My husband (Logan) and I embarked on our foster care journey just over a year ago. Technically, it was July 6th, 2015. That date will forever be burned into my heart and mind as the day my life changed forever. Everyone talks about receiving the phone call that changes everything. Well, July 6th, 2015 is the day I got my phone call. A dear friend called me while I was at work and gave me the highest honor and greatest challenge I've ever been given. She said that Child Protective Services was at her door and removing her children. They would allow her to choose a family member or close friend to care for her children, if she could find someone the state would approve. She asked me to come get her children so she would know where there were and who was caring for them. I told her I'd be right there, informed my boss (who was very understanding) that I needed to leave, and went to get the children.
That was a year ago. The children are now 2 and 1,(our biological son is 4) and this has been the craziest year of my life. Logan and I agree that we would do it again without a second thought, but it's been harder than we expected. There have been emotional meetings with birth parents and social workers, court hearings that didn't end the way we hoped they would, more red tape and rules than you could possibly imagine, and a crazy amount of both love and heartbreak.
Since starting on this journey, Logan and I have been approached by several people asking this question: "I've always thought it would be cool to be a foster parent. What's it like?"
A question like that isn't easily answered. As I've been asked that question over and over, some thoughts have formed in my mind. So here's 7 things you should know about foster care before you start (or if you have connections with foster parents or children):
1. Foster Parenting Isn't About You
While this may seem obvious, it can be hard to grasp in an experiential way through the process of foster parenting. It's not about proving how good a parent you are, it's not about fulfilling yourself in some way by helping a child, it's not about how "cool" you think it would be. Foster care is about one thing: giving yourself and your own family sacrificially over and over and over again for the good of another person. Don't expect a lot of "thank you's" from anyone- social workers, birth parents, or children. If you need someone to express gratitude for your sacrifice in order to be motivated to continue foster care, don't start in the first place.
2. Foster Care Is About Families, Not Children
This is probably the biggest misconception people have about foster care. When they picture it, they picture having a great relationship with a child in need of a loving home. Sure, that relationship may start out a bit rocky (isn't that what all the movies show?), but after a little time and love, that child will understand how lucky they are to be in their home and will respond with changed behavior and love. Then everyone lives happily ever after.
Wrong.
The biggest flaw with this theory is that foster care isn't about a child only. It's about the family the child was removed from. The goal of the foster care system is to keep a child as healthy and happy as possible while waiting for a reunification with their birth parents to be possible.. The foster parents job is not just to parent the child, but to support the efforts of the state to give that child back to their birth parents. That means working closely with the people who hurt the child that's now in your care- after all, the child wasn't removed for no reason. You'll know the reason why the child was removed, you'll see the effects of the birth parent's choices and behavior up close and personal. And you'll be the one dealing with the aftermath of those choices day after day and sleepless night after sleepless night. And still, you'll be expected to sit in the same room with those birth parents, smile, and be supportive of returning this child that you've grown to love into their care. Even if you don't think that's a great idea. Before you start foster care, remember that it's about helping a family not just a child. And that family may not want your help.
3. Don't Do It Just To Adopt
This goes back to foster care not being about you. Lots of people think foster care is just an inexpensive way to adopt. And it can be that. But most foster care situations don't end in adoption. In Utah, only about 25% of foster care cases end in adoption- and that's higher than the national average. Even the cases that do end in adoption, usually take years to get there. If your primary reason for wanting to do foster care is to adopt, I'd highly suggest you not do it. There are other avenues you can pursue that would be better and faster (and not terribly more expensive) than fostering to adopt.
4. Learn To Bravely Love, In Spite of Impending Loss
Opening yourself up to love a child you know you probably won't keep is hard. It's a daily choice. And just when you've come to a place where it feels like this child has become an irreplaceable part of your family and loving them is as natural as breathing, you'll get a call. Or an email. Or an "invitation" to a meeting. Or a court date. Something that will remind you that this child is not yours, and will not be staying. And pain will tear through your heart. You'll have to stop what you're doing and focus on just breathing. On holding yourself together. Because if you concentrate on anything else in that moment, the shrapnel of your heart will fly in every direction and pierce everyone close to you. And when that has passed, this child will come up to you and ask to be held. To be loved. Everything in you will say to turn them away for your own sake. Because you need to put distance between you to stay sane. But the reason you started this was for the good of the child, not yourself. So instead you'll pick them up. You'll hold them close and sing them to sleep. They'll put their face close to yours and say "I loooovvveeee you!!!" and you'll say "I loooovvveeee you too!" because you do. And that's what they need- to love and to be loved for however long they have you. Then, later, by yourself, you'll cry and scream and pray for strength to do it again tomorrow. And by God's grace, you'll have that strength as He gives it to you. And you'll grieve the loss you know is coming, and then bravely choose to love this child anyway.
5. The World Is Broken And So Is The System
You will learn through this journey how completely messed up the world is. How sin has ruined everything. Part of that will be learning just how flawed the foster care system is. People whose job is to protect the children most affected by the sin of others will fail to do so. Decisions will be made that you don't agree with and that you have no power to change. You will be told what you have to do and whether or not you believe it to be in the best interest of the child, you will have to do it. You will be angry and hurt that the system is not working.
But underneath that, remember that there are people within the system trying their best. Their intentions are good. No one becomes a social worker, or a policeman, or a judge, or a foster parent because they want to tear families apart and hurt children. They want to help. They're trying to help. But the world is broken, they're broken, and so are you. Learn to make peace with a system and laws you can't control, and trust that God is working in and through those things, even if you can't understand how.
6. Be Ready To Break And Be Remade- Again And Again
Within a month after starting foster care, you'll be a different person than you were. The next month you'll be different again. And the month after that, and the month after that. Within a year, you will be unrecognizable, at least to yourself. Many of the changes may not be visible to others. They will be an inner understanding of the selfishness and sin that exist in your own heart in a way you never knew before. An understanding of how desperately in need of God's grace you are to live with and to love others. A realization of how closely joy and grief can be mixed together, and how in some situations you can't experience one without experiencing the other. A newfound strength to both love and grieve radically. And most of all, the inner knowledge that maybe God called you to this because He has work to do in you, not because you're going to change the world (or even one person or family). You will be refined. You will learn to pass through the fire and trust that God will not allow you to be consumed by it. You will learn to trust that those you love, like biological children you bring into the fire with you, will not be consumed by it either. And you will learn that:
7. God Is In Control
The world is a terrible place sometimes. Children are hurt by people who should protect them. Moms are broken because someone committed unspeakable horrors against them, and now they act out of the only thing they've ever known- fear. Dads make bad choices because they've never seen a man stand up and take responsibility for their family.
But over and above that, Christ reigns victorious. And He is using you, your family, your choice to radically and sacrificially love a broken family, to bring about good. Good for you, good for the child, and good for the parents. Though you may not see exactly how, or understand all that's going on, you can trust that God is for you and He is for this child, this family. Even if He doesn't "fix" your situation, or it doesn't end how you think it should, God is using you to bring grace and light to a broken world. And He is using a broken family, broken system, broken world to break you and bring you closer to Him. And in the end, isn't that the whole point?
