Foster Kids Don’t Have Birthparents

Yesterday I was driving my six kids to a foster parent training class when one of my children said, “I want to see that Kung Fu Panda movie. The one where he finds his REAL dad.” I felt my stomach tighten and I locked eyes with my oldest child in the rearview mirror and I heard him mumble, “Oh boy” because he knew exactly what speech was coming and what questions the child who said “real dad” would have to answer. I know it’s just a movie and these are just pretend panda relationships, but in our family we have had to intentionally address these language issues. Because we are a family formed by foster care and adoption.

It’s important to me to be specific and intentional with my language when it comes to the relationships involved in foster care and adoption. In adoption we get to use words like adoptive parents, biological parents, birth parents and first parents to help someone understand our relationships. It can be hurtful and offensive when people ask about my child’s REAL mom. Both adoptive parents and biological parents are equally “real” so that word doesn’t do much to accurately express our role in this child’s life. And when people ask, “What do you know about his Dad?” I want to play dumb and say, “My husband?” when I know they’re looking for information on my child’s biological family. But in foster care things are a little bit different.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

My foster kids didn’t have birthparents, they had parents. They didn’t have a “biological mother,” they just had a mother. When I talked about her to the foster child, I said, “Your mom loves you so much.” If someone asked me where my foster child was I would say, “She’s on a visit with her mom.” Mother was her legal role and she needed no qualifiers to define her identity in her child’s life.

But I did. I wasn’t that child’s mom. I couldn’t sign forms for her or make educational decisions or even do something as simple as cut her hair without permission from her parents. As much as I loved my foster children as though they were my own, I wasn’t their mom. They had a mom. I was their Foster Mom. As much as I sometimes hated all the assumptions that went with that label, I was the one who needed my relationship to be defined with an extra word.

Being a foster parent is a humbling job. Some people think you’re a saint and some people think you’re in it for “the money” (which is laughable if you know how much foster parents are actually compensated for being the 24/7 caregiver) or you’re overwhelmed and stressed or you’re trying to steal someone’s child when they’re at their most vulnerable. Some days it would be nice to dump the “foster parent” label, but it serves a purpose. It reminds us that we are likely temporary in this child’s life and our job is to help foster a relationship during the time we have them and then prepare them to return home.

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