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WHAT IS THE UP SIDE OF FOSTER PARENTING?
Everyone has a personal need in his or her lives. For me it was, I needed to be needed. I felt that I needed to help all the children who were being abused in their homes by their parents. I was going to be the one home that took in the most and fix the worst. I was going to have my home be the safe place in these children’s memories after they grew up. I would be the person that they could count on to bring them joy when they had none, or little. I was going to give to others, what I felt I was given by God abundances of. I feel and pray that I have done just that. Although I went into foster parenting blind to the real world of politics and how they do not work, I am great full for doing it. I thank God for the lessons that He has taught me. I am also grateful for my husband and children, who I drug into the whole mess.
WHAT IS THE DOWN SIDE OF FOSTER PARENTING?
Foster parenting can be very stressful. It can pull apart everything you worked so hard to put together. The heartbreak of the system these children have to be in is at times unbearable. The system is supposed to be to protect and seek the best interest of the children. In many cases it looks out for the parent who by their actions got these children into in the first place. The laws are set up in such a way that the parents have more rights then the kids. The parents get to have too many chances to regain their children; they are allowed to make mistake after mistake. The people in the system are so intent on covering their own butts that they forget about the children. The parents are supposed to follow a scheduled list of tasks, in reality they can stretch out these tasks for a two-year period of time, even longer in some cases. For example some of the parents have drug problems, they are set up to take drug testing. They can go for a period of months with out going for these tests and still visit their children. I have had many of these cases in my parenting time.
WHAT IS THE EFFECT ON YOUR OWN BLOOD CHILDREN?
Well let me tell you, there is a great debate in our household. The debate is for good and bad, and it is in everybody involved. I have watched our own 2 girls grow for the good from foster parenting and I have watched them suffer for the bad. They, I feel learned a great deal about the real rough life that is outside their home. They hurt for the children just as bad as we did. They learned how to care for babies from all different walks of life. They learned how to love unconditionally. With the wide range of babies they had to live with, they were able to feel both love for them and at the same time, not like them very much. When they got up in their teen years they said that all the extra children in our home took away from them. Our time and love, was being spread among all of the other children, for them, at that time of their lives was a hard thing to handle. Now that they are young adults, they tell me that they loved being involved with all the children. They have expressed how lucky they were growing up in such a family. Yes it was hard to understand at the time, but they wouldn’t take it back for anything. I believe that our birth children have become better young people because of our foster parenting. I treasure them for all the help they did during the hard times of crazy life. They, being the people they were and are, we were able to enjoy the good parts.