Let me start this by saying that we are foster/adopt. Our goal is, and always has been, to grow our
family through adoption. Having said
that, I have heard some foster parents bashing the system and birth parents
involved lately. They don’t understand
why the parents are getting second (or fifth or sixth) chances. They want to skip the court and the visits and
the appointments and go straight to adoption by the foster parent. I understand the love we feel for the kids in
our care and how frustrating it all is but it really bothers me when I hear
foster parents who feel like they are entitled to the children in their care.
The grown ups in our cases have all screwed up. They did things that we can’t comprehend and it’s
easy to make it some kind of competition between us and them. But, children are not some prize to be handed
out to the winner of a parenting contest.
They don’t go to the one with the nicest house, the mom who volunteers
the most hours at their school or the dad who coaches the most teams. In case your fuzzy on my stance, let me make
it clear. My family makes significantly more than our Little People’s
birthparents. That doesn’t matter. We go on trips that they can’t. That doesn’t matter. My kids go to private school and wear nice
clothes. That doesn’t matter. I love them to the moon and back. Even that doesn’t matter. Because, none of that is a reason for another
mother to lose her children. It isn’t a
competition of whether we or the bios are better for the kids. It is about whether they can do what the
state expects them too in the time allowed.
If you cannot understand that, then you need
to be straight adoption because until the ink dries on the adoption decree they
are not fully our children. As long as
TPR hasn’t happened, the birth parents have a chance. We understood that when we got into
this. So it is one thing to advocate for
our kids but it is another to try to push for us to keep them. It is our moral and ethical duty to push for
what is best for the children and most of the time that means
reunification. I don’t even let people
pray that I get to adopt my little people because doing so is praying that
another family will fall apart. Adoption
is a beautiful, wonderful thing that is also extremely painful for kids and
adults. It’s not ever the best case scenario. Someday when my kids are older and they start
asking questions, I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that
I did not steal them. I did everything
in my power to help them stay in their birth parents.
Part of doing everything means doing visits. Yeah they suck but we knew that when we
signed up. Our job is to help our kids
handle them and do what we can to make them successful. That means we support the bios. We send notes or pictures. We stay up late those nights and rock our
crying children while they try to process a world that doesn’t make sense. We work towards reunification as long as that
is an option even if we cannot stand what they did to the children we love.
Fostering is hard. This
is a slow and hard process and there are no guarantees. We all have tough moments but our general
attitude has to be that we want what is best for the kids even if that hurts
us. I believe with all my heart that
every child deserves to have someone that will be devastated to see them
go. If you can be that person who opens
your heart knowing it will be broken, then maybe fostering is for you. But if you can’t, then you should look for
another way to help kids or grow your family.
