And yet, here we are, doing it every day!
I sat on this post for a while, because I didn’t want it to sound like I’m complaining or wanting sympathy. I just feel like we are uniquely situated to share some of the challenges that come from being a family trying to raise children that weren’t originally ours…
My hope is that others can extend grace and even help those fostering children… because everyone is touched by foster care. You may not know it, but your circle of friends contains someone who has fostered or was fostered, someone who’s parents fostered or had a best friend who was in foster care. I’m continually amazed at how people open up when they learn we are a foster home-
“My husband was adopted from foster care.”
“My parents fostered for 10 years and it forever changed my life.”
“We fostered for a year and had to close our home when we adopted.”
“We fostered and had to quit because it was so hard.”
I appreciate those stories, your stories, and I want to add some of what we’ve learned to those voices speaking up for the children in care.
What we are doing is so hard. The kids who come into care have lived HARD lives. And there’s no training that can touch on just how broken or needy a child might be. There are so many days where I literally just go “I was *not* prepared for this!” because there’s no way to even explain what it’s going to take. I have had to take a crash course with my husband in parenting children that don’t think like other kids do, don’t respond like other kids do, and don’t always care like other kids do! And often when we talk to the experts, their advice is something along the lines of “this won’t work for every kid” or “you’ll constantly have to adapt this & how you respond” and y’all, it’s exhausting!
I also don’t think there’s any way to prepare foster parents for how HARD they will fall for these kids in need. Even when they make sure you clearly understand the goal of foster care is fixing the family unit and sending children back to safe homes, when they walk (or are carried) into your home, they become YOUR family, too. When I picked our foster daughter up for the first time in the ER, because everyone else in that room was afraid to touch her, I became The Mom, who was ready to fight for her!
And what you think about their case doesn’t matter. Unless you take legal action (something we did earlier this year actually) you have zero say in the case. As long as the child is safe in their temporary home, your concerns for their potential safety in the future are unnecessary.
The foster care system is throughly broken, especially in the state of Indiana. Our state actually lists the childrens’ safety as the last part of their motto, and I can tell you from direct experience it’s definitely true. (We also led the nation in most deaths of children through abuse and neglect in 2020- we have GOT to do better!) They care more about sending kids home than what is safe and best for already traumatized children in care. Attempting to navigate the foster care system has been the most frustrating experience I’ve ever had in my 40 plus years of life! Each child matters and their lives’ shouldn’t just matter to whomever is parenting them!
The thing I was most unprepared for was how isolating it would be. I think it was especially hard for us, because we weren’t licensed or prepared to be a foster home, so we didn’t have resources prepared… we didn’t have a “village”. We just got a call one afternoon and said yes to a baby who needed a place to call home! We’ve had to spend the past couple years creating one!
But from the moment I became a mom of children who were broken and needy, I realized how out of my depth I was. Their trauma, and my response to it, has caused me to have to look deep into my own self, and deal with my own trauma and past. And when we started, I was so overwhelmed, the only thing I knew to do was to circle the wagons. I disconnected from a lot because I didn’t think others would understand, knew many wouldn’t, and often most of what we experience is confidential so I couldn’t explain what we were even going through.
If you know someone who is in foster care service, give them compassion. Help them if you can! I actually like when people ask what we need, so ask how you can help them! Or just send them a meal, or a gift card, or a box of snack (cuz kids eat a LOT of snack)! Everyone can help children in need, because they deserve it. These kids need to know THEY MATTER.
~Naomi
PS- It isn’t all storm clouds and poopy diapers… next week I’ll share some reasons we absolutely love how foster care has changed our family!
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