For the last two weeks we’ve been talking about the impact of foster care on your children (biological or adopted). Their needs and preferences are a serious consideration, which is why I’ve devoted a number of posts to identifying the concerns, looking at how to minimize the negative impacts of foster care and hearing the stories of those who grew up in families that fostered (Karen, Bianca and Beth).
I don’t know what kind of a story my children will tell about growing up in our family. They may come to have resentments about the years we’ve spent fostering. Maybe they’ll wish we wouldn’t have had to prioritize court dates or home studies or team meetings. Whatever their perspective is as they age, I want to hear it even if it’s painful. I don’t know how this will all shake out since our kids are fairly young. But I also think there’s a benefit to doing this while our kids are young.
Because they think this is normal.
None of my kids can remember a time where we weren’t caring for other people’s children. When our first child entered our family we were living in a group home and he had 7 “brothers” doting on him. When we left that job it was just a matter of months before we got our foster license and Daniel entered our family. Danny was just taking his first steps when Bethany arrived. There were less than two years between Bethany’s adoption and when our current foster daughter joined our family and the birth of our biological son happened during that time.
It has been a crazy six year period of adoption, fostering, and births for our family and I’ve been shocked at the grace with which our kids have handled it. While we didn’t ask them for permission to add our biological son, each foster child has been a family discussion. And each time there hasn’t been any doubt about what our kids want.
They want any child who needs a home to have one.
Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography
I asked Josh (7 years-old) when we decided to take the placement of our current foster daughter if she should be the last child. In my mind 5 was plenty of kids and I figured our children were probably ready for a break from dealing with babies and the stress foster care adds to a family. Josh said to me, “Mom, we say yes to all the babies until they all have homes.” And he was serious. This is the child who had his birthday party interrupted so we could run to the hospital and pick up a baby. All of his carefully laid plans (he talks about and plans his birthday year round) were tossed out the window for a six pound bundle of screams who dominated everybody’s attention. When asked about the best part of his birthday he said, “I liked all my presents, but my favorite present was the new baby sister.”
He heard me talking with my husband the other night about a newborn baby our friends were considering taking placement of, but eventually had to decline. Josh asked why we weren’t taking him. If he needs a home, he should have one and we could find space, Josh thought. We talked just last night at dinner about three siblings our foster care agency has been trying to find a home for and Josh asked if we could please take them. It hurts my heart each time to try and explain the grown-up reasons why that wouldn’t be best for us or for these kids, but I know the hearts of my children have a simplistic desire to see these kids in families that love them.
I know part of that heart comes from their own histories. Josh lived in an orphanage for his first ten months of life. Danny and Bethany came to us as foster children with difficult histories and uncertain futures. I think when they hear about kids who need homes, they are hearing their own stories repeated. They don’t want to think a child could be rejected or without a loving, safe place to call home because they imagine themselves in those shoes.
Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography
My kids may be unusual in how open they are to foster care. I think part of that is because of how intentional we have been to minimize the negative impacts of foster care. I think part of that is because the majority of my kids have some gut level understanding of what it means to need a family from their own experience. And I think part of it is because when God called us to become foster parents, he called our children to be fostering siblings. He has equipped them with perspective and selflessness far beyond their years.
Even in the ways foster parenting has complicated their young lives, I’m thankful. We have had very honest conversations about tough topics. My four year-old knows about jail and what a person might do that could send them there. And she knows going to jail doesn’t mean someone doesn’t need love. My five year-old can explain how drug use could make it hard for somebody to parent. And he knows God loves people who have drug problems so we love them, too. My seven year-old can talk to you about how sometimes people have sex even if they aren’t ready or able to be parents. And he knows not being able to parent doesn’t mean you don’t love your children. They all understand it’s possible to love someone very much, but not be able to meet their needs.
I have heard my kids pray for the parents of our foster children. I have watched them color pictures for caseworkers that visit our home regularly. Their imaginary play contains stories of fair and heroic judges who care about children. They share their toys and their parents freely with these little people who have big needs. They have covered a baby in kisses just before she left the house for a visit and welcomed her back home with cheers. They have treated biological parents with more respect and love than I’ve often seen expressed by the team paid to provide services for them. And even though my adopted foster kids may not remember the days when their birth parents visited them daily and fed them their bottle and showed them love, the older kids do remember watching that happen and tell their siblings about it.
If we were honest, many of us have sheltering our children from the realities of the world as one of our main goals of parenting. Foster care strips that away pretty quickly. And I think we are the better for it. I am incredibly proud of the way God is using foster care to shape my children into people of compassion who recognize the consequences of important life decisions and see God’s hand of redemption at work. I am grieved to see this chapter of our family story come to an end as we have legally reached the limits of our ability to bring children into our home. I hope we can continue to grow these seeds that have been planted in our children through other means. And I am passionate about seeing other families take on this call of fostering. Not just for the good of the children coming into foster care. But for the good of your own children, too.
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