When I was licensed to be a foster parent, I genuinely thought I knew what to expect. I’d completed the required classes and the home study and worked with at risk families for years. I had asked all my questions and prepared my home. I thought I knew what I was walking into, but as it turns out, in foster care doesn’t allot for full preparedness. I’ve learned so much this last year during my journey.
Everyone is Broken
Entering foster care, there’s an idea of the broken lives you’re embracing. The parents are feeling broken, the kids have endured trauma and heartbreak. Those are the givens. What I didn’t expect was to see my own brokenness on display: My desire for control and answers. Most foster parents I talk to have to work hard to calm the strong inclination for control. It can play out in so many ways from the small things like wanting to have the final say in a haircut to the big and seemingly ultimate piece of deciding a child’s permanency. As humans, we are all imperfect and striving for improvement. A crucial part of foster care is recognizing what isn’t working within yourself and trying to remedy that so that the kids in your care can feel safe and comfortable, not the weight of your grip on control.
Foster Care is Not Black and White
I’ve never been someone who lived life in the black and white; I’ve always camped out in the shades of grey in the middle. Foster care has only enhanced my view of this. Looking at foster care from the outside things seem easy to label: black and white, right or wrong, good or bad. But they simply are not. While I am thrilled to be a foster parent and I love it, the children in my care did not choose to be foster kids. Even though they are young, I’m sure they wouldn’t choose to be foster kids. It’s never a child’s plan A to be in foster care. My foster kids sometimes make choices that I don’t like or go against the rules I have in the house, but that does not make them bad kids. In that same vein, biological parents have made choices that led them to this point where they no longer have custody of their kids, but those choices don’t make them bad people. Living in foster care fractures the idea of anything being completely straightforward. It makes you observe not just the actions of people, but their motives.
Foster parents, I am so thankful for you. You are changing lives everyday with what you are doing. Keep going! If you are considering becoming a foster parent, keep learning and looking into it. It seems scary, but I promise you these kids are worth it.
- Kaely
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