Foster care isn’t devastating (it’s mostly just annoying)

Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography

It’s important to me to give people a realistic look at what foster parenting is like from my perspective. I don’t want anyone getting into this with the idea that it will be easy or smooth. Doing the right thing isn’t always as rewarding as we wish it would be. But I’m starting to think maybe I’m preparing people for the wrong thing. As I talk with people about their concerns with foster care I mostly hear questions about the dramatic moments. People hesitate to jump in because they are focusing on the potential for extreme grief. They are worried a child would be with them for years without permanency, or would be taken quickly without much notice, or would come with such a sad history that it would be difficult for them to ever recover. These are all possible realities in the foster care world, but I want to be honest with you that dealing with those moments isn’t necessarily the hardest part of foster care. The devastating moments flare up and disappear, but the annoying parts of foster care are much more of a daily frustration and are a lot more likely to be the reason why I would quit doing this.

So before you make the decision to get into foster care, here’s what you need to know:

Visitation is ridiculous. Sigh. . . I don’t even know where to begin with visitation. The schedule changes depending on a parent’s rehab plan or work schedule or therapy or whatever and it can be tough to develop consistency. When a parent doesn’t show up the child is brought back to your home which can make it really tough to make plans. Parents don’t show up for a month, then reappear and everything starts back at square one. Visitation workers come in your house which can make you a little paranoid about the state of your living room. Visitation workers may tell you nothing about what happened at the visit (“confidentiality” they say with an air of superiority when you ask if the baby took a nap) or they may tell you way more than you need to know to the point that it causes you anxiety. For me, visits are THE hardest part of foster parenting.

There is no timeline.  Nobody can tell you how a case is going to play out. It is highly dependent on a parent’s decision to participate in services, which is hard to anticipate. Second chances are sometimes offered, sometimes not. You hit a deadline only to have it extended. Or somebody can’t make a court hearing so it all gets delayed 30 days. A parent is making good progress only to be arrested on something unrelated and it all gets delayed until the criminal charges are dealt with. A caseworker brings up the idea of adoption, but then a parent gets motivated and everything changes. None of these situations are devastating, but all of them get annoying as you realize you can’t make future plans when there’s no set timeline.

You feel like you’re in a parenting competition. You think the child needs an educational evaluation, but Mom disagrees. You like Baby to nap at a specific time, but Mom wants her awake during her entire visit. You feed your child all organic and Mom brings McDonald’s. You dress the baby in hair bows and dresses, but Mom prefers denim and camo. None of these are moral issues, just personal preferences and when you’re co-parenting with a stranger you are likely to run into differences of opinion on quite a lot. It is hard not to take it personally when Mom disagrees with your parenting choices or complains about how you handle things. It’s frustrating when in one visit a consistent sleep schedule gets ruined or foods are introduced that you’ve been avoiding. Some parents even have preferences about what brand of diapers you’re using. It doesn’t matter how successfully you’ve parented other children, your opinion on childrearing issues may carry very little weight and you ultimately can’t control much of anything.

Communication is unreliable. Sometimes you get a great team that has quick and efficient communication (thankfully, we have that right now) and sometimes you go three months without hearing from a caseworker and by the time you do hear from somebody it’s to update you that your caseworker quit a month ago (which was our first experience in foster care). Lawyers can be tough to get in touch with and may or may not care much about what’s happening for this child. Sometimes you need a simple answer to a question for paperwork you’re filling out and nobody will get back to you. There are services a child can’t receive without caseworker approval and if you can’t get in touch with your caseworker, that is really irritating.

Nothing happens in court. Oh, Court. You are an endless tease. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been doing this, I always think something big is going to happen in court and it pretty much never does. Progress happens behind the scenes between the major players. Big things do happen occasionally, but not usually in the way I envision when I think about how things are going in the case.

You can’t find a babysitter. It can be tough to find someone to watch your kids who is willing to do the appropriate background checks. Your child may also have unique issues which can make it hard to find a qualified person to babysit. And on top of all that, you may now need babysitting more often as you’re scheduling team meetings, court, doctor appointments, and just needing some time to refresh. This is a financial investment as well as a major investment of time. Devastating? No. Annoying? Yes.

You’re always being licensed. The licensing process can be a pain. You have to keep up with continuing education hours and then every two years (in Nebraska at least) you have to go through the home study process all over again— background checks, proof of income, fingerprints, physicals, and questions about you and your family. The weight of the licensing process can seem to settle over you. I will actually wake up in the night wondering if we’re behind in our continuing education hours. Not everybody is that weird about it, but I never want to accidentally let our license lapse.

I don’t want this to just sound like whining. I realize how silly some of these things can be, but that’s exactly my point. I’m almost nervous to give this kind of a behind the scenes peek, because this stuff can be so irritating on a day-to-day basis I’m afraid it will scare people off. I think it’s easier for someone to say, “I couldn’t be a foster parent because of how heartbroken I would be to love and lose a foster child” than for them to say what may be the truth:  “I don’t want to be a foster parent because it would be really inconvenient.” These daily irritations reveal our selfishness. They highlight the areas where we really hang on to our personal freedoms and autonomy. They show us where we want control and how angry we’ll get when that doesn’t happen even if the issues are minor. I see the character of foster parents revealed not in the major griefs and heartaches, but in the minor frustrations.

So think about these areas of irritation before you pursue foster care. Are you ready to handle them with grace and class? Are you willing to turn down the opportunity to help a child and a family in crisis because you don’t want to be inconvenienced? My hope is that when foster parents are aware of these issues prior to taking a placement, they won’t be so surprised or discouraged when frustrations arise.

Foster Parents, any annoying areas I forgot?