Fostering FAQ

I just barely got the call: we've been approved as foster parents!  This means that, in theory, we could have a child placed with us at any time!  How crazy is that?  It's like being pregnant, but not knowing your due date or how old/what gender/what anything your kid will be!  It's nuts!  I'm so excited!!!

And because I'm so excited, I feel the need to talk about it a lot, so here are answers to some of the questions people have asked us about our decision to foster.  And also some random things I've learned from our training.  I feel a little bit silly writing this because we haven't actually done it yet, so I suspect I'll look back on this post and laugh at how little I knew.  Ah, hubris!

Are you doing this for the money?  NO.  Fostering doesn't pay that well.  If I wanted money, I'd be better off just getting a job.  

Are you hoping to adopt?  Not really?  We have enough kids to try and put through college, I'm not really interested in adding to that expense.  Also, I've seen several families foster a child who the parents wanted to adopt, but then their biological children objected, so the adoption didn't happen.  I'd rather not get some poor kid's hopes up if it isn't going to happen.  And, I figure there are a LOT of people out there who are fostering hoping to adopt, so I'll let them take the kids who might be adoptable.  Our plan is to take the ones for whom adopting isn't an option.  

But.  Having said that.  If by some miracle we have a child placed with us and after a long time the child does need an adoptive family AND if ALL my kids wanted to adopt the child, we would definitely consider it.  But I figure the odds of all those stars aligning is pretty slim.  So, no that isn't the goal, but I suppose it is a slight possibility?

Then why are you doing this?  It's hard to explain very well.  But mostly it's because we know there are a lot of kids in terrible situations and we felt like we could, at the very least, always be reliable for a warm meal and a safe bed.  Or, as we've been saying to ourselves, we wanted to be a soft place for them to land while their parents get their issues sorted out.

So you'll be okay with them going back to their parents?  Yes and no?  From what I've read, this will probably be the hardest thing about doing this.  But I am a firm believer that I don't want a government that can easily separate parents from their children, so I'm hoping I can remind myself of that fact when those hard days come.  As some friends of ours who foster explained it, "D- parenting gets your kids back."  Or, in other words, parents who aren't absolutely failing at being parents still get to keep their kids.  And that will be hard, but I also think keeping kids from parents who might be decent is worse?  Maybe?

So what sort of kid will you get?  Good question-- we have no idea!  The only real parameters we've given the agency is that we only want to take in kids who are younger than Camille.  We felt that throwing a kid of any older age into the mix would mess up our kids' pecking order and cause too much havoc.  Hopefully a younger child will be more manageable?  So we're looking at 0-4 years old.  Other than that, we're pretty open.  But the difference between a four-year-old and a newborn is HUGE.  So this will be very exciting, to say the least.

What sort of issues will this kid have?  A lot.  Even in the best of circumstances-- say the parents were falsely accused and are actually really good people who will get their kid back quickly-- any child placed with us will still have gone through the trauma of being taken from their home.  So no matter what, we'll be dealing with child who has experienced trauma.  A lot of our training focused on learning to ask, "What made this child like this?" rather than just the jumping to the less kind, "What is wrong with this kid?" way of seeing.  It's an important distinction to make, but one that I'm sure will be harder in the moment!

What I do know, is that most kids are taken from their parents either due to abuse or neglect.  So it will probably be one of those things.  When we do have a child placed with us, it will NOT be any of my business to share the child's story with others (whether on the blog or on the phone!), so I will not be sharing gossipy details with anyone (and I am a total gossip, so this will be a challenge for me!).  My standard answer will be along the lines of, "Her parents just weren't in a good place to take care of her right now."

Wait, but aren't your kids going to be doing school virtually?  How's that going to work?  Yeah, I have no idea.  We got the call that school would be on-line only RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of our final training session.  I could have cried.  When we first had the idea to foster, I was assuming that all my kids would be in school and I'd be bored.  Now that is NOT going to be the case.  But.  As I was able to mull it over a bit more, it occurred to me that taking on another kid when all my kids have finally gone to school was probably a terrible idea.  Things might be insane here, but I think I'd rather take on another child when I have all my other kids around to entertain this kid and possibly help out a bit.  So, yes, it's going to be a zoo here.  But who doesn't love the zoo?

So how do your kids feel about this?  They are ALL over the map!  When we first told them about our idea, Ryder said he wanted a 10-year-old boy (pretty sure he'd hate that), Camille wanted a teenage boy (she is TERRIFYING), and my other kids were pretty nervous about it.  We explained that it would be kind of like when I babysat Theo, and then Ryder suggested we just take Theo!  (I told Danielle that story and it cracked her up!)  Since then, they've continued to have mixed feelings.  When we get a kid, Ryder and Bentley will have to share a room, and they aren't thrilled with that.  But everyone is also really excited and they keep asking, When do we get our kid?  So I think they feel a lot like I do about it, honestly!

Ohmygosh, that's so wonderful that you can help some poor kid out like that!  (I'm not making that up, a lot of people have said that to me.)  This actually makes me really uncomfortable, because 1) we haven't done anything yet and 2) I don't really think we'll change anyone's life that much.  I hope that the time a kid is with us can be a safe and happy time, and maybe a time that they'll look back and remember a better way to run a family?  But these children have issues that aren't going to get fixed all that easily.  So my goal is just to plant seeds here, I have no real expectations that great changes will happen.  Honestly, this will probably feel a lot like my mission in Japan: I'm going to try my hardest, but I don't expect to see much in the way of real, measurable results.

So that's where we are!  Crazy, exciting times!