Facility in Buckenhof helps when women are temporarily unable to bear responsibility –
7 hours ago
Mother’s Day
13.05.2018
© dpa / Karl-Josef Hildenbrand
Mother’s Day
13.05.2018
Photo: dpa / Karl-Josef Hildenbrand
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“We love our mother”: Angela Barnert with some adolescents from her therapeutic residential group at the “Puckenhof” in Buckenhof.
07.05.2021
© Photo: Puckenhof
“We love our mother”: Angela Barnert with some adolescents from her therapeutic residential group at the “Puckenhof” in Buckenhof.
07.05.2021
Photo: Photo: Puckenhof
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When children and young people bake cakes for their mum and buy flowers on this Sunday, May 9, 2021, then many a boy or girl in the “Puckenhof” will be painfully aware of what he or she does not have at the moment: a mother who can really fulfill their educational task and responsibility.
With some of them, the carers and educators in the facility of the Evangelical Youth Welfare Association will then possibly talk about problems on May 9, about why they cannot or do not want to go home – to a mother who for a certain period of time and for various reasons is just not able to really play this role.
Many of the 100 or so fosterlings have parents and thus also mothers who are overwhelmed with their upbringing or suffer from mental or physical illnesses. Some children have been abused or physically abused at home, while others have been neglected.
Angela Barnert knows how difficult traditional family holidays such as birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s Eve or Mother’s Day are for such children. “For some, the mood darkens,” says the educator, who looks after a therapeutic residential group for adolescents for the “Puckenhof”.
The young people there, who are between 16 and 21 years old, come with mostly dysfunctional structures, which means that they have very difficult relationships with their parents. “There are such difficult constellations that this contact, which on the Mother’s Day level with expressions of gratitude, which it ultimately is, can really take place on the level,” says the 51-year-old.
In a spacious area
There are therefore only a few in the extensive facility in Buckenhof in the Erlangen-Höchstadt district who are going home to the families this weekend. For those who stay there, the day is all the more difficult, says the kindergarten teacher: “You can feel that I have no relationship with my parents or my mother,” she reports.
With some you look for a conversation and try to make suggestions as to how they could come into exchange with each other again. But some, says the supervisor, also said clearly: “I don’t want to have anything to do with this topic at the moment”.
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In order not to make things worse for children and young people on such an emotionally charged day, the facility does not make any special handicrafts or painting offers. Some older people who want to prepare something for Mother’s Day took care of it themselves. They get a present, think about it, write a card – maybe even if the mother, who is overwhelmed at a certain stage in her life for whatever reasons, cannot be a real mother.
Different reason
Sometimes it is drug problems or mental illnesses that women suffer from. Excessive demands can also be a reason. In one case, says Barnert, the mother was so overburdened with the upbringing that she gave the child to residential groups and is now accused by the youngster that she didn’t feel like the child and its complex problems.
often make everyday life difficult for the parents: the children and adolescents suffered from self-harm and a latent suicidality; But they also find it difficult to cope with everyday life, be it getting up in the morning, participating in the household or communicating with the family, says the educator: “Ultimately, the young people are disappointed, my family can’t get along with me, I have to stay here in a facility. “
This feeling intensifies on Mother’s Day: “It’s a day when other families live in good health and experience fun, joy and bonding,” says Barnert. Those who cannot do that turn their gaze even more deeply into their core and see: this is not possible for me. Those who go home try to make it as good as possible there. In families there is always the latent reproach and also the uncertainty as to whether the decision to give up the child was the right one.
Young people also blame themselves
Many mothers felt ashamed that they were at a point where they could no longer adequately care for their child. The young people also reproached themselves and said that if I wasn’t like that, then I could stay there – at home, with my mother. Because the bond still exists, but the children dealt with it differently. “Most of the time, the young people here have not yet found the way to rebuild a relationship with their parents or mother.”
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The adolescents often find it hurt when the mother emphasizes in a help planning conversation that she cannot imagine taking the child back home. But the children’s needs still remain, says the teacher.
The adolescents are not yet at a point where they can view the matter rationally. “That’s why Mother’s Day is a day on which young people become aware again that their life is different from what they would like it to be, from what it would be normal.”
Age doesn’t play a role either, says Barnert, who has three grown children herself. “Everyone has the same longing, the need for this familiar, motherly closeness.” The younger ones, she suspects, were more likely to use a day like Mother’s Day to signal to their mother, despite their disappointments, that I love you and that I would like to hand you this cake on Mother’s Day. The older the children and adolescents are, the more they realize that the relationship is disturbed. The younger ones didn’t notice it yet, reports the “Puckenhof” employee. This makes it easier for the little ones to get in touch with their mothers, they don’t have the obstacles.
Formal function
What is the role of Barnert and her colleagues? “In fact, we don’t want to and can’t be a surrogate mother,” says the supervisor. You take on the formal function of the parents by making decisions, encouraging the protégés to cope with everyday life and also giving advice. “We are also there as conversation partners, but we deliberately do not want to replace the mother or slip into the maternal role, because at some point the bond would be so strong that the children would find it difficult to break away here.”
The “Puckenhof” team sees itself as a companion for the children and adolescents in a certain phase of life. “Nevertheless,” says Angela Barnert, “of course we try to talk to the children about their frustration with a cocoa by the bed and to give them the warmth they need.”
The day to say thank you mom: Give away 4 weeks of reading pleasure for Mother’s Day for only € 19 and receive a free € 10 Fleurop voucher for a short time! to offer
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SHARON CHAFFIN
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