of it in terms of fairy
tales, I actually used to jokewith my boys, that I had read
all the manuals for beingstepmother, Hansel and Gretel,
and why even all of those Iknew, but, but this stereotype

(08:42):
is there. And I think it'sbecause we as a, as a species,
we're storytelling species, wetell ourselves, stories. It's
how we pass on information. It'show we make sense of our world,
and kids tells them they have anarrative for their lives. And,

(09:02):
of course, they're always thehero in their story. And the
role for us is either thevillain or the mentor. And those
are really the only two optionsfor us, we're not going to be
the parents, we're only going tobe either the mentor or the
villain. And that's where wehave to understand that our lane

(09:24):
is being a mentor, not a parent.
And, or if we're not careful,it's just very easy to slot us
into being the villain. Right.

Right.
And and how when you have a kidwho isn't isn't feeling it is
thinking that you're more thevillain.
How do you push them towardsthat idea of that you
can be a mentor to them whathadn't show them that?

Well, you don't push them you show them. And so,
you you have To give them space,you have to let them you know,
give them permission to feelwhatever they feel. Now, you
still have to set boundaries.
Every, every healthyrelationship has boundaries. And

(10:13):
so that doesn't mean that wejust put up with all sorts of
crap from them, right. But butbut we presented in a very calm
way of, for example, one of mypersonal boundaries is I just
don't let people curse at me.
And when somebody starts, I justwithdraw from the conversation,

(10:36):
just let's talk about thislater. Right, and I don't
respond I don't yell back, ifit's any of the kids, you know,
if it happens on the phone, Ihang up. It happens in person, I
just say we'll discuss thislater. And I go somewhere else.
Yeah. And it's a way of drawinga boundary in a very calm

(11:00):
manner. And if they want to talkto me, this is how you talk to
me. So you do have to balancethat line between expecting
respect. But giving them spaceto build to be whatever feel
whatever else they want to feeland have, have room for the

(11:20):
relationship to groworganically. So I would say that
if you've got a kid who's who'srejecting you, which I've had,
you just you just you understandyou say, I'm sorry, I, I'm sorry
that your parents are nottogether? Or was I would say,
with my foster kids, and I'msorry, Your mom's not here. I'm

(11:42):
here. I love you. And these arethe house rules.

Yeah.
Right. Well, it's hard to setboundaries with kids when Yeah,
and when they don't respect youas much even harder, I'm sure.
Yeah. Can you think of somethingthat is surprising your most
people would find surprisingpossibly about being foster

(12:06):
parent.

I would say in many ways, being a single foster
parent was easier than being amarried foster parent. And
people tend to not not realizethat. And it's because when I
was definitely there's downsidesto being a single foster parent,
any kind of single parentbecause I was the only pair of
hands, right. And I had to builda safety net of people to pick

(12:33):
up my kids at school and thatsort of stuff. When I was
married, I had a built inbackstop to do those sorts of
things. But the part that madeit hard is this wonderful,
generous, reasonable man that Imarried, had different opinions.

(12:54):
He didn't take didn't agree withme,

again, like an infant children, if
only the spouse would agree withus and listen to us
Things would be so much easier.

I had been doing this I knew what I was doing.
Right, right. So it the the partthat surprised me, was having to
get on the same page as myspouse, or at the very least,
agree to disagree, but decidewho's who's lane this was in.

(13:25):
And, and generally it's it. Ifyou're disagreeing with your
spouse, the biological parentgets the they're the ones who
make the final decision, becausethey're the ones that the kids
are connected to.

Right.
That's fair, I think. Yeah.
Yeah. Are there resources forfor dealing with those sorts of
the spousal disagreements? Arethere is there anyone who can
help you? Is there anywhere youcan turn when you're having that
problem, while parenting?

Well, I would get, you know, counseling, or in
our case, we had the trustedadults that we both respected,
and were willing to listen topeople who had been who had been
experienced would say one of thethings that we had to work
through was is not so much withthe stepkids. But we ended up

(14:24):
one of my former one of myfoster former foster kids. He
had a really, really bad patch.
And so we inherited a grandchildfor five years, who had been
through a lot of trauma. And thetrauma was unexpected for my
husband and even I, asexperienced as I was with kids

(14:44):
who had suffered trauma. Ididn't recognize a lot of it
because the child was so good athiding it from us and I think
that's one of the things that wehave to realize is that you
know, even divorced with kids istraumatic. Yeah, so if we're a
step parent, we we know, withfoster kids, obviously we know

(15:07):
they've had trauma. But evenwith step kids, they've, they've
lost their biological family,either through death or divorce.
And even though kids areresilient, even though they can
be fine on the surface, there isstill some level of trauma there
that they've suffered. So Ithink that one of the resources

(15:29):
that I always encourage peopleto go to is not only counseling
and not only trusted adults, butlearn about the effects of
trauma. There's trauma focusedcounseling. And if you look on
Google, you'll find all sorts ofthings about dealing with kids

(15:50):
who've suffered trauma.

