All tagged foster care blog
This foster care life is a constant placing of your child in someone else’s hands. Literally and actually, in workers’ and judges’ and lawyers’ hands. Oh, I wish I were in control. I wish I could slam the door in the worker's face. I wish I could tell the judge, “So here’s what you gotta do.” I wish I could just change mom with a snap of the fingers. I wish, so deeply, I wish.
May is Foster Care Awareness Month. From making a meal to babysitting to donating, praying to mentoring to becoming a foster parent, EVERYONE CAN DO SOMETHING. Here are 10 ways you can stand for children in foster care
I don’t just struggle through the “how” questions, I struggle through the “why” questions, the “what if” ones. I don’t just question myself, I question God.
Seeing foster care and adoption on the screen like this is a gift to foster and adoptive families. But it’s not just a gift to those of us who are living it. It’s a gift to everyone else, too.
When his worker called to tell me that his family had been ruled out, she asked if I would be willing to adopt him. “Well, I love him...and I would love to be his mom forever...but I don’t think I’m supposed to be...and I think I know who is.”
You see, at least in every case I’ve experienced, I have a stronger “parental resume” than my foster children’s parents.
A few months ago, I was contacted by the American Bar Association's Center For Children and the Law. I was asked to participate in a survey of five foster families from around the county. The goal? Create a list of tips for foster families to promote and support reunification. Here's the result!
And sometimes it’s hard. Like the family who slanders me on social media, who calls in an investigation on me, who continually puts the child at risk, who acts like court is a game to be won. Sometimes it’s very, very hard.
I call it like it is: You are my enemy.
For all of the stark differences of these towns, there is one reality that binds them together. Both towns need these child protection offices. Both towns have broken families, struggling parents, hurting children.
It will teach you and your children about the power of every person’s seemingly insignificant, independently insufficient efforts. And it will envision you for doing your part in this too-huge-task of finding a home for every child.
When these kids leave our homes, they don’t leave our hearts. That while we may not be able to care for them or even walk up and say hello, we can always pray for them. I can love this little girl--and all the others who quickly came and went-- in that way forever.
Here's my "how to", a list of all the things I’ve learned while picking up foster babies from the hospital. Things I wish I would’ve known, things I did right, and (more often) things I did wrong.
Foster mom, how do you balance the impossible tension of loving a child like they’re your own, when they’re not? I thought about it. How do you do it? And then I realized: The love is in your heart. The what ifs and questions and worries are in your mind.
I wish you could meet my precious boy. You would understand why I love him so. He is gorgeous and sweet and so easy to love. And I do love him. But when his social worker asked me to adopt him, I said no. The thought of saying good-bye to him breaks my heart, the idea of him not being in our family hurts deeply, but still, I said no.
As a foster mom, you may not get the fruit of prayers answered and hopes realized. You may not get proms, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. Let’s be real. You may not even get the fruit of bedtime routines achieved, table manners acquired, multiplication tables learned, or secrets whispered. But what you will get, what we foster parents are working for, is the joy of being faithful right now. Today, I have today. And I will faithfully train and parent and love this child today and for as many more “todays” as I get.
