[daddyums]

We are defacto foster parents. We are caring for a darling little girl. Her mother was a foster child. The mother was taken out of the home when she was about 12 (it should have been years earlier, about 12 to be exact). She was placed with a foster parent in the same town (a very, very small town) where everyone knew what was going on. The mother was terribly sexually abused, by more than one person, and is almost emotionally dead. The woman that took her into foster care only took her because her daughter wanted her (like some kind of a pet, I guess) and the woman wanted some juicy gossip to tell her friends. The woman did nothing as far as providing love and rehabilitation. We began knowing the mother when she was about 20 through a mutual friend who daughter had befriended the mother.

Because of damage to her reproductive organs from an incident with her father and a beer bottle, none of us suspected she could have children. But she got in with a guy where she works and he either sweet talked her or raped her. We can't find out which because she won't talk about it. Anyway, the result was this darling little girl. The mother, with help from some college students, friends and government agencies cared for the little girl for four months, but when things started falling through, the mother called us to care for her daughter. We gladly accepted and have been caring for her ever since. She still sees her mother on the mother's days off from work and they appear to love each other.

My question is this, the girl is starting to get to the age where she is going to be asking questions about her father, and I have been racking my brain and praying for answers, but have come up empty so far until I was led to this group. I know someone out there can help me.

[Betti]

Wow, that's a tough one. I believe very strongly in honesty but in my opinion, this little girl doesn't need to hear too any details about her past life for a long time. You have to ask yourself what good can come from her knowing intimate details at this age? She needs time to heal, to be loved, and encouragement to move on with her life. I would answer her questions as honestly as I could without too many graphic details (especially when you aren't sure yourself about certain aspects of her past) but try to provide her the strength to let go of her past and look only to the future. I would say something like- "you've had a rough childhood and there are some things in your past that may be very painful to deal with, but in the end, you'll have two paths to choose from. You can dwell on your past, wonder why it happened to you and let it tear you apart thinking about it and analyzing it, or you can move ahead and look to a brighter future knowing that what happened to you is in the past and has only made you a stronger person". I would stress that her real family is who is there for her now and to embrace her future, not her past. I wouldn't hide the general story of her past because your honesty is important. I would just state the simple facts and make statements like "you have a new life now".