That's good. That's a very good thing
to remember. We have a commentfrom Jessica asking, besides
cursing, what other boundarieshave you said,

a lot of the boundaries were, like I said,
the interpersonal relationshipswere just some basic level of
respect. You don't have to loveme, but you have to be we have
to be respectful to each other.
So there's, there's sort ofContra mishmash of things that

(16:24):
are in that. The other thingswere the boundaries, were just
house rules. And I've learned topresent them as house rules
rather than our rules or myrules. Because when you
depersonalized somehow

right to blame it on something else.

That's right, they understand it better. And
that also helps with thedisconnect I have living in our
house and the parents are there.
Other rival parents house. And Ilearned to I learned to just say
those are the rules there. Theseare the rules here. So the rules

(17:05):
here, for example, at curfew,those kinds of things are very
rare. But being a lawyer, I havea very busy schedule. And it's
kind of clear, my husband hadcustody of his two boys. So I
was able to say, I will stay outof your room. I'm not going to

(17:26):
tell you how to clean it up. Idon't want it to be a health
hazard. Hazard.

We don't need to be condemned.

That's right.
That's right, exactly. Butyou're responsible for doing
your own laundry. And and as thekids grew up, I shifted more and
more responsibility to them. Andbut you know, some of the
boundaries I had were publicspace has to be clean. If you
carry your stuff into the publicspace, you gotta carry it out.

(17:59):
They had chores and again, I Ilearned that let's take for
example, one of my kids wassupposed to take trash out. He
would never remember take thetrash out.

Oh I have one of those too.

And and you can you could fuss at him you can
yell at him. I remember actuallysaying to my son. So when do you
plan to take the trash out? Andthis this kid, delightful kid
because he didn't have a filteruntil he got a little older.
When do you, whats your plan fortaking the trash out? He said

(18:43):
when I got tired of you'renagging me about it all right,
so we have to do somethingbesides nagging. So So I went
back with a technique my momused which was when the trash
started you know building up inthe kitchen getting close to
overflowing. I just bagged it upand put it in his room. And I

(19:04):
kept kept leaving the trash in

That is totally my style. I
love it. Yeah. Well, it's yourknock. I don't want in my
kitchen anymore. I'm you'resupposed to take it out in a
row.

That's it.
That's right. So I learned tolook for logical consequences
and those sorts of areas and tryto replicate life as much as
possible. And that's whathappens if you don't take the
trash out. it piles up. I justneeded it to pile up in his
space instead of my space.

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(20:22):
today. Or as soon as the kids goto bed and get up, flash your
book up on the screen real quickfor everybody again, this is
raising other people's children.
It should make a link in thecomments where you can find the
book. I I've heard wonderfulthings about it. And I know that
there are so many people herethat could use some advice. Um,

(20:43):
let's see. So before I don'tknow, before we wrap up, I'm
trying to think of a reallygreat question I need to be like
you remember an Inside theActor's Studio when he always
had the questions at the end. Ineeded to have that but okay.
Someone is just became theguardian of their grandchild for

(21:09):
the first time. And and they'regoing through all the thoughts
and the emotions and the whatthe heck do I do? And if you
could just say something tothem, what would you tell them?

Relax, take a deep breath. Take things one day
at a time. And understand thatif you're raising a grandchild,
it's because they have trauma intheir lives is you may not see
it or may not understand it. Youmay not even know how bad it is.

(21:46):
But so one of the things again,it goes kind of goes back to,
again boundries. But understandsometimes that trauma response
looks a lot like bad attitudes,abnoxious being disrespectful
and those things. And so youhave to learn how to say no,

(22:10):
this is a boundary. You have tobe respectful, but I understand
where you're coming from. And weneed to work on this together.
And you need to walk alongsidethem. And you need to give them
the structure and you need toyou need to help them with

(22:31):
learning how to adjust to thenew situation. But you need to
give them a lot of grace and alot of room to find their way.
And I guess the top thing I'dsay is pick your battles. Don't
don't argue over everything.
Make sure that make sure that ifyou have a rule it is worth
going to the mat for that rulebecause because they will push

(22:54):
you they will push theboundaries, they will test you
and you don't want to you don'twant to do that for everything.

Again, that brings us full circle. Pick
your battles also applies tosiblings, children, spouses, all
of it. Pick your battles. Knowwhat's important to you. Thank
you so much. I feel like there'sso much that you could share and
there are a million questionspeople must have you can put
them in the comments and we youcan find Debbie at Debbie

(23:26):
Ausburn on Instagram and yourwebsite is DebbieAusburn.com
Thank you guys so much forwatching, and thank you Debbie
for talking with me.

Thank you I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Raising Other People's Children | Step-Parenting, Foster Parenting, & Grandparenting | Debbie Ausburn | MomCave LIVE

